Chapter 453 Big Event
Before the check-in time, Meng Bai and Yang Chaoyue finally "arrived" at the airport in the eager anticipation of their assistants.
As for why these two people were obviously closer but came later, several assistants wisely chose to ignore it.
After sending off Yang Chaoyue who was reluctant to leave, Meng Bai continued to stay in Blue Island.
According to his original plan, he would stay here until the end of the year. While preparing for the filming of "The Beginning", he also took care of the two projects "Guarding Blue Mountain West" and "Twinkle Twinkle Star".
However, plans are always not as fast as changes.
On December 30, there was only one day left until the end of 2019. Just when everyone was looking forward to the upcoming New Year's Day holiday, a sudden news shocked the whole country.
Hubei issued an emergency notice requiring all medical institutions in the province to closely track all recent new influenza patients and report the case situation in a timely manner.
A stone stirred up a thousand waves. The people who had never taken the new influenza seriously before finally realized that this time it seemed to be really big.
However, the development of the situation was much more violent than everyone expected.
Just after the New Year's Day holiday, domestic officials reported a new influenza incident to the World Health Organization. Then, 87 confirmed cases were found in four provinces across the country, and 162 suspected cases were found in 18 provinces.
On January 7, a new influenza patient was found in Thailand, indicating that the scope of infection was beyond the country.
On January 10, eight countries around the world found new influenza patients, including Europe, the United States, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia and other countries. Officials issued statements reminding the public not to go abroad in the near future.
The alarm sounded abroad, and the domestic situation was also chaotic.
Jiangcheng is located in the central hub of the millennium, and it is a thoroughfare for nine provinces. The convenient transportation and large flow of people are rare in the world. With the movement of hundreds of thousands of people, the flu has expanded unstoppably in just half a month.
"Brother Meng Bai, I will be at Landao tomorrow!"
Listening to Zhao Jinmai's cheerful voice on the phone, Meng Bai whispered, "Sorry, Mai Mai, I'm back to Jingbei."
"Ah, so..."
Zhao Jinmai's voice obviously dropped when she heard that Meng Bai was not there, but she still said sensibly, "Then Brother Meng Bai, you should take care of yourself. I saw on the Internet that the flu is very serious recently, you should be careful."
"Okay, thank you for reminding me." Meng Bai smiled and said, "You too, try to stay in the crew and the hotel after the start of filming, and don't run around. After the Chinese New Year, you will have the art exam, so hurry up and review."
"In this situation, can the art exam still be held by then?"
"Don't say it, it is very likely to be postponed... This is good, you can have more time to prepare after you finish filming."
"Well, I hope everything goes well for everyone."
Listening to the innocent blessing of the little girl, Meng Bai smiled and hung up the phone. Then, he looked at the report in his hand, and his expression became serious again.
"Boss, Mr. Liu and others have gone to the conference room to get ready, shall we go over?" Hua Yan poked her head out of the office door.
"Okay, let's go over there too."
Walking into the conference room, Meng Bai was surprised to find that the room was very quiet today.
Looking around the room, he couldn't help but laugh.
"Not bad." Meng Bai sat down in the first seat and smiled at everyone present: "New Year, new atmosphere, we finally look like a film and television company."
Almost everyone he saw was wearing a mask. If you don't look at their faces, they all look like celebrities.
Everyone in the room looked around and laughed when they heard it.
Liu Jun, who was sitting next to Meng Bai, pulled down his mask and said in a muffled voice: "Don't mention it, no wonder those actors and celebrities like to wear it. It's really hard to tell who is who with this thing on their faces. I saw my wife at home this morning, and I felt that she was much more pleasing to the eye."
"Hahahaha..."
A louder laugh broke out in the room.
Meng Bai smiled, coughed lightly, and called everyone: "Okay, take them off now. We are so close to each other, the infection would have been transmitted long ago, and wearing a gas mask is useless."
This is indeed the truth. The people present are wearing masks just for psychological reasons. According to the follow-up management methods that have been circulating on the Internet recently, anyone in this room is considered a close contact.
Seeing that everyone has returned to their usual state, Meng Bai did not say much and went straight to the point.
"Everyone knows the current situation. The situation will only get worse in the future, and no one knows how long it will last. We must start from the worst possibility and make preparations in advance."
According to the reports from various departments, Arclight Films and Apocalypse Entertainment have a total of four projects in preparation, including "The Beginning" and "Eastern Palace", two projects are being filmed, three projects have recently been completed and entered post-production, and another three projects are waiting to be broadcast.
