Chapter 284 Escorts Around the World
After recording the 6 to 3 round of "Yahoo Star Search", Xu Kun, following Feng Xiaogang's instructions, took advantage of his free time to give some suggestions for the second season of "Seeing Words as Faces".
The first season focused on revolutionary heroes and famous people. It would be repetitive to do the same in the second season. It would be better to start with the little people from all walks of life, those who find joy in hardship and are tenacious, those who face the farewell of life and death...
If other people from the original program team come and make comments, CCTV may not admit it and may even develop resistance.
But Xu Kun's status is different after all. Even Tang Hao, the director of CCTV variety shows, is inferior to him. Therefore, they attach great importance to Xu Kun's opinions.
He was even invited to CCTV to hold a small symposium with the planners of the second season.
When it comes to ideas for program planning, Xu Kun can never catch up with the people at CCTV. Fortunately, he can work backwards from the results, and the examples he cited are all classics of Duxin variety shows.
In the end, everyone who heard it was impressed and thought that no wonder Xu Kun could become the fifth highest-grossing director and the most powerful post-80s in the entertainment industry. Apart from the "fan economy" that was hotly discussed online, he really has some good stuff in his head!
After the symposium, director Tang Hao called the producer, the chief planner, and the newly hired host Nigomaiti, and insisted on taking Xu Kun out to a restaurant.
After three rounds of wine and five dishes, Xu Kun brought up the matter of TV and movies.
Tang Hao agreed without thinking.
Although the Film Channel is directly under the Central Propaganda Department, and is under the same brand as CCTV but with two different teams and not subordinate to each other, they are under the same brand after all, so they can always be related in roundabout ways.
If an ordinary young director wanted to ask Tang Hao for help, Tang Hao would most likely not agree and would at most just say a few perfunctory words.
But as I said, Xu Kun’s identity is different after all.
If you introduce someone else to take this job, it would be like asking the movie channel with a shameless face, and the movie channel may not be willing to give you this face.
But if you introduce "The Only One in Thirty Years" to the program team, the situation will be completely reversed.
The movie channel couldn’t say that it was flattered, but it certainly didn’t dare to take advantage of the situation. It might even have to thank Tang Hao for helping to make the connection.
The result was similar to what Tang Hao expected.
The leader in charge of the digital film series heard that Xu Kun was interested in this project, so he came to him the next day with Tang Hao and the script.
The reason for this urgency is mainly because the digital film series is now somewhat off the established track.
When the project was originally launched, the idea was to support young directors through this model.
Therefore, the first film in the "Lu Xiaofeng Series" was directed by Hong Kong director Deng Yancheng, who had filmed "The World's Number One", and several young people were selected to serve as executive directors.
The original idea was that after shooting two or three series of ten or so digital films, the young directors would have gained experience and could be promoted to take on subsequent shooting tasks.
The idea is good, but it is difficult to implement.
Several young assistant directors selected from mainland professional schools were obviously not adapted to the rhythm of the Hong Kong crew, and they couldn't help but make comments on the script.
Either they complained that it wasn't dark enough, or they thought the scenes weren't big enough. When it came time to direct the filming, they were overambitious and ended up with a complete mess.
Of course, the xenophobia and deliberate sabotage of Hong Kong people are also important reasons why these assistant directors failed to succeed.
Now the digital film series has almost become the private domain of Hong Kong filmmakers. From directors to main actors, they are either from Hong Kong or Taiwan.
Of course, there are opinions on this situation within the movie channel, but unfortunately, the great unity between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong and Macau is the mainstream.
Moreover, the finished products of the "Lu Xiaofeng Series" are quite good. We can't just kick Deng Yancheng out just because the assistant directors were not trained well, right?
Besides, even if there was a reason, there was no suitable person to replace him at the moment. Therefore, the leader in charge of this project could only continue to employ Deng Yancheng's team while being criticized internally, and at the same time try to select a new assistant director.
