Huayu: Starting from an Unemployed Male Model

Wei Jun selected about thirty short videos and more than ten stories.

Two childhood sweethearts were playfully fighting with brooms on campus.

There are scenes of teachers lecturing and students paying close attention in class.

Students actively participate in extracurricular activities, such as creating school bulletin boards, participating in basketball games, and tug-of-war competitions.

During breaks between classes, a beautiful sunset appears in the sky, and the boy and girl who secretly like each other miss each other.

Some students regret not having studied harder or had a proper romantic relationship upon graduation.

What surprised Wei Jun even more was that several future rising stars sent him short videos from their school campuses.

Bai Mengyan, Zhou Ye, Tian Xiwei, Zhang Jingyi, Wang Churan.

This is the pace at which he collects all the little flowers.

If these young actresses become as popular as they are in later years, fans and casual viewers will discover that they actually appeared in Wei Jun's first music video when they do their research.

Wei Jun found the thought exciting.

There are many more great stories that weren't recorded at the time. Wei Jun is collecting these stories and preparing to find someone to film them.

One of Wei Jun's fans, @ForeverSittingInTheFirstRowGlassesGirl, sent him multiple private messages, hoping that her story could be shown on the big screen.

If I could, I'd like to include the story behind this photo in my music video...

Not all unrequited love has an ending, but all sincere feelings deserve to be remembered.

Wei Jun is a scumbag. Sometimes you have to admit that love is the greatest magic in the world.

All genuine love deserves to be seen.

He spent the whole night squatting in front of his computer desk, his eyes moist, reading his fans' memories of their youth.

Wei Jun told his agent Yang Hua about his idea and asked her to find a filming team as soon as possible to film these stories.

Yang Hua is known for his speed; he found a filming team in less than a day.

Cloudy coffee shop.

"Director Shen, hello, this is Wei Jun, an artist from our studio." When Wei Jun appeared as scheduled, Yang Hua introduced him to the director.

Wei Jun took off his sunglasses and carefully examined the music video director that Yang Hua had found.

It really is him, Shen Ao, the future director of "The Beneficiary" and "All or Nothing".

With small eyes and a high nose, he wore a black T-shirt and a blue suit jacket. He looked shy, honest, and thin, but was actually intelligent and muscular.

When Wei Jun saw the information sent by Yang Hua, he was skeptical. How could it be such a coincidence that he could find a future great director by just finding any MV director?

After inquiring with Yang Hua, I learned that Director Shen Ao is a top-tier music video director in the industry.

A professional director by training, he has won awards for his short films and dreams of making a feature film. To achieve this, he makes money by shooting music videos and other short films.

Shen Ao was also sizing up Wei Jun. He was dressed casually and fashionably, with a clean and sunny face, unlike the typical effeminate male stars on the market.

Shen Ao had listened to the song sent by Yang Hua. Wei Jun's voice was clear and charming, with a refreshing minty quality and a youthful spirit.

Shen Ao knew that Wei Jun wrote the lyrics and thought he was a very talented young man with great potential.

"Hello Director Shen, I'm Wei Jun." Wei Jun smiled and extended his hand in front of him.

Shen Ao immediately clasped his hands together, shook them gently, and said with a hint of respect, "Hello, Mr. Wei."

Yang Hua spoke up: "Don't just stand there, sit down and let's talk."

Wei Jun pulled Shen Ao to sit down.

The waiter brought out three cups of hand-drip coffee at just the right time.

"Director Shen, how much milk do you want?" Wei Jun asked, holding a small milk bottle containing about a few tens of milliliters.

"Mr. Wei, I don't need any extra, I'll just drink it straight." Shen Ao sat up straight and responded politely.

"Alright, then make yourself at home. Just call me Ah Jun." Wei Jun is happy to associate with talented people.

"Okay, Mr. Wei." Shen Ao is very good at handling interpersonal relationships and has high emotional intelligence.

Wei Jun is the employer; he can be gentle or impolite, but as the contractor, I cannot overstep my bounds.

Unable to stand their dawdling any longer, Yang Hua cut to the chase: "Director Shen, how should we film these dozen or so stories?"

