Chapter 604
"I have no idea where you found this group of actors, how come they are such good actors?"
Chen Yu and Xin Pingqing were drinking together. After three drinks, Chen Yu started talking non-stop.
“When I used to work with my teacher, the most difficult part was finding the right actors. It was so hard to find good actors who were suitable for the roles, and scheduling was also a huge problem,” Chen Yu said. “How did you manage to have such amazing actors for every role?”
“The actors at Jump Up Theater have all auditioned. For actors with little acting experience, we will hire acting coaches to help them understand their roles. Moreover, after the official formation of the group, the director will start working with the actors to work on the script and rehearse offline,” Xin Pingqing said. “It’s basically the same as a stage play. When this play started filming, everyone had already rehearsed together many times in private.”
Chen Yu found it hard to believe.
"Would they be willing to invest so much time in the early stages?" he asked.
Xin Pingqing said, "Unless it's a leading role like Yan He, and the actor has excellent acting skills, we won't have any concerns. We won't hire actors who can't invest time and energy from the beginning. We made that very clear during the audition."
“Okay, you guys are amazing. If we made this kind of request to the actors, many of them wouldn’t come,” Chen Yu said. “The theater is different when they jump.”
“No, actually, many people don’t come after hearing these requirements,” Xin Pingqing said. “But we have built a very large actor database. Every actor who comes to audition, we create an information file for them. This way, when we select actors, we have target candidates for many roles. Once we have a selection, some actors simply don’t come anymore.”
Chen Yu was shocked.
“This is something that only your Jumping Theater can do. Otherwise, we might only have one project a year, or even one project every two or three years. Building such an actor pool wouldn’t be very meaningful.”
Xin Pingqing nodded: "So, there are actually professional casting companies in the industry now."
“Professional casting companies have one problem: they aren’t really familiar with the requirements of the production team. They look for people based on a few key characteristics,” Chen Yu said. “Your approach is more precise than theirs.”
Xin Pingqing nodded, "Mainly because we start a project every week on average, so doing this is very necessary."
"I've learned something," Chen Yu nodded. "If I can't find any actors in the future, I'll come to you guys."
Xin Pingqing smiled.
"The main reason is that my leaders have great courage. For every drama, we have one actor who can carry the show, or even none. We interview actors based entirely on their suitability for the role and their acting skills," Xin Pingqing said. "Besides this, which other production team in the industry can do this? Every interview is backed by various personal relationships and undercurrents. You never know who is standing behind an actor."
"Isn't this great? Jumping Theater is really changing the industry's ecosystem time and time again." Chen Yu nodded. "I hope that in the future, all major film and television companies will follow your example and copy you."
At this point, he toasted Xin Pingqing with a glass of wine, drank it, and then asked, "But, Brother Qing, what happened to Director An? Why is he suddenly unable to direct? It shouldn't be due to a sudden illness, right?"
Xin Pingqing was taken aback and looked at Chen Yu with some surprise.
“I’ve already been dragged onto this ship by you guys, so you have to tell me what happened to the people on this ship before,” Chen Yu said.
Xin Pingqing looked hesitant.
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Liu Yuan was sent to the production team of "The Silent Staircase" by Jump Up Company as a financial assistant.
He never imagined that one day he would suddenly find himself working in human resources.
Before the boss arrived, he was asked to investigate privately which people in the crew were brought by Director An Jian, and to compile a list, including all the information he could get.
Although Liu Yuan was puzzled, working-class people don't raise questions directly just because they have doubts.
He still diligently followed Chen Siqi's instructions and looked into the relevant details.
However, after he sorted it out, things became even stranger.
Logically, shouldn't this kind of thing be done by Xin Pingqing, the production assistant?
He has information on everyone in the crew, so why should he, a completely unrelated financial assistant, do this?
He took the documents and gave them to Chen Siqi.
Chen Siqi nodded and asked, "Is there any problem with the crew's finances?"
“Every single account is clear,” Liu Yuan said.
"Okay, thank you for your hard work." Chen Siqi nodded.
After Liu Yuan left, Lu Yanhe asked him, "Why didn't you just have Xin Pingqing organize these materials for you?"
"He's so busy right now."
Lu Yanhe paused for a moment, then added, "But for him, all this information is readily available."
