Chapter 339 Meeting an old friend in a foreign country After

signing a film purchase plan with CCTV, Peace Hotel finally has a broadcast platform.

In addition to the price of 1.1 million per episode, CCTV also agreed to "simultaneous broadcast on TV and the Internet" with Tencent Video, which shows that their reform efforts this time are indeed very strong.

For Arclight, this is naturally a good thing. The only pity is that the application time for the Feitian Award next year has ended, and Peace Hotel has no chance.

However, there is still plenty of time for the Magnolia and Golden Eagle Awards. Although CCTV dramas do not have obvious advantages in these two awards, they are at least eligible to apply.

For Arclight Film and Television today, even if it is just a nomination, it is a breakthrough in official awards.

Meng Bai was relieved to solve the broadcast problem of Peace Hotel, but this matter is not over yet.

CCTV is indeed a behemoth, but it is obviously not enough to rely on one platform. If Arclight Film and Television really wants to enter the field of TV dramas, it will sooner or later have to contact other satellite TV stations.

In other words, if these black industrial chains derived from ratings are not solved, they will be slaughtered sooner or later.

Meng Bai did not intend to be an "industry law enforcer". It was just that it involved the company's strategic planning and interests. Secondly, as a film and television practitioner, he really couldn't stand these demons and monsters attached to the shadows.

After all, he was still half a young man, and compared to those "mature bosses", he was always more passionate.

However, Meng Bai was also very clear that this kind of thing that pierced the inside story of the industry would be difficult to accomplish if it was not resolved by the official.

If you want the official to come to an end, you have to make a big fuss, and you can't be considered to be deliberately creating instability.

And this requires a suitable opportunity.

Meng Bai was not in a hurry. He had a long time to wait slowly.

...

After "Peace Hotel" was confirmed to be broadcast, all the projects announced by Arclight Film and Television at the beginning of the year were completed.

"Psychological Crime 2", "White Night Chase" and "Chef Fang in the Flower Room" were broadcast one after another and were a great success.

In particular, "White Night Chase" was directly named "the first online drama of 2017" by netizens and audiences.

Then, the three movies "Soul Ferry: Huangquan", "Psychological Crime: City of Light" and "The Wandering Earth", which took three years to complete, have all been filmed, and are currently busy with post-production.

In addition, the movie "Detective Chinatown 2" and the online drama "Detective Chinatown" have also started filming.

There are still two months before the Chinese New Year, and Meng Bai does not plan to start any new projects at this time. Instead, he turned to study the "Zijin Chen Trilogy" that he is going to cooperate with Qiyi TV.

It is called the "Zijin Chen Trilogy", but in fact, it should be more accurately called the "Yan Liang Trilogy".

After all, apart from the fact that there is a "Yan Liang" in all three books, there is no background or time connection.

But I don't know if it is the reputation of the "Green Ivy Series" that caused Gong Yu to have some strange stereotypes about Arc Light. When discussing how to adapt these three novels, Qiyi TV hopes that Arc Light can integrate the story backgrounds of the three books together.

In other words, they also want to create a "Yan Liang Universe".

Many viewers always have doubts about the film and television adaptations of novels. The most common one is why directors and screenwriters often do not shoot according to the original plot, and always like to play their own roles.

There are many reasons for this problem, such as some bugs in the original plot, different expressiveness of text and film and television pictures, and the difficulty of supporting text imagination in the budget.

Of course, there are also some adaptations that are simply because the director or screenwriter does not like the original novel, but wants to eat the traffic of the IP. So they announced the original adaptation to the outside world, and added a bunch of self-designed plots when filming.

Don't think that you can rest assured if there is an original author in the screenwriter. Many times, it is just that the producer asks the other party to put his name on it for the sake of public opinion. In fact, he has no say at all during the actual filming.

In contrast, Meng Bai, who is also a content creator, did not directly follow the suggestions of Qiyi TV to make changes, but first talked with the original author Zijin Chen.

Of course, he also made it very clear to the other party. Since it is a film and television adaptation, there must be many places that need to be changed.

Especially Zijin Chen is famous for his excellent stories and strange writing style.

For example, the famous "Zijin Chen-style metaphor" -

[She paused for a moment, and after a few seconds, tears rolled out like Lanzhou ramen. ]

[The security guard stretched out his big hand and blocked him like an Indian flying cake. ]

It is hard to imagine what kind of physiological state Zijin Chen was in when he was writing.

