Chapter 217 Cancelling the Show
After successfully tricking Chen Xiaoer into becoming lame, Lin Weimin left the room. The rehearsal in the corridor had ended, so Lin Weimin knocked on Tao Huimin's room while no one was around.
When Tao Huimin opened the door and saw that it was him, she was so scared that she looked around and asked, "How can you be so brave?"
"I'll just say a few words to you and then I'll leave."
As the two were talking, Lin Weimin noticed the pair of dark eyes behind Tao Huimin.
"You guys chat, I didn't see anything."
After greeting Jiang Yao, Lin Weimin said, "It's convenient this time. Many of the skit actors invited to the party are also staying at the hotel. It will be legitimate for me to come and see you in the future."
Tao Huimin's expression was somewhat joyful.
After the two of them talked for a few words, Tao Huimin was afraid of being discovered by others, so she urged Lin Weimin to leave.
It's a new week again, and Lin Weimin came to the broadcasting compound where CCTV is located for a meeting.
Now the program types and contents of the Spring Festival Gala have been basically determined, and are being intensively created and rehearsed.
Lin Weimin is the screenwriter and consultant of the sketch program, and the director in charge is Deng Zaijun. In addition to sketches, she is also responsible for the crosstalk program.
Today's meeting is actually a small gathering of skits and crosstalk programs, hosted by the chief director Huang Yihe.
This was also the first time that Lin Weimin met all the main creators of skits and crosstalk programs.
There were dozens of people sitting in the conference room, many of them familiar faces.
Chen Xiaoer and Zhu Shimao are a great pair, and the nephew, Liang Guanhua and Song Dandan are also there. The most important thing is that the director team of the evening party has invited two heavyweights in the domestic performing arts industry.
——Yan Shunkai and Wang Jingyu.
When mentioning Yan Shunkai, many people will have an impression of a little old man with awkward eyebrows. He is a big name in the domestic comedy industry.
But he really became famous because of the drama film "The True Story of Ah Q" which he starred in in his first screen debut in 1981. Yan Shunkai also won the Best Actor Award at the 6th Popular Film Hundred Flowers Award and the Golden Cane Award for Best Actor at the 2nd Weiwei International Comedy Film Festival for this film.
After that, Yan Shunkai participated in the Spring Festival Gala and performed in various film and television works, and gradually became known to the audience.
The other Wang Jingyu is also a pantomime actor. Compared with Yan Shunkai, who has outstanding acting talent, he is stronger in creative ability and is a compound talent who is both a writer and an actor.
Today's meeting was chaired by Huang Yihe, and the main issue discussed was the number of programs.
Before, they were worried that there were not enough programs or the duration was not enough, so they kept inviting everyone to the party. After the program arrangement of the party was straightened out in the past few days, Huang Yihe and Deng Zaijun discovered an embarrassing problem.
The number of programs seems to be exceeded.
The number of programs exceeded the limit, so the length of the party naturally exceeded as well.
So the two could only find ways to reduce the number of programs, and the first thing they thought of was crosstalk and sketches, which took up the most program time.
The performance form of crosstalk has existed since the beginning of the Spring Festival Gala. It is loved by people all over the country and has always occupied a very important position in the program arrangement of the gala.
In comparison, skits are a much newer form of performance and have not been tested by television audiences across the country, so Huang Yihe first planned to start with the skit show.
But they were all invited by their director team. Now they came with scripts and programs, and the director team suddenly said they didn't need them. It sounded very disrespectful. Huang Yihe hesitated for a long time and didn't know how to start the conversation.
Finally, Deng Zaijun couldn't stand it anymore and told everyone the whole story.
Everyone present was a little surprised. They didn't expect that today's meeting was to discuss this matter.
Lin Weimin looked around at everyone, and when no one spoke first, he raised his hand.
"Teacher Lin, what do you think?"
Lin Weimin said cheerfully: "I have four skits in the evening show, which may be a bit too many. If it doesn't work, we can cut two of them. Just keep "Eating Noodles" and "Yang Bailao and Huang Shiren."
