In mid-November, Tang An came to Tiangong Yicai Film and Television Production Company.
Tiangong Yicai, which has participated in the special effects production of blockbusters such as "Now You See Me", "Edge of Tomorrow", "The Martian", and "The Secret of the Dragon", is now the top film and television post-production company in China.
The scale of the company is also growing. Because of the business support of Hantang Media and the effects of those blockbuster movies, it has also gained fame. It has successively acquired four or five special effects companies in the industry, whether it is hardware or software.
, the talents are among the best in the country.
It’s not just domestic movies. In order to save costs, Hollywood studios have also begun to outsource a large number of special effects to domestic film and television companies. Tiangong Yicai has received three blockbusters: "Iron Man 3", "Captain America 2" and "RoboCop 4"
part of the business.
There have also been movies such as "The Hunger Games", "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", and "Suicide Squad" before.
Participating in the special effects production of Hollywood blockbusters and cooperating with the first-class special effects companies in Hollywood, it is not only as simple as some business, but also a complete set of Hollywood methodologies and industrial systems. This is the most important thing.
The company's expansion is also inseparable from Tang An's support. Software and hardware all cost money. After several capital injections, Hantang Media's shares in Tiangong Yicai have reached 57%.
However, because special effects companies have not yet been fully taken seriously, the valuation of Tiangong Yicai is not high, only 700 million, and financing has not yet begun.
Also, there are almost no domestic movies that rely entirely on special effects.
"Edge of Tomorrow" and "The Martian" mainly rely on Tang An.
The IP of "Looking for the Dragon" plays a greater role.
When special effects are really taken seriously by audiences and film and television companies, that's when Tiangong's splendor will take off.
For a director, it stands to reason that he should control all the details of a movie. The bigger the director, the more serious and lustful he is.
However, most directors know nothing about special effects, and blindly directing will only cause confusion for the special effects team.
If I don't interfere, my heart will be right.
After all, this is your movie, and if you leave it to someone else, you may not know what it will be like.
Tang An didn't come here to ask a layman to command an expert. In the previous year, he had told Chang Hongsong and Xiao Yang all his new ideas. He just came to take a look.
After all, for a director, the movie is his own child. Even if it is left to a nanny, he has to watch it before he feels at ease.
Visiting each department one by one, Xiao Yang explained from the side.
Although most of the filming was real-life, special effects were used everywhere in the movie from beginning to end.
Regarding the universe, wormholes, magnetic field interference, these scenes that are real in real life but require imagination, need to use special effects to solve them. The projection used during shooting is projection after all, and post-production is also required.
"Dr. Tang, there are not many directors in China who pay as much attention to details as you do. Generally, blue screens are used for special effects backgrounds like this. You also specially used a projection."
While introducing, Xiao Yang was still flattering him.
In fact, it can’t be said to be flattering. It is originally a digital special effect, and there is no difference between using a blue screen directly.
That projection was not done casually. Hundreds of people and several experts studied the projection of the black hole for more than half a month.
Xiao Yang has also participated in the behind-the-scenes production of some Hollywood blockbusters in the past two years. He has never seen many directors who can be so meticulous. Most of them do pure digital special effects directly with green screen.
However, Hollywood has good technology and is willing to spend money and time, so the results are much better than those produced in China.
"I also try to be as perfect as possible within the scope of what I can achieve. If I really don't have the conditions, I can't say anything, but since I have the conditions, I can't be careless."
Tang An smiled and said, "The more important thing is to make the actors perform more naturally. After all, performing in front of a blue screen is definitely not as good as performing in a real background. It also saves time and film.
It’s a big number, so there are gains and losses.”
No matter what actor you are, there is definitely a difference between performing with real objects and with a blue screen.
Of course, in the future, many actors will be able to perform in front of a blue screen, which is no different from performing in a real scene.
They even didn't even use the opposite actor, they filmed all their scenes directly in the studio, and then the crew didn't have to show up when filming, they just added him in later.
The acting skills are there, and if you ask them to do real filming, it won't be much better than performing in the air.
However, this is also a kind of ability. It is quite difficult for you to perform according to the requirements of the script, without actors or background.
As for not reading the lines and just saying one, two, three, four, that is also a skill. Otherwise, if you try to make different expressions on your face and keep counting the numbers in your mouth, it will be very inconsistent for most people to perform.
Tang An spent a whole morning looking at the effects and progress of each department's production.
There are seven or eight departments with nearly a thousand employees performing their respective duties.
The physical special effects in the early stage have basically been completed, and now there are basically a small number of pure digital special effects and digital special effects added to the physical special effects.
In that scene, under the interference of magnetic field, the harvesters gathered in one direction without driving a driver. This scene erased the driver to create the illusion of driverless driving.
The large-scale fire in the cornfield was also produced in post-production with special effects.
In the scene where the spaceship entered the black hole and was hit by debris, in addition to random collisions with different materials, in order to make the shot more realistic, the model was erected to shoot against the black background. The main light was placed on the outside of the spacecraft and a tilting board was used to
The salt falls and is then shot at high speed.
After post-production digital special effects, shots of high-speed driving in a black hole can be presented.
There are also scenes of explosions in space. When the explosion contains oxygen, flames will be produced.
But when the oxygen leaks and spreads into the universe, the flames will disappear, but the spread of fragments must still be maintained.