Chen Siqi turned to look at Lu Yanhe, "Okay, to be honest, he was also one of the people who received the anonymous letter and is related to this matter. I want to find someone unrelated to this to investigate what An Jian's interpersonal relationships are like in the film crew."
Lu Yanhe: "You suspect Xin Pingqing?"
“There is a little,” Chen Siqi asked. “Don’t you find it strange? Only two people in the entire crew received the anonymous letter. One was Director An Jian himself, which we can understand. So why was the other person Xin Pingqing who received it?”
Lu Yanhe: "Because he's a production assistant?"
"Then why not give it to the producer, but to a production assistant instead?" Chen Siqi pressed.
Lu Yanhe frowned slightly. "Because Xin Pingqing is from Linghe Film and Television, but the executive producer on site is from Northern Lights Video? In this person's eyes, Xin Pingqing is more trustworthy?"
“Director An Jian is the director we appointed, not Aurora Video. If we’re talking about who is more trustworthy, Aurora Video has the most distant relationship with Director An Jian.” Chen Siqi waved her hand. “However, I only have suspicions. I have no evidence. I’m just checking based on my judgment.”
"I'm just surprised that you suspected Xin Pingqing right away."
“I didn’t suspect him immediately, but I did have my doubts about him,” Chen Siqi said frankly. “Because Hu Siwei told me that Xin Pingqing was not very friendly to An Jian, and when he learned that An Jian wanted to join Linghe, he expressed his opposition to it to Hu Siwei.”
Lu Yanhe was slightly taken aback.
"Such a thing happens? Why is that?"
“Who knows?” Chen Siqi said. “The people who know about An Jian’s affairs must have known him for a long time. After all, these things have never been exposed, so the range of people who know about them is limited. The people I can think of are either long-time employees of An Jian or people who know these long-time employees. So, I asked Liu Yuan to help me inquire and investigate within the film crew. These kinds of personal relationships can be seen from resumes, but sometimes, you can’t see them from resumes.”
Lu Yanhe nodded.
"By the way, how's your communication with 'Tropical Rainy Season' going? What's the latest you need to go there?"
"Fortunately, Wang Biao coordinated with them and they were able to adjust my filming schedule later, since I don't have many scenes anyway," Lu Yanhe said. "The schedule here is much more flexible. If we really can't film within a week, or if we need to reshoot, I can cooperate."
"That's great." Chen Siqi smiled. "By the way, I'll also be going to Malaysia in June."
Lu Yanhe laughed, "Visiting the set?"
"I visited the set and took the opportunity to discuss publishing the Chinese and English versions of 'Jump Up' in Malaysia." Chen Siqi also smiled. "A cultural foundation invited us to discuss cooperation. Because there are many Chinese in Malaysia, this foundation is already working on the overseas dissemination of Chinese culture. They know that 'Jump Up' has been trying to make an impact overseas and wants to go global, so they took the initiative to contact us."
Lu Yanhe: "That's true. There are quite a few places in Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia and Singapore, where there are many Chinese people."
“Yes.” Chen Siqi nodded. “Although the three books of ‘Jump Up’ published in Japan so far have only sold so-so and have been losing money, it’s really frustrating.”
Lu Yanhe: "Let's work hard to keep it running."
"I've already planned to have the Japanese version of 'Jump Up' collaborate with a celebrity agency to see if we can get the celebrities to promote the product."
"It's not impossible, but the cost of such a collaboration must be quite high, right?"
"Let's see what kind of cooperation model we can do," Chen Siqi said. "Once the Jump Theater is established, these plays will have the opportunity to be broadcast overseas in the future. I plan to use its influence to translate the theme book of 'Jump' wherever it is broadcast."
“That works too.” Lu Yanhe nodded. “The prerequisite is that the TV series or film has to be popular and have a large following locally.”
"Anyway, let's just keep trying. Fortunately, the cost of producing books isn't that high, and we can still afford it with our advertising revenue," Chen Siqi laughed. "Especially now that we're doing the Jumping Theater project, our copyright operation revenue has skyrocketed, giving us the capital to keep pushing forward."
“That’s good.” Lu Yanhe nodded. “These days, there aren’t many companies that can still make money from print media advertising.”
