This director needs to apologize

Chapter 269 It’s impossible to grow up anymore

After a hundred and a half, finishing the post-production and submitting it for review is the final milestone of the "Mulan" project.

As long as the censorship committee doesn't get in the way, the follow-up will be a step-by-step announcement and release. As a director, Chen Yiming can finally take a break.

Platinum Jue is still very reliable in terms of passing the review. The few movies it has worked on before have basically passed smoothly without any hiccups.

In addition to relying on the support of powerful backers such as Moying and Jindun, it is also due to Chen Yiming's sober self-awareness.

As a man of two generations, Chen Yiming is well aware of the special status of movies in China's cultural system, so he has never been slippery in dealing with censorship.

From the beginning of "Holiday in the Magic City", he has strictly followed one principle, which is to be consistent on the outside.

Before project review, a complete final draft of the script must be prepared in advance.

The process should be followed openly and the story outline should be submitted in accordance with the program requirements. However, the communication behind the scenes must be carried out around the finalized script, and it must not be difficult for the "family members" who help to smoothen the relationship.

Although there will inevitably be adjustments to the details during the filming stage, the main line of the script will definitely remain unchanged. Chen Yiming's habit of writing and directing himself is not without its benefits. At least the other behind-the-scenes creators will not have sudden whims.

Chen Yiming's approach is actually not in line with the tradition of Chinese directors. Due to the monopoly of literary films in the early days of the Chinese film industry, Chinese directors more or less have a literati temperament and a stubborn temper.

When submitting application forms for many projects, the summary of the story they fill in is simply made up on the fly by the assistant who handles it.

Regarding the former, Chen Yiming advocated adding the sentence "This story is purely fictitious" at the beginning of the film. At the same time, he did a lot of work overtly and covertly in the special historical and cultural review process, and finally passed the test smoothly.

Chen Yiming has never said a word about this, and he even sneers at it.

In the long period of time from attracting investment, establishing a team, starting production, filming, post-production, to the release, every link must go through a game of compromise between the wills of all parties. The result is a script that is never finalized after repeated changes.

Compared with "Holiday" and "1951", "Mulan" is a slight breakthrough.

It’s useless to talk big and high-spirited!

No matter how much saliva you spray, can you really make the superiors relax their censorship?

Just a few people who make movies, are they worthy?

After joining the Directors Guild and the Film Society, Chen Yiming attended several conferences with different titles. Every time the speakers mentioned the development of Chinese films, they were bound to be inseparable from their resentment and criticism of film censorship.

Chen Yiming never rashly tests the bottom line of censorship. The upper limit of the review process is clearly defined, and the censorship of the finished film does not exceed the threshold. This is how the myth of "Platinum Jue can take a green channel for review" can be realized.

Don't blame the censorship committee for being picky when you repeatedly jump on the verge of death.

The first is the magical transformation of the dynastic background, and the second is the hidden line of resistance to the powerful and powerful families.

This is tantamount to deceiving the censorship committee. The film bureau cannot be blamed for the censorship of the process. It is purely self-inflicted.

The deep-rooted director-centered system makes it difficult for Chinese directors to call the script the basis of a play.

As for the latter, both the script and the finished film are just scratching the surface, rich in themes but never in-depth. The main line of the movie is closely related to the fight against alien invasion. The internal fighting between the Tang army ended with the counter-killing of Wang Wendu, and there has been no further expansion since then.

Apart from these two points, "Mulan" is a standard commercial-oriented costume blockbuster, and there is nothing wrong with it.

The impression of obeying the rules accumulated over the past three years, coupled with the protection of the magic shadow and the golden shield, gave me the confidence that the announcement would be made on the day it was submitted for review.

Because even if a final draft of the script is prepared like Chen Yiming, it will not be of much use.

Many project schedules have been set, and promotions have started, but they are still undergoing N edits. The content of the film is not only deviated from the script, but is even completely different from the story outline on the application form.

There is no need to pay extra attention to the review. Lao Niu and Lao Jia have to worry about the schedule and publicity. Chen Yiming only needs to wait for the follow-up nodes to be determined and then cooperate.

Without him, I just keep my faith.

Ma Erye's original concerns were avoided as much as possible. Judging from the feedback received privately, there was basically no problem.

This gave him rare time and energy to think deeply about next year's genre film plans.

According to previous plans, Bo Jue's next projects will mainly be youth films, romance films, suspense detective films, and chick flicks.

Basically, they are all small and broad-minded types.

"Love Letter" takes youth as the core, love as the main line, and the ending has a bit of suspense. It can be regarded as a cross-genre work.

The actual effect is not bad. The original version is a classic after all, and Chen Yiming's magic modification came at the right time, seizing the opportunity for the trend to reverse.

With an investment of more than 4000 million yuan and a box office of more than 3 million yuan, the entire project's expected revenue is between and million yuan based on box office revenue alone, which has doubled.

Overseas revenue is expected to earn another 20 to 30 million, which adds up to a single-chip profit of hundreds of millions.