"Just wait for the broadcast and the wrap-up to proceed normally. The filming of Twinkle Twinkle Star is almost done these days, so don't worry too much. Another one urged the crew to speed up and try to finish filming before the Spring Festival."
"As for those that are still in preparation, if the filming location involves Jiangcheng, no, it involves Hubei, all will be changed to other places. Let the crew's producers keep in touch with the local cultural tourism and health departments. Once the situation changes, give priority to protecting the safety and life of the crew members."
The leaders present were all surprised to hear the boss's serious words.
"Are you worried that the closure rumored on the Internet may be true?" Liu Jun frowned and asked.
"Control is certain, but I don't know the specific extent. We are now planning for the worst case scenario, so that even if something unexpected happens, there is room for error."
Meng Bai sighed. In addition to the current projects in the company, there are still many things to think about in advance.
A meeting lasted for a day before it ended, and then all the employees of the Arc Light Department received the latest regulations.
This year's annual meeting originally scheduled to be held in Sanya was cancelled and changed to the suburbs of northern Beijing, and the time was also reduced from three days to one day.
Before the Spring Festival holiday, everyone finished their unfinished work and uploaded all necessary information to the company's NAS server in preparation for possible working from home after the Spring Festival.
Employees from other provinces, especially those in Hubei, are uniformly advised to bring their families out for the New Year this year, and they can also apply for special support subsidies from the company. Those who stay to work will be paid four times the normal overtime pay...
There are more than a dozen requirements, which cannot be said to be watertight, but they do take into account all the places that can be considered at present, and the conditions and treatment given are quite good.
It's not just Arclight, the entire film and television industry, or all companies in the country, should be making various preparations during this period.
In comparison, the difficulties faced by Arclight Film and Television are not that great. After all, it is mainly based on film and television dramas, which is very similar to Internet companies. There is no real industry at the core of the headquarters, and remote work is not much affected. The crew is similar to an outsourced project, and each group is responsible independently.
If we really want to say that the ones who are most affected are the various physical enterprises, including film companies, theaters and cinemas.
In this situation, everyone dares not even go out, let alone watch a movie with so many strangers.
Seven movies were scheduled to be released during the Spring Festival this year. These include Xu Zheng's fourth installment of the "囧 series" "Lost in Russia", Guangguang's second installment of the "Fengshen Animation Series" "Jiang Ziya", Chen Kexin's collaboration with Huang Bo and Gong Li on "Chinese Women's Volleyball", and Lin Chaoxian's new work "Emergency Rescue".
The trailers and promotions for several movies have already begun before New Year's Day, and promotional videos can be seen on major social media and short video platforms.
However, as the Spring Festival is approaching, the promotions of various companies have all stopped. The producers of several movies are watching each other to see if they will withdraw from the schedule.
"Alas, the film and television winter is still here, and the market has finally picked up a bit. Now it's good, it's going to be beaten back again."
In Ruyi Pictures, or the new Hengteng Network Building, Chen Zhixi looked at the news on the Internet and couldn't help but sigh.
"Yeah." Zhou Cheng, who was sitting opposite, also sighed, "Our production companies are fine, the worst case is to postpone, but the theaters and cinemas are really uncomfortable now."
Evergrande also has theaters, and two of them. Although the market share is not large, the speed of burning money is not slow at all.
But the key at present is not the cinema, but the main business of Evergrande, real estate, which is also the hardest hit industry by this flu.
Zhou Cheng has been going to the headquarters for meetings a lot during this period, and his boss Xu has not had a good time recently. Before he came out of the previous National Day, he began to worry about the company's performance this year.
However, although these have an impact on Hengten Network, the impact is not great. As an independently listed company, they have greater autonomy within the Evergrande system.
So the problem now is still the future development of the film and television side.
"The film business is definitely out of the question within a few months."
Meng Bai, who came to attend the meeting, said directly: "According to the current expansion trend, let alone the Spring Festival file, even our originally scheduled May Day file "Famous" and the summer file "Mistakenly Killed" are estimated to have to be postponed."
"Mr. Meng is right." Zhou Cheng said: "So our next focus should be on the promotion of horizontal videos."
The sudden outbreak of influenza has affected all industries, but it is positive for some industries, especially the entertainment industry.
Movies are restricted by offline theaters, but online entertainment does not have this defect.
Games, movies, streaming platforms, short videos, online novels...
Almost all forms of online entertainment will usher in a large wave of traffic.
