Chapter 592 So skilled! This person is just too skilled!
The lively exchanges at the event often gave the illusion that the relationships between people here were truly close. Although it was still a world of fame and fortune, it was also a world of fame and fortune connected by film, where people talked about people and things in the film industry.
Lu Yanhe and his group were led to the area where the "Love Letter" film crew was located.
Along the way, because so many people greeted him, Lu Yanhe had to temporarily separate from the main group. When he finally arrived at his seat, teachers Wan Xin and Li Songfan were already seated. Perhaps because they were unfamiliar with the foreign environment, they were both unusually reserved.
Lu Yanhe turned his head and saw Schmidt Lowry of Green Valley Films walking towards him.
He said to Wan Xin and Li Songfan, "Teacher Wan, Teacher Li, I would like to introduce you to someone, the owner of Green Valley Film Company in the United States."
Upon hearing this, Wan Xin and Li Songfan stood up, but were somewhat bewildered, as they did not know who Lu Yanhe was referring to.
Lu Yanhe turned and waved to Schmidt Lowry.
The latter was indeed there to find Lu Yanhe.
“Hey, Lu!” Schmidt Lowry walked up to Lu Yanhe with a bright smile. “The North American distribution rights for ‘Love Letters’ haven’t been sold to anyone else yet, have they? You can’t let someone else beat you to it.”
Lu Yanhe smiled and said, "It's still in my hands."
He changed his position and introduced Wan Xin and Li Songfan to Schmidt Lowry: "Schmidt, these two are also actors in 'Love Letter,' and they are both veteran actors with a very large audience base in China."
Schmidt Lowry never hesitates to give anyone a radiant smile.
He immediately shook hands with Wan Xin and Li Songfan.
"Hi, I can't wait to see your movie."
Wan Xin and Li Songfan's English proficiency is only so-so. Unlike Lu Yanhe and others, older generation actors did not receive a good basic education, so their English proficiency is actually easy to improve.
Moreover, they don't usually need to go abroad for exchanges, so they don't need to be fluent in English.
Of course, because Chen Siqi and Wan Qingqing were nearby, whatever Schmidt Lowry said was translated for them immediately.
Chen Siqi also gave them a brief introduction to Schmidt Lowry: "His Green Valley Company is the North American distributor of 'Road to Glory'. Yan He received a series of nominations during the North American awards season because he helped Lu Yan He with public relations here."
Upon hearing this, Li Songfan and Wan Xin understood the extent of Schmidt Lowry's relationship with Lu Yanhe.
Lu Yanhe said to Schmidt Lowry, "You sent me several scripts before, but I'm sorry, my schedule is already booked for other filming. We can work together again when the time is right."
The box office success of "The Mist" made Lu Yanhe a hot commodity in the eyes of American film companies, as was the case for Schmidt Lowry, who had worked with him. Not to mention, it was Lowry who facilitated Lu Yanhe's initial connection with the director of "The Mist."
"Will you come to the premiere of 'Love Letter'?" Lu Yanhe asked.
"certainly."
After greeting Schmidt Lowry, Lu Yanhe saw Muken Sorge and Hua Ruzhen.
He was surprised to see them here.
“This is Murken Sorge, the director of ‘The Mist,’ and this is his wife, Hua Ruzhen, who is Chinese,” Lu Yanhe introduced to Li Songfan and Wan Xin. “So, Murken’s Chinese is very good.”
Upon hearing this, Li Songfan and Wan Xin secretly breathed a sigh of relief and greeted them in Chinese.
Murken Sorge didn’t know them personally, but he knew they were actors in Love Letter.
Hua Ruzhen clearly knew both of them.
"Xiao Lu, you have quite the connections, managing to invite these two gentlemen for your directorial debut." Hua Ruzhen shook hands with them. "Hello, gentlemen. I am Hua Ruzhen. Besides being his wife, I am also a film and television investor. I will be focusing more on investing in Chinese-language films and television dramas in the future. May I add you both as friends? I will definitely need your help when I need to understand a lot of information in the future."
Upon hearing this, Li Songfan and Wan Xin both took out their phones.
