Chapter 301 Occupying the toilet without doing anything
Friends was a show that was filmed and broadcast simultaneously.
So far, only the first four episodes have been filmed.
At the current pace of one episode per week, the filming schedule is still quite tight.
Five days after the broadcast of Friends, filming continued for the remaining scenes.
This time, more than a dozen media outlets gathered outside the studio to wait for the actors who had come to film.
In the past few days, the main actors of "Friends" have become incredibly popular, with each of them receiving exposure comparable to that of top-tier celebrities.
As they gradually appeared, the flashbulbs kept going off.
However, for media reporters, the person they most want to see today is still Lu Yanhe.
After all, Lu Yanhe's only public activity since the airing of "Friends" was yesterday's live broadcast on Yemai.com.
What he said during the live stream was undoubtedly a bucket of cold water for Friends fans.
Therefore, as soon as Lu Yanhe appeared, the media reporters rushed to ask him questions.
"Yeon Ha, are you really not planning to appear in the sequel to Friends?"
"Yan He, with Friends doing so well and so many viewers loving it, have you considered changing your mind?"
Are you really not going to continue acting in Friends?
...
Lu Yanhe took off his sunglasses, looked at the reporters whose noses were red from the cold wind, waved his hand and said, "Our 'Friends' will be airing for so long, let's focus on what's happening now. We still have to film today. It's very cold, so don't stay here and catch a cold."
He didn't respond to anything, said a few words, waved, and went into the photography studio.
Everyone on the film crew was waiting for him.
Everyone knows that at least half of the reason why the premiere of "Friends" was so successful is because of Lu Yanhe.
The current popularity of "Friends" is partly due to the topics that have arisen from the show, and most of these topics stem from Lu Yanhe.
As soon as Lu Yanhe walked in, suddenly, dozens of people from the entire film crew started clapping.
He was taken aback for a moment, then laughed and bowed thirty degrees to everyone to express his gratitude.
Especially the actors.
Just as Lu Yanhe said in his live broadcast on Yemai.com, their rise to fame and recognition from the audience through the show "Friends" was a completely unexpected surprise.
Yan Liang was the first to walk over and give Lu Yanhe a big hug.
Hu Siwei also opened her arms and looked at him with a smile in her eyes.
Although Hu Siwei and Bai Jingnian are both from Beijing and Taiwan, Lu Yanhe has no conflict with either of them.
The previous incident involving Lu Yanhe and Jingtai did not affect his relationship with the two of them.
When Hu Siwei hugged Lu Yanhe, she whispered in his ear, "You know, before I came here today, I received a call from the station. They wanted me to persuade you to stay with the Friends crew and develop the later series together."
Lu Yanhe smiled and said, "This project was originally started by you and the director. I have already completed my task."
In fact, for a sitcom, one or two writers are not that crucial. In some ways, the actors are even more important than the writers. This is because of the special nature of sitcoms. As those familiar with sitcoms know, many times, a sitcom that seems to have only about ten episodes may actually have five writers working on it.
In short, a sitcom is essentially a series of skits with a different theme, all within a larger framework of character relationships.
Each episode is like a short comedy sketch, only ten or twenty minutes long, with a complete structure and full of jokes, a laugh every ten seconds, building up layer by layer, making the most of a relatively closed short space.
In this case, you can actually watch each episode as a standalone show—of course, the main storyline is still connected.
This is why sitcoms are often only twenty minutes per episode. Compared to regular TV dramas, their pace is incredibly fast. However, because the characters, locations, and events are not so complex, even with such a fast pace, viewers won't feel overwhelmed. This is a characteristic of this genre. If the episodes were longer, firstly, there wouldn't be enough good jokes to include; secondly, the nature of sitcoms inherently limits their length. If they were longer, viewers would experience aesthetic fatigue, and laughing for twenty minutes straight would be tiring.
Therefore, even if Lu Yanhe stops being a screenwriter, with the first season being such a masterpiece, if they find some screenwriters to continue writing based on the character relationships and main storyline of the first season, it won't collapse as badly as a plot-driven story.
Instead, Lu Yanhe refused to continue starring in the show, so the six members of "Friends" were reduced to five.
If, under these circumstances, the Beijing TV station were to have the scriptwriters write Lu Yanhe's character to "leave" and then "add" a new character, it would actually cause great resentment among the audience, especially since everyone knows how important Lu Yanhe is to the show "Friends".
-
Because of the success of the premiere, the on-site filming was almost the smoothest since filming began.
Each actor was much more confident in their performance.
