1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Chapter 289 Oscar Nomination for Best Score
Not long after Xu Feng hung up, Zhou Yan received another call from Han Sanping.

As soon as the call was connected, Han Sanping said excitedly, "I have good news for you."

Zhou Yan pretended that he hadn't received the news yet and asked, "What's the good news?"

"The Berlin Film Festival's shortlist is out, and "Springtime of the Cowherd" has been shortlisted. Also, "Sense and Sensibility," your soundtrack, has also been shortlisted."

Zhou Yan said happily, "That's great."

When Han Sanping heard Zhou Yan's answer, he became confused, "Your reaction is wrong."

"What's wrong with my reaction?" Zhou Yan asked curiously.

"You're so happy."

"what?"

What do you call this? When you hear good news, shouldn’t you be happy?
"Did you already know the news and deliberately acted for me here?"

In the past, some of the films that won the three major film festivals received relatively high attention, but some were still not well-known. For example, director Xie Fei, who had previously criticized Zhou Yan in newspapers, won the Golden Bear Award with An Li the year before last.

Han Sanping didn't ask Zhou Yan what happened, and just said, "Okay, Mr. Xu and I will go there first."

This time, five Chinese-language directors were shortlisted. In addition to Zhou Yan and An Li, there are also Yan Hao, He Ping and Yang Dechang.

"As long as you know it, you know it. It doesn't affect my happiness. I will also go to this film festival, and we will be together later."

Some people even threatened that "Springtime of the Cowherd" would only be shortlisted, and it would probably get no results unless the Berlin Film Festival established a Best Film Score Award for Zhou Yan overnight.

Zhou Yan gave Han Sanping a thumbs up from the air, "Third brother, you really have an insight into people's hearts."

This kind of comment is quite interesting. Even if they question Zhou Yan's movies, they still won't question the level of Zhou Yan's movie soundtracks.

This illustrates a problem: Chinese people do not have to go abroad to compete for these awards.

And the situation between Zhou Yan and Su Cong is different this time. Back then, Su Cong only participated in the soundtrack of "The Last Emperor" and was responsible for very little content.

When most people mention the soundtrack of "The Last Emperor", the first thing that comes to mind is Neon's Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Indeed, his acting just now was a bit exaggerated, which didn't quite fit the character.

There are bound to be many people who are famous, and Zhou Yan is one of them. With such popularity, many people must be dissatisfied.

But when these people won the award, they had either obtained foreign nationality or had taken root abroad.

"Fragrant Soul Girl" and "Wedding Banquet" are put together, and many people have only heard of the latter.

Not to mention those films that are only shortlisted for film festivals, many audiences have never heard of them.

Although it is only nominated for the best soundtrack, the significance is extraordinary.

But when the news reported on the Berlin Film Festival, the focus was on Zhou Yan, followed by An Li, and then mentioned three other directors by the way.

When many filmmakers saw these news, they were very emotional. People are really incomparable. Zhou Yan was shortlisted for the Berlin Film Festival and received more attention than news about winning awards at some film festivals.

Some "Anonymous" articles appeared in some newspapers and magazines, satirizing that the reason why "Springtime of the Cowherd" was shortlisted for the Berlin Film Festival was because Tomson Film Company was good at operation.

They only care about whether the movie is good or not, and whether it is worth buying a ticket to watch in the cinema. Whether the movie wins awards does have an impact on them, but not much.

Some people also say that the Berlin Film Festival's selection of "Springtime of the Cowherd" is suspected of being "kitsch" entirely because of the film's good box office performance.

Let’s not talk about who is more powerful, the Academy Awards or the three major film festivals. The public popularity of the former is not comparable to that of the film festivals.

In recent years, thanks to Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou, Chinese people have become more aware of the film festival, but in the final analysis, ordinary audiences do not pay much attention to the film festival.

"I might be late, and I definitely won't be able to make it in time for the opening ceremony."

As soon as the news came out, the domestic media went crazy.

In 87, Su Cong won the Best Soundtrack Award for "The Last Emperor". At that time, Su Cong had just graduated from Yangyin a few years ago and was in high spirits.

From this incident, we can see why the Berlin Film Festival hopes to invite Zhou Yan to participate in the film festival. Directors like An Li, Zhou Yan, and Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou come to the film festival and have a very positive impact on the film festival. of.

Wu Hanrun won the Best Supporting Actor Award in the 1980s, and Jiang Daoge also won the Best Visual Effects Award two years ago.

Just a few days after the Berlin Film Festival shortlist was announced, on January 25, new news came, and the Academy Award nominations were also announced.

