Become famous another day.

Lu Yanhe was actually prepared to be "treated casually" by Jin Zhiyan, but on the way there, he thought about it and felt that something was not right.

Kim Ji-yeon wouldn't ignore him - it wasn't him who took the initiative to see Kim Ji-yeon, it was Kim Ji-yeon who wanted to see him.

In order to ensure that there would still be something to talk about later and to avoid a dull silence, Lu Yanhe searched the Internet for some reports and interviews about Kim Ji-yeon, as well as some of the works he had filmed.

Lu Yanhe has watched several of Jin Zhiyan's movies. After all, he is a rare film director in the world who can combine artistry and commerciality.

Directors who can do this are rare in any country.

This is also true in Hollywood.

His audio-visual style is actually quite plain, without so many fancy showmanship techniques. But because of this, he can shoot any subject matter. He has shot monsters, disasters, suspense, crime, science fiction and other subjects, and is a versatile person.

They met in a high-end club.

Just in case, after the address was sent, Lu Yanhe specifically asked a friend he knew in Korea to check what this place was, so as not to accidentally enter a place like "Room N" where he couldn't explain himself - in Korea, such things are not uncommon, and no one knows how many times they have been reported in the news.

Fortunately, there was nothing dirty.

Jin Zhiyan had a kind smile and a warm attitude. As soon as he entered the door, he stood up and prepared to greet him, without the arrogance that Lu Yanhe expected to see.

As soon as they met, Kim Ji-yeon expressed her love and respect for him.

Lu Yanhe knew that Koreans had a strong sense of seniority. He was not surprised that Jin Zhiyan expressed her love for him, but he was still quite surprised to hear the word "respect" suddenly come from him.

"Thank you, director." The other party was so polite, so Lu Yanhe naturally reciprocated the kindness.

What Lu Yanhe didn't expect was that when Jin Zhiyan asked him to meet, it was not because she wanted him to act in a movie.

Jin Zhiyan is working with others to set up a pan-Asian film and television company and wants to get Lu Yanhe to join.

"Pan-Asia?" Lu Yanhe was quite surprised when he heard this word, because he had heard it before when he was with Maxine and HP.

This is mainly to expand the market scope.

It's like taking a drama that was originally only broadcast in Thailand and promoting it across Asia.

Kim Ji-yeon was the first director to approach Lu Yanhe to collaborate on this so-called "Pan-Asian" content.

Lu Yanhe said: "Director, you want me to join in, what do you want me to do?"

Jin Zhiyan said: "You can do a lot, director, screenwriter, actor... I heard that the movie "Love Letter" directed by you will have its world premiere at the Jose-Jacques Film Festival this year?"

"Yes." Lu Yanhe nodded.

"Your directorial debut can be shown at a top film festival like the Jose-La-Jacques Film Festival. I'm really envious." Jin Zhiyan smiled, "You are very well-known and influential in Asia. You are a leader among the younger generation. So, if we can set up a pan-Asian production company together, we will definitely be able to produce something good."

Lu Yanhe nodded and said, "I often hear the concept of Pan-Asia recently. It seems that everyone is doing this."

"Because of the rise of streaming media," said Jin Zhiyan, "streaming media has completely broken the barriers and monopoly of traditional TV stations and brought all the markets together. In the past, when we made a drama, the potential audience was only the people in China, but now it is different, it is the whole of Asia."

"But streaming media is still more popular with TV series, right? It seems that the influence of movies on streaming media is still far less than that of theaters."

What Lu Yanhe said was a fact.

Compared with the influence of streaming TV series, streaming movies can only be said to be slightly better than online movies, but have not yet entered the mainstream track.

The vitality of cinemas is a little more tenacious than that of television stations.

Jin Zhiyan nodded, "That's right."

"Director, does your pan-Asian production company provide content to streaming media?"

"Of course it's not just streaming. I just use streaming as an example. In fact, I hope to pool our resources and strength to expand our power so that our works can get better production conditions in Asia."

Hearing this, Lu Yanhe understood it instantly.

In fact, it is to create a signboard, make this signboard brighter and more shining, and then let those who are interested come to invest and give money. Why did Jin Zhiyan want to invite him? Because he can attract others to give money.

Lu Yanhe: "..."
-
"He's... trying to make some money?" This was also Chen Ziyan's first reaction.

