Chapter 557: Company

Lu Yanhe had actually prepared himself to be "treated casually" by Kim Ji-yeon, but on the way there, he thought about it and felt it wasn't quite right.

Kim Ji-yeon wouldn't cold-shoulder him—it wasn't like he took the initiative to see Kim Ji-yeon; it was Kim Ji-yeon who wanted to see him.

To ensure there would be something to talk about later and not have the conversation go cold, Lu Yanhe still searched online for some reports and interviews about Kim Ji-yeon, as well as some works he had filmed.

Lu Yanhe had seen several of Kim Ji-yeon's movies. He is a rare film director in this world who can integrate artistry and commerciality.

A director who can do this is rare in any country.

Including in Hollywood.

His audiovisual style is actually quite plain, without so many flashy, show-off techniques. But because of this, he can film any subject. He has filmed monsters, disasters, suspense, crime, science fiction, etc., belonging to a multi-faceted hand.

They met at a high-end club.

Just in case, after the address was sent, Lu Yanhe specifically checked with friends he knew in Korea to see what kind of place this was, so as not to accidentally enter that kind of "Nth Room" type of place, which would be impossible to explain—in Korea, such things are not uncommon, and news reports don't know how many times they have exploded.

Fortunately, there were no sordid things.

Kim Ji-yeon's smile was quite kind, and his attitude was enthusiastic. As soon as he entered the room, he stood up, ready to greet him, without the arrogance Lu Yanhe expected to see.

As soon as they met, Kim Ji-yeon expressed his liking and respect for him.

Lu Yanhe knew that Koreans have a very heavy concept of seniority. It was not surprising that Kim Ji-yeon expressed liking him, but hearing the word "respect" suddenly from his mouth still made him quite surprised.

"Thank you, Director." Since the other party was so polite, Lu Yanhe naturally returned the courtesy.

What Lu Yanhe didn't expect was that Kim Ji-yeon meeting him wasn't because he had a play he wanted him to act in.

Kim Ji-yeon was working with others to start a pan-Asian content film and television company and wanted to pull Lu Yanhe to join.

"Pan-Asian?" When Lu Yanhe heard this word, he was quite surprised, because he had heard it before at Maxine and HP.

This is mainly to expand the scope of the market.

Just like promoting a play that only aired in Thailand to the entire Asian range.

Director Kim Ji-yeon is the first to come to Lu Yanhe to collaborate on this so-called "pan-Asian" content.

Lu Yanhe said: "Director, you hope I join in, what do you hope I do?"

Kim Ji-yeon said: "There is a lot you can do. Director, screenwriter, actor... I heard that your directorial debut *Love Letter* will have its global premiere at the Hexi Film Festival this year?"

"Yes." Lu Yanhe nodded.

"Your directorial debut can appear at a top film festival like the Hexi Film Festival, which is really enviable," Kim Ji-yeon laughed. "You have great popularity and influence within Asia, and you are a leading figure in the younger generation. Therefore, if we can establish a pan-Asian production company together, we will definitely be able to produce some good things."

Lu Yanhe nodded and said: "Recently I often hear the concept of pan-Asian, it seems everyone is doing this."

"Because streaming media has risen," Kim Ji-yeon said. "Streaming media has completely broken the barriers and monopolies of traditional television stations, gathering all markets together. In the past, when we made a play, the potential audience was just these people in the country, but now it's different, it's the whole of Asia."

"However, streaming media is still more popular for dramas, right? It seems the influence of movies on streaming media is still far from being comparable to theaters."

What Lu Yanhe said is a fact.

Compared to the influence of streaming dramas, streaming movies can only be said to be a little better than web movies, but they haven't entered the mainstream track.

The vitality of theaters is a bit more tenacious than television stations.

Kim Ji-yeon nodded, "That's true."

"Director, then this pan-Asian production company of yours, is it to provide content for streaming media, or?"

"Of course not just streaming media. I just used streaming media as an example. In fact, I hope to be able to concentrate our resources and strength to expand our power, so that our works can obtain better production conditions in Asia."

Hearing this, Lu Yanhe understood in an instant.

Actually, it's just to create a signboard, make this signboard brighter, more flashing, and then let those interested come to invest, give money. Why does Kim Ji-yeon want to invite him over? Because he can attract others to give money.

Lu Yanhe: "..."

"Is he... wanting to fish for a wave of money?" Chen Ziyan's first reaction was also like this.

