1991: The Era of Hong Kong Dramas

Clearwater Bay film set.

Several film crews were working here at the same time, creating a cacophony of noise. Only in the studios near the Hong Kong Stock Exchange was the atmosphere quite oppressive, with all the staff somewhat distracted.

The news has spread.

The rough cut of the first ten episodes must be completed by the end of March, and Mona Fong will personally review it.

At that time, only one of "The Greed of Man" and "The Ghost and the Fox" will be able to stay in the anniversary slot.

Although everyone understands that this is the established outcome and nothing can be changed now, they are still very saddened.

Huo Sheng was also a little speechless.

Lee Tim-shing has carried the stigma of being a "spoiled brat" his entire life, accused of mistreating actors and staff and not allowing them rest. Now it seems the ones who should be criticized are the higher-ups at TVB!

Wai Ka-fai had just come out of Mona Fong's office and announced the decision in the studio. Now, equally at a loss, he sighed and greeted the two main creators:

"Yingming, Asheng, come with me for a moment."

He led the two main creators into the conference room, his slightly sallow face full of worry, and handed them the overall shooting schedule.

"I've drafted a preliminary plan; what do you think, is it okay?"

He sounded somewhat dejected and said in a sullen voice, "The Leung family has already filmed six episodes, while we've only been shooting for seven or eight days. With such a huge difference in progress, do you think 'The Greed of Man' still has a chance to air during the anniversary month?"

His concerns are very real.

The filming pace of "The Greed of Man" was originally very comfortable, thanks to Wai Ka-fai's filming system and Yuen Ying-ming's proper scheduling. The expected filming schedule could be completed in about eight or nine hours a day.

As originally planned, filming was scheduled to wrap up at the end of August, and editing was proceeding smoothly. Normally, or even half a month ahead of schedule, the film could be delivered without any problems.

Now the plans have been disrupted, and we have to rush to produce ten episodes in just over two months.

This completely disrupted the plan, and a lot of the paperwork had to be redone.

But none of that is the point. Even the studio staff weren't downcast because of overtime. Overtime is very common at TVB. If you don't sleep at the company for three months straight, you'd be embarrassed to say you work at TVB.

What everyone cares about more is how to complete it on time, as it's due by the end of March.

How can we possibly match the progress that Liang Jiashu is already nearing completion?

Even if it were barely finished, how could the quality of the finished product compare to "Human, Ghost and Fox"?

This adjustment not only has a huge impact on the three main creators, but also on ordinary staff and actors, as it determines whether they work short-term or long-term on the set.

If Mona Fong thinks "The Greed of Man" is not good enough and cancels it, the whole team will have to break up and they will have to find another production team, or they will just stay at home and receive a meager basic salary.

There's also the issue of seniority.

Whether you're the art director for an anniversary drama or a regular-season or even late-night drama, it makes a world of difference in your resume and can seriously impact your future career prospects.

They joined the crew voluntarily with a pay cut because they trusted Wai Ka-fai, and now they don't even have any hope of achieving their goals. It's like they've worked for nothing.

The matter concerned personal interests, and people were restless. During the daytime filming, a number of minor mistakes were made that should not have been made, which greatly affected the already tense filming schedule.

Yuan Yingming was furious, and the atmosphere became extremely tense. In the end, Wai Ka-fai had to personally rush to the studio to put things in order, which led to the scene at the beginning.

Yuan Yingming put down the filming schedule and sighed.

"I can only try my best to work overtime. I will talk to the filming team and ask for more overtime pay. Controlling the budget is a secondary concern right now."

Let's create a temporary audio track first, so it doesn't clash with the video. Then, unify the color grading to a basic brightness; don't aim for perfection, just make it visually appealing.

Wai Ka-fai nodded in agreement and added a few more suggestions: "We can go through the scene list for the first ten episodes again ourselves, to see which scenes can be cut, which absolutely cannot be changed, and which can be removed first and then added after approval."