When they added each other as friends, Lu Yanhe asked with surprise, "Sister, have you finalized your investment plans?"
"It's pretty much a done deal," Hua Ruzhen said. "I'll be coming back to China more often in the future, so we can meet up more often."
Lu Yanhe nodded, pleasantly surprised.
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Li Songfan and Wan Xin may not be considered highly respected senior actors in China, but they are certainly veteran actors with high national recognition.
However, because Chinese-language films have a relatively small international presence, these veteran actors in China are not like veteran actors in many other countries who, while not necessarily famous internationally, at least frequently appear at various international film festivals.
Just like her experience of being shortlisted for the four major international film festivals, this is the first time that a film she has starred in has been shortlisted after so many years of acting.
Is it because their acting skills are not good enough to be seen on the international stage?
Of course not.
A work of art, to put it bluntly, is still a work of art.
Actors are meant to be seen in movies.
Actors truly shine in the movie theater.
So when Linghe contacted them this time, inviting them to participate in the Jose Film Festival with the film crew, they agreed after a little hesitation. Even though they are veteran actors who have been acting for many years, they still yearn for this kind of stage.
In fact, when they first learned that "Love Letter" had been selected for the main competition at the Jose Film Festival, they were worried that the film crew might invite them to attend the festival together.
It's not anything else; they also know that with one more person participating, Linghe will have to bear the cost of one more person's trip, and that price is not low.
They even considered that if Linghe couldn't bring more actors because of this, they would be willing to cover the related expenses themselves.
Of course, even if Lu Yanhe wanted to save money, he wouldn't do it at this time.
If you don't have money, that's another story.
The company clearly wasn't short of money, and the fact that "Love Letter" was nominated for Jose was an honor for all the actors involved. Lu Yanhe sent invitations to almost all the actors who participated in "Love Letter." However, only for actors with significant roles like Chen Bige, Li Songfan, and Wan Xin, Linghe covered their expenses for the nine days from before the opening ceremony to after the premiere. For the other actors, Linghe only covered their food, accommodation, and transportation for the four days before and after the premiere. If they wanted to come earlier or leave later, they would have to bear the extra costs themselves.
Otherwise, if everyone stayed for two weeks at a time, Linghe would have to spend several million more. Although Lu Yanhe didn't want to be stingy in this regard, he also didn't want to be a lavish nouveau riche.
Li Songfan and Wan Xin were initially hesitant, feeling that staying here for nine days was risky, as their English wasn't very good and they couldn't understand English movies, and they didn't know what to do.
However, after only two days of hesitation, Linghe sent them a notice with interviews from various media outlets and their expected times, as well as several film events and film premieres in Jose... The schedule was packed. These were all jobs that Linghe had arranged in advance, and they could choose the jobs they were willing to accept based on their own time and arrangements.
Even their agent was surprised.
Although it was ostensibly to promote the film "Love Letter," this work was actually providing them with a formal opportunity to truly enter the film festival.
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After the opening ceremony, Lu Yanhe was going to have lunch with the team members of the film "Jump Up," and he also invited Li Songfan and Wan Xin to join them.
"You've worked hard for the next two weeks."
This time, the team that came to "Jump Up" was still led by Lin Yu, along with a colleague from her department. The video was made by Li Bi, who led another colleague, forming a four-person team.
"I feel like you guys work really hard every year running around to film festivals. You basically have to go to at least six or seven international film festivals a year," Wan Xin said with concern as she listened to them talk about their usual work schedule.
Lin Yu: "Actually, it's not too bad. Although we attend six or seven international film festivals every year, smaller film festivals usually don't have all four of us like this time, and it's not always just the four of us. We split up and go separately, so it's relatively easy."
"However, you travel to so many places every year, is the budget sufficient?" Li Songfan asked curiously. "I have some friends in the film and television media industry who have had fewer opportunities to travel in recent years due to insufficient funding."
"We earn our own travel expenses, and of course, we also have advertising revenue," Lin Yu said with a smile. "We have subscription accounts for Jump Up Films on various platforms. Regular general reports are free to read, but in-depth interviews we do at various film festivals, including exclusive reviews, are either for members or paid readers. In the past two years, this has been enough to support our business trips all over the world."