On the way back, Lu Yanhe said, "Maybe he also wants to get funds to film movies."

For the sake of filming movies, directors can do anything to raise money.

Although, for a big director like Kim Ji-yeon, if he films movies himself, there should be a stable source of filming funds. However, if he wants to film a movie with a slightly higher cost, it will still be very strenuous. Everyone is worried about the problem of recovering costs and making a profit.

No one invests purely to help the director realize his dream—you can realize your dream, but that must be a byproduct of making money.

However, this matter that Kim Ji-yeon said to find him gave him a little inspiration.

What direction his own Linghe production company should take in the future.

Pan-Asian.

The copyright operation plan that Linghe is currently promoting, isn't it another form of pan-Asian?

*The Mist*'s box office in North America on Sunday took 13.8 million, and the total box office for the first weekend was almost 40 million, successfully taking the weekend box office champion, and also letting the promotional party of *The Mist* say "box office great success" without any scruples.

The overseas box office of *The Mist* also performed well, opening in European countries, and the first weekend took about 12 million US dollars.

Horror movies are not comparable to other movies—if Hollywood movies have good local box office, generally overseas box office also goes high, but horror movies are an exception, because this is a niche genre movie itself, and in other countries, the audience for horror movies is not as much as in Hollywood.

Lu Yanhe set off from Korea to promote, and then turned to Japan together to participate in the premiere of *The Mist* in Japan.

After that is Thailand.

Missed Singapore.

Because the two days of the weekend were used up, he had to rush back to participate in the filming of *Friends*.

Asia total has promotional activities in these four places.

Because the decline of *The Mist* on Monday was very good, it only fell by 37%.

This made D19 company have greater hope for the box office of *The Mist*.

And in the overseas box office, because Korea, Japan, and Thailand are all big box office warehouses for horror movie themes, they also hope to have a harvest here.

Especially Lu Yanhe's influence in Asia, and the theme of "Asian revenge" that this horror movie has been playing, made this movie very popular in Asian countries.

"*The Mist* can't be screened in mainland China, which is really a pity. Otherwise, with Lu Yanhe's appeal in mainland China, at least tens of millions of US dollars in box office."

D19 company, CEO Kather Murray, the smile on his face has not gone down for the past few days.

*The Mist* took 40 million US dollars in North American box office in the first weekend. Based on its production cost, if it weren't for the fact that the promotional cost was added quite a bit later, the first weekend alone would have directly recovered the cost and started to make a profit.

But in the current situation, the promotional cost must continue to be added.

The trend of *The Mist* on weekdays let them see the space for this movie to further create box office value.

You know, commercial horror movies like *The Mist* generally have their box office collapse more severely on weekdays than movies of other themes.

And as it has been released for a few days, Lu Yanhe's performance has also been further discussed by many people on social media.

Lu Yanhe is no longer an unfamiliar name to European and American audiences. Before this movie was released, many people already knew him, and for European and American film critics, it is even more so.

Lu Yanhe has produced too many eye-catching works in the past few years, it's hard not to know him.

Lu Yanhe's performance in *The Mist*, actually, to say how difficult the role is and how rich the layers are, it really isn't. The difficulty of this role's performance actually lies in how to act it "individually" enough.

In Lu Yanhe's understanding, this type of role is a "special type" role. They have many "non-human" characteristics compared to traditional roles. Once you can find such a characteristic and amplify it to the extreme, it will form a shocking visual effect on the screen and leave a deep mark in the audience's heart—because it is rare.

The Asian ghost played by Lu Yanhe stunned everyone as soon as he appeared.

The coldness of his indifference, as if he had no breath and no emotion, floated like a soft ribbon around those few people. Besides the sensory stimulation presented by combining sound effects and editing, it also brought people a psychological feeling of being chilled in a deeper level.

In those seemingly clean and clear eyes of his, it seemed to contain thick black mist.

Lu Yanhe increased the expressive power of "form" in the interpretation of this role, and the character characteristics were more distinct than any role he had played in the past. He didn't need the audience to guess, to feel, to ponder.

But this way of acting is exactly what *The Mist* needs.

And his ability to shape characters was unanimously praised by the media and the audience in this situation.

Some organizations surveyed the audience of *The Mist*, and Lu Yanhe topped the list of the actors the audience liked most in this movie.

There is no need to say much about the love of major media for him, just look at the exposure and the number of comments about him.

