Chapter 612 Spirit
"Are you leaving so soon?"
Yuan Hai asked in surprise.
He thought to himself, "Now Huang Tianlin will have nothing to say."
Chen Siqi said, "I still have a lot of work to do in China, so I can't stay here for long."
“Then—” Yuan Hai suddenly realized something. Lu Yanhe’s schedule was full for the next two days, with filming from morning till night. “How about I ask them to adjust it? Yanhe, I’ll give you a day off tomorrow and let you film other scenes first.”
Before Lu Yanhe could speak, Chen Siqi immediately said, "Producer Yuan, you don't need to give him a break because of me. I don't need him to accompany me. I'm too lazy to go anywhere. It's quite interesting to watch him act on set. It's been a long time since I've seen him act live."
Upon hearing this, Yuan Hai looked at Lu Yanhe.
Lu Yanhe nodded.
Yuan Hai: "Okay, whatever you need, just tell me. Don't be shy."
Lu Yanhe and Chen Siqi exchanged a glance and nodded to Yuan Hai.
Yuan Hai helped them tear the chicken apart and put it on the small table. Instead of leaving immediately, he took off his disposable plastic gloves and said to Chen Siqi, "Siqi, I'd like to talk to you when you're free this afternoon, is that convenient?"
Chen Siqi nodded, "Of course it's convenient. I'll be on set all afternoon. Producer Yuan, you can come find me when you're free."
As soon as Yuan Hai left, Chen Siqi immediately said to Lu Yanhe, "This President Yuan is really helpful. I came here on short notice, and there are no restaurants in this remote area. He actually managed to get us a local roasted chicken as an extra meal."
Lu Yanhe laughed and said, "Generally, a good producer is quite capable. Directors can be capricious when it comes to dealing with people, but it's rare to find a producer who isn't very good at social maneuvering."
"What do you think he wanted to talk to me about?" Chen Siqi asked curiously.
In Chen Siqi's view, as a producer from Malaysia, Yuan Hai doesn't really have anything to talk to her about privately at the moment.
Lu Yanhe shook his head. "I don't know either."
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Chen Siqi never expected that Yuan Hai would come to see her about the Jumping Theater.
Yuan Hai owns a production company in Malaysia, and Huang Tianlin is not the only director he has signed.
However, the local market in Malaysia is too small. Yuan Hai can only secure limited investment each year, and the number of film projects he can produce is even more limited. Many people can only take on small filming projects for local television stations, or simply take on freelance work during their off-season.
Yuan Hai wanted to participate in the jumping project.
“I heard that you are also recruiting directors and assembling production teams on a large scale,” he said. “I wonder if you have any suitable projects. If so, could you consider giving them to us to film? We can take over the production.”
Chen Siqi stared at Yuan Hai in surprise, remaining stunned for a long time.
Seeing that she hadn't spoken for a long time, Yuan Hai assumed she was in a difficult position and immediately said, "It's okay if you don't need it. I'm used to it. I try to bring back as many projects as possible from outside. The company has a lot of people, including the production team. It's a lot of pressure to support the team. Please understand."
“Ah, no.” Chen Siqi shook her head. “I was just inspired. Before you told me, I never thought that we could find a filming team from abroad to make a scene of jumping theater.”
Currently, one of the biggest problems facing Jump Up Theater is the pressure of production.
In the entertainment industry, there are only so many directors who have the talent, time, and ideas to make "Jump Up Theater" films, including those who have been discovered and those who haven't. They can't be as numerous as carp crossing a river, and you can just pick and choose as you like.
The Jump Up Theater is just starting out, and the pool of directors and production teams is enough to support the filming of so many shows. However, as the good directors we found earlier are all used up, it will become increasingly difficult to find production teams to film suitable projects.
After all, she couldn't expect directors who had already succeeded in Jump Theatre to use the same fees they received for their first Jump Theatre production to make a second or third. The Jump Theatre model also meant that even if production budgets increased with advertising revenue, they could never reach a point where they could pay market rates.
This is just the most basic difficulty.
The Jump Theater model relies on a continuous stream of new directors and other creators to form an effective cycle, allowing it to continue producing films on this production foundation.
