Chapter 319 New Rules and New Changes

Chapter 319 New Rules and New Changes

Chapter 319 New Rules and New Changes

As Galaxy Group's film business gets on track, the TV drama business will also be one of the businesses that the group will vigorously develop in the future.

After all, movies require huge investments and slow returns, and the biggest problem is that the “time-killing” effect is too low.

With the size of Galaxy Pictures, they can make a few movies a year, and after the audience watches them in the cinema, that's it.

TV series are different. They can be shown on TV or video platforms for a long time, or even replayed repeatedly, which is of great help in expanding the influence of Galaxy Pictures.

Therefore, starting from 2011, Galaxy Pictures will increase its investment in TV dramas.

This year, Galaxy Pictures plans to invest in and produce three TV series, namely the ancient costume palace fighting drama "The Legend of Zhen Huan", the urban emotional drama "Beijing Love Story", and the Republican spy drama "The Disguiser".

Among them, the copyrights of "The Legend of Zhen Huan" and "The Disguiser" have always been in the hands of Star Map Culture.

As for "Beijing Love Story", it is a script submitted by Chen Sicheng, the newly signed director of Xingdou Culture Agency.

After being reviewed and approved by the project review department of Galaxy Pictures, this script was qualified as a new project supported by the company.

The entire process was completely run spontaneously by the company and did not involve Wang Hao. He only learned about this incident when he heard the report later.

Wang Hao was very satisfied with this, because it meant that Galaxy Pictures' imitation of the management mechanism of Hollywood film and television companies had basically achieved initial results. It had the ability to generate its own income independently of Wang Hao and could spontaneously discover excellent works and talents.

In addition to the three TV series produced by itself, Galaxy Pictures also cooperated with other film and television companies and invested in several TV series.

For example, the sitcom "Love Apartment 3", the spy drama "The Cliff", the urban emotional drama "Kintaro's Happy Life", the medical professional drama "Mind Game", the palace romance drama "Startling by Each Step", etc., all of these have investment participation from Galaxy Pictures.

After all, the Galaxy Group now controls the country's largest brokerage company, Xingdou Culture, with nearly 8,000 contracted employees, and this is after the company has been striving for excellence and has undergone a certain amount of screening.

These 8,000 people alone can almost be said to have captured 70% of the country's outstanding behind-the-scenes practitioners.

In addition, Xingdou Culture has also reached cooperation with the three top domestic film and television schools, namely Beijing Film Academy, Central Academy of Drama, and Magic Theater. In recent years, in addition to behind-the-scenes staff, it has also actively signed some supporting actors whose names the audience cannot remember but are very familiar to them.

With these people in hand, film and television companies and crews around Beijing and Shanghai have to deal with Xingdou Culture as long as they want to set up a crew and start work smoothly.

Therefore, if Galaxy Pictures wants to invest in a TV series or film that it likes, it can do so easily, and few companies dare to refuse.

Five movies and three TV series, these are the main projects of Galaxy Pictures in 2011.

Many film and television companies are extremely envious of this. After all, several of those film projects are aimed at overseas markets and the earnings are all foreign exchange.

However, no matter how envious they are, in today's China, only Wang Hao can sell films overseas.

As a director, he is unique, his advantages are so outstanding that no one can replace him.

Even for Master Zhang, only his movie "Hero" was a hit overseas, not to mention other directors.

So no matter how unhappy those film and television companies are, they can only try their best to give money to Galaxy Pictures.

Perhaps the big project "Inception" is watched by giants such as China Film and Sony, but for co-productions such as "Taken 2", "The Hangover 2" and "Limitless", there are still many film and television companies that use their connections to seek favors just to get involved.

The Galaxy Group is not so stingy about this. When it comes to making a movie, it would be best if they could use other people's money to make a movie and get something for nothing.

And there is room for maneuver. In the past, the Galaxy Group was too small to conduct financial operations on film and television projects like Hollywood.

Now that the group has grown in size and Wang Hao's reputation has been completely consolidated, there are more areas for maneuver.

