Zhu Xiaoce held a meeting in the conference room with the key members of Feihuang Studio, as well as Cui Geng, Lu Zhiyao, Zhang Zuting, Lin Jiaqiang and other actors who have worked with him.
Huang Sibo was not here because he went traveling with Hu Xianbin, and he left very peacefully...oh no, in a hurry.
It’s a bit difficult for Zhu Xiaoce to take over alone. Fortunately, Feihuang Studio has been consciously cultivating the next generation of director candidates, so when the person in charge leaves, there will be someone to take over immediately, and there will be no problems.
The script for "Successor" has been written a long time ago, and even the preliminary preparations have been almost arranged.
This meeting is to finalize the script, unify our thoughts, and then prepare to officially start filming.
This filming is different from the past. We have to work with a team from the United States. The characters in the play are mainly foreigners, so naturally we have to cast actors from abroad.
Therefore, Zhu Xiaoce did not originally plan to find actors from China.
But Lu Zhiyao has obviously had enough of the sweetness from his previous collaborations, and he has to play a supporting role in the movie no matter what. If he doesn't get a supporting role, he won't leave.
Zhang Zuting, Lin Jiaqiang and others also said that they must help, even if it is just a few minutes of guest appearance?
Zhu Xiaoce was so kind that he couldn't resist, so he had to find a way to force all these people in. Fortunately, these people all had good English skills, and they had no problem reciting their lines. Even if there were some minor flaws in their accents, they would appear more realistic.
It can be dubbed later, so it’s not a big problem.
Zhu Xiaoce briefly introduced the basic content of this shooting.
"This time we are going to shoot it in the form of a web series, with a total of 12 episodes, each episode is about 50 minutes to an hour."
"The scripts for these 12 episodes have been sent to everyone, and a brief synopsis of the story is also attached at the end so that everyone can better understand the story."
"After the filming is completed, the drama will be released domestically. It may cooperate with video websites in the form of exclusive broadcast. There are currently no plans for overseas release."
"How it will be released is not the point. After all, if the film is of good quality, you don't have to worry about it. It's too early to think about it now."
"Today's meeting, the original author Cui Geng is also here. If you have any questions about the story, you can ask it. Cui Geng and our screenwriting team will try their best to answer it for you."
Lin Jiaqiang was also present.
Compared with the positions of people like Lu Zhiyao and Zhang Zuting, he is obviously not qualified, but after all, he has cooperated with Tengda many times, so he came to help out as a bit player, and he didn't expect to get much remuneration.
If he still had the same fat image as before, he could only play a comedian, and it would obviously be inappropriate to make a cameo in this drama. But now that he has lost weight, he can play a casual passerby no problem.
However, at this moment, he turned over the script and showed a slightly incomprehensible expression.
Is this possible?
This shooting by Feihuang Studio is really full of flaws, more than any previous one!
First of all, with such a huge investment and having to work with a crew from the United States, it turned out that it was just a web series, not a movie.
Secondly, this web drama is all dubbed in English and tells a story that takes place abroad. However, there are no plans to release it abroad for the time being, so domestically will be given priority.
Thirdly, from the perspective of subject matter and content, this is a superhero-themed movie, but in fact it has nothing to do with traditional superheroes. There is not even a good guy in the traditional sense in the entire series. The biggest
The protagonist is even more badass.
Last but not least, the original work of this novel has actually been serialized on the Dingmin Chinese website, but the effect is not very good, and the acceptance rate among domestic online readers is not very high.
Is this possible?
No matter how you look at it, it looks like you are about to rush into the street.
Lin Jiaqiang secretly looked at Lu Zhiyao and Zhang Zuting and found that although these two people were firm on the surface, some small actions actually revealed that they were not 100% confident in the script.
Obviously, no matter how many times a miracle has happened, people will still doubt whether the next miracle will happen.
This is human nature, not to mention that the difficulty this time is significantly higher than before.
Zhu Xiaoce was obviously aware of this, so he held a meeting in advance to unify his thoughts. If even the internal staff were skeptical about the success of this online drama, then there would probably be a lot of detours during the filming.
We are all old acquaintances, so we no longer hide it and tell our confusion truthfully.
Zhang Zuting spoke first.
"The script this time is... quite special. But are you sure it should be in the form of a web drama? As far as I know, the current web drama formats are generally low-cost, small-production content. After all, web dramas
There are limited ways to make money.”
"If you want to recoup the cost of a big investment, it's best to make a movie and earn box office, and earn global box office."