Of course, although Platinum Jue is the main controller, it is only one of the project investors, and it needs several cents of the 100 million.

Even so, the yield is quite astonishing. However, this project is after all the first case where Chen Yiming and Ma Yunteng "delegated power". Xiaomei Laoniu Laojia, who is in charge of the project, takes the lead for the first time, and he also pays the tuition fees.

It has been more than two months since "Love Letter" was released. As the box office share has been received, more than one project summary meeting has been held, and there are indeed many problems.

First of all, it’s the production process. Xiaomei couldn’t hold back Xiangrui’s freedom at first, and the money she spent was approaching the warning line before she even turned off her phone.

You must know that this line is set at 120% of the production cost. If it is exceeded, Chen Yiming and Ma Yunteng will intervene.

The movie hasn't been shot yet, and the post-production work hasn't started yet, but the reserves have already been squandered.

Fortunately, Chen and Ma had already predicted it, and both Megan and Mr. Ma spent their money happily. In addition, Xiangrui, who had gone too far, reined in the situation in time, and finally shut down the machine smoothly within the additional budget.

Then there is the publicity and distribution process. In the early days, Lao Niu and Lao Jia were too worried about gains and losses. They spent too much on pre-sales out of their own pockets, which unnecessarily occupied a large amount of publicity and distribution funds.

Two weeks after its official release, the film's trend was still strong. When it came time to seriously increase investment to maintain the curve, all the money was wasted again.

It is actually not advisable to invest more when you are sure that you will make a lot of money, because it can easily lead to disputes between large and small investors. Even if several investors in "Love Letter" are old friends, principles are principles.

Finally, citing the precedent of "Magic City Holiday", Da Zhuang transferred the profit share to the Magic Film Publishing Department on behalf of the project, and the latter made up for the gap in publicity and distribution funds.

This is also the reason why the investment amount of 2,000 to 25 million at the beginning of the project was directly doubled to exceed 40 million in the end.

Next year, Bojue is expected to launch two to three projects. The experience and lessons of "Love Letter" can be used as a reference and are extremely valuable.

For example, the investment amount, after discussion between the chairman and the creative director, was significantly increased to 2 to 2.5 based on the original 3 to 3.5.

There is sufficient basis for the cost increase.

On the one hand, price increases in recent years have been a general trend of social economy. Building a theater and watching movies have almost doubled the cost. There is no reason why it is not necessary to make movies.

On the other hand, next year's creative team will be even weaker than that of "Love Letter". Wang Wei, Tian Li and Li Zhun are too junior. Even if "Mulan" succeeds as hoped, the additions to the three assistant directors will not be considered. Very big.

The three people are limited by their qualifications and backgrounds, so there will naturally be many constraints in establishing a team. In short, they are not very attractive to investors.

Chen Yiming can't just give himself the title of producer and screenwriter and ask his partners to spend real money to train three newbies.

In business, the lack of attractiveness can only be made up by increasing own investment, and this big boss can only come from Bojue.

Problems that can be solved with money are not real problems.

For Chen Yiming, the next most important thing is to choose the target for "magic reform".

In fact, this genre itself is the result of "reference". The previous "Detective Chinatown" has created a golden avenue for Chen Yiming. The three series of films have a combined box office of tens of billions, which fully proves the feasibility of this idea.

However, there are still many things worth considering in how to operate it.

Generally speaking, detective films are one of the most mature film sub-genres, with many branches and excellent works, so it should be effortless to "copy" them.

However, after Chen Yiming carefully searched his past life memories, he found that "magic change" was not as easy as imagined.

If nothing else, the lack of detective culture in China is an unavoidable problem.

This actually has little to do with the censorship of the film bureau, because even in the early years when censorship was extremely loose and the scale of police and gangster films was astonishing, the originality of scripts in the entire field was still very weak.

As far as Chen Yiming knows, many "childhood classics" in his previous life, whether it is Di Pangpang or Group Six, all have a more or less familiar feeling as he gets older and reads more movies.

To put it bluntly, this genre originated from "magic reform" in China, and it is difficult to trace its origins without overseas connections.

The "Pan-Asian" route led by "Tang Detective" has circumvented censorship to a certain extent, but the fundamental problems are still unable to be solved and the lack of originality ultimately makes the development of the entire genre unsustainable.

There is no way, all entertainment forms originate from paper and pen. The decline of Chinese detective literature has a direct impact on both the script and the audience, which is equivalent to making detective films stand on a pile of sand.

This is also the main reason why "Tang Detective" in the previous life could not be filmed until the third part, and the strong IP failed to evolve into a movie universe.

Because the entire series has been "kidnapped" by Bao Qiang, who is responsible for comedy, it is getting further and further away from suspenseful detective work.

Later experience shows that if a series of movies wants to become an IP, it must not be bound to a certain director or starring role, but must be flexible and interchangeable for everyone.

Of course, this rule does not include cartoons, such as "Conan".

And the fact that "Conan the Movie" can be filmed for twenty years is not without cost, that is, the washing machine, as the protagonist, will never grow up again in his lifetime.

(End of this chapter)