Linghe's Positioning

As I said before, although the status of the four major international film festivals is there, and the artistic value is also recognized, it does not mean that in the selection of films, they only look at the film itself.

What is a film festival? A film festival is where the top film masters are willing to bring their new works, the most promising filmmakers are promoted, and the most popular movie stars are willing to come here to promote their films.

It is determined by its own positioning that it is not so pure.

As a director, Huang Tianlin has only made one film and this film has participated in the Toronto Film Festival before. It is still very difficult for him to enter the main competition unit directly with his second work.

It depends on how the artistic director Wintour Robe thinks of this film.

Lu Yanhe did not expect that Wintour Robe would send him an email asking him what he thought of the director Huang Tianlin.

Lu Yanhe was surprised.

Is this... legal?

Lu Yanhe's first reaction was that he was a participant in the film "Tropical Rainy Season", which was not good.

But looking at the content of the email again, there was no mention of the main competition and the West Tull Film Festival. If Lu Yanhe hadn't known that the movie "Tropical Rain Season" was striving for the qualification of the main competition unit of the West Tull Film Festival, it would seem that the artistic director of a major film festival was concerned about the situation of a new director.

Lu Yanhe thought about it. If the other party didn't mention it, he wouldn't mention it either. He would just talk about the feelings Huang Tianlin brought him during the filming of "Tropical Rain Season".

He replied to the email: He is a film director with a very personal style and talent. The filming of the movie "Tropical Rain Season", including some of the materials I have seen so far, I think this movie will become a very eye-catching work in my acting career. Although I don't have many roles in this movie, he also filmed me in this movie. The side of me that has never appeared in other movies has never appeared.

Wintour Robe quickly replied to his email: Thank you for your reply, Lu. In addition, if I invite you to be a judge of the main competition unit of the West Tull International Film Festival next year, do you have time?

Lu Yanhe was stunned.

Be a judge?

Lu Yanhe thought, if he was a judge, would the film "Tropical Rain Season" not be shortlisted for the main competition unit?

What was Wintour Robey hinting at?

Perhaps he was still reluctant to easily let a new director enter the main competition unit of the Citour Film Festival?

Lu Yanhe replied: Thank you, Mr. Robey, thank you very much for your invitation, and I am also very willing to accept this invitation, but I am sorry, I have four films to shoot next year, and it may be difficult to find time.

Wintour Robey: You are really too hardworking, and your output has been very high in recent years.

Lu Yanhe: I have encountered many good scripts, and I don’t want to miss them, so I can only take them all.

Wintour Robey: I hope you can bring more works to Citour.

Lu Yanhe: Okay, I will.

-

Citour is held in February, and the shortlisted films for the main competition unit are generally confirmed at the end of January at the latest.

Now is the time when the film selection is in full swing.

Not only "Tropical Rainy Season", "Raise the Red Lantern" directed by Wang Zhong, written by Lu Yanhe, and starring Chen Bige is also rushing to post-production, hoping to see if it can catch up with the Xitul Film Festival.

The reason for wanting to catch up with Xitul is, on the one hand, because the style of this film is suitable for Xitul, and on the other hand, because Wang Zhong has won the best director award in Xitul before, and can be said to be a direct descendant of Xitul, and his film has a greater chance of winning if it is taken to Xitul.

Lu Yanhe has not watched "Raise the Red Lantern" so far, and he doesn't know what this movie will look like.

After all, the national master's movies are the kind of movies that seem easy to learn at first glance. It seems that as long as there is a little foundation, it can be made by copying. After all, his movies are not the kind of movies that can be seen with the naked eye. Technical difficulty.

However, if his movies are really that simple, and really rely on big scenes and pictures to win, he would not be able to stand in the position of the national master for so long.

All art films must be compared with internal strength in the end.

Lu Yanhe did not doubt that Wang Zhong could make this film critical, he was just curious about how much "ghost" Wang Zhong would give to this film.

Wang Zhong's film has "ghost", but it is not the ghost of a genius.

And the movie "Raise the Red Lantern" is precisely a movie that looks like a human, but in fact, the women in the yard live like a ghost.