On the way back, Lu Yanhe said, "Maybe he also wants to get funding to make a movie."

The director will do anything to raise money to make a movie.

Although it is said that if a big director like Kim Ji-yeon makes his own movies, he should have a stable source of funds for filming, but if he wants to shoot a movie with a slightly higher cost, it will still be very difficult. Everyone is worried about the issue of return on investment and profit.

No one invests purely to help a director realize his dreams - you can realize your dreams, but that must be a byproduct of making money.

However, what Jin Zhiyan talked about to him gave him some inspiration.

What direction will my own Linghe Production Company take in the future?

Pan-Asian.

Isn’t the copyright operation plan that Linghe is promoting now another form of Pan-Asia?
-
"The Mist" earned 1380 million in North America on Sunday, and the box office for the first weekend added up to just over 4000 million. Not only did it successfully win the weekend box office championship, it also allowed the promoters of "The Mist" to say without hesitation that it was a "huge box office success."

The Mist also performed well at the overseas box office in its first weekend, taking in around 1200 million U.S. dollars in various European countries.

Horror movies are no different from other movies - if a Hollywood movie does well at the domestic box office, it will generally also do well overseas, but horror movies are an exception because it is a niche genre and in other countries, the audience for horror movies is not as large as that of Hollywood movies.

After Lu Yanhe finished the promotion in South Korea, he went to Japan and attended the Japanese premiere of "The Mist".

Then came Thailand.

Singapore was absent.

Because the two days of the weekend were used up, he had to rush back to participate in the filming of "Friends".

There are promotional activities in only four places in Asia.

Because The Mist had a good fall on Monday, it only fell 37%.

This makes D19 company place greater hopes on the box office of "The Mist".

As for the overseas box office, since South Korea, Japan and Thailand are all big box office destinations for horror films, they also hope to reap some rewards here.

In particular, Lu Yanhe's influence in Asia and the theme of "Asian revenge" that has always been the main theme of this horror film have made this movie very popular in various Asian countries.
-
"It's a shame that The Mist can't be released in mainland China. Otherwise, with Lu Yanhe's appeal in mainland China, the box office would have been at least tens of millions of dollars."

D19 CEO Cather Murray has had a constant smile on his face in recent days.

"The Mist" earned 40 million U.S. dollars in North American box office in its first weekend. Considering its production cost, if it weren't for the subsequent additional publicity and promotion costs, it would have paid back and started to make a profit in the first weekend alone.

However, under the current circumstances, the publicity and promotion costs will definitely continue to be increased.

The performance of "The Mist" on weekdays made them see that there is room for the film to create further box office value.

You know, for commercial horror films like "The Mist", the box office will generally collapse more severely on weekdays than other types of films.

A few days after the film was released, Lu Yanhe's performance was further discussed by many people on social media.

Lu Yanhe is not a strange name to European and American audiences. Many people already knew him before this movie was released, and this is especially true for European and American film critics.

Lu Yanhe has produced so many eye-catching works in recent years that it is hard not to know him.

Lu Yanhe's performance in "The Mist" is not difficult or layered. The difficulty of performing this role lies in how to make it "personal".

In Lu Yanhe's understanding, this type of character is a "special" character. They have many more "inhuman" characteristics than traditional characters. Once such a characteristic can be found and magnified to the extreme, it will form a shocking visual effect on the screen and leave a deep impression in the hearts of the audience - because it is rare.

The Asian ghost played by Lu Yanhe shocked everyone as soon as he appeared on the stage. At the beginning, he seemed to be indifferent without breathing and emotion, floating around those people like a soft ribbon. In addition to the sensory stimulation presented by the combination of sound effects and editing, it also gave people a creepy psychological feeling at a deeper level.

His seemingly clean and clear eyes seemed to be filled with thick black fog.

Lu Yanhe has increased the expressiveness of the "shape" in his interpretation of this role, and the character's characteristics are more distinct than those of his previous roles, without the audience having to guess, feel, or ponder.

But this kind of performance is exactly what "The Mist" needs.

It was under such circumstances that his acting ability in shaping characters was unanimously praised by the media and the audience.

An organization conducted a survey on the audience of "The Mist", and Lu Yanhe topped the list of the audience's favorite actor in this movie.

There is no need to say much about how much all major media love him. Just look at the exposure and number of comments about him and you will know.
-
Originally, there were still some voices in the country that were resisting stubbornly, attacking Lu Yanhe for playing a villain in a horror film and smearing the image of Chinese people.