"The format of online dramas, foreign themes, foreign actors, English voices, and subtitles are required for domestic broadcasts... These restrictions have repeatedly narrowed the audience group and turned it into a quite niche format."
“Does this really pay for itself?”
For actors like Zhang Zuting and Lu Zhiyao, it is not very important whether the drama can recoup the cost. After all, they all receive fixed salaries. If the drama is popular, it will increase their popularity. If the drama is not popular, it will not matter.
Too big a loss.
But what they are worried about is that if it fails this time, it may have a blow to Feihuang Studio, both financially and mentally.
Wouldn't it be a pity if Feihuang Studio lost its wild, eclectic imagination and adventurous spirit due to this failure, and the quality of its future works declined?
Therefore, it is necessary to remind you.
Zhu Xiaoce replied: "Uncle Zhang, these questions you asked were all specifically requested by President Pei."
"Actually, at the beginning, I had the same idea and felt that the success rate of this was not high. But then I thought about it carefully and realized that this drama must be shot this way!"
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"First of all, this kind of subject matter must be shot abroad. Just like the original "Struggle", a foreign country must be chosen as the background, otherwise it will not have the same flavor."
"Secondly, the amount of information contained in this script is very large, and there are many key scenes. If it is split into movies, it will be split into at least three parts, and a lot of key information will be lost."
"Even if the split is successful, it would be uninteresting to watch each movie individually. The entire story will be separated. It must be made into a series to show the complete core to the audience."
"As for why we consider China first...it's because only domestic audiences can better understand the meaning of this story from the perspective of bystanders."
"It doesn't mean that foreign audiences will not be able to understand it, but it means that we must give priority to domestic audiences."
"Based on the above points, we can only make this choice. Although this reduces the chance of success, I believe that since it is a script that Mr. Pei has affirmed, as long as we shoot it seriously, we will definitely be able to stand out!"
Lu Zhiyao couldn't help but ask: "What is the core of this story? Actually, I don't quite understand it. I read the synopsis of the story and all I know is that a despicable bad guy executed a series of plans and finally succeeded.
Already."
Zhu Xiaoce replied: "According to my personal understanding... this story should be viewed in conjunction with realistic works such as "Better Tomorrow" and "Struggle"."
"As for its specific meaning... let's let the original author say it."
After speaking, he looked at Cui Geng.
The situation this time is different from before. The previous script was mainly based on Mr. Pei's creativity. As for how to interpret Mr. Pei's creativity, it depends on the performance of Huang Sibo and Zhu Xiaoce.
But this time the script is entirely Cui Geng's original work, and Mr. Pei was not involved, so the final right of interpretation must still lie with the original author.
It is precisely because the author is not Mr. Pei that everyone does not particularly trust this script.
Cui Geng cleared his throat and said, "Actually, I really got inspiration for this story from Mr. Pei."
"A brief summary is that "Better Tomorrow," "Struggle" and "Successor" have certain aspects in common, and they all have a certain allusion to reality."
""Struggle" and "Beautiful Tomorrow" are related. The society in "Struggle" will develop for several more decades, science and technology will make several leaps and breakthroughs, and the entire social structure will become more extreme, and it will become "Beautiful Tomorrow"
Social Structure in Tomorrow.”
"Successor" is more like a story that takes place in a parallel universe. The premise of this story's existence is to make an assumption, assuming that this is a world where 'superheroes rely on faith and supervillains rely on mutation'.
So how will the story develop?"
"Just like the concerns and distrust expressed about social structures in A Better Tomorrow, I was surprised to find that the stories in Succession are similarly imbued with that concern and distrust."
"This kind of core is completely consistent."
"In fact, the theme of this story was chosen for me by Mr. Pei. I didn't understand Mr. Pei's intentions at first. I felt that the superhero theme was actually a theme that I couldn't write anything about."
"But Mr. Pei woke me up. He said three sentences, namely: 'Superhero themes can also be written for domestic readers', 'It is not necessary to make domestic readers like these superheroes' and 'Let these superheroes
It’s okay to write superheroes half-dead.”
"I thought about it for a long time and finally understood it. It turned out that Pei always wanted me to use our own cultural perspective to subvert the popular superhero themes. He wanted to use a Chinese cultural perspective to observe Western stories, and to
Deconstruct, tear apart the perfect outer covering of these works, and fully reveal their inner parts!”
"Just like "Struggle", the meaning of "Successor" is to deconstruct the false 'Utopia' constructed in Western cultural works and use a relatively absurd form to display some social problems."
"If you step out of the circle of reality, many problems will be easier to see clearly."