Originally, there were some voices in the country that were resisting, attacking Lu Yanhe for playing a villain in a horror movie and smearing the image of Chinese people.

With the release of this movie, the content and theme were also spread and expanded. At this time, although people in the country didn't see this play, they also knew what it was about.

Lu Yanhe's fans immediately became tough.

—He played a ghost character who took revenge and killed white people, and, just such a character, was recognized by white people!

This is very difficult.

—Never think that because Asians have more opportunities after the so-called "political correctness" storm swept up, Asians are not discriminated against and can sit at the table equally. It's not like that at all.

The more people understand this truth, the more they know how difficult it is for Lu Yanhe to act in *The Mist* and make Europe and America praise him more than criticize him.

Lu Yanhe himself reviewed and said to Chen Ziyan: "It's still because I played a good role and caught up with a movie promotional method that was very favorable for me to shape my personal image."

Chen Ziyan nodded: "Indeed, this movie looks like you are the villain, but in fact, in the end, you are the victim, especially the version edited by Director Muken later, it seems you are the protagonist of the movie."

"From the script, actually not, the main screen time is all on the three of them, Arne."

"Yes, but the editing has changed," Chen Ziyan said. "Obviously, the turmoil that broke out during filming, as well as the attention you received at that time, have increased your weight in the later editing stage."

"Also thank Director Muken's wife, Hua Ruzhen," Chen Ziyan said again. "She has been emphasizing to Director Muken that since you acted the best, why not keep more of your screen time, so there was the retention of many of your scenes in the second half."

Lu Yanhe nodded.

"By the way, Sister Ziyan, actually that day when Director Kim Ji-yeon asked me to talk about the pan-Asian plan, I thought of Hua Ruzhen telling me that she might enter the investment field of film and television dramas more deeply later."

Chen Ziyan nodded, "I know this. There is a foundation in the United States. They are optimistic about the film and television market in Asia, so they want to find someone who understands the film and television production here to do investment. It just so happens that Hua Ruzhen has always been responsible for the investment in the cultural industry of a group of rich people in her circle, so she was listed as one of the candidates, and the hope is great."

Lu Yanhe said: "If this is really the case, many of our plays can really keep the copyright in our hands and build a team to do it ourselves."

Chen Ziyan nodded and said: "Yes, very fortunate, we dug Hu Siwei over before. With him, in terms of production, the company has already built a team. With him, we can save a lot of trouble."

Lu Yanhe: "Then should I write a few more scripts?"

"If you can write, it's best to write a few more. It doesn't matter when to film, just put it here first, and our options will be much more," Chen Ziyan said. "Your script is our trump card. Of course, if we really want to further expand the scale of Linghe, we certainly cannot rely solely on your script, just like projects like *Co-renting Men and Women*, we can develop a few more."

Before, Lu Yanhe wanted to film a *Love Letter* himself, and he needed to borrow people from all over the place to build a good team and start filming directly.

Now Linghe certainly still needs to cultivate its own fixed team. It's just that cultivation takes time. If you really wait until you want to develop on a large scale later and then cultivate, it will definitely be too late. A good production talent, a good production team, cannot be changed overnight.

This low-cost life comedy *Co-renting Men and Women*, Hu Siwei wants to film it himself, and it can also be used for the production team he built to practice.

Lu Yanhe said to Chen Ziyan: "Sister Ziyan, I think we might need to invite some more production talents to our Linghe. The company's funds now may not dare to take risks to do projects with hundreds of millions of investments, but for low-cost plays like *Co-renting Men and Women*, if there are suitable stories, we can do a few more."

Chen Ziyan: "I am also considering this matter, but the biggest shortcoming of our Linghe now is not lack of money, but lack of people, but we don't have enough money to recruit troops and buy horses by throwing money."

Chen Ziyan said this and smiled.

"Do you know what I'm even thinking about?"

"Hm?" Lu Yanhe looked at Chen Ziyan with some doubt.

Chen Ziyan said: "Aren't we going to do *The Birth of an Actor*? There is a live-action segment in every episode. I'm thinking, if possible, can we use this to test some new production teams."

"This won't work, don't use this to test your hands," Lu Yanhe immediately denied. "The live-action short films in every episode of *The Birth of an Actor* need to be filmed with high quality and high level, so that the audience can see that it is good. Using new directors is too unreliable."

According to Lu Yanhe's plan, he even planned to invite mature directors like Luo Yuzhong, Chen Lingling, Fu Kai, and Liu Bige to film these live-action short films.