But then again, in the field of novels, his metaphor is really not the most peculiar.

In "The Catcher in the Rye", a must-have for literary youth, Salinger called the weather in December "as cold as a witch's head";

Keigo Higashino described the appearance of a woman in "Dawn Street". The first half of the sentence was normal "the oval face was small and delicate, and the bridge of the nose was as straight as if drawn with a ruler", and the second half of the sentence immediately changed the style of the painting "such a face with glasses, I can't help but think of Ultraman".

It can only be said that Keigo Higashino is indeed a veteran Ultraman die-hard fan.

Back to the present, Zijin Chen has no objection to the adaptation of Arclight and Qiyi TV, and also mentioned some plans that he thought of when he was writing.

After discussing with the two of them and the screenwriter team of Arclight, they decided to make "Bad Kids" the first project.

The reason is simple. The core protagonists of this story are three children, which can just be the beginning of the character of "Yan Liang".

However, before Meng Bai started, he was interrupted by an invitation from Qiyi TV.

Netflix held a global operator cooperation conference in Iceland in December. Qiyi TV, as a domestic partner, was naturally on the list of participants.

It happened that the "Yan Liang Trilogy" is the platform's main project in the suspense drama next year, and it also wants to cooperate with Netflix, so it also invited Meng Bai to be the main creator of this project.

He didn't plan to go at first, but then the vice president of Netflix contacted him specifically through Qiyi TV, and also kindly invited him to visit the California headquarters after the meeting.

Relatively speaking, Meng Bai was more interested in the latter, so he accepted the invitation.

So in December, a season as cold as a witch's head, Meng Bai took Liu Jun and several other executives of Arclight and followed the people from Qiyi TV on a flight to Iceland.

...

Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland.

Although Iceland's latitude is similar to that of Siberia, the actual temperature is not as cold as imagined.

Reykjavik means "smoking bay" in Icelandic. Because it is rich in geothermal energy and hot springs, the sky above the city is often filled with water mist, which looks very similar to smoke.

It is located in the southwest of Iceland, so it can also enjoy the benefits of the Atlantic warm current. Even though it is already late winter in December, the average temperature is still above zero degrees.

Of course, this refers to the daytime, and it will be another scene at night. It just so happens that the nights in high latitudes are particularly long.

Netflix's operations conference lasted a total of four or five days, but except for the opening ceremony on the first day, which was attended by all employees, the remaining two days were divided into different regions according to their respective markets.

The Chinese market naturally belongs to the East Asian region. Although there are only three countries, China, Japan and South Korea, it is the largest audience region besides North America and Europe.

Meng Bai followed and listened to a lot of issues discussed, such as launching film and television projects with unique styles for the domestic market, strengthening cooperation between different national markets in the region, and operating and distributing global streaming channels.

But how to say it, it has little to do with the production company Arclight Films.

So Meng Bai only stayed for one day, leaving Liu Jun and the others at the conference center to make friends with some distributors in the surrounding markets, and went out alone to visit the world's northernmost capital.

The hotel Netflix booked for them was in the city center, not far from the central street of Reykjavik.

Meng Bai did not bring anyone else, and walked alone on the street full of exotic Nordic scenery. Fortunately, although Iceland has its own native Icelandic language, English can also be used, so there are not many communication problems.

What's more, never underestimate the breadth of Chinese people's distribution around the world.

"Welcome."

Meng Bai pushed open a convenience store with "chaoshi" written on the street, and heard a familiar greeting as soon as he entered the door.

Looking at the cashier, it was a young man in his twenties, with black hair and black eyes, exuding a sense of familiarity.

"Chinese?" Meng Bai asked casually.

The young man nodded and smiled, and said enthusiastically: "Of course not."

After chatting for a while, I learned that this buddy's surname is Sun and his hometown is in Northeast China. When traveling in Europe, he met an Icelandic girl, who is now his wife, and this store is also opened by them together.

"There are quite a few Chinese in Iceland." There was no one in the store at the moment, so Xiao Sun started chatting with his fellow villager Meng Bai: "There are only 110,000 people in Reykjavik, and there are three or four thousand Chinese."

"That's not as many as the Icelanders in China." Meng Bai said: "There are no less than 30 Icelanders in my circle of friends alone."