Chen Siqi knew beforehand that Lu Yanhe's Linghe Company was actually looking for suitable young directors in Southeast Asian countries and regions to collaborate on films. However, probably because filmmaking itself involves a lot of international collaboration, and Chinese film crews also have many technical staff from abroad, including many well-known directors, they all engage in a great deal of international cooperation. Therefore, Chen Siqi never thought that Jumping Theater could also find a production team from overseas.
On the one hand, it's because there has almost never been such a precedent in the field of television dramas. Everyone naturally assumes that if you hire a foreign director to make a TV series, it won't turn out well. After all, TV series are more down-to-earth than movies to some extent, and they need a "one of our own" who truly understands Chinese culture to make stories that audiences like more.
On the other hand, Chen Siqi herself felt that with such a low budget for a play like Jumping Theater, they couldn't even afford to hire a slightly famous director in China, let alone a foreign director.
As soon as Yuan Hai spoke, Chen Siqi suddenly realized that not all foreign directors are expensive.
China's film and television market is already the world's largest. This has led to a surge in the salaries of film and television production personnel. However, in places like Malaysia and Thailand, their own markets are not as large, and consequently, their film and television production talent pool is not as large.
Two to three million RMB to produce a two- or three-episode TV series might be a very low cost for the Chinese market, but it may not be a cheap budget for Malaysia.
The question is, can the people in Malaysia actually film this? And film it well?
If someone else had volunteered for this task, Chen Siqi might have needed to investigate further and find out more about their background. But this person was Yuan Hai, who owned a legitimate production company, had worked on many film and television projects, and, most importantly, was Chinese, spoke fluent Mandarin, and shared a common cultural background.
The movies filmed at Jump Up Theater aren't historical dramas or serious historical dramas.
Chen Siqi said, "Mr. Yuan, I am very interested in this proposal. I would like to learn more about your production company. By the way, you should know that the production budget for each play at Jump Up Theater is basically only around six hundred thousand US dollars, right?"
Yuan Hai nodded: "I've heard about it."
“That’s good. To be honest, although the production budget for Jumping Theater will increase a bit later, it certainly won’t increase much. It’s not like those American, British, or even Korean dramas that we know, with a production budget of tens of millions of dollars per show,” Chen Siqi said. “If your production company is really interested in Jumping Theater, then we can try one or two projects first.”
Yuan Hai nodded.
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Lu Yanhe was quite surprised when he learned that Yuan Hai wanted to find Chen Siqi; he hadn't expected it.
However, upon closer reflection, it's not difficult to understand.
Lu Yanhe, who runs his own film and television production company, knows how much pressure it takes to support one.
A company that does nothing can have eight-figure expenses just from labor costs and fixed costs such as rent.
Yuan Hai's film production company operates in a high-risk industry, not to mention Malaysia, where the local market is too small, competition in the Asian market is too fierce, not to mention the markets in Europe and America.
They could barely survive in a small pond, squeezed into a tiny crevice.
Investment is hard to find, and the influence of films and television dramas is insufficient. There are no well-known and influential creators. Huang Tianlin is already the most representative figure in Malaysian cinema in recent years—and he has only directed one film, which was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival and received decent reviews.
It's easy to imagine how much pressure Yuan Hai was under.
To be honest, if you were to entrust a typical Chinese-language drama series worth tens of millions of dollars to Yuan Hai's company, let alone whether any company would dare to do so, they themselves wouldn't dare to accept it. This is because their company isn't large enough to handle such a large project.
Jumping Theater happens to be a theater for "small projects".
A series of two or three episodes with a production budget of around six hundred thousand US dollars is exactly the size that Yuan Hai's production company can afford.
Chen Siqi asked, "After spending the past few days with him, do you think he's someone you can work with?"
“Yes.” Lu Yanhe nodded without hesitation. “Actually, I’ve not only been in contact with him for the past few days. Since we first got in touch with this movie, Ziyan and I have been in contact with him for almost half a year. Especially Ziyan, we’ve been in contact with him more often and more frequently. Ziyan has a very high opinion of him.”
Chen Siqi: "Then I have to change my ticket. I want to go and see his company and meet his production team."
After so many years as the editor-in-chief of "Jump Up," Chen Siqi has increasingly realized that when deciding whether to collaborate with someone, she needs to personally meet and talk to them. Of course, the more meetings and discussions she can have, the better. In the content creation field, collaborations like hers are mostly about how reliable the person is, rather than how well-designed their proposal is.