"However, Sister Ziyan, since you said so, I have an idea." Lu Yanhe said. "The 'Green Onion Plan' we did before didn't succeed, right? I reviewed it myself and felt that there was a big reason why this plan didn't succeed, which is that directors with real level and talent were worried about wasting their time because of the low threshold of this activity, so they watched from the sidelines at first, and after finding that this really didn't make any splash, they didn't come to compete."

"If we can take out real money and help them film their scripts into movies?" Lu Yanhe said. "Different from the nature of the competition, but like that kind of venture film festival, do you think they will be willing to come?"

Chen Ziyan: "This risk is a bit big, right? Take real money to help them film movies? At least a few million, right?"

"But if we want to cultivate our own filming team, especially directors, is this the only way to be effective from the root?" Lu Yanhe asked.

"This is of course, cultivating newcomers, especially our own direct-line directors of Linghe, this is something every film and television company will definitely do, but this is too uncontrollable. Maybe we look for three years, five years, and we can't find such a director," Chen Ziyan said.

Lu Yanhe was suddenly stunned.

Wait.

"Sister Ziyan, I suddenly thought of someone."

"Ah?" Chen Ziyan looked at him with doubt.

Lu Yanhe said: "Liu Bige's friend, He Han, do you still have an impression? He wanted to find me to film a movie before, the script of *Miss Ning*, but later because of the problem of broken funds, it wasn't filmed."

"I remember him." Chen Ziyan was somewhat surprised and asked: "You want to dig him to the company?"

Lu Yanhe said: "I have known him for a long time and talked many times, he is indeed very talented."

Chen Ziyan hesitated and said: "But now it's no longer appropriate for you to go act in *Miss Ning*. Guest star? Guest star for a new director again? The script of *Miss Ning* is indeed not bad, talking about the awakening of female consciousness, but in the past few years, quite a few movies with this theme have come out. It is no longer suitable for you to guest star in a role at this time."

Lu Yanhe said: "It doesn't have to be *Miss Ning*. He can find other people's novels to adapt scripts like Liu Bige, or he can buy other people's scripts. My meaning is, if he is willing to sign with us, we can support him to film the movies he wants to film."

"I'll talk to him," Chen Ziyan said. "I haven't been in contact with him for a long time."

"I haven't been in contact with him for a long time either," Lu Yanhe said. "I don't know what he is doing now."

In fact, since the two of them had already prepared to further expand the scale of Linghe and increase the reserve of production talents, they went to do the relevant plans immediately.

Finding He Han, or using real money to attract those talented young newcomer directors to talk to them about projects, were just ways of trying.

Like Lu Yanhe, he actually has a very powerful channel, which is to ask big directors in the industry like Luo Yuzhong and Chen Lingling to recommend him.

In the entertainment industry, everyone must know some people who have ability and talent but haven't come out for various reasons.

Just like Li Fenglei who was an assistant to Zhao Yuan in the *Love Letter* movie before.

If they can get their recognition, it shows that this person must have something.

Lu Yanhe entrusted many friends to help him recommend relevant talents, and then handed them over to Linghe's current Vice President Chen Yin and Content Producer Hu Siwei to talk.

It's just that, although finding people is casting a wide net, they also need people very much. However, according to the company's funds this year, with *Co-renting Men and Women*, *Chinese Paladin*, and *Raise the Red Lantern* all starting filming this year, the budget that can be moved to the employment funds is still tight, and they cannot recruit as much as they want.

Everyone held a meeting and clarified a goal. Except for the administrative power that must be filled in all departments of the company, in terms of film and television production talents, they can only make recruitment plans according to the minimum needs of the crew. And once people are recruited, the filming projects must be put on the schedule later; otherwise, if people are recruited and have no work to do, it is a huge consumption.

One by one, one item by one, one ring after another.

Lu Yanhe had to hold meetings with Linghe every night after finishing the things of the *Friends* crew, taking this opportunity to sort out the company's key matters and work plans for this year, sort them out one by one, and then make relevant arrangements around these, trying to coordinate the time nodes as much as possible and reduce consumption.

The reason why it was sorted out until this time was not that Xu Tianming and Chen Yin hadn't made plans before, but that Lu Yanhe and Chen Ziyan had many more ideas and had to stuff them in, so they had to start all over again.

A company in a period of rapid development is like this.