To put it bluntly, Lin Weimin was willing to write the script for the evening party, largely in order to push his eldest nephew and Chen Xiaoer to the stage, and by the way, to bring his girlfriend to Yanjing.
Now the goal has been achieved. The remaining two programs were performed by actors hired by the director team themselves. There is no loss for him if he is cut out. It can just be a favor.
As for how the actors who were laid off would feel, that was not within Teacher Lin’s consideration.
When the director team was in a difficult situation, Lin Weimin came up with this move, which was truly a noble move.
Huang Yihe looked at Lin Weimin with eyes full of gratitude.
With his introduction, Yan Shunkai also spoke up: "The director team asked me to do a show before, and I submitted three. You can handle them as you wish."
His attitude was even more straightforward, and he directly left it to the director team to decide.
Lin Weimin and Yan Shunkai, who have the most sketch shows, expressed their opinions one after another. The only one left is Wang Jingyu. It’s not that he doesn’t want to express his opinion, but he only has one show, "Chicken Eating", which cannot be cut.
The creators of skit programs gave up space for at least three programs at once. While Huang Yihe and Deng Zaijun were happy, they also felt a little sorry for them.
At this time, Ma Ji said, "We can't just cut skits. We have more crosstalk programs than them. Let's cut ours first."
He turned to look at his apprentice Jiang Kun, "We have seven programs together, so it won't matter if we cut three or four."
Jiang Kun, who was still a junior, naturally did not dare to express his opinion. "I will listen to you, Teacher Ma."
"Director Huang, Jiang Kun and I will give up a few performances."
In addition to the crosstalk performances by Ma Ji and his apprentice, there was also a program by Hou Yaowen. However, out of respect for Hou Yaowen's father, Mr. Hou Baolin, Ma Ji did not even mention Hou Yaowen's program.
"There's no need to cut so many programs. Cutting five programs will be enough," said Huang Yihe.
Lin Weimin said, "Director Huang, we'll listen to you. We have no objection to whichever program you decide to cancel."
Everyone echoed in unison.
Huang Yihe's expression was a little complicated. He was happy that the problem had been solved, but also felt guilty for having let others down.
"I'm sorry, everyone!" Huang Yihe first clasped his fist towards everyone, and then discussed with Deng Zaijun for a while.
In the end, it was decided to cut two sketches by Lin Weimin, one sketch by Yan Shunkai, and one crosstalk each by Ma Ji and Jiang Kun.
Among the five programs, more skits were cut than crosstalk, because crosstalk has a better mass base; more programs were cut by young people than by their predecessors, which is a respect for their predecessors.
When everyone heard the result, they immediately understood the director team's intentions.
Lin Weimin didn't take the cancellation of his show to heart at all. Instead, he was chatting and laughing with Chen Xiaoer next to him. The other creators of whose shows were cancelled also looked normal.
The meeting should have been tense, but the atmosphere became harmonious due to the open-mindedness of several main figures.
However, several actors who were called by the director team from the drama troupe and film studio to perform Lin Weimin's skit did not look very happy at this time.
But they had no choice, as this small meeting room also had a clearly divided class environment.
Whether it is Lin Weimin, Yan Shunkai, Ma Ji or Jiang Kun, they are the real backbones that the evening show director team relies on, while these less well-known actors are just consumables.
After the meeting, Deng Zaijun kept apologizing to Lin Weimin.
Lin Weimin waved his hand and said, "Director Deng, you are being too polite. You said you invited me here, so I must support your work!"
While the two were talking, the younger version of Jiang Kun and Hou Yaowen walked over hand in hand.
"Teacher Lin!"
Lin Weimin stopped talking, "Hello, both of you!"
Hou Yaowen had a very distinctive smile, a little overbite, "We both really like your novels. This is the first time we meet you today, so we came to say hello to you."
"You're so polite. It's nice to meet you two today. I should be the one to say hello."
Hou Yaowen and Jiang Kun are both descendants of famous artists. One of their fathers is a crosstalk master and the other is a crosstalk master. With these advantages, it is basically effortless for them to appear on the Spring Festival Gala.