With the release of this movie, its content and theme were also spread. At this time, although people in China had not seen the movie, they now knew what it was about.

Lu Yanhe's fans suddenly became brave.

——He played the role of a ghost who wanted revenge and killed white people, and even such a role was recognized by white people!

This is not easy.

- Never think that Asians are no longer discriminated against and can sit at the table on an equal footing just because they seem to have more opportunities after the so-called "political correctness" storm. That is not the case at all.

The more people understand this principle, the more they will know how difficult it is for Lu Yanhe to perform in "The Mist" so well that he received more praise than criticism in Europe and the United States.

Lu Yanhe reviewed the situation himself and told Chen Ziyan: "It was because I played a good role and caught up with a film promotion method that was very beneficial for me to shape my personal image."

Chen Ziyan nodded: "Indeed, in this movie, you seem to be the villain, but in fact, in the end, you are the victim, especially in the version that Director Muken edited at the end, it seems that you are the protagonist of the movie."

"From the script, it's not true. The main roles are played by Arne and the other two."

"Yes, but the editing has changed." Chen Ziyan said, "Obviously, the disturbance during the filming and the attention you received at that time gave you a lot more weight in the later editing stage."

"We also have to thank Director Muken's wife, Hua Ruzhen." Chen Ziyan added, "She kept emphasizing to Director Muken that since you performed the best, why not keep more of your scenes? That's why a lot of your scenes were kept in the second half."

Lu Yanhe nodded.

"By the way, Sister Zi Yan, Director Jin Zhiyan asked me to talk about the Pan-Asia plan the other day. I remembered that Hua Ruzhen told me that she might also go deeper into the investment field of film and television dramas in the future."

Chen Ziyan nodded. "I know about this. There is a foundation in the United States that is optimistic about the film and television market in Asia, so they want to find someone who understands film and television production to invest. It just so happens that Hua Ruzhen has been in charge of cultural industry investments for a group of wealthy people in her circle, so she was listed as one of the candidates. There is great hope."

Lu Yanhe said: "If this is true, we can really keep the copyright of many of our plays in our hands and form our own team to produce them."

Chen Ziyan nodded and said, "Yes, I'm very glad that we hired Hu Siwei before. With him, the company has already formed a team for production. With him, we can save a lot of trouble."

Lu Yanhe: "Should I write a few more scripts?"

"If you can write, it would be best if you write more. There is no rush to shoot. Just put them here first, and we will have more candidates." Chen Ziyan said, "Your script is our trump card. Of course, if we really want to further expand the scale of Linghe, we certainly cannot rely solely on your script. We can develop more projects like "Housemates"."

Before, when Lu Yanhe wanted to shoot a movie called "Love Letter" himself, he needed to borrow people from various places to form a good team and start shooting directly.

Of course, Linghe still needs to cultivate its own fixed team. However, cultivation takes time. If it really waits until it is ready for large-scale development, it will definitely be too late. A good production talent and a good production team cannot be created overnight.

Hu Siwei wanted to shoot the low-cost life comedy "Housemates" himself, and it could also serve as a training ground for the production team he had assembled.

Lu Yanhe said to Chen Ziyan, "Sister Ziyan, I think we may need to invite some more production talents to our Linghe. Our company's current funds may not dare to take risks to invest in projects with hundreds of millions of dollars, but for low-cost dramas like "Housemates", if there is a suitable story, we can make more."

Chen Ziyan: "I have also considered this matter. However, the biggest shortcoming of Linghe right now is not the lack of money, but the lack of people. However, we don't have enough money to recruit soldiers by spending money."

Chen Ziyan smiled when she said this, "Do you know what I'm thinking about?"

"Hmm?" Lu Yanhe looked at Chen Ziyan with some confusion.

Chen Ziyan said: "Aren't we going to make "The Birth of an Actor"? There is a real shooting segment in each episode. I was thinking, if possible, can we use this to test some new production teams."

"That won't work. Don't try it." Lu Yanhe immediately rejected it. "Each episode of 'The Birth of an Actor' needs to be shot with high quality and level so that the audience can see the good. It's too unreliable to use a new director."

According to Lu Yanhe's plan, he even planned to invite experienced directors such as Luo Yuzhong, Chen Lingling, Fu Kai, and Liu Bige to shoot this short live-action film.