Many people assume that *Jump Up* magazine relies on advertising revenue from other channels to sustain itself. In reality, many are unaware that the income from the advertising pages distributed with the magazine each month is sufficient to support the magazine's overseas expansion efforts. Furthermore, monthly sales of around 250,000 copies, along with revenue from the digital version, ensure the magazine's annual net profit exceeds ten million yuan, making it completely self-sufficient. This doesn't even include the revenue from copyright-derived collaborations, primarily through *Jump Up Theater*.
Chen Siqi summarized the reasons for the success of "Jump Up" magazine, and its continued success, and a key factor was that the magazine never became complacent or stayed in its comfort zone. It always tried various collaborations, from the digital version to inviting famous writers to contribute articles, from creating special issues based on holidays or themes to generate buzz, to in-depth cooperation with the film and television industry, whether it was columns for celebrities or the development of the "Jump Up" theater. Chen Siqi and her team never felt that the success of "Jump Up" had reached a bottleneck and could stop there.
People still believed that the magazine's readership and audience could grow, and through continuous efforts, the magazine's readership did indeed expand little by little, thus building a solid user base for the entire "Jump Up" media matrix.
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“In a large ensemble piece like ours, where the story is told primarily through dialogue, everyone’s rhythm is crucial. If a word is spoken a second too early or a second too late, the feeling will be off.”
Surprisingly, Chen Yu would have meals with the main actors every day, without missing a single meal, including breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Every time they ate, Chen Yu would share his understanding and opinions about the drama while eating.
The main problem was the tight schedule.
Chen Yu didn't have any other time to communicate with everyone.
If a director doesn't understand his actors well enough, the on-set performance will often appear superficially harmonious but lack genuine connection – this doesn't refer to the relationship between the director and actors, but rather to their shared understanding of the characters.
"In the scene we filmed this morning, the slap that Teacher Yu Fen delivered at the end was just right, an award-winning performance." Chen Yu gave Peng Yu Fen a thumbs up. "She was amazing. In just five seconds, she switched between three different emotions and then delivered the slap, bringing the whole scene to life."
Peng Yufen smiled and waved her hand, saying, "The director is too good at praising people."
Zhang Yuan immediately asked, "Director, am I acting worse than her?"
Peng Yufen's smile immediately vanished, and she rolled her eyes at him, "How old are you that you still need praise?"
Chen Yu seemed completely unaware of the discord between the two.
"The feeling between the two of you is just perfect," Chen Yu laughed. "After the drama airs, I think many viewers will ship you two as a couple."
"What the hell?" Zhang Yuan's eyes widened immediately.
Peng Yufen also looked disgusted.
"The audience should eat something good, not just anything, or they'll get an upset stomach."
Chen Yu laughed and turned to a cameraman next to him who was in charge of filming the documentary about the crew, saying, "Remember to cut out this conversation. When the audience starts shipping this couple, release this conversation!"
His words made the two men feel embarrassed to continue arguing with each other. They glared at each other and fell silent.
Lu Yanhe smiled gently.
It's actually kind of funny.
However, the fact that Chen Yu was able to suppress these two old geezers who didn't get along with each other shows that he really has some skills.
Lu Yanhe was very curious about how Chen Yu had grown up. It wasn't surprising that a young director was talented; talent was largely innate, and even those who were born with extraordinary talent had to thank God for it. But the ability to navigate social situations with ease and tact, knowing when to advance and when to retreat, definitely required cultivation.
At this moment, Lu Yanhe really wanted to poach Chen Yu to join his company.
However, he quickly dismissed the thought.
Back when "Love Letter" was being made, it was already troublesome enough that they had to poach Li Fenglei.
Lu Yanhe didn't want to go through that trouble again.
Now that we've gotten to know each other, we can maintain a cooperative relationship and collaborate on suitable projects in the future.
There's no need to try to poach someone you admire just because you meet them.
His company isn't a warehouse where you can just hoard all sorts of good stuff.
Lu Yanhe's phone suddenly vibrated. It was a message from Chen Siqi: Xin Pingqing's father used to be a screenwriter at An Jian's director company, but later committed suicide.
Lu Yanhe's smile froze instantly.
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I recommend the older book "I Became the Scandalous Woman Overnight" and the new book "The Demon-Slaying Sword".
(End of this chapter)
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