Upon arriving at his field of study, Shen Ao considered his words for a moment before speaking: "The story is good, but there are too many of them. It's too long and difficult to film."

Wei Jun and his colleague understood the subtext: the story was too scattered, and filming it would waste a lot of manpower, resources, and money.

As per Wei Jun's requirements, the actors in each story had to be different. Even though the dozen or so stories were relatively short, the filming still took a lot of time and effort.

Wei Jun remained silent. Yang Hua, knowing what Wei Jun was thinking, spoke first: "Director Shen, are you familiar with short videos?"

Shen Ao shook his head.

Yang Hua gave Shen Ao a brief introduction to short videos, using Kuaishou, the leading short video platform at present, as an example.

With a total of 300 million users and over 10 million daily active users, fans repost Wei Jun's short videos on Weibo, garnering millions of likes in some cases and over 100,000 in others.

In particular, Wei Jun's short video "If Love Really Exists" has been reposted by hundreds of bloggers on Kuaishou and has received a lot of likes.

This sparked a trend of imitation on Kuaishou.

Yang Hua's idea was to film more than ten stories, then break them down into short videos of about ten seconds each, and hand them over to Kuaishou's online army to play, thereby achieving a promotional effect.

Although Yang Hua promised Wei Jun not to manipulate the data, it doesn't mean she can't hire online trolls to promote the content on short video platforms.

Yang Hua actually grasped this kind of publicity strategy that would become commonplace in later generations so quickly; he truly deserves to be called a top-notch agent.

As for long-form video platforms like Weibo, Bilibili, iQiyi, Tencent Video, and Mango TV, they release music videos that are only a few minutes long.

Yang Hua made up his mind that he would invest all the money Wei Jun had earned from variety shows, TV dramas, and commercial performances into the song to make it a huge hit.

You can't catch a wolf if you're unwilling to sacrifice your cub.

Shen Ao didn't understand, but chose to respect it. Wei Jun was the boss, so he just needed to meet his demands. He had also fulfilled his obligation to remind him, and now he just needed to film properly.

"By the way, Mr. Wei, would you like to appear on camera?" Shen Ao chuckled, scratching the back of his head.

"Me?" Wei Jun put down his cup and pointed to himself.

Yang Hua, resting her chin on her hand, looked at Wei Jun. Yes, how could Wei Jun not appear in his own songs?

With the right age and image, the music video will definitely help her gain wider recognition.

"Yes, Mr. Wei is young, just like a college student. He's handsome and has a sunny personality. You must have had quite a few girls who had a crush on you during your school days."

"Appearing on screen will have a great effect, and having celebrities in the music video will have a very good promotional effect."

Shen Ao explained with a smile.

Yang Hua chimed in, "Wei Jun, Director Shen is right. It's such a waste that you didn't appear in your own music video; you can still get some exposure in the video."

Wei Jun hadn't originally planned to appear on screen. His idea was to create a story about campus youth, so the main characters would definitely be the students on campus.

He then realized that he had fallen into a misconception: Who says that people in their twenties or who have graduated for many years cannot make campus stories?

Who doesn't have stories about their youth?

Even middle-aged and older actors from later generations can make campus dramas; Wei Jun is so young, he'll definitely be fine.

Wei Jun no longer hesitated and agreed to appear on camera: "Okay, I'll do as you say."

"Okay, then I will explain the filming plan in detail. First, let's talk about recruiting actors..." Shen Ao took out a blue folder from his black briefcase.

The three communicated extensively about the filming plan, and immediately supplemented and revised any omissions or inappropriate parts.

Wei Jun was very interested in the methods and processes of shooting music videos and had been learning from Shen Ao.

Learning more skills is not a bad thing; who knows, you might suddenly feel like making a film someday.

Once everything was agreed upon, the recruitment of actors began.

......

Yuli Restaurant, Shanghai.

With her hair tied up neatly and wearing a black work uniform, Yang Chaoyue walked around the restaurant carrying a plate, sometimes serving dishes, sometimes clearing away leftover food from the table, and cleaning up.

"Chaoyue, come and move the steak grill." The supervisor called out over the walkie-talkie.

"Here it comes, here it comes."