Chinese Entertainment: Top-Tier Boyfriends of Young Actresses

After visiting the set, Su Yu flew to Beijing with Tian Xiwei a few days later.

The heat in Beijing in early August was unbearable. The two took a taxi directly from the airport to Huace Drama's Cute Studio, where Dai Lu was already waiting for them in the editing room.

The film was basically edited. Su Yu sat in the editing room and watched it from beginning to end. He found that the finished film was similar to the version from his previous life, with a brisk pace and plenty of sweetness.

The biggest difference is that Wu Baisong, played by Hu Yitian, has a much richer role, and his character is more fleshed out than in the previous version, but this does not affect the overall smoothness of the series.

Regarding the male lead, Su Yu felt that his version of Jiang Chen was much better than Hu Yitian's performance in his previous life.

It's not that he's narcissistic, it's just that he's really more handsome than Hu Yitian, and his acting is also more natural.

In fact, Dai Lu secretly regretted it after seeing the quality of the final product.

If she had known it would turn out like this, she should have insisted on casting her own artist, Hu Yitian, as the male lead.

However, this thought was just something I considered in private. The contract had already been signed and the drama had been filmed, so dwelling on it now would just be making things difficult for myself.

Moreover, Hu Yitian's performance in the role of Wu Baisong is also outstanding, so she just wants to do a good job in this drama now, and Hu Yitian can also benefit from the popularity after it becomes a hit.

There wasn't much left to do in post-production.

The actors recorded additional dubbing for some lines, mainly for several scenes where the on-site sound recording was not good, requiring them to reread the lines while looking at the screen.

The real highlight was the recording of the songs in the show.

Dai Lu had already commissioned someone to write the OST.

The theme song of "A Love So Beautiful", "How Much I Like You, You Will Know", is sung by Tian Xiwei and Su Yu as a duet, while the ending theme song, "Is It a Dream?", is sung by Hu Yitian as a solo.

The other songs were sung by professional singers. Dai Lu didn't reveal much, and Su Yu didn't ask any further questions.

The recording of the opening theme song is scheduled for August 3rd.

Su Yu and Tian Xiwei entered the recording studio, each standing on one side and putting on their headphones.

Su Yu had already spent several hours in the recording studio when he recorded "Someday or One Day". He has a good learning ability and has mastered some basic skills.

Although Tian Xiwei has never formally studied singing, her voice is quite good—clear and bright—so singing sweet love songs shouldn't be too difficult for her.

Most importantly, the two are a couple, so singing this kind of song can be entirely based on emotion without any technique.

The two worked together seamlessly and finished in no time.

As for Hu Yitian's side, it's a long story.

The song "Is It a Dream?" was originally intended to be sung by the male lead, but Dai Lu had a selfish motive and gave the song to Hu Yitian to sing.

The problem lies here: this song is much more difficult to sing than the opening theme song. The lyrics and music are more affectionate and melodious, requiring a high level of breath control and emotional expression.

Although Hu Yitian has a good voice, he has not received professional singing training, so singing this kind of difficult song is naturally quite challenging for him.

He spent half the day in the recording studio, but the result was still hard to describe.

As Dai Lu listened in the control room, her brows furrowed more and more, and at one point she stood up and paced back and forth in front of the glass window.

She had rubbed her temples more than once, and for a moment she even considered having someone else sing the song.

When Hu Yitian walked out of the recording studio, his forehead was still covered in sweat, and his voice was a little hoarse.

He opened the door and the first thing he saw was Su Yu and Tian Xiwei sitting side by side on the sofa outside. Both of their shoulders were trembling slightly, and they both had expressions of barely being able to hold back.

Hu Yitian's lips twitched.

"Is it really that funny?"

Su Yu quickly coughed, after all, this was someone else's territory, so he shouldn't be too arrogant.

He tried to suppress the smile on his face, replacing it with an expression he tried to be as sincere as possible: "Well, Lao Hu, I can only say that you still have a lot of room for improvement!"

Tian Xiwei nodded vigorously beside her, her cheeks puffed out, her eyes reddening from trying to suppress her laughter, unable to speak.

Hu Yitian stared at the two men expressionlessly, remained silent for two seconds, and then squeezed out a single word through gritted teeth: "Get lost."

Fortunately, after two days of struggling, Hu Yitian finally finished recording, though the result was only so-so.

The entire post-production process lasted until mid-August. Once post-production was completed, it meant the series was ready for release at any time.

After the finished product was delivered, Dai Lu gathered the lead actors and the main creative team in the company's conference room to begin preparations for the show's promotion.

In fact, the production team had already capitalized on the hype during the pilot episode stage. When Su Yu released the MV and song "Want to See You," the production team quickly responded by editing a version of the pilot episode of "A Love So Beautiful" to match the rhythm of his new song and releasing it, using the popularity of the MV to generate buzz for the series.

Now that the promotional period has officially begun, the promotional plan that Dai Lu presented made Su Yu frown.

The plan outlines several standard procedures: placing trailers on the homepages of partner platforms and video websites, simultaneously launching release posters on broadcasting platforms such as Weibo and Tencent Video, gradually releasing behind-the-scenes footage and blooper compilations, increasing the volume of media interviews and press releases, and arranging for the lead actors to participate in several variety show recordings as the broadcast date approaches.

The same strategy was used for "Eternal Love" in the first half of 2017. Before its broadcast, a large number of behind-the-scenes clips were released to generate buzz on Weibo. During the broadcast, GIF marketing and trending topics were used, and the Weibo topic eventually reached billions of views.

This approach is not outdated at this time, but it is relatively conservative.

"Xiao Su, do you have any objections?" Dai Lu asked, noticing that he had been frowning and hadn't spoken for a while.

Su Yu wasn't going to hide anything.

After all, the more popular the show becomes, the more he and Tian Xiwei will benefit. Keeping it to themselves would be unfair to them.

"President Dai, I think we can add some more promotional methods to the show."

"Oh?" Dai Lu raised an eyebrow. "How do you think we should add it?"

Although Su Yu didn't pay much attention to the entertainment industry in his previous life, he still frequently saw those overwhelming advertisements.

So Su Yu put down the plan and gave a brief overview of the promotional methods for dramas from later generations that he had seen before.

One method is to visit Tencent Video's office building, where the lead actors can give afternoon tea and merchandise to the platform's employees and also interact with them via live stream.

The practice of door-to-door sales is not new. Internet companies and the insurance industry used it in the early years, but not many people have used it for the promotion of TV dramas in the entertainment industry.

Celebrities visiting broadcasting platforms can not only build good relationships with the platforms, but also allow fans to see the private interactions between the creators through live streaming. This generates much more buzz and has a wider reach than traditional press conferences.

The second method is Douyin streaming – register an official account for the production team on Douyin, upload sweet clips and lip-syncing videos to Douyin, and use the feed to push them to specific users.

At that time, Douyin was on the verge of explosive growth. After exclusively sponsoring "The Rap of China" in October 2017, its daily active users (DAU) began to surge, but it was far from saturated. Traffic costs were relatively low, making it a good time to invest.

More importantly, Douyin's user profile highly overlaps with the target audience of "A Love So Beautiful": young people, students, and users who like sweet romance content. Precise promotion will be much more effective than overwhelming press releases.

After listening, Dai Lu thought about it for a moment and felt that Su Yu's method was very feasible, so she immediately made the decision.

"Okay, then let's add these two as Xiao Su said."