For example, the investment amounts for these films can be packaged into a targeted investment fund, and then the private equity fund can use different types of financial products such as high-yield bonds, low-yield bonds and preferred stocks to attract investors with different risk tolerances.

The same is true for film financing. After going through these processes, the financing scope of the film has become wider, more money has been raised, and the risk of the production company has been greatly reduced. Galaxy Group can use less money to leverage larger projects through capital.

Moreover, the management fee of this private equity fund can also make some money. Besides, who stipulates that the money of this private equity fund can only be invested in the movies of Galaxy Group?

Wang Hao, who has the memory of future generations, knows which movies will be popular in the future and which companies' stocks will skyrocket in the future. Originally, Wang Hao found it difficult to get involved in these opportunities because his funds were occupied by the development of the group.

Now that he has the weapon of private equity funds, Wang Hao can also make great strides in this area.

Of course, there is no rush for this matter. Those investors are willing to put their money into Galaxy Group’s private equity fund mainly because they are interested in the revenue from their group company’s film projects.

Once these projects make money and the other party has tasted the sweetness, it will not be too late to carry out other operations then.

If the film and television companies and investors are concerned about the profits, then most of the domestic celebrities and artists are concerned about the fame that projects such as Galaxy Pictures can bring them.

Especially in "The Hangover" which became a big hit overseas last year, Yu Entai, who was recommended by Wang Hao, played a character named "Mr. Zhou", and became a little famous in Hollywood.

After that, Yu Entai received several audition invitations for roles in Hollywood movies, and successfully won two of the projects with his own abilities, which meant that he had initially established a foothold in Hollywood.

This year he has joined the cast of "The Hangover 2". With the release of this movie, Yu Entai's development in Hollywood will undoubtedly become smoother.

With such a living example in front of them, how could those actors not try their best to get in?

It is considered good to be able to use connections to build relationships, but some actresses even rely on their good looks to start having evil thoughts.

Of course, they had no chance to meet Wang Hao, but Wang Hao was not in charge of all the projects of Galaxy Pictures. Apart from Inception, which he directed, the people in charge of other film projects were mostly full-time producers of Galaxy Pictures or deputy general managers of the company.

In addition, other companies in the Galaxy Group are also capable of influencing Galaxy Pictures, which gives those female artists room to maneuver.

Wang Hao had anticipated this matter and even sent an open letter in writing to the group company, stating that he would crack down on corruption and power-for-sex transactions and strictly manage the film project.

Especially in the selection of personnel, not only the role artists of film projects, but also the selection of behind-the-scenes personnel, we try to be fair, just and open, and strive to prevent bad apples from affecting the development of Galaxy Group.

The contracted personnel of Xingdou Culture were also greatly excited about Wang Hao's statement.

You must know that as Xingdou Culture signs more and more people, its internal competition and many behind-the-scenes deals are also increasing.

After all, there are only so many good projects. You artists and actors have to compete for roles, and those behind the scenes staff also want to join the big crew to add luster to their resumes.

Is it just a competition based on strength at this time?
No, when everyone’s strength is similar, behind-the-scenes manipulation is almost inevitable.

This is just like how the customer service clerks on Taobao and Tmall can form a black industrial chain. In terms of recruiting crew members, the small workshop model in the past was actually a great opportunity for many assistant directors and executive directors to earn extra money and sleep with small stars.

Today, Galaxy Pictures is also a hotbed of corruption in this area.

In the past year, the personnel and supervision departments within the group company have received many reports and uncovered several corrupt elements.

Now that Wang Hao has emphasized this, although corruption cannot be completely eliminated, the corresponding power-for-sex (power-for-money) transactions have indeed decreased a lot, and the overall atmosphere of the entire Shangjing film and television circle has become much more decent.

Of course, Wang Hao mainly grasps the general direction of these matters, and from time to time he rings the alarm bell for the company's management, letting them know that the company's core goal is still to develop domestic science fiction films and film industrialization, so as not to gradually go astray.

As for himself, after the Chinese New Year, most of his energy was still devoted to the early preparations for "Inception".

The script of the film was actually completed by the screenwriting department of Galaxy Pictures as early as September last year.