Confidence is absolutely crucial for an actor's performance. The presence or absence of this quality can give an actor's performance two completely different qualities.
After we finish filming today, we'll all go out for a meal together.
It was already around nine o'clock in the evening.
The place Hu Siwei booked.
As everyone sat together, Hu Siwei suggested, "Let's take a group photo first? We can have the official Weibo account post it later, as a warm-up for the second episode airing backstage."
After he finished speaking, he glanced nervously at Lu Yanhe, mainly because he was afraid that Lu Yanhe would not cooperate.
In the past few days, Lu Yanhe has not cooperated with Beijing TV's promotion of "Friends" at all. The contact person on Beijing TV said that Lu Yanhe's agent and company contact person are ignoring them.
Even Beijing TV couldn't do anything about Lu Yanhe. The contract did require Lu Yanhe to cooperate with the promotional activities a certain number of times. However, given the promotional contributions Lu Yanhe made in the early stages of "Friends," if they dared to say even a single extra word about promotion at this time, Lu Yanhe and Chen Ziyan would explode.
In fact, it's time for Lu Yanhe and Chen Ziyan to put on airs. Jingtai is too proud to admit its shortcomings and hasn't made a proper statement yet. They're only thinking of using Hu Siwei and Bai Jingnian to mediate. Who would give them face?
But Lu Yanhe smiled and said okay, without any sign of anything amiss.
Everyone took a group photo, and Hu Siwei sent it to the publicity staff so they could post it on the official Weibo account of "Friends".
"Today, Beijing TV rebroadcast the first episode once in the morning and once in the afternoon," Hu Siwei said. "The ratings are still 0.1%, which has broken the record for the most rebroadcasts of a Beijing TV drama within a week of its premiere. In five days, the first episode has been rebroadcast 13 times."
Lu Yanhe thought to himself, "This is the power of sitcoms."
Many people can watch a show from beginning to end seven or eight times.
There's no pressure; you'll naturally keep watching when it's on TV.
Of the six actors, only Yan Liang and Wen Minglan were somewhat familiar with each other; Lu Yanhe wasn't really close to the other three.
Yin Xincheng, who plays Wen Fan; Bai Jin, who plays Zhou Zhixi; and Zhan Yun, who plays Li Lili, were all chosen by Lu Yanhe, Hu Siwei, and Bai Jingnian together.
Because of this relationship, all three of them felt a sense of unease, like employees facing their boss, when facing Lu Yanhe, even though he was actually younger than the three of them.
After having a few drinks, everyone started chatting more.
Yin Xincheng looked at Lu Yanhe and asked, "If there really is a second season, are you really not coming?"
Lu Yanhe smiled and said, "It's the same with you guys here."
“But we are Friends,” Yin Xincheng muttered.
His true personality is very similar to the character Wen Fan; he is the most sentimental and protective of the three boys.
Lu Yanhe said, "I will make some changes to the ending of the eighth episode, so that my departure will have a reason, and so that our 'Friends' will always be 'Friends'."
He laughed and said, "Besides, since I'm not acting anymore, everyone's role will get more screen time. Isn't that a good thing?"
Zhan Yun's tears fell instantly.
Actress Zhan Yun, who is just like Li Lili—emotional, carefree, but emotionally sensitive—had tears welling up in her eyes and didn't say a word.
Lu Yanhe didn't want the atmosphere to become somber tonight.
"Everyone, I'm not leaving Friends right now. Even if I leave Friends, I'll still be in the entertainment industry. I'll still be acting and writing scripts. We'll have many more opportunities to meet in the future," Lu Yanhe said with a smile. "You're all popular actors now. If you have any roles coming your way, please consider me first."
Bai Jin: "I will definitely come as long as you look for me."
She was the only one of the three girls who wasn't very emotional. She had a heroic appearance and was highly admired by Bai Jingnian. At this moment, she didn't have much sadness or grief. But when she said these words, she looked very serious, not just saying them for show. This made Lu Yanhe feel a warm sense of comfort.
“From now on, it won’t be you asking us to act, it will be us asking you to have roles and asking us to act.” Yan Liang said with a smile, “You’ve made us famous by bringing five of us along. In the future, who wouldn’t want to work with you? They’ll probably be scrambling to work with you.”
Indeed, regardless of the real reason why Friends has become so popular, in the eyes of the industry and others, Friends was made popular by Lu Yanhe single-handedly.
These are his real achievements.
-
It's another Sunday, 9 p.m., and the second episode of Friends is airing.
This time, Beijing TV broadcast the first episode again at 8:30 pm.