Among them, games and streaming platforms are particularly beneficial. After all, work and life were busy before, and I could only watch short videos and read online articles in fragmented time. Now that everyone dares not go out, with a large amount of free time, the way of entertainment is naturally not restricted by time.
For horizontal video, this is also a rare development opportunity. With the price advantage of "one dollar for membership" and the ad-free model throughout the process, it is bound to attract a large wave of traffic.
After half a year of improvement, today's horizontal video no longer has the original pirated cheap style. The server, bandwidth, and various projection adaptation functions have also been adjusted to fully meet the needs of users.
"What a pity." Zhou Cheng sighed, "Our 'Retrospective Series' can't catch up with this node, otherwise the drainage effect will be better."
"There's nothing we can do. After all, no one can predict in advance that something like this will happen." Chen Zhixi comforted him, turned his head and looked at Meng Bai who was silent on the side, and couldn't help but curious: "What's the matter, Mr. Meng, do you have any other ideas?"
"I was thinking, it's not that there is no way to catch up." Meng Bai said.
"What do you mean?"
"'The Beginning' and 'Want to See You' haven't been filmed yet, so we definitely can't catch up. But 'Twinkle Twinkle Star' will be finished in the next two days, so we can make two episodes first, and edit and broadcast the rest."
"Edit and broadcast?" Zhou Cheng and Chen Zhixi were surprised at the same time.
"This... isn't going to work." Chen Zhixi said, "It won't pass the review."
Meng Bai stroked his chin, "This is actually a bit of a gray area. According to the review standards for online dramas, only online film and television works that are highlighted on the homepage of mainstream platforms need to be 'reviewed before broadcast'. The rest of the websites and projects still use the filing system."
"Horizontal Video is not yet a mainstream platform. The 'Tracing Series' has already passed the script and technical review and has a filing number. Theoretically, there is no problem with broadcasting it."
"Or maybe this." Meng Bai said, "Let's submit the first few episodes that we can produce for review and then broadcast them. Later, we'll cut out one episode and submit it for review. That way it will be acceptable."
Chen Zhixi frowned, "Are you sure this will work?"
"Special times call for special methods. This is also our contribution to the fight against influenza, and the standards for online dramas are more flexible." Meng Bai said, "I'll say hello to Director Nie of the Radio, Film and Television Department. It shouldn't be a big problem."
"This... if you can get the approval from above, then there will be no problem."
Zhou Cheng listened for a long time. He didn't know much about the film and television industry, so he didn't say much. Seeing that the two professional bosses had reached an agreement, he smiled and said, "If it can be done, it would be the best. But is there enough time? Don't delay the quality in order to speed up, otherwise it will not be worth the loss."
Meng Bai said, "It's okay, we can wait until after the Spring Festival to see the situation. If it is under control by then, it will be unnecessary. But if it is not under control, it will take more than a month, enough to make four to six episodes of content."
After years of training, Arclight already has an excellent post-production team. Not to mention editing and broadcasting, it is also no problem to shoot and broadcast like Korean dramas, it's just stuck in the review mode.
Of course, the broadcast of a drama is not only about the content. Previews, publicity, preheating, theme songs, soundtracks... all of these are required.
Wang Wei thought he could breathe a sigh of relief after finishing filming, but he suddenly received a new request and could only continue to work overtime.
In addition to the platform original drama "Twinkle Twinkle Star", the rest of the planning projects have also been advanced a lot.
For example, Sisters Riding the Wind and Waves was originally scheduled for August, but it was brought forward to early May.
It’s not that they don’t want to move it forward, but it conflicts with the other two talent shows.
Qiyi TV’s Youth With You 2 will be broadcast in March, and Tencent Video’s Produce Camp 2020 will be broadcast in April. And both are girl groups, so they just happen to overlap.
However, for most of the audience fans, they are more optimistic about the other two "orthodox audition girl groups".
Although the "30+ Sister Group" has a big gimmick, it always sounds weird.
...
As the Spring Festival approaches, everyone is looking forward to the New Year while keeping a close eye on the changing trends of the flu.
As everyone expected, the situation has become more serious. New patients have frequently appeared across the country, and the scope of transmission has become wider and wider.
Until the day before New Year's Eve, when everyone was packing up to prepare for the New Year, the Jiangcheng government suddenly held a press conference and announced that from 10 o'clock today, all external transportation in the entire Jiangcheng would be suspended, public places would be closed, and the entire city would be closed.
Everyone only realized belatedly that they seemed to be experiencing an unprecedented major event.
(End of this chapter)
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