The news that "Springtime of the Cowherd" was shortlisted for the Berlin Film Festival was quickly reported in the newspapers, and the coverage this time was very wide.

In fact, some Chinese have won Oscars before. The earliest time was for Huang Zongzhan to win the Oscar for Best Cinematography in the 1950s. In the 1960s, he scored twice and once again won the Oscar for "He De". Best Photography Award.

Yanjing TV even spent ten minutes introducing the movie "Spring of the Cowherd Class".

If Zhou Yan hadn't been shortlisted this time, the Berlin Film Festival wouldn't have been able to gain such popularity in China.

"Sense and Sensibility" performed very well this time and was nominated for a total of eight awards, including Best Original Score (Drama).

However, Xie Fei's Golden Bear Award did not cause a big splash. It did not give him a higher status in the international film industry, nor did it bring a qualitative leap to the film's box office revenue.

He Ping and the others actually benefited from it. If it weren't for Zhou Yan, many media wouldn't even mention them.

Zhou Yan is a serious Chinese, and he has no experience of studying abroad, so this time Zhou Yan was nominated, which can be regarded as a breakthrough.

Moreover, things are rare and valuable. There are not many Chinese films that have won film festival awards in recent years, and it is not often that a Chinese appears in the Oscar nomination list.

Even the Best Score Award has been won by someone before, namely Zhou Yan's fellow student, Su Cong, who graduated from the Composition Department of the Central Academy of Music.

……

And most viewers can’t tell the difference between the three major film festivals.

Zhou Yan scored the soundtrack for "Sense and Emotion" this time, and he was the real leader. He completed all the compositions alone.

After being shortlisted for two major awards in succession, Zhou Yan's phone calls were inundated with calls during this period, and they were all called by friends. Everyone was congratulating him.

But these phone calls are a burden to Zhou Yan, because he is so busy at the end of the year.

The rehearsals for the party are becoming more and more tense. At the school, the students are also busy with the performance of their semester works. No matter how busy Zhou Yan is, he does not want to leave behind the students' homework.

Therefore, he also takes time to tutor students on their semester homework.

In addition, as the assistant to the principal, although the principal does not assign him tasks, he cannot always stay away from people. When he has nothing to do, he has to go to the school to check his face and participate in important meetings.

Many media wanted to invite Zhou Yan to participate in the recording of the program, but Zhou Yan refused.

Even Yanjing TV station, which had a very good relationship with Zhou Yan, wanted to conduct an exclusive interview with Zhou Yan, but Zhou Yan did not agree.

It was during this busiest time that Huo Siqi called Zhou Yan and said that Zhang Xinyan and Yuan Heping, the directors of "The Kung Fu Boy", wanted to meet him.

Zhou Yan had said before that he had time to meet with Zhang Xinyan and Yuan Heping, but he never had the chance. Now that they took the initiative this time, Zhou Yan couldn't refuse, and "The Kung Fu Boy" has Qizhi's investment, so Zhou Yan agreed.

On the evening of February 2nd, Zhou Yan met Yuan Heping and others at Mingxuan Restaurant.

Without Huo Siqi's introduction, Zhou Yan could recognize Yuan Heping and Zhang Xinyan, and they could also recognize Zhou Yan.

Although Yuan Heping is a well-known martial arts instructor, he is relatively small and looks quite lean. Zhang Xinyan is a bit taller, a bit fat, and wears thick black-rimmed glasses.

After meeting Zhou Yan, the two of them also congratulated him one after another. They also knew about the Berlin Film Festival and Oscar nominations.

"Director Zhou, I have wanted to visit you for a long time, but I have never found a suitable opportunity. This time I took the liberty of asking Mr. Huo to help contact me, so I will disturb you a lot." Zhang Xinyan said with a smile.

"Director Zhang is so polite. You two are seniors in the industry. It is an honor for me to have the opportunity to learn from you face to face. I should have taken the initiative to visit you, but I have been busy with worldly affairs recently. No chance."

"understand."

The four of them exchanged a few words and then took their seats.

After chatting for a while, Zhou Yan roughly understood the reason why they came to Yanjing this time.

"The Karate Kid" will be released in Hong Kong early next month. They came here to discuss the film's release and distribution in the mainland.

Zhou Yan couldn't help but sigh, it was indeed troublesome to start his own business, and they had to do such things themselves.

Fortunately, Zhou Yan doesn't need to worry about these things, otherwise just these messy things would be enough to give him a headache every year.

Zhou Yan could also hear in his words that both Zhang Xinyan and Yuan Heping had high expectations for the movie "The Kung Fu Boy" and believed that the movie would definitely achieve relatively good results after it was released. Zhou Yan secretly sighed. Although he had not paid attention to the box office performance of "The Karate Kid" in his previous life, based on his experience, this movie would not do well at the box office.