"However, Sister Zi Yan, now that you mention it, I do have an idea." Lu Yanhe said, "Didn't the 'Green Onion Project' we did before fail? I reviewed it myself and felt that one of the main reasons for the failure of this project was that the truly talented and capable directors were worried about wasting their time because of the low threshold of this event, so they waited and watched at first, and when they found that this event really didn't make any waves, they stopped participating."

"What if we can offer real money to help them make their scripts into movies?" Lu Yanhe said, "It's not like a competition, but more like a venture capital film festival. Do you think they would be willing to come?"

Chen Ziyan: "Isn't this a bit risky? Using real money to make a movie for them? It would cost at least several million, right?"

"But if we want to train our own filming team, especially directors, is this the only way to be effective fundamentally?" Lu Yanhe asked.

"Of course, training new talents, especially Linghe's own directors, is something any film and television company will definitely do, but it is too uncontrollable. Maybe we can't find such a director in three or five years." Chen Ziyan said.

Lu Yanhe was suddenly stunned.

and many more.

"Sister Zi Yan, I suddenly thought of someone."

"Ah?" Chen Ziyan looked at him in confusion.

Lu Yanhe said, "Do you still remember Liu Bigo's friend, He Han? He wanted to ask me to make a movie before, the script of "Miss Ning", but later it didn't happen due to lack of funds."

"I remember him." Chen Ziyan was a little surprised and asked, "You want to recruit him to the company?"

Lu Yanhe said: "I have known him for a long time and have talked with him many times. He is indeed very talented."

Chen Ziyan hesitated for a moment and said, "But it's not appropriate for you to play Miss Ning again now. A cameo? Another cameo for a new director? The script of Miss Ning is indeed not bad, it talks about the awakening of female consciousness, but there have been many movies with this theme in recent years. It's not suitable for you to play a cameo role at this time."

Lu Yanhe said: "It doesn't have to be Miss Ning. He can adapt other people's novels into scripts like Liu Bige did, or he can buy other people's scripts. What I mean is, if he is willing to sign with us, we can support him in making the movies he wants to make."

"Let me talk to him." Chen Ziyan said, "I haven't contacted him for a long time."

"I haven't contacted him for a long time." Lu Yanhe said, "I don't know what he is doing now."
-
In fact, since the two of them have already made plans to further expand Linghe's scale and increase the reserve of production talents, they will immediately start to make relevant plans.

Whether it is looking for He Han or using sincere money to attract talented young new directors to discuss projects with them, these are just ways of trying.

Like Lu Yanhe, he actually has a very powerful channel, which is to ask big directors in the industry like Luo Yuzhong and Chen Lingling to recommend him.

In the entertainment industry, everyone must know some people who are capable and talented but have not been able to succeed for various reasons.

Just like Li Fenglei who assisted Zhao Yuan in the movie "Love Letter".

If one can gain their recognition, it means that this person must have something.

Lu Yanhe entrusted many friends to recommend relevant talents for him, and then handed it over to Linghe’s current vice president Chen Yin and content producer Hu Siwei for discussion.

However, although they are casting a wide net in recruiting people and they need people very much, according to the company's financial situation this year, with "Housemates", "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" and "Raise the Red Lantern" all starting filming this year, the budget that can be transferred to staff expenses is still tight and they cannot make every effort.

We held a meeting and made clear a goal. In addition to the administrative strength that must be strengthened in each department of the company, in terms of film and television production talents, we can only make a recruitment plan based on the minimum needs of the crew. Once people are recruited, the subsequent filming projects must be kept on schedule, otherwise it would be a huge waste if people are recruited but have no work to do.

One thing after another, one item after another, one link after another.

After Lu Yanhe finished his work with the "Friends" crew every day, he had to meet with Linghe's people in the evening. He took this opportunity to sort out the company's key issues and work plans for the year, one by one, and then make relevant arrangements around these, trying his best to coordinate all the time nodes and reduce losses.

The reason why they are sorting it out only now is not because Xu Tianming and Chen Yin did not make a plan before, but because Lu Yanhe and Chen Ziyan have a lot of new ideas, and if they want to squeeze them in, they have to start all over again.

This is what happens to a company in a period of rapid growth.

No one knows whether tomorrow will bring another huge development opportunity, so we can only face these things like a war. (End of this chapter)