A poor man has a plan, but a rich man has a conscience.
Many poor people may not agree with this view, or think it is not applicable in most cases.
But no matter how opposed people are, they have to admit that under a specific situation, what I said just now is definitely true.
That's it for artists.
If an artist has money, he can create entirely for the sake of artistic ethics and ideals, without giving up his integrity for money.
Just like a B-site UP owner who has endless money to spend, he can focus on things he thinks are interesting and worth doing without affecting the audience experience.
Another example is an online writer who has endless money to spend. He cannot finish his work because he "hit the street". He can keep his work alive for a long time for the ideals of a small group of like-minded people, and become an absolute "writer" in the hearts of readers.
A person of good conscience.
(I’m not saying that rich writers won’t suck. They’ll suck if they deserve it, but at least they won’t suck for the reason of “can’t make money.” Maybe they really can’t write anymore. I don’t have such noble moral integrity, because
I am poor, so I am a treacherous character, otherwise I would not be able to survive.)
If this is not called "rich and conscientious", what is?
Emmerich, on the other hand, is obviously a director who has a good conscience at least because he has money.
He is from the second generation of rich people. When making movies, he doesn't care about the feelings of insiders or investors. In the early days, he invested in movies by himself and made movies that he felt comfortable watching.
For such a person, giving him money is not the greatest support. In contrast, when others criticize him, understanding his works and creative motivations can win his friendship more.
"Oh, Gu, I'm sorry. I always thought you were just a self-promoting cultural and tourism luxury businessman. I didn't expect you to have such tolerance for art. If I had known, I would have asked you to invest a little bit last year.
At the beginning, I was mainly afraid that investors would dictate what I did after they gave me money, and they would interfere with my creation when I saw people in the industry criticizing me, so I didn’t want your money.”
After listening to Gu Kun's incisive remarks just now, "There is no distinction between refined and vulgar needs in the audience. If someone wants, just feed them, leaving the merits and demerits to be verified by history." Emmerich's feeling of confidant towards Gu Kun instantly changed.
Improved by one and a half levels.
It’s quite late to know each other.
Gu Kun patted the other party's shoulder unceremoniously: "It's nothing, it's just a little money. If I had really invested in you at that time, maybe it would have been 'making money from novice viewers without conscience'. It's fine now. Anyway, let's go together first
Witness the big sale, and we’ll talk about the rest later.”
He didn't even say "I wish you a big hit", but said "witness it together". The subtlety of his words made people feel that his confidence in the film was purely from the inside out and came from his heart.
Emmerich: "Don't say anything. If you are not busy going to Atlanta, you must spend a few more days in Los Angeles. We will wait until the results of the Independence Day premiere come out and have a few drinks."
Gu Kun was training everywhere. As for adapting to the soil and water climate before the competition, ten days in advance was enough, so he readily agreed: "Do you have to wait for the results after drinking a few drinks? You can drink it now, Roland, are you reluctant to part with it?"
Your wine is so good."
Emmerich smiled happily: "What are you talking about? If you are in the mood, then just have a few drinks today. What are you drinking?"
Gu Kun glanced at the wine cabinet behind the living room: "Gin, vodka, or brandy are all fine, as long as it's not whiskey. I don't drink Brittany."
Emmerich showed a "you know" expression, and while going to get the wine, he complained casually: "You guy, you look down on the Breton temper, it's written all over your face. But it's none of my business.
In fact, I don’t like it either.”
Emmerich is German, but in recent years his film career has been in Hollywood. Of course, he doesn't have to like Bretons.
In the mid-1990s, under the background of the establishment of the European Union and the reconciliation between Germany and France, Germany and France's feelings towards the Breton troublemakers also reached a low point. They felt that the Bretons had been destroying European peace and sowing discord since ancient times.
The despicable and bad seed.
So, Emmerich picked out a few bottles of high-quality liquor with strong national characteristics in his wine cabinet, the Nordic Aguavit, and started drinking and chatting with Gu Kun.
Aguavit is actually similar to vodka, but it is a Swedish wine, a typical high-altitude liquor in the Germanic cultural style, and is relatively niche internationally.
It can even be said that "vodka" and "Aguavit" are just the pronunciations of "water of life" in ancient Russian and ancient Swedish respectively. (However, the selection of materials for brewing the wine is indeed slightly different.
Everyone from the Age of Sail knows this)
While the two were drinking, they chatted about the film business. Gu Kun directly said that there would be other large-scale productions with cool visual effects in the future, and he must invest money, and it would be best to go to Lanfang for filming.
He is willing to specially set up filming locations for pure special effects movies, provide various discounts, and even provide tax transfers for technical services to stunt companies according to the VIE structure.
Emmerich's eyes really lit up when he heard these conditions.
He forced himself to sober up and asked in detail: "The tax transfer to the VIE structure of the special effects company? Can you explain it more clearly? It sounds a bit mysterious. Isn't it possible for Hollywood to avoid taxes?
There are too many cities in the world that are willing to use tax cuts to steal Hollywood business. As far as I know, Vancouver, Canada, next door, has been talking about various tax incentives for many years, but it still hasn’t taken away much business. Could the one you mentioned be able to do that?