With Yuan Heping and Zhang Xinyan in charge, the movie's martial arts aspects are definitely good, but the story is too cliche.

If it were ten years ago, the movie might have achieved good results.

But now it is the mid-1990s, and what the audience likes is completely different from what it was ten years ago. It is difficult to arouse the interest of the audience with this kind of old-fashioned martial arts movies.

In fact, many directors have realized this, and no one has made similar movies in the past few years.

It's not hard to guess what the audience likes to watch. You can see it by looking at the box office rankings in recent years.

It's just that Zhang Xinyan and the others have their own persistence and aesthetics, so they are still making such movies.

Zhou Yan did not reveal his thoughts to them because he knew that these words would not help the film's performance and would also make them unhappy.

If you teach someone a thousand times, they won't listen, but if you teach someone something, they will.

After the movie is released and the box office performance is not good, they will reflect on it themselves.

Later, during the third round of drinking, Zhang Xinyan clinked a glass of wine with Huo Siqi, and then said, "Heping and I have another idea. It just so happens that Mr. Huo and Director Zhou are both here, so we just want to share this idea with you two."

Huo Siqi put down his wine glass and said with a smile, "Director Zhang has some ideas, but it doesn't matter. There are no outsiders here."

Zhang Xinyan nodded, "Wu Jing is a pretty good young man with great potential, and it would be a waste to make a movie about Tai Chi, so we are thinking of making another TV series."

Zhou Yan narrowed his eyes when he heard Zhang Xinyan talking about filming a TV series. If he guessed correctly, Zhang Xinyan should be talking about "Tai Chi Master".

At that time, the reason why Zhou Yan agreed to invest in "The Kung Fu Kid" was also because he was interested in "The Grandmaster of Tai Chi". Now that Zhang Xinyan mentioned it, he was naturally very concerned about it.

Huo Siqi didn't quite understand what Zhang Xinyan meant, so he asked, "Does Director Zhang mean that we, Qizhi, need to invest in your TV series again?"

Zhang Xinyan smiled and waved his hand, "Mr. Huo, you misunderstood. What I mean is that after the release of "The Kung Fu Boy", the income will not be divided among you for the time being. You will use the money to shoot TV series. At that time, the investment ratio will be According to the situation at the time of "The Kung Fu Kid", nothing will be changed about the division, what do you think? Of course, there should be extra money later, and we will still divide it."

"No problem." Huo Siqi agreed readily: "Money is dead when you put it in your hands, but it is alive when you use it. In fact, when I invested in our movie, I didn't want to make any money. It was mainly to follow the lead. The two directors should be friends. Since you have plans for the future, I will definitely support it.”

Then Huo Siqi looked at Zhou Yan again, "Our third child is here, don't worry, he is of the same mind as me and will definitely support you unconditionally."

Zhou Yan smiled and nodded, "Brother Siqi can make the decision on these matters. I not only trust the two directors, but also brother Siqi."

Seeing Huo Siqi and Zhou Yan so happy, Zhang Xinyan and Yuan Heping were also very happy. They stood up with wine glasses and said, "Thank you, Mr. Huo and Director Zhou, for your support. Heping and I toast you two. I hope we can continue to cooperate."

After finishing a glass of wine, Zhou Yan asked, "Director Zhang, do you have any ideas for the script of your TV series?"

"The script has been finalized and brought here, but in the hotel, if you two have an idea of ​​what to do, we can show it to you tomorrow."

Huo Siqi smiled and said: "You don't have to show it to me, just show it to the third child. He knows these things better. After reading it at the end, the third child can give me the results."

Zhang Xinyan looked at Zhou Yan again, and Zhou Yan nodded and said, "That's okay, then, Director Zhang, please go up to my studio tomorrow."

"no problem."

……

After drinking and eating, Yuan Heping and Zhang Xinyan returned to the hotel. Huo Siqi, who was drunk, put his arm around Zhou Yan's shoulders and said, "Third brother, I know you are busy recently, but you still need to worry more about this matter."

"Brother Siqi, don't be polite to me. Qizhi is the company of our three brothers, and I should do these things."

Huo Siqi burped, "I feel relieved after hearing what you said. The second brother and I don't know much about film and television, and our vision is very different from yours, so investing in these projects requires you to pay more attention. Check it out. But don’t worry, as long as you point the direction, my brother will help you overcome other difficulties.”

"I know that the success of Qizhi depends mostly on Brother Siqi's operation."

