Chapter 592: So Skilled, This Person Is Just Too Skilled

At the venue, the exchanges were so enthusiastic that it often gave people an illusion: the relationships between people here were truly close. Although it was still a vanity fair, it was a vanity fair connected by film, and they were all talking about people and events in the film circle.

Lu Yan He and his group were guided to the area where the *Love Letter* crew was located.

Along the way, because there were so many people greeting him, Lu Yan He finally had to temporarily separate from the main group. When he finally reached his seat, the two teachers, Wan Xin and Li Songfan, had already taken their seats. Perhaps because they were too unfamiliar with the foreign environment, they were both somewhat unusually reserved.

Lu Yan He turned his head and saw Schmidt Lawley from the American Green Valley Film Company walking toward him.

He said to Wan Xin and Li Songfan: "Teacher Wan, Teacher Li, I want to introduce you to someone—the boss of the American Green Valley Film Company."

Upon hearing this, Wan Xin and Li Songfan stood up, but they were somewhat bewildered because they didn't know who Lu Yan He was talking about.

Lu Yan He turned his head and waved at Schmidt Lawley.

The latter had indeed come to find Lu Yan He.

"Hey, Lu!" Schmidt Lawley walked up to Lu Yan He with a very bright smile. "The distribution rights for *Love Letter* in the North American region haven't been sold to anyone else yet, right? You can't let others get there first."

Lu Yan He said with a smile: "It's still in my hands."

He changed his standing position and introduced the two teachers, Wan Xin and Li Songfan, to Schmidt Lawley: "Schmidt, these two are also actors in *Love Letter*; they are both veteran actors with a very strong audience base in China."

Schmidt Lawley never hesitated to give his bright smile to anyone.

He immediately shook hands with Wan Xin and Li Songfan.

"Hi, I can't wait to see your movie."

Wan Xin and Li Songfan's English levels were both average. The older generation of actors hadn't received the kind of good basic education that Lu Yan He and his peers had, where English proficiency is easily practiced.

Moreover, they didn't have the need for overseas exchanges in their daily lives, so they didn't need to possess fluent English.

Of course, because Chen Siqi and Wan Qingqing were by their side, no matter what Schmidt Lawley said, there was someone to translate it for them