There are too many sub-brands under "Jump Up," including film and television, food, and reading. Although headquarters coordinates operations, most of the daily operating expenses still need to be earned by the individuals themselves.
Chen Siqi has always held the view that if a department needs to be supported by the headquarters for a long time, unless it is a non-profit department by nature, the department should either be abolished or the person in charge should be replaced.
Having already been given the title of "jumping up" and a very high platform, if you still can't support yourself, then something must be wrong.
Li Songfan and Wan Xin exchanged a glance.
They were clearly somewhat surprised by this pattern.
In their era, media outlets primarily relied on subscription fees and advertising revenue, not significantly different from how media companies monetize today. Why then are the media outlets they were familiar with facing such severe financial crises?
However, during this lunch, they had some other feelings.
During lunch, they mainly discussed the itinerary for the next three days.
Li Songfan and Wan Xin had never actually seen such a genuine internal media discussion before.
Although it wasn't a formal event, it just happened during a meal.
“Director Song Muqing’s schedule is still undecided. I’ll call his representative again this afternoon to discuss it. If his schedule is too full, we can’t keep waiting for his availability. The first three days are when the most filmmakers arrive, and then they gradually leave. We need to make sure we see all these people first,” Lin Yu told her colleague. “This afternoon, you need to try your best to get everyone’s availability in Jose, preferably their schedules. Get as much as you can.”
"OK."
“Li Bi, the highlight here is the three filmmakers’ dialogue events that we arranged in advance,” Lin Yu said to Li Bi. “We won’t be broadcasting these three dialogue events live, so the pressure will be less, but we basically need to be able to edit the videos that same evening and broadcast them online as soon as possible. Timeliness is our top priority.”
Li Bi nodded: "Don't worry, although only two of us came this time, three teams have been arranged in China to work in shifts, so someone can receive the materials we send back for editing at any time. Sister Zixing has also sent three people to help with the editing."
"Do we really need so many people to edit the footage?" Lu Yanhe was surprised.
He didn't know the specific details either.
Li Bi said, "This time we will be editing a large number of short videos ranging from 20 seconds to one minute and releasing them on major short video platforms. The volume is very large."
Lin Yu explained, “The content related to the film festival has always been too highbrow and niche. Apart from true film fans, the general public isn't really interested unless a Chinese person wins an award, in which case people might click in out of curiosity. Li Bi and I both believe that since we're here, we need to find a way to increase the reach. Therefore, we need a strong team to select memorable quotes from our several hours of videos that are suitable for short video platforms to attract attention and drive traffic. Of course, another crucial point is that our reporting campaign this time is exclusively sponsored by Lansen Convenience Store. They've been very generous with their sponsorship fee, and we want to give them a satisfactory sponsorship result. Every short video will feature Lansen Convenience Store's brand name and logo. If the reach increases, their advertising reach will also increase.”
Lu Yanhe suddenly realized and nodded.
"But you only have two photographers, are you sure you can handle all the filming?" Lu Yanhe asked again.
“If we brought more photographers ourselves, we wouldn’t have enough funding. It would be too expensive. Each person’s food, clothing, accommodation, and transportation would cost nearly 100,000 yuan. So, we hired a few photographers locally to work with us on all the shoots. The four of us are divided into four small teams,” Li Bi laughed. “Every time we go out, it’s like going to war. We’ve honed our skills before we come out.”
Lin Yu smiled and pointed to the two subordinates who came out with them this time, saying, "They are both capable of handling things on their own."
Lu Yanhe gave a thumbs up.
He whispered to Chen Siqi, "I suddenly realize that you are actually better at leading a team than I am."
“You don’t need to lead a team,” Chen Siqi laughed. “Sister Ziyan has already taken care of it for you.”
Lu Yanhe: "The team that jumped up is doing really well now."
This isn't because Lu Yanhe has a bias towards the Jump Team—of course, he's not saying he doesn't have a bias towards the Jump Team, but rather that he's saying the Jump Team has really done a great job, and it has nothing to do with bias.