The remaining 30 minutes of the variety show that previously occupied prime time were moved to air after 9:30 PM.
The first episode surprisingly garnered a 0.472% viewership rating.
Some people ask, why does the first episode of "Friends" still get such high ratings despite being re-broadcast so many times? How many viewers haven't seen it?
Some people say, "Maybe I can answer this question, because I've already watched the first episode four times."
In the second episode, the one-minute opening theme song, with its upbeat rhythm, immediately boosted the ratings to 1.124%. Once the main episode began, the ratings started to rise significantly. In the thirty minutes including commercials, the second episode's ratings peaked at 1.724%, with an average rating of 1.276%, second only to CCTV.
CCTV's viewership is on a completely different level.
The second episode of Friends achieved a ratings explosion, upholding the show's status as a blockbuster.
Li Lili and Hu Fan reveal each other's secrets, Jiang Kele and Wen Fan's comical behavior when they accidentally stumble into the audition, and Zhou Zhixi's embarrassment when a junior from elementary school confesses his feelings to him.
These three storylines once again dominated major online forums.
Television Review published an article: A youthful approach to writing sitcoms.
If the reason why the first episode was so popular was because it had the advantage of being a hot topic that had been circulating online for two months and then generated a huge wave of support for Lu Yanhe just two days before the broadcast, then the second episode was particularly popular because the number of young people watching the show was large enough to generate a lot of discussion.
Young people are arguably the group with the strongest desire to express themselves and engage in discussions among all age groups.
Noticing that more and more people were seriously discussing the direction of the story and the relationships between the characters, Lu Yanhe specifically said in the main creative group that everyone could talk about behind-the-scenes stories and anecdotes, but they should definitely not discuss their opinions on this character and other characters before the end of the series.
In situations like this, the main creators should definitely not get involved.
Friends is becoming increasingly popular.
Under these circumstances, Lu Yanhe suddenly became a hot commodity targeted by other television stations.
Including Chen Ziyan.
Chen Ziyan said, "Two other top-tier TV stations have contacted me, wanting to invite you to create a sitcom for them, with the same weekly broadcast format. The price is negotiable. Will you accept?"
Lu Yanhe said, "I do have an idea for a sitcom, but I haven't started writing it yet. Also, I'm going to be filming the movie 'Late Spring' in March or April."
Chen Ziyan nodded, "Then I'll say you have an idea, but because of your work schedule, you don't have any plans to start writing it yet, so I'll politely decline them for now."
Lu Yanhe nodded.
After saying this, Chen Ziyan sighed.
"What's wrong, Sister Ziyan?" Lu Yanhe asked.
Chen Ziyan said, "I still feel a little regretful. You wrote the script for Friends and you were the core creator. If you hadn't had that incident with Beijing TV, you could have become a billionaire if Friends had been filmed for three or four seasons."
Lu Yanhe is entitled to 8% of the revenue from Friends.
Lu Yanhe said, "It's okay. Since Friends has proven that I can write sitcoms, my share of the profits from my next sitcom will only be higher."
Looking at Lu Yanhe's confident demeanor, Chen Ziyan had something on her mind that she didn't say aloud.
In this industry, creating a blockbuster product is something that can only be done by chance.
The promotional model and success of "Friends" are almost impossible to replicate.
Even if you created Friends.
It's useless.
However, at this moment, Chen Ziyan would certainly not say such a discouraging thing.
She smiled and nodded, saying, "Then I look forward to your next sitcom."
She added, "With the success of Friends, other TV stations will be scrambling to get your next sitcom. It seems I need to figure out how to talk to them about other collaborations. They need to have a stepping stone before they can knock on our door."
Lu Yanhe nodded.
However, he thought to himself that he would not start that period sitcom that was more in line with the emotions and values of the Chinese people for the next year.
There are many other things waiting for him.
Let Friends fly for a while.
Its true value lies in the long run, after it finishes airing, on video websites, and even a year, two years, or ten years later. Its exaggerated long-tail effect will make it a timeless classic.
Now it's just a wildly popular TV series, but ten years from now, it will be a memory for a generation.
At this time, Zhenhua's exam week began.
Lu Yanhe devoted himself entirely to the library, turning down all other work except for filming.
This made all the partners who wanted to hire Lu Yanhe grit their teeth in frustration.
If you can't go out and participate in activities, what's the point of being so famous!
At this moment, everyone fully felt that if a celebrity is too popular but doesn't show up much, it can also make people feel annoyed and angry, like someone who "occupies a position but doesn't use it."
(End of this chapter)
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