Is it more favorable than Vancouver’s policy?”
By the 2020s, Vancouver, Canada, after more than 20 years of unremitting efforts, various tax incentives, and suppression of labor unions, finally took away 60% of the low-end industry jobs in Los Angeles or Hollywood, and transferred them to outsourcing.
Vancouver.
Taxation is actually a secondary reason. After all, we know that foreigners have tax incentives, and the local government in California can also reduce taxes in a preferential manner. If the supporting industry chain is all in Hollywood, and the upstream and downstream cooperation is not smooth after the transfer, others will still be unwilling to leave.
Just like in later generations, after Vietnam's labor costs were lower than those in China, it still failed to poach industrial chains such as Foxconn. This is because their upstream and downstream supply chain coordination systems are still in Shenzhen, and it is inconvenient to just move the assembly plant.
What really squeezed out low-end jobs in Hollywood was that the labor unions in Oceania were too strong and protected workers in uncompetitive low-end jobs so much that the capitalists were unwilling to give up and left in anger.
While Vancouver poached a large number of low-end jobs, many special effects outsourcing teams in later Hollywood moved to China.
Therefore, don’t criticize the future Huaxia Film and Television Company for not doing well in special effects. This is not a technical issue, but a matter of audience aesthetics and investment.
Around the mid-2010s, the Chinese special effects team was already absolutely world-class. However, the audience loved watching small-scale dramas and was unwilling to pay for special effects, so Chinese films and dramas did not spend money on special effects.
Facing Emmerich's question, Gu Kun had to pretend to give an honest answer:
"I can't say more about the specifics. These are some legal tips and valuable business secrets. I told you, you must not disclose it to other investors or people who are industrial policy politicians."
Emmerich: "Of course, we are friends. I don't have any other politicians friends, so why would I betray you?"
Gu Kun: "The VIE structure is a way for Internet companies to avoid taxes invented by us Chinese people. It was just born in the past few months.
If you are interested, you can observe a new Chinese Internet company called Sohu. They will receive venture capital from Silicon Valley in the next few months. The specific structure used was invented by a lawyer named Liu Gang.
All in all, it is to circumvent the restriction that "Internet companies operating in China must be registered in China's own country" and double nest the operating company and the technical service company. Then the actual operating company actually has almost zero profit, and all the benefits are transferred to the company that provides technical services.
Overseas companies.”
(Note: Liu Gang's real name is historical fact. This barrister is the father of Huaxia VIE. He was responsible for the venture capital legal model of Sohu Groom Huang Yi and his family. However, the plots of these people will not appear in this book.
The above is purely for popular science and does not infringe on anyone’s reputation.)
Gu Kun paused for a moment and continued to explain: "As for me, I have learned from lawyer Liu's strategy. I think that special effects are actually the easiest way to outsource to foreign countries to reduce the union's voice.
Currently, the Hollywood Directors Guild and several other unions are not allowed to directly package special effects production as a whole, but we can provide 'technical services' to local special effects companies through the special effects of an overseas offshore company, and then the profits will stay with the technical service company, Hollywood
The local general contractor has almost zero profit, so there is no need to pay taxes.
At the same time, our technical services company in Lanfang will not charge any income tax. You can share the spoils as much as you like, just like other major California Internet tax avoidance companies are preparing to do in the Cayman Islands, Bahamas and Virgin Islands. Within one year
, I can persuade the Dutch government to transform its high-tech industry tax system into that of the Cayman Islands. But we have more supporting facilities than the Cayman Islands."
Visual effects companies, after all, belong to the IT industry and only serve the film industry, so they are most suitable to be transferred out using the tax evasion structure of Internet companies.
However, it is only 1996, and not all serious Internet companies have figured out this architecture. Only one or two leaders have figured it out.
Therefore, those slow-reacting guys in the entertainment industry did not realize that there was an opportunity and environment quietly ripe for transfer of tax evasion.
In this case, why can't Gu Kun, a reborn person, take the first sip of profits to pave the way for his own cultural tourism career?
As for how he will build a special effects studio for Lan Fang in the future, even if there is no tax benefit, he can still get it back from the tourism industry and the city's business card.
Just like how the Japanese tourism industry in Kansai has slumped after the 21st century, Osaka has to rely on a Universal Studios to prop up some of its reputation. For Gu Kun, such a deal is definitely profitable.
Of course, the effect of just Emmerich is still limited, but the road is taken step by step. Gu Kun can completely count on this breakthrough to gradually attract a group of "Guo Degang type" special effects directors who are not suitable for the traditional Hollywood circle.
Go to him to shoot scenes, outsource special effects and props for big scenes.
As for those relatively elegant literary and artistic talents, Gu Kun definitely cannot count on them. If they want to stay in Hollywood, they can just stay in Hollywood.
In Gu Kun's eyes, these literary and artistic people are just dabblers. They look down on the kitsch school, but unfortunately they themselves are not very elegant. If you really want elegant artists, why don't you go to the three major European film festivals, go to France, Germany and Italy?
Damn it, why come to Hollywood?
Now that you've come to Hollywood, you shouldn't put on a straight face and stick to vulgarity. What's the point of pretending to be a coward when you're in a brothel?