Xiao Sun was stunned for a moment when he heard Meng Bai's complaints, and then he laughed heartily, obviously getting his joke.

It is said that WeChat data has previously shown that Iceland has a total population of more than 300,000, of which 10 million live in China.

"Brother Meng, are you here to travel?" Xiao Sun said in a familiar tone.

Meng Bai thought for a while and said: "It can be considered work."

"Wow, you come to work abroad, you are a large foreign company." Xiao Sun exclaimed.

It seems that there is nothing wrong with this, Netflix is ​​indeed a foreign company.

"What industry?"

"Film and television media, just shooting things or something." Meng Bai said vaguely.

Unexpectedly, Xiao Sun suddenly said, "Oh, I understand. Brother Meng, you should be a crew here to shoot a movie."

Meng Bai asked curiously, "Why?"

"Filming. There are many crews from China that come to Iceland to shoot. We can see them almost every month."

Xiao Sun stretched out his hand and pointed to the door: "Just yesterday at Hallgrimskirkja Church, I saw a crew filming."

Meng Bai raised his eyebrows and asked curiously, "What crew?"

"I don't know. They didn't write it. I just saw a bunch of people shooting with cameras." Xiao Sun shook his head and said, "I have been in Iceland for several years, and I don't know many of the stars in China in recent years."

After chatting for a few more words, Meng Bai bought some things and left.

After thinking about it, he followed the direction pointed by Xiao Sun and walked towards the cathedral.

It's rare to meet colleagues in a foreign country. Whether you know them or not, go and see them to satisfy your curiosity.

Hallgrimskirkja Church is located in the center of Reykjavik and is named after the famous Icelandic writer Hallgrimskirkja.

There was a large square in front of the church. Meng Bai didn't walk far before he saw the church with a spire shaped like a missile.

Walking along the square, he saw a group of people gathered in a scattered manner from a distance. There were also cameras, rails, radios and other filming equipment around them.

However, it seemed that they were on break and no filming was seen.

Meng Bai wandered over and pulled a staff member who looked like a stagehand at the edge and asked, "Brother, are you from China too?"

"Of course." The stagehand guy probably felt that it was rare to see fellow countrymen abroad, so his attitude was quite enthusiastic.

"Are you filming a movie?" Meng Bai looked at the scene. "Which company are you from?"

The stagehand looked at him puzzledly: "Why are you asking this?"

"It's not difficult to see colleagues abroad, so just chat casually." Meng Bai said, "I'm in the crew too."

"Then it's really fate. Which company are you from?"

"Arc Light."

"Arc Light? Arc Light Films?" When the stagehand saw Meng Bai nod, his expression immediately showed a bit of envy and respect: "Fuck, brother, you guys are the real bosses!"

After sighing, he immediately introduced without hesitation: "The producer of our crew is Bu Er Culture."

Meng Bai thought for a while and asked, "Is it the company that Wu Xiu Bo is from?"

"Yes, he is the male lead of this show." The stagehand pointed inside the crew, "No, that's it."

Meng Bai looked in the direction he pointed, and it was indeed Wu Xiu Bo.

This guy is one of the most popular male actors of the Mesozoic era in recent years. Especially last year, the hit drama "The Advisors Alliance" made him even more popular.

Like other Mesozoic actors, Wu Xiubo also participated in the behind-the-scenes operation early on. The Bu Er Culture mentioned just now is his company.

Meng Bai didn't expect that he would run into a popular actor just by strolling around.

However, he didn't have much friendship with Wu Xiubo, so he didn't plan to go over. After watching for a while, he planned to leave.

"Meng, Teacher Meng?"

Before Meng Bai could move, a familiar female voice suddenly came from behind him.

Meng Bai turned around and saw a woman in a light gray cashmere coat standing not far away, looking at him with suspicion and surprise.

"Sister Ou?" Meng Bai looked at Wang Ou standing behind him and asked in surprise, "Why are you here?"

But as soon as he asked, he immediately realized that the other party was obviously here to film.

Sure enough, Wang Ou pointed to the crew behind her and said, "My new play is being filmed here."

After that, she walked in front of Meng Bai and smiled brightly, "I never thought that I would be able to meet Teacher Meng on the other side of the earth thousands of kilometers away."

Meng Bai spread his hands and said with the same smile: "Perhaps, this is called fate."

(End of this chapter)