Therefore, she wanted to meet the other people in Yuan Hai's company and see their production team. Having worked on Jumping Theater for so long, Chen Siqi had developed her own standards for what qualities a good producer and a good production team should possess and what they shouldn't have.
Lu Yanhe nodded and said, "Sure, but does President Yuan have time to take you? I've noticed he's been on set almost every day these past two days, he hasn't left."
“It’s okay, it’s better that he’s not here. He can have someone else receive me,” Chen Siqi said.
Lu Yanhe nodded.
"As long as you have an idea."
“Do you know what I’m thinking? I think I’m exaggerating a bit, I might be a little crazy,” Chen Siqi suddenly said.
"Huh?" Lu Yanhe asked, "What's wrong?"
"I'm thinking, if the Jump Up Theatre model can be replicated, perhaps in the future we can search for production talent all over the world, not just to collaborate with us and film the novels in our 'Jump Up' magazine, but also to find scripts locally and film local stories, with Jump Up Theatre branches in Malaysia, India, Singapore..."
"After thinking about this, I suddenly realized why the overseas edition of 'Jump Up' hasn't been very effective in terms of promotion. Besides the fact that physical books are not doing well, there's another point I forgot about. Even though the overseas edition of 'Jump Up' is no longer a magazine but a themed book, all the authors and articles in it are from China. It's too unfamiliar to local readers. I'm thinking that when I continue to produce overseas editions, I want to invite local writers to create a themed book and ask several influential local writers to write articles around this theme."
Chen Siqi's suggestion greatly inspired Lu Yanhe.
"This sounds like something worth trying."
Previously, they had always thought about making "Jump Up" "go out", so they forgot that many times, the prerequisite for "going out" is that they also need to "go in" better.
This tactic has actually been used far too many times in the film and television industry. They target a particular overseas market, then find an actor from that country to participate in the production.
Behind the so-called international lineup are actually these most basic business considerations.
However, their previous approach to developing the overseas edition of "Jump Up" was constrained by the fact that they already had many good published works. They prejudicially believed that the setbacks of the overseas edition of "Jump Up" were due to insufficient promotion, a sluggish physical publishing industry, and a failure to properly connect a good book with a market.
In reality, what they consider good may not be so good for local readers.
Like many highly acclaimed overseas works, it was met with a cold reception when it came to China.
Cultural backgrounds differ, and so do aesthetic preferences.
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When talking about work, Chen Siqi's eyes light up.
Lu Yanhe felt that she couldn't wait to fly back to China and discuss this matter with her team.
When Lu Yanhe came out after taking a shower, Chen Siqi was holding her laptop, her fingers flying across the keyboard at a rapid pace.
When Lu Yanhe went over to take a look, he saw that she was writing down her ideas for the next step of promoting the overseas edition.
The page was already densely covered with text, but my thoughts flowed out like a spring.
In addition to what I just mentioned, Chen Siqi also wrote that we could refer to the "celebrity effect" that "Jump Up" magazine initially utilized when it was first launched in China, and invite well-known directors, screenwriters, and actors, both locally and internationally, to write columns. Rather than inviting celebrities to shoot the cover and attract a wave of fans to buy the book, it would be better to use this method to create the impression of "Jump Up" as a literary bible.
Physical books are destined to be out of reach for the masses in this era, so let's focus on the niche market and maximize the appeal of "Jump Up" on that path.
With so many people, no matter how niche the track, as long as you do it well, you're bound to earn flowers and applause.
Lu Yanhe sat down next to Chen Siqi, put his arm around her waist, and watched her type without saying a word to disturb her.
After an unknown amount of time, Chen Siqi suddenly felt a weight on her shoulder.
She turned her head and realized that Lu Yanhe had fallen asleep while watching.
Chen Siqi snapped out of her daze, closed her laptop, put it aside, and patted Lu Yanhe's thigh.
Lu Yanhe opened his eyes, still somewhat sleepy.
He saw that Chen Siqi had already turned off her computer and asked, "Finished writing?"
"Okay, I'm done writing." Chen Siqi nodded. "Go to sleep."
Lu Yanhe yawned. "Let's go."
As a result, once he got into bed, Lu Yanhe became energetic and stopped yawning.
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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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