Wan Xin and Li Songfan listened to the young people at the table talking about their work, and it broadened their horizons quite a bit.
They may still be quite familiar with the situation of media professionals in the traditional print media era, but the media has changed so rapidly in recent years.
Both the medium and the form of expression are changing rapidly.
However, given their current position in the entertainment industry, they don't need to personally understand the specific changes happening in their surroundings. No matter what happens, their agents and teams handle it for them. Therefore, many older generation artists don't even use mobile phones much, let alone understand the current media landscape.
Of course, precisely because of this, many older generation artists can only rely on and trust their teams, which often leads to miscommunication or misinterpretations, resulting in many inexplicable errors. For example, they might be told that the hottest meme recently is XXX, but without a clear explanation of how the meme works. These artists, wanting to project a "down-to-earth" image, might interpret the meme according to their own understanding, only to misuse it. What was originally a phrase expressing young people's desire to "lie down" was turned into a lecture about young people's lack of ambition and effort, sparking public outrage.
Unlike the discussions they're hearing now, which are just jumping up and down in the team.
This is actually quite different from their understanding of the media industry.
In the past, major media outlets would conduct exclusive interviews to create high-quality pieces, preparing everything from all angles. Most importantly, they would write an in-depth interview article. Such an article would take at least several days to polish. Unlike what these young people are saying, that they can conduct an interview one day and produce a publicly available article from the materials the next day.
What shocked them even more was that in the past, media outlets would select which content to publish based on what the interviewees suggested. Now, before their interviews even began, they already knew exactly what kind of content they wanted to publish.
"Things are really different now," Wan Xin remarked.
Li Songfan couldn't help but ask, "If everything is made into a short video of about one minute, wouldn't it be difficult for the audience to fully understand it?"
“Yes.” Li Bi nodded readily in agreement. “But even if we make a complete interview video, in today’s media age, no audience wants to fully understand a person. Now, audiences first get a fragmented understanding, become interested in a person, and then look for more content about that person. Text, pictures, short videos, long videos… there are too many forms of media now, and audiences have too many choices. If we jump up and make every form possible, giving everyone a choice, but time is limited, we need to seize the time when audiences are interested in this content. So we can’t wait until the film festival is over to release a year’s worth of high-quality interview articles or a long interview video. By then, the audience’s attention will have already shifted to other things.”
"First, we'll use pictures, short articles, and short videos to broaden the reach of our publicity, attracting more people who might be interested and letting them know that the Jose Film Festival has started, that these filmmakers are attending, what their past works have been, and what their latest ideas and information are," Lin Yu said. "With this data foundation, when we write longer articles and create longer videos, we won't end up with the terrible outcome of working hard for a week or two only to have very few people watch them."
Wan Xin suddenly realized.
Wan Xin then asked, "So, will the interviews you're going to do for us later also be disseminated in this format?"
"Yes," Lin Yu nodded.
Li Songfan: "No wonder Yan He, every one of your works is so popular. You have a very powerful publicity team."
Lu Yanhe nodded and smiled, "Yes, that's what I said too."
Chen Siqi: "Actually, this approach isn't very suitable for film and television dramas. The costs are on a completely different level. If you want to generate enough buzz on short video platforms to boost the viewership of a film or television drama, the cost of driving traffic is enormous. This is different from our interview content, where if we have 50,000 or 100,000 viewers, it's already considered a huge hit. Moreover, our content generally has a fixed audience with high engagement. After building our brand over the past few years, people who want to learn about international films and exclusive content basically know to come to us. Therefore, our subscriber loyalty is much higher than that of video platform subscribers."
"Simply put, our content, short videos and fragmented information, is aimed at the general public, while long articles and long videos are aimed at fans who are genuinely interested in this content and will actively watch it," Chen Siqi said. "Fragmented content relies on free promotion to reach a wider audience, while high-quality, in-depth content uses subscriptions to retain fans."
Both Wan Xin and Li Songfan were filled with surprise.
Using a commercial mindset to create media content is completely beyond their comprehension.
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Domestically, Aurora Video and Icefield Video are long-term partner platforms of Jump Up Media, and Jump Up has a special column on these two channels.
