Again, although the status of the four major international film festivals is there and their artistic value is recognized, it does not mean that when selecting 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, where the most promising filmmakers are promoted, and where the most popular movie stars are willing to come to promote their films.
Its positioning itself determines that it is not so pure.
As a director, Huang Tianlin has only made one film, and this film had previously participated in the Toronto Film Festival. It is still very difficult for him to enter the main competition unit directly with his second work.
It all depends on what artistic director Wintour Robbe thinks of the film.
Lu Yanhe did not expect that Wintour Robe would send him an email asking for his opinion of director Huang Tianlin.
Lu Yanhe was surprised.
Is this...compliant?
Lu Yanhe’s first reaction was that he was a actor in the movie “Tropical Rainy Season”, and this was not a good idea.
But when he looked at the content of the email again, he found that there was no mention of the main competition and the West Turtle Film Festival. If Lu Yanhe hadn't known that the movie "Tropical Rainy Season" was vying for the qualification to be shortlisted for the main competition unit of the West Turtle Film Festival, it would have seemed that the artistic director of a major film festival was just concerned about the situation of a new director.
Lu Yanhe thought about it and decided that since the other party didn't mention it, he wouldn't mention it either. He would just talk about the feelings Huang Tianlin gave him during the filming of "Tropical Rainy Season".
He replied to the email: He is a film director with very personal style and talent. The filming of "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 brought out a side of me that has never appeared in other movies.
Wintour Robe quickly replied to his email: Thank you for your reply, Lu. Also, if I invite you to serve as a judge in the main competition unit of the West Tuer International Film Festival next year, would you have time?
Lu Yanhe was stunned.
Serve as a judge?
Lu Yanhe wondered, if he were to serve as a judge, would the movie "Tropical Rain Season" not be shortlisted for the main competition unit?
Is Wintour Robey hinting at something?
Perhaps he is still reluctant to easily allow a new director to enter the main competition unit of the West Tur Film Festival?
Lu Yanhe replied: Thank you, Mr. Robbe, thank you very much for your invitation. I am very willing to accept this invitation, but I am sorry that I have four dramas to shoot next year and it may be difficult to find time.
Wintour Robbe: You are really hardworking and you have been very productive in recent years.
Lu Yanhe: I came across a lot of good scripts and I didn’t want to miss them, so I had to take them all.
Wintour Robey: I hope you can come to Xitul with more works.
Lu Yanhe: Okay, I definitely will.
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The Xitul is held in February, and the shortlisted films for the main competition unit are usually confirmed by the end of January at the latest.
Now is the time when film selection is in full swing.
Not only "Tropical Rainy Season", but also "Raise the Red Lantern" directed by Wang Zhong, written by Lu Yanhe and starring Chen Bige is also in urgent post-production to see if it can make it to the Xitul Film Festival.
The reason why he wanted to catch up with Xitul was, on the one hand, because the style of this film was suitable for Xitul, and on the other hand, because Wang Zhong had won the Best Director award in Xitul before, and could be said to be a direct descendant of Xitul. If his film was taken to Xitul, his hope of winning would be greater.
Lu Yanhe has not watched "Raise the Red Lantern" yet, and he doesn't know what the movie will be like.
After all, Guo Shi’s films are the kind that seem very easy to learn at first glance. It seems that as long as you have some basic skills, you can copy and paste them. After all, his films are not the kind of films whose technical difficulty can be seen with the naked eye.
However, if his films were really that simple, and if they really only relied on big scenes and pictures to win, he would not have been able to stand firm in the position of national master for so long.
In the end, all art films must be a competition of inner strength.
Lu Yanhe had no doubt that Wang Zhong could make this film critically pleasing. He was just curious about how much "ghostly" Wang Zhong would give to the film.
Wang Zhong’s films have a “ghostly” air, but it’s not the kind of ghost that comes from a genius.
The movie "Raise the Red Lantern" is a movie that seems to be about people, but in fact, the women in the yard live like ghosts.
Lu Yanhe always feels that the "Raise the Red Lantern" he sees in this world will have less realism than the original version and more "Devil May Cry".
Just like "Three Mountains".
It was only after Lu Yanhe became a creator that he truly felt one thing—
Creating something like this is too personal.
Unless you can completely adjust your mindset and create from a commercial perspective (there is often a gap between what you think and the actual situation), otherwise, any creation cannot escape the aesthetic preferences of the creator himself.
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, and everyone has a different understanding of the same script. Lu Yanhe now only tries to preserve the most successful parts of the original work.
For "2 Broke Girls", it is such a setting of character relationships, and the biggest feature of this sitcom is the comedic effect created by the collision of completely different values between the two heroines and the people around them - but the underlying tone is that no matter how different they are, they are all real and warm people, and no matter how sharp-tongued and mean they are, they always accept everyone.
For "Raise the Red Lantern", the two words are "cannibalism" and "alienation". These are the two biggest themes of this film, and the images of lighting lamps and knocking feet are also retained.
This is something that really takes time and experience to truly figure out and accept.
Otherwise, there will always be differences compared to the previous work.
Lu Yanhe understood more and more why the more powerful people are, the more they look at others, rather than looking at this and that.
Just like many entrepreneurs who eventually succeed, some investment tycoons, they invested once, failed, and invested again, and failed again, and kept investing until the fourth and fifth time, when they succeeded and their investment increased countless times.
This is especially true in the creative field.
Anyone who can make a good movie, as long as he doesn't do it blindly, must have the basic skills. Even if Director Chen's later movies are still criticized, it is different from criticizing those bad movies that are just for money. In essence, people still recognize Director Chen's film aesthetics, but they don't recognize some of the values he put into the movies.