Especially Jiang Kun and Mr. Ma Ji are in their prime, and this year's Spring Festival Gala crosstalk program is led by these two masters and apprentices.
After a few polite words, after the two men left, Deng Zaijun continued to chat with Lin Weimin and talked about "The Cliff" which was about to be broadcast.
CCTV has been broadcasting the trailer for the TV series "The Cliff" in recent days.
The TV series "The Cliff" has created several records in the Chinese TV drama industry to date.
The first was full-scale outdoor shooting, and the crew traveled to Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, to shoot for more than four months.
The second is that it has the longest length, with 20 episodes and a total broadcast time of 860 minutes, which is the first time in the history of Chinese TV dramas.
The third is that it pioneered the TV series broadcast on CCTV on New Year’s Eve.
In order to shoot this TV series, Mr. Jinshan specially invited Deng Zaijun to join the crew. She put a lot of effort into this TV series, and it goes without saying that she placed a lot of hope and affection on it.
After coming out of the radio compound, Han Zhuangzhuang got on Lin Weimin's bicycle.
"Uncle, 'Cliff' is about to be broadcast. Maybe I can even be on this year's Spring Festival Gala. Do we need to get a TV at home?"
There has never been a TV in the Shichahai courtyard, only a radio. Lin Weimin has no interest in the TV programs of that era, so he has never thought of buying a TV. Having a radio to listen to the news is enough.
After hearing what Han Zhuangzhuang said today, it seems that I should buy a TV, if not for anything else, just to watch "The Cliff"!
"I'll go check it out in a couple of days."
Han Zhuangzhuang was overjoyed. After more than a year in Yanjing, he finally managed to get on TV. It was not easy.
A few days later, inside the Friendship Store.
Lin Weimin handed a small stack of foreign exchange coupons to the salesperson for a receipt, and took out a Toshiba 16-inch color TV.
Han Zhuangzhuang was holding up the TV with his butt almost raised to the sky, he was so proud.
It's impossible not to show off. The combination of these three words, imported, 16 inches, and color TV, was a very cool thing in the early 1980s.
Lin Weimin contributed 3,200 foreign exchange coupons to the Friendship Store for this purpose.
The reason why he was so generous in supporting Xiao Ri Zi's products was not only because their products in the 1980s were really good, but also because he just received the royalties from Nihong's Xinchao Society yesterday.
The Japanese version of "Farewell My Concubine" has been translated and typeset for printing, with an initial print run of 30,000 copies. The royalties paid to Lin Weimin are calculated based on an 8% royalty, totaling 6.8 million yen.
At that time, the exchange rate of Japanese yen to US dollar was 250:1, and 6.8 million Japanese yen was approximately 23,000 US dollars.
Thinking about the appreciation of the Japanese yen in 1985, Lin Weimin wanted to keep all the money in his hands.
Unfortunately, the policy did not allow it, so he had to exchange it for foreign exchange coupons as usual, and he now had an additional 35,000 foreign exchange coupons in his hands.
I just received my royalties and I have a need for it, so I bought the best one.
A 16-inch color TV is considered top-of-the-line these days.
After returning home, Han Zhuangzhuang couldn't wait to put the TV in the living room of the main house, and walked around the yard holding a piece of wood that was six or seven meters high and as thick as his arm.
The scene somehow reminded people of the famous classical painting - Lin Daiyu uprooting a weeping willow tree.
"Uncle, is there any signal?" Han Zhuangzhuang turned the antenna for a long time and his arms felt a little sore.
"Got it!" Lin Weimin's voice came from the room.
Han Zhuangzhuang spent several minutes fixing the antenna and ran into the house impatiently.
At this time, the color TV screen was stuck on the CCTV channel.
Announcer Li Juan's voice rang out: "This is the longest TV series in our country so far."
It’s the TV trailer for “Cliff”!
I forgot to mention that there will be three updates today, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. I don't have any drafts saved, so I can't be sure of the time, so please forgive me.
(End of this chapter)
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