Lu Yanhe always feels that the "Raise the Red Lantern" he sees in this world will have less realism of the original version and more "ghost crying".

Just like "Three Mountains".

Lu Yanhe really felt one thing from the bottom of his heart after he became a creator himself -

Creation is too personal.

Unless you can really completely settle your mentality and create from the perspective of commercial creation (there is often a gap between what you think and the actual situation), otherwise, any creation cannot get rid of the creator's own aesthetic preferences.

You can't pretend.

If Lu Yanhe's previous attitude towards copying successful works was to copy them as close to the original as possible, now Lu Yanhe has accepted that it is impossible to copy them exactly. For the same script, everyone has a different understanding.

Lu Yanhe now only tries to preserve the most successful parts of the original work.

For "Bankrupt Sisters", it is such a setting of character relationships, and the biggest feature of this sitcom is the comedic effect of the collision of completely different values ​​between the two heroines and the people around them - but, The bottom line is that no matter how different they are, they are all real people and warm people. No matter how venomous and mean they are, they always accept everyone.

For "Raise the Red Lantern", the two words "cannibalism" and "alienation" are the two biggest themes of the film text, and the two images of lighting lamps and tapping feet are also retained.

This is something that really takes time and experience to truly figure out and accept.

Otherwise, when compared with the previous one, there will always be differences and differences.

Lu Yanhe understood more and more why people who are more awesome look at people more than they look at this and that.

Just like many entrepreneurs who were successful in the end, some big investors invested once, failed, invested again, failed again, and continued to invest until the fourth or fifth time. They became successful and their investment doubled.

This is especially true in the creative field.

Anyone who can make good movies, as long as he doesn't act blindly, must have the basic skills here. Even if director Chen Da's subsequent films are still criticized, they are different from those criticizing bad movies that make money. In essence, everyone still recognizes director Chen Da's film aesthetics, but what they don't approve of is his past films. Some of the values ​​embedded in the movie.

-

What Lu Yanhe was thinking was, if "The Sea, Oh My Bah" does well, can he also send it to film festivals?

Of course, the main competition unit didn’t dare to think about it.

He was thinking of other units, even non-competition units.

He had this idea because this time he was dealing with Wu Chi, and some of the materials he saw made him feel that Wu Chi was actually the same as the directors he knew, such as Quentin and Park Chan-wook. They were definitely not in the traditional sense. , are well-known directors of artistic films in film festivals, and even many of their works are actually very commercial, but they have their own unique style and are auteur directors, so they are also favored by film festivals.

The so-called self-contained faction.

Lu Yanhe felt that Wu Chi gave him such a feeling.

Of course, I really don’t know whether it will become a trend or not. I can only wait and see.

But at least start going to film festivals to build your reputation and qualifications.

Lu Yanhe sent a message to Chen Yin and talked about it.

Chen Yin replied: Got it, I understand. In fact, I also recently took a fancy to an art film and wanted to buy it.

Lu Yanhe was a little surprised and asked: What do you mean by buying it?

Chen Yin said: If you buy the film rights to the company, the film will belong to the company in the future, and the company will do the follow-up operations. This film was made by a very young director named Zeng Bo, and the film is called "Balcony Picnic" , none of the actors are professional actors, but this film The movie is very special. It has a real poetry that belongs to the people at the bottom. Those who have been suppressed by life are still trying to find a pure land of their own spirit. The fragility of this kind of people, the fragility of poverty and dignity, is particularly sharp. , which makes people feel sad.

Lu Yanhe: Can I find time to come to the company and watch this movie?

Chen Yin: OK.

Lu Yanhe believed in Chen Yin's vision. Chen Yin was originally asked to manage the company's film and television production-related business because he understood it and had an aesthetic sense. This is a very scarce resource for a production company executive.

And Xu Tianming is the kind of person who understands business and management very well, but doesn't know much about content and aesthetics. Therefore, his responsibilities are all related to products.

Lu Yanhe asked Chen Ziyan to watch "Balcony Picnic" together.