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Lu Yanhe was thinking, if "Oh, My Sea" was well made, could it also be sent to a film festival?
Of course, I don’t dare to think about the main competition unit.
He was thinking about other units, non-competitive units would also be fine.
He had this idea because of his dealings with Wu Chi this time and some of the materials he saw, which 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 the traditional, well-known art film directors at film festivals. In fact, many of their works are very commercial, but they have their own unique style and are author-type directors. Therefore, they are also favored by film festivals.
The so-called unique school.
Lu Yanhe felt that Wu Chi gave him this feeling.
Of course, we really don’t know whether it can become a success, we can only wait and see.
But at least start going to film festivals to build up your fame and qualifications.
Lu Yanhe sent a message to Chen Yin and told him about this matter.
Chen Yin replied: Got it, I understand. In fact, I have also recently taken a fancy to an art film and want to buy it.
Lu Yanhe was a little surprised and asked: What do you mean by buying it?
Chen Yin said: After buying the film copyright to the company, the film will belong to the company in the future, and the company will be responsible for subsequent operations. This film is directed by a very young director named Zeng Bo, and the film is called "Picnic on the Balcony". The actors are not professional actors, but this film is very special. There is a real poetry belonging to the grassroots people, the kind of people who are particularly oppressed by life, still try to find their own spiritual pure land. The fragility of such people, the fragility of poverty and dignity, is particularly sharp and makes people feel sad.
Lu Yanhe: Can I find some time to come to the company and watch this movie?
Chen Yin: Okay.
Lu Yanhe believed in Chen Yin's vision. He had asked Chen Yin to manage the company's film and television production-related business because he understood it and had a good sense of aesthetics. This was a very scarce resource for a senior executive of a production company.
Xu Tianming is the kind of person who understands business and management very well, but not so much about content and aesthetics, so he is responsible for everything related to the product.
Lu Yanhe found Chen Ziyan to watch "Picnic on the Balcony" together.
Chen Ziyan was quite happy to hear that Chen Yin wanted to buy movies from outside.
"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 the works I have started shooting, there are actually many low-budget films in the circle - there are really too many people in the circle who want to realize their dream of becoming a director and spend all their money to make movies. Among these movies, there are many that are eye-catching. We can watch more, and if it is good, we can buy it. The price is actually not expensive. For those that have shining points, but are not satisfactory overall, but can be remedied after evaluation, maybe we can also buy it and invest some money to let the director reshoot some according to the modification suggestions and re-edit the movie."
Lu Yanhe was a little surprised when he heard this.
"Because the most important point is, hasn't Linghe established connections with overseas film distributors through Love Letter? Moreover, we have good relations with all the big and small film festivals around the world. Although we don't have distribution channels, we can act as copyright agents, or directly purchase copyrights and become the copyright holder to operate. Otherwise, if we always rely on ourselves to shoot, how many films can we shoot in a year?"
Chen Ziyan's words made Lu Yanhe think deeply.
"You have always wanted to promote Chinese-language films to the world. What could be more effective than this method to promote Chinese-language films to the world?" Chen Ziyan said, "There are really too many small-budget films in China. 99% of them have no chance to be released in theaters, or even to meet the audience."
Lu Yanhe nodded: "I understand. I will tell Chen Yin and the others about this idea and let them study it. I am just worried that we don't have that much money. We almost couldn't make ends meet in the first half of the year."
"First, the box office of Love Letter was a hit, and we made a lot of cash quickly. The filming of Chinese Paladin will be finished this year, and we will basically get paid back next year, not to mention that the second season of My Own Swordsman will be aired during the Spring Festival, which will also bring back a lot of money. In the short term, you have to consider that if you don't spend such a large amount of cash on the company's books, the money will continue to depreciate." Chen Ziyan said, "Second, as I said, we are taking the route of small and beautiful. We won't buy anything with a high price. We are not a company that has to buy everything. We just have the spare capacity and the idea, so we can slowly pick some."
Lu Yanhe: "Yes, I understand."
"Home Alone, with a production budget of millions, is expected to have a box office target of over 100 million. If it weren't for the fact that you wrote the script and you said that the box office of this movie would definitely be good, I would definitely think it was a pipe dream."
"As for the film industry, I always feel that it is not necessarily the case that the bigger the investment, the higher the box office." Lu Yanhe said, "If a movie has a large investment, it is big in technological innovation, and it is big in using money to create visual effects that cannot be seen in other movies. Then this law may come true. But if the movie has a large investment, it is big in the director's fame, and the cast is luxurious, to be honest, I think the probability of a bloodbath is greater. Not many audiences will really go to the movies for a few people. It must be the fame of a few creators that makes the movie known to everyone, and the movie itself has a good subject, or something related to the movie that the audience likes. The two together can attract audiences 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 could have asked for an eight-digit royalty for the script, and the production cost would have exceeded eight figures," Lu Yanhe said. "It's just that there's no need. I didn't save money on any production. The theme, subject matter, and story clearly stated that it only cost this much money. And I thought of this theme, subject matter, and story, but others didn't, but the market liked it. So is there any problem with it being a big hit at the box office? Who would specifically check the cost of a movie before watching it, and decide to watch it only if they see the cost is high, and not watch it if the cost is low?"
"What you said makes sense, but not everyone knows this truth and dares to do it." Chen Ziyan said, "There are only a handful of people in your position who still use such a simple concept to look at the investment and box office of movies. I'm afraid you have forgotten, so I emphasize again that for a large number of domestic film companies, movies do not rely on box office to make money. Of course, we don't need to learn from them, we just do our own thing. Although the workshop is small, it completely belongs to us."
"Yeah." Lu Yanhe nodded, "I think so too."
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Recommended new book "The Demon-catching Sword" (End of this chapter)