At this time, Xu Kun suddenly expressed his ideas about this project, which was like timely rain for the project leader.
Given Xu Kun's status and age, it is absolutely perfect for him to take over this series, and even Deng Yancheng could not find any fault with it.
Although you, Deng Yancheng, are somewhat famous and a veteran in the industry, how can you compare with a TV drama director and a movie director with a box office of over 100 million?
However, considering the great unity between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong, the project team could not kick Deng Yancheng out directly, so they planned to start two series at the same time, directed by Xu Kun and Deng Yancheng respectively.
One of them is the "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" series, which is similar to the previous "Lu Xiaofeng series" and is also a costume martial arts suspense drama.
It consists of 9 digital films, and the difficulty of shooting is between that of a movie and a TV series. The workload is roughly equivalent to a TV series with more than 30 episodes and a relatively compact plot.
The other drama is from the "Fire Men" series with firefighters as the protagonists. The script has been written to the third part so far, and the rest needs to be written while filming.
Xu Kun took a quick look and found that the scripts of both series were good. Based on the current market feedback, he prefers "The Blazing Man".
But the risk of writing while shooting is too great. Although the digital film series does not need to worry about subsequent promotion and marketing, if the script is not written in time and delays the release of "Assembly" at the end of the year, wouldn't it be like picking up sesame seeds and losing watermelons?
Moreover, "Heroes of Heavenly Sword" can barely be considered a costume suspense drama, and he has some experience with this type of subject matter.
So Xu Kun finally chose the Biu Xing Tian Xia series and declined the proposal to direct and act in the series himself.
When filming "Lost on Journey", he worked backwards from the original version, at most making some minor changes from the actor's perspective, but he just skimmed through many parts without understanding them thoroughly, so that's why he ended up filming that "useless handsome guy".
This time he plans to stand completely from the director's perspective, hone his directing skills, and strive to become a true "fifth man".
When the project leader heard that Xu Kun was not going to play the leading actor, he felt a little regretful at first, and then began to encourage Xu Kun to hold an open audition.
With Xu Kun's current reputation, even if he shoots a digital movie that cannot be shown in theaters, it will definitely cause a sensation - as a leader, who doesn't want the project he leads to gain more attention?
Xu Kun actually prefers to take care of 'his own people'.
But I had already rejected the proposal to direct and act in the show myself, so it would be a bit unreasonable to reject the leader's proposal again.
In order to give the cooperation between the two parties a good start, Xu Kun finally agreed to let the movie channel release the news of auditioning for male and female protagonists in advance, and start public auditions after "Yahoo Star Search" is over.
As for the filming crew, let Lao Chen first bring back some of the old crew from "Lost on Journey", and then ask Liu Haibo to take care of the rest.
I will try to start filming in early June and wrap it up before mid-October, and then I will set aside a month to carefully study how to play the role of Guzidi well.
After seeing off the project leader of the film channel, Xu Kun turned around and called Feng Xiaogang to inform him of the progress schedule on his side.
This digital TV film series was originally suggested to him by Feng Xiaogang. As long as it did not affect the filming of "Assembly", Feng Xiaogang naturally would not have any objection.
Instead, I made an appointment with him to meet Chen Shu, the heroine of "Assembly" together when we go to film the "Yahoo Star Search" finals in a few days.
"Also, there's a little problem with Chen Kun. Rong Xinda is holding on to the contract and won't let him go, and Chen Kun is indecisive and doesn't want to make a big deal out of it. Wang Jincun probably won't be able to act anymore. What do you think of replacing him with Deng Chao?"
"Deng Chao?"
Xu Kun thought for a moment and said, "I think Huang Xiaoming is more suitable to play Wang Jincun than Deng Chao."
"Are you saying that Deng Chao should play Zhao Erdou?"
Feng Xiaogang thought for a moment and said, "Why don't you invite Deng Chao to dinner with Chen Shu? I'll weigh the matter in person."
(End of this chapter)