The production of the dynamic storyboard continued for several months and is now nearing completion under the supervision and review of Wang Hao.

Therefore, after the beginning of the year, the main tasks of the crew are, on the one hand, to formulate future shooting plans based on the dynamic storyboard and arrange for assistant directors and photography crews to fly to various parts of the world to scout locations and collect materials; on the other hand, to form a crew team and screen movie roles.

For a movie like "Inception" led by Wang Hao, the operation of the entire crew is naturally more standardized and rigorous, and is completely carried out in accordance with the company's management regulations.

In terms of the crew team formation, Li Kui, who had always served as his personal photographer, has now been promoted to director and is in charge of the follow-up work of "Detective Chinatown", so the photographer of "Inception" this time was replaced by Luo Pan.

This person can be considered as Li Kui's "senior brother". He also graduated from the Photography Department of Shangjing Film Academy. Now he teaches in the Photography Department of Communication University of China. He doesn't have any achievements in photography, but his skills are still solid.

Moreover, he has collaborated with Feng Xiaogang many times in the future, and has directed the films "The Sun Also Rises", "Mr. Six", "I Am Not Madame Bovary", "Youth" and "The Battle at Lake Changjin", so he is quite capable. It should be no problem for him to direct "Inception".

Of course, Wang Hao originally planned to use the original photographer of "Inception", but the photographer named Wallace Pfister had collaborated with Nolan on several films and had a very good relationship with him. Wang Hao had tricked Nolan on "Inception", so this kind of cooperation was no longer possible.

Fortunately, in terms of photography, different photographers may indeed have different levels and styles, but the quality of a film depends more on the entire team and the director of the film.

It doesn’t mean that if you choose a good photographer, you can make a good movie, and if you choose a bad photographer, the movie will be a mess.

Photographers are important, but not that important for the mature film industrialization. They are not completely irreplaceable.

This is also the reason why Wang Hao wants to promote the industrial development of Chinese films. Otherwise, if he makes his own "Inception", he would have to find the original crew of the movie, use the original script, and only replace a director. What's the point of that?

Of course, there is no problem in replacing some positions with China's own behind-the-scenes staff, but for some positions, we still need to consider it carefully.

After all, his "Inception" is aimed at global audiences, and many stories in the movie take place in different cities around the world.

Places like Los Angeles, Shanghai, Japan, and Morocco have different cultures, which are reflected in the scenes with different cultural temperaments.

In this regard, China's behind-the-scenes workers, such as those in set design, art, and costume design, have a big disadvantage, which is that their vision is a little narrow, their perspective is not broad enough, and their accumulation is not sufficient.

After all, they were mainly targeting the domestic film market before, so there is no problem in letting them try some Chinese style and study ancient costumes.

Asking them to create exotic looks and European and American styles would be beyond their capabilities.

This is not Wang Hao belittling these behind-the-scenes workers in China, but everyone has their own expertise, and it is already a rare achievement to be able to do one's part of the job well.

After all, there are only a few artists in the world who can truly master both Chinese and Western cultures. Even those experts and scholars in universities who study foreign cultures may only scratch the surface. There are not many who can truly understand foreign cultures and grasp their essence.

No matter how advanced Hollywood's film technology is, won't the films it produces about Chinese culture still make Chinese people feel out of place and uncomfortable?

Marvel's "Shang-Chi" is a typical example. Disney's "Mulan" and many Sino-US co-productions also have the same problem.

The costume fantasy blockbuster "The Great Wall" directed by Zhang Guoshi in later generations had a behind-the-scenes team composed of Hollywood personnel with considerable fame. As a result, the film looked neither Chinese nor Western in terms of costumes, makeup, props, and other aspects.

As a result, the film was neither recognized by domestic audiences nor gained much box office overseas. It can be said that it pleased neither side and ruined Master Zhang's reputation. After that, Master Zhang completely gave up the idea of ​​going overseas and focused on developing in his own circle.

In comparison, Wang Hao actually has far more experience in Sino-US co-productions than great directors like Zhang Guoshi. At least he has several co-productions that have achieved good results both at home and abroad.

(End of this chapter)