Chen Ziyan heard that Chen Yin wanted to buy movies from outside, and she was quite happy.

"This is good." Chen Ziyan said, "I have long felt that since Linghe's current production projects are basically small and beautiful, in addition to starting to shoot his own works, there are actually many small-cost films in the industry—— There are really too many people in the industry who want to realize their ideal of being a director and spend their money making movies. This Among these movies, there are many that are eye-catching. We can watch more and buy them if they are good. The prices are actually not expensive and there are some shining points. The overall situation is not satisfactory, but it can be remedied after evaluation. , maybe you can buy it, invest some money, and let the director shoot some more and re-edit the movie based on the revisions.”

Lu Yanhe was a little surprised when he heard this.

"Because the most important thing is, hasn't Linghe now established connections with overseas film producers through "Love Letter"? Moreover, we have good relationships with film festivals all over the world, although we have no distribution channels. , but we can be a copyright agent, or we can directly buy the copyright and become the copyright owner to operate it. Otherwise, how many movies can we make in a year?”

Chen Ziyan's words made Lu Yanhe thoughtful.

"You have always wanted to introduce Chinese-language films to the world. Is there any more effective way to promote Chinese-language films to the world?" Chen Ziyan said, "There are really too many small-cost films in China. It’s a small movie, and 99% of them don’t have the chance to go to theaters or even meet the audience.”

Lu Yanhe nodded: "I understand. I will tell Chen Yin and others about this idea and let them study it. Am I just worried that we have so much funds? We almost couldn't turn over money in the first half of the year."

"First, "Love Letter" was a box office hit, and I quickly earned a lot of cash. "Legend of Sword and Fairy" will be completed this year, and the money will basically be paid back next year, not to mention, "Wulin Gaiden" Season 2 Spring Festival Once the broadcast is launched, a large amount of money will be returned. In the short term, what you have to consider is such a large amount of cash on the company's books. "If you don't spend it, the money will continue to depreciate," Chen Ziyan said, "Secondly, I said, we are taking the small and beautiful route. If the price is high, we just don't buy it. We are not a non-profit." If you want to buy any company, as long as you have the spare energy and the idea, you can slowly select some.”

Lu Yanhe: "Yes, I understand."

""Home Alone" has a production budget of millions, but the estimated box office target is hundreds of millions. If it weren't for the fact that you wrote the script and you said that the box office of this movie will definitely be good, I would definitely think that this is a fool's errand. ”

"In the film industry, I have always felt that the greater the investment, the higher the box office." Lu Yanhe said, "If a film has a large investment, it is mainly about technological innovation and the use of money in the film. It has visual effects that cannot be seen in other movies, then this law may come true, but if the investment in this movie is large, it will depend on the director’s reputation and the actors’ reputation. With a luxurious lineup, to be honest, I think there is a greater chance of a bloodbath. Not many audiences will actually go to the movie for a few people. It must be the popularity of a few people as the creators to make the movie known to everyone, and the movie itself. A good theme, or something related to the movie that the audience likes, the two together can attract the audience to the cinema. "

"It's not that I don't want to make the production cost of "Home Alone" a little higher. In fact, I can ask for eight figures in royalties for this script, and then the production cost will exceed eight figures." Lu Yanhe said, "It's just not necessary. I didn't save money on any production, but it's the theme, the subject matter, the story. The thing is very clear, it only costs so much money, and this theme, this theme, this story, I thought of it, others did not think of it, but the market likes it, so it is a box office hit, what's the problem? Is there anyone who would check the cost of a movie before seeing it and decide to go see it if the cost is high, but not if the cost is low?”

"What you said makes sense, but not everyone knows this truth and really dares to do it." Chen Ziyan said, "In your position, you still use such a simple concept to look at movie investment and box office. , there are only a handful of them. I’m afraid you’ve forgotten, once again, for a large number of domestic film companies, they don’t make money from box office. Of course, we don’t need to learn from them, we just make our own, small workshops. Although it is small, it is completely ours.”

"Yeah." Lu Yanhe nodded, "I think so too."

-

Recommended new book "Monster Sword" (end of this chapter)