"Those are all small things that complement each other." Huo Siqi waved his hand, and then said with a smile, "Lao San, you will be alone when you go back. How about I take you to enjoy the nightlife?"

Zhou Yan smiled and shook his head, "Forget it, I'm too busy these days. Let's get together again when we have time."

Rejected by Zhou Yan, Huo Siqi curled his lips and said, "You brothers from the old Zhou family are all boring."

"Isn't my eldest brother very interesting?" Zhou Yan joked.

Huo Siqi sneered, "Zhou Yu was just a talker at first. He gave up on the battlefield with real swords and guns. Now he is married and has become a henwife, which is even more boring. In the scene in Jinling, I am better than He knows them all.”

"I'll go see it with you when I have time."

"Okay, forget it tonight, I'm going back to sleep." Huo Siqi waved his hand and asked the driver to take him back.

……

The next morning, Zhang Xinyan and Yuan Heping came to Zhou Yan's office with the script of "Tai Chi Master".

Zhou Yan probably read the script once, and the story was slightly different from the "Tai Chi Master" he had watched, but it was not much different.

After reading it, he nodded, "The script is very good, the plot design and character settings are very good."

"Director Zhou thinks it's good, so we'll be more confident." Zhang Xinyan complimented.

In fact, it was quite unexpected that Zhou Yan met Zhang Xinyan these two times, because in Zhou Yan's previous impression, Zhang Xinyan should be the kind of chivalrous director.

After all, Zhang Xinyan has made so many martial arts films, including "The Yellow River Hero", but after getting in touch with him, Zhou Yan found that director Zhang is quite sophisticated.

Generally speaking, Zhang Xinyan is already over 60 this year and is a veteran in the industry. It is difficult for him to put down his dignity in front of a backward player like Zhou Yan.

But Zhang Xinyan didn't have any baggage at all, and his attitude towards Zhou Yan was quite respectful.

Zhou Yan thought for a while and asked, "Is the hero of the movie definitely Wu Jing?"

"Well, it was mainly filmed for him, so naturally he is the leading actor."

Zhou Yan nodded and asked, "What about the heroine? Has she been finalized?"

At this time, Yuan He suddenly said, "As for the heroine, we have one..."

Before Yuan Heping finished speaking, Zhang Xinyan interrupted him, "There are several candidates for the heroine, but none of them are very satisfactory. I wonder if Director Zhou has any recommendations?"

Zhou Yan looked at Zhang Xiyan and then at Yuan Heping. He knew that the heroine had probably been chosen.

But Zhang Xinyan was quick-thinking and didn't risk his life. He just wanted to leave some room for Zhou Yan to talk.

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "I do have a candidate, our Zhou family actress Chen Hong, what do you think?"

Zhou Yan previously introduced Chen Hong to participate in "Sweet Honey", and she successfully got the role of Xiaoting, and the filming of the movie is about to begin.

Counting the time, when "Sweet Honey" is finished filming, Chen Hong will be able to film "Tai Chi Master".

The core of the TV series "The Master of Tai Chi" is Wu Jing, but the TV series is indeed very popular. Being able to play the heroine is definitely a good thing for Chen Hong.

"Is this the Chen Hong who played Diao Chan?" Zhang Xinyan asked.

Zhou Yan nodded, "Well, it's her, I'm just suggesting it, it depends on the two directors' opinions."

"Understood, we will arrange an audition for her."

At this time, Yuan Heping said in a low voice, "To play a heroine, you need to choose martial arts routines and sword skills for a period of time, at least two or three months."

It can be seen that Yuan Heping is a little unhappy with Zhou Yan's interference in the selection of the heroine.

Zhou Yan said with a smile, "Director Yuan, you can rest assured that Chen Hong can cooperate with you to complete any request. In addition, I am also very optimistic about this script. No matter whether "The Kung Fu Boy" can make money later, We will all invest in this TV series, and if you agree, we can even increase the investment ratio. Or, if you don’t invest any money, we can pay it all.”

Hearing Zhou Yan say this, Zhang Xinyan's eyes showed a hint of joy.

The company he formed with Yuan Heping is currently short of money. If Zhou Yan is willing to invest money, it will naturally be great for them.

Even if "The Karate Kid" makes money, they actually want to keep the money and do other things.

Zhang Xinyan was also feeling emotional, saying that Zhou Yan was determined to support Chen Hong and was willing to offer such conditions.

In his opinion, the reason why Zhou Yan was willing to invest money must be because he wanted Chen Honglai to be the heroine.

But how did he know that even if they didn't use Chen Hong, Zhou Yan would still invest in them.

Letting Chen Hong be the heroine is just a matter of convenience.

(End of this chapter)