If you do these things, you can save about a third of the time…

Yuan Yingming was writing things down rapidly with his pen in hand.

All of their plans fell within the scope of directing, and since there was no way to resist, they could only lie down and endure the torment.

Huo Sheng has a strong sense of team honor. Seeing that Lao Yuan was having a hard time, he felt embarrassed to be idle and picked up the shooting schedule to take a look.

Before filming begins, the producer will prepare a master plan.

The schedule, including how many days it would take to film, how much it would cost, and which scenes would be filmed in a concentrated period, was compiled into a table and given to the director, art director, costume designer, and location coordinator.

Wai Ka-fai has now redone a plan, with a daily shooting schedule ranging from 11 to 15 hours, none of which are easy.

Therefore, it will be no earlier than the end of February to film the footage for the first ten episodes.

Then Yuan Yingming can be freed from the hellish pace and continue filming the next part, while Wai Ka-fai goes to the editing room to do post-production.

That's right, only one month is allocated for filming, and the remaining month is for post-production work.

In 1992, TVB was still filming on magnetic tape, which meant linear editing was very slow and involved a lot of steps.

We shoot dozens of tapes every day, which need to be numbered by episode and scene, and the script needs to be checked for any missed or incorrect shots. Each episode is 45 minutes long, and it takes most of the day to edit just one episode. It will probably take two weeks to edit all ten episodes.

Many of the on-site sound recordings were unusable, and the main and supporting actors had to be re-recorded at the factory. It would take several days to a week to complete a batch of recordings.

Including footsteps, door closing sounds, and collision sounds, all of which need to be added later.

Then the most tedious part is the subtitles, which need to be typed manually and checked frame by frame.

Finally, ensure that the brightness and volume of each episode are consistent to make it suitable for broadcast.

After the producer and director check it, if there are any problems, it will have to be reworked.

Pity!

If this were 2026, with digital devices and AI involved, even a rough cut could probably be completed in a week.

While Huo Sheng was still lost in thought, the other two had already resigned themselves to their fate.

"We need to deliver a rough cut by the end of March at the very least, so that we can at least move it to a late-night slot and avoid the entire film being canceled."

"Actually, there are quite a few viewers for late-night shows too..."

"Alright then, let's follow the schedule and get to work!"

Wai Ka-fai tapped the table, which signaled the end of the meeting.

He's not someone who's overly ambitious, but now he's suffering from the late start of filming and can only prepare to be moved to a late-night slot.

There was really no other way; we couldn't very well burn the tapes in the Leung Ka Shu film studio, could we?

Huo Sheng paused for a moment, suddenly realizing that something was amiss.

Is the meeting over already? Are you just going to leave it at that and not do anything else? We should be thinking of ways to continue producing "The Greed of Man" with high quality and quantity!

These two people are already lacking in ambition and just want to get through the current difficulties first, which is normal and he can understand.

But while he understood, he couldn't allow such a thing to happen, even if Wei Jiahui and Yuan Yingming's choices weren't wrong.

Filming is progressing well so far, and the cast is good. We must not let all our efforts go to waste and let TVB executives ruin the show!

This show won't be featured on the anniversary celebration; it'll either be canceled or relegated to a late-night slot, neither of which he can accept.

This is "The Greed of Man"!

Moreover, every year during the golden age of Hong Kong dramas was precious, and one had to become famous as early as possible. Otherwise, why would he demand a single screenwriter and work himself to the bone? What was he after?

We must never lose faith or our goals.

This involved his project schedule and his fundamental goals, so he disregarded how frustrated the two main creators were and quickly asked, "Producer Wei, Director Yuan, according to the current schedule, can we still guarantee the quality of our film?"

Wai Ka-fai was already packing his things to prepare for overtime work. Hearing this, he sighed again, "The editing can be adjusted later, but there's too little room for error when shooting on location. The actors and the set... we'll just have to make do with what we have."

Huo Sheng's heart skipped a beat after hearing this.

Is "The Greed of Man" about to become a poorly made short film?

No, absolutely not!