Chapter 375 Telephone Assassin
The broadcast effect of "Plainclothes Police" is indeed slightly worse than that of "The Whistleblower", but this is not the fault of the war, it is entirely because the object of comparison is too outstanding.
In fact, after the TV series was broadcast, it received very good reviews from the media and the audience. Haiyan specially invited Lin Weimin to dinner to express his gratitude.
After seeing the effect of the TV series after it was broadcast, Haiyan realized how bad the content he wrote was, and how good the effect was after being revised by Teacher Lin.
As the broadcast of "Plainclothes Police" came to an end, the Spring Festival of 1986 arrived.
On the 28th day of the lunar year, Lin Weimin sent Tao Huimin on the train back to her hometown.
The crew of "The Legend of a Female Doctor" just had a holiday today. Ten days of holiday is the limit that the crew can squeeze out. After all, there are many Hong Kong staff in the crew, and it takes at least two or three days to go back and forth, so the holiday cannot be too short.
After seeing Tao Huimin off, Lin Weimin went to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
It took three months to complete the formalities for the Yongji Prince's Mansion. From today on, this Prince's Mansion nominally belongs to Lin Weimin.
After completing the formalities, Director Deng took Lin Weimin to visit the Beile Mansion again, and then went to a vacant land on Huayuan East Road of the Academy of Sciences for the construction of staff dormitories.
"We will try to complete the construction of the dormitory next year and vacate the yard for you at the beginning of the year after next," said Director Deng.
Lin Weimin nodded. This was the trouble with buying a mansion like the Yongji Prince's Mansion. It would be impossible to vacate the staff dormitories without one or two years.
But this thing is a scarce resource, and a year is not too long, so we can wait.
After a busy day, I went to work at the Chinese Literature Publishing House the next day. The lazy atmosphere was also somewhat festive.
My colleagues were joking around and had no intention of reviewing the manuscript. They were all waiting for the holiday!
After get off work in the evening, Lin Weimin delivered New Year's goods to every household.
After being busy until the evening, he returned home. He was used to Tao Huimin waiting for him at home every night, so he felt a little uncomfortable when she was suddenly not there.
On the 30th, Lin Weimin spent the day at Han Zhuangzhuang's home in Qiqizuo Hutong.
After the Chinese New Year, before people can even recover from the shock, they have to go back to work.
At the beginning of the year, before Lin Weimin got into work, he received an international mail.
It was still sent by Arthur Miller. The box office performance share for the fourth quarter of last year was settled last month, and Lin Weimin once again earned more than 400,000 US dollars.
In addition to the performance share, Arthur Miller also mentioned the adaptation of Lin Weimin's other works.
Now, "The Intouchables" has been performed on Broadway for more than a year and has been warmly welcomed by Broadway drama audiences, which fully demonstrates the ability of Lin Weimin's works to adapt to American culture.
Arthur Miller made a fortune from "The Intouchables", so naturally he wanted to bring more of Lin Weimin's works to the Broadway stage.
Lin Weimin was also surprised by the success of "The Intouchables" on Broadway.
In one year, "The Intouchables" has earned him more than one million dollars. If his other works can also enter Broadway, even if they are not so successful, as long as they can gain a foothold in Broadway, it will also be a considerable income.
After careful consideration, Lin Weimin decided to make a cross-ocean call to Arthur Miller.
These days, it’s not convenient to make long-distance calls to other provinces or cities, let alone overseas calls?
Everyone had to go to the Xidan Telegraph Building or a large post office to make calls, and the lines were very busy and often congested.
Many times, I had to bring lunch with me to make a long-distance call at the Telegraph Building. There were too many people in line. I had to call and wait, and it often took more than half an hour.
Lin Weimin didn't plan to go to the telegraph building, as the waiting time at a regular post office was also long.
He ran to the Yanjing Hotel, where there was a post office. It was not a big place, and there were three single international telephone booths in the small post office.
It is basically for foreigners only. You only need to wait for an hour at most to make a call, which is much better than going to the telegraph building.
When Lin Weimin arrived here, the three single telephone booths were all occupied, and all the people making calls were foreigners.
Lin Weimin first told the post office staff the phone number he wanted to call, and then paid the deposit with foreign exchange coupons. After the call was made, the excess amount would be refunded and the shortfall would be supplemented.
Then he had to fill out a series of documents explaining the reason for his call.
After filling out the documents, Lin Weimin sat on a plastic chair at the far end of the counter and began a long wait, waiting for the staff to connect the outside call.
From time to time, I could hear the sound of other people making phone calls from across the ocean. Some people got emotional and easily shouted loudly.
After waiting for about half an hour, Lin Weimin was yawning continuously when he was finally awakened by a sharp scream. At the staff's signal, he went to telephone booth No. 2.
The call quality of the overseas call was very poor, even worse than when Lin Weimin answered the call from Hong Kong, which made people subconsciously raise the volume.
The three telephone booths were closely connected, and everyone was competing in "shoutout".
Lin Weimin had a difficult communication with Arthur Miller on the phone. He outlasted two groups of people and talked on the phone for more than half an hour. The staff kindly reminded him twice, but Lin Weimin ignored them.
The staff came to remind Lin Weimin, of course not because he spoke loudly on the phone. The quality of telephone calls was poor these days, so it was normal for people to speak loudly on the phone.
The staff reminded us of the length of the call. Nowadays, it is very expensive to make overseas calls from China. The post office here at Yanjing Hotel charges 12 yuan per minute, and only accepts foreign exchange coupons. An average worker's monthly salary is only enough to make a two- to three-minute call.