This column was already being updated before the official opening of the Jose Film Festival.
The program includes a retrospective of previous José Film Festivals, the accolades Chinese-language films have received at the festival, and noteworthy films and filmmakers at this year's José Film Festival.
These videos are all about ten minutes long, and we made a series of reports about them.
To coincide with the upcoming premiere of the Jump Up Theater, the narrators in this series of video reports are all actors from several of the shows on the Jump Up Theater.
These programs were also promoted by Peng Zhixing in the popular program "The Birth of an Actor".
At that moment, many in the industry were suddenly shocked to discover that the media's propaganda matrix had unknowingly formed a massive force—
Previously, people thought that Lu Yanhe and Tiaoqi had an unusual media relationship, as if the media had a special fondness for them. Now people have realized that they themselves are the media.
From a small, unpopular print media outlet, it has gradually transformed into a media matrix encompassing text, images, videos, traditional media, social media, and video platforms—a feat no one could have predicted.
Now, looking back at the "Star" e-magazine that Yemai.com commissioned Yu Jiang to create, it has almost completely disappeared from the public eye. The contrast between the two is stark.
At this time, almost all the well-known film critics in China were invited to participate in this series of programs and videos, discussing film history, films, and filmmakers around the Jose Film Festival. They provided commentary in China and coverage abroad, giving the Jose Film Festival unprecedented exposure and attention in China.
Of course, Lu Shan, who had tricked Lu Yanhe, was not invited by anyone.
In China, due to the marginalization of the film review system itself, film critics have never really attracted much attention. They are often only seen by the public when a critic makes some shocking or unconventional remarks. Over time, the term "film critic" has even become a derogatory term in the public's mind. In reality, there are still many film critics who love movies and are genuinely engaged in film criticism; however, they rarely have the opportunity to step into the public eye.
This time, "The Birth of an Actor" invited film critics as members of the observation panel to comment on the actors' performances in each episode. The film section of Jumping Media also grabbed various film critics to appear on camera and write reviews, spreading the content through their media.
The media has a wealth of content to publish, the public has a wealth of content to watch, and film critics have earned money, gained fame, and received attention through their beloved careers.
A good environment should be one where everyone benefits and there is a virtuous cycle between people.
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When the representatives of the Jose Film Festival in China relayed the situation back to Jose, artistic director Wu Yang became even more enthusiastic about Lu Yanhe's trip.
Any filmmaker who goes international is always representing themselves while also relying on their country.
Lu Yanhe, if you only have a high level of fame, you can only get the welcome and enthusiasm from the organizers.
But if you represent a huge country and market following the Jose Film Festival, then okay, you become the festival's financial backer. It's not just those who provide the money who are the financial backers.
As the artistic director of the Jose Film Festival, Wu Yang is also accountable to the local government, sponsors, and partners. The film festival is a huge market, and awards and honors are just one part of this trading system.
For Wu Yang, the sudden surge of unprecedented attention to the Jose Film Festival from such a huge market as China is a tremendous achievement.
Wu Yang was well aware that once other film festivals saw the influence of the Jose Film Festival in China, they would definitely increase their efforts to help Lu Yanhe deepen his cooperation with other film festivals.
Three days after the opening ceremony, both Wu Yang personally and the official Jose Film Festival posted an update.
The photo shows him having dinner with Lu Yanhe and Chen Siqi, a couple.
Wu Yang said: "It's a pleasure to have dinner tonight with Lu Yanhe, one of the world's most watched young actors, and Chen Siqi, the head of Tiaoqilai, a highly influential media outlet in China. Whether in art or business, this young couple has achieved so much with their unparalleled talent and wisdom. They've brought Chinese film art to our Jose Film Festival, and I hope they enjoy their remaining time in Jose. PS: They will be hosting an international film critics' festival in June, and I've been invited. I'm looking forward to my trip to China in June!"
After reading Wu Yang's post, Chen Siqi smiled at Lu Yanhe and said, "He's so good at this, this guy is too good at it."
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I recommend the older book, "I Became the Leading Lady of a Scandal Overnight".
(End of this chapter)
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