The fuel used in the explosion of the spacecraft is butane, so there will be a very bright flash, burn quickly, and then dissipate quickly.
Real models, real lights, real backgrounds, real shooting methods, everything we seek is a reality.
Even miniature models are used as little as possible, unless absolutely necessary.
At noon, I had a meal with the senior management of Tiangong Yicai and exchanged some opinions. In the afternoon, Tang An flew to the Magic City.
The acquisition of Fengxing.com has been negotiated, and Oriental Pearl and other shareholders are willing to sell.
Tang An and Oriental Pearl Group President Xu Hui signed a share transfer contract for the Jinmao Grand Hyatt Hotel in Shanghai, the world's tallest hotel that once applied for Guinness World Records.
"Mr. Xu, happy cooperation!"
"Happy cooperation, Director Tang!"
Hantang Media acquired all shares of Fengxing.com at a valuation of RMB 624 million, of which 82.67% of the shares held by Oriental Pearl Group were valued at RMB 516 million, and the other 17.33% of the shares have been acquired from other shareholders and management teams.
With a valuation of more than 600 million, it has completely fallen behind among video websites. It lacks users and traffic, and it is unlikely that Oriental Pearl alone will succeed. The acquisition process was quite smooth.
After the acquisition is completed, Fengxing.com will be merged into Tudou Group, and Hantang Media will also inject 300 million in cash.
After a round of capital injection, Hantang Media's shareholding in Tudou Group increased from 34.7% to 41.31%.
The acquisition of Oriental Fengxing Media Group cost 600 million, Fengxing.com spent 624 million, and the loan owed by the group reached 2.82 billion.
The acquisition of 624 million and the capital injection of 300 million in cash also involved borrowing 1 billion from banks.
Not only are the loans for the three movies "Interstellar", "The Caves of the Lobster" and "囧", but the project of "Detective Chinatown 2" has also been officially approved and a loan has been obtained from the bank.
Fortunately, "The Lost Caves" will be released next month, and "囧" will be released in two months, so there will be no problem in getting the funds back.
This capital injection of nearly 1 billion assets has obviously increased the market value of Tudou Group. Two days after the news was announced, the market value rose to 1.543 billion US dollars, equivalent to 10.03 billion yuan, and is still rising, towards Youku, the number one domestic video website.
launched an impact on his position.
A tens of billions-level Internet company is definitely a big company in China and cannot be ignored by anyone.
The bosses of companies in the entertainment industry also sighed secretly. The valuation of Hantang Media is over 10 billion, and it also controls a listed company with a market value of 10 billion. It is really incomparable.
Some big guys who are expanding into the entertainment industry have also been paying attention to the development of Han and Tang Media.
Baidu, which has already acquired iQiyi and also won pps, plans to use iQiyi as the mainstay, but it currently only ranks third among domestic video websites.
Although Tengxun Pictures has been established, it has not launched any projects for a while. The focus is still on developing Tengxun Video. Relying on Tengxun's channels, we are stepping up to catch up.
At Ali Group, Ma Yun is discussing the acquisition of Youku with several senior executives.
Ma Yun never takes care of projects below 3 billion, but Youku's current market value is far more than 3 billion, and it is also an important part of Ahli's entertainment business group in the future. He still has to personally take care of it.
After discussing the general plan, several people also mentioned Tang An.
"The first time I met Tang An was when I went to Huayi in 2008. He was a director at the time. I didn't expect that just a few years later, his career would become so big." Ma Yun said with a smile.
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Cai Chongxin, who was the executive vice chairman of Ali Group at the time and was responsible for the acquisition of Youku, also laughed and said, "I have never met him, but he has such a large industry in just three years since he started his business. It must not be easy, Ma."
Dong, tell me?"
"I didn't have a very deep impression, and I didn't have much in-depth contact with him. I didn't feel there was anything special at first." Ma Yun shook his head as if recalling.
"But to reach this point in three years, I am also surprised. He is a character."
Wu Weidao, CFO of the group next to him, said, "But this Tang An is very arrogant. He refused our capital injection three times. Other funds and venture capital also refused."
"Moreover, the business is getting bigger and bigger, and now we owe a lot of money to the bank. Once those blockbuster films fail to collect funds in time, the capital chain will be broken."
"It's normal for young people to have ambitions. When they encounter setbacks, they will naturally figure it out." Ma Yun said with a smile.
Who was not the boss when they were young? What's more, Tang An is only 32 years old now. For a rich man with a net worth of tens of billions and an industry he built by himself, there is nothing abnormal about being arrogant.
Ma Yun was also a little pity. If Tang An could accept Ah Li's investment, then Ah Li's cultural and entertainment business group would be able to dominate the film and television entertainment industry in at most two years.
But for Ma Yun, it is also a matter of time. No matter how much share the traditional film and television companies have now, the future will still be dominated by the three major Internet companies.
Any industry will eventually be engulfed by capital!
However, the next day, when the 2012 Forbes China Rich List was placed on Ma Yun's desk, he was a little lost for a moment.
Looking at the numbers above, Ma Yun took a deep breath and reached out to pick up the two light A4 papers.
He rose to twelfth place from 39th last year, with assets of 21.42 billion yuan.
The eleventh place on the list is Tang An, with a total personal assets of 22.4 billion yuan.
The 11th richest person in the country is only 32 years old.