So much so that after Lin Weimin hung up the phone, the staff looked at him with strange and vigilant eyes, fearing that he would hang up the phone and run away.
This is because Lin Weimin had just deposited a deposit of 100 foreign exchange certificates, otherwise the staff might not have let him finish the call.
"Comrade, you still need to pay 224 yuan."
After the staff member finished saying this, Lin Weimin hadn't spoken yet, and the Chinese young man who had just filled out the documents next to him suddenly raised his head, looked at the phone booth, then looked at Lin Weimin, and trembled.
After Lin Weimin paid the phone bill, the staff breathed a sigh of relief and watched him leave the post office.
The young man waiting on the side handed over the documents and whispered to the staff: "How long did he fight for?"
"It took more than half an hour! I spent more than 300 yuan in foreign exchange coupons!"
The staff rarely saw someone as wealthy as Lin Weimin, and there was a hint of gossip in their tone.
The young man turned his head and looked at Lin Weimin's back.
I spent more than 300 yuan in foreign exchange coupons just to make a phone call. How terrible is that?
It certainly won’t kill you, but it will cost you money.
More than three hundred yuan, it is truly a "telephone assassin".
More than 300 foreign exchange coupons were a drop in the bucket for Lin Weimin, but the experience of making international long-distance calls was really painful.
Lin Weimin inexplicably thought of the short video clips on the Internet, the kind in which all the trivial matters in life have to be reported and approved by government departments. Art really does come from life!
The phone call with Arthur Miller was intermittent, but at least the matter was made clear.
After more than a year of performances on Broadway, "The Intouchables" has achieved certain results in the American drama industry, such as the Tony Award won last summer.
Although it was only an acting award at the time, the added value to screenwriter Lin Weimin and investor and producer Arthur Miller was not that great, but the added effect to the actors and the drama itself was still very high.
As his fame continued to grow, many performance companies in the United States contacted Arthur Miller, hoping to confirm the touring plan for "The Intouchables", and Arthur Miller also intended to start a tour of "The Intouchables".
Compared to resident performances, there is no Broadway producer who dislikes touring.
Because touring is not only a sign of a hit play, but also makes crazily more money than regular performances.
For fixed performances, tickets are sold at a fixed price, and producers rarely dare to increase the price.
It is easy to raise prices but difficult to lower them. If you raise the price too much and no one comes, lowering the price again will make people think there is something wrong with the show.
Therefore, producers can usually only make money from the increased ticket prices through scalpers.
The ticket prices for a tour are generally much more expensive than those for a fixed performance, and it is also easier to manipulate the ticket prices, which is called "cutting leeks" in the words of later generations.
Once the "Intouchables" tour plan starts in the future, Lin Weimin will definitely earn a large sum of money.
Of course Arthur Miller earned more, so he was so active in promoting the tour, including inviting Lin Weimin to Miller.
After all, that's all money!
The Chinese New Year has just passed and it is only mid-February.
The revised monthly version of "Contemporary" has just come out with the second issue and has not yet been fully put on track. In addition, he has also agreed to be the screenwriter of "The Ming Dynasty 1566: Jiajing and Hai Rui" for the People's Art Theatre, so he will not be able to go to the United States in the short term.
So he and Arthur Miller agreed to find a time to go to the United States after April. The specific time was not fixed, after all, plans cannot change as quickly as they should.
As for the issue of the next adaptation that Arthur Miller kept mentioning on the phone, Lin Weimin persuaded Arthur Miller to wait until he arrived in the United States and then decide based on the specific circumstances.
When any foreign work is warmly welcomed in other countries outside its home country, luck is an important factor in addition to its own quality. It is not a safe move to rush into a second project.
Lin Weimin successfully persuaded Arthur Miller.
Back at Guowen Publishing House, Mo Yan and others were in the editorial office.
He returned to his hometown during the Chinese New Year, but he continued to write and managed to finish the script of "Red Sorghum" in just a few days. The first thing he did when he returned to Yanjing was to find the Guowen Publishing House, wanting Lin Weimin to help him check the quality of the script.
Lin Weimin was flipping through the script, and Mo Yan stared at the movements of his hands and the expressions on his face, not wanting to miss even the slightest change.
Lin Weimin raised his head and noticed his strangeness, and said with a smile: "There's no need to be so nervous, right?"
“This is my first time writing a proper movie script.”
Mo Yan told Lin Weimin that this was his first time writing a movie script, but it was not his first time writing a script.
In 1978, when he was serving in the army in his hometown, he was influenced by the drama "In Silence" and wrote a six-act drama "Divorce" at that time.
He was full of enthusiasm at the time, but unfortunately his manuscripts were rejected repeatedly, which made him discouraged and he gave up on drama creation.
Perhaps influenced by his "debut work" that was not successfully published, Mo Yan was very concerned about the gains and losses of the script of Red Sorghum.
Lin Weimin gave his opinion with a relaxed smile on his face: "It's very well written!"
Mo Yan was immediately overjoyed, "Really? Teacher Lin?"
"Don't ask such nonsense!" Lin Weimin said casually.
Mo Yan nodded in surprise. He also knew that his question was nonsense. Was it necessary for Teacher Lin to lie to him?
After get off work in the evening, Lin Weimin took Mo Yan to find the hotel where Zhang Yimou was staying.
"The Female Doctor" just resumed work after the New Year, and Zhang Yimou also just returned.
When he learned that Mo Yan had finished writing the script for Red Sorghum, his face was full of surprise.
After reading the script, he was even happier; the script was better than he had expected.
This script may very well become a stepping stone for him to start his career as a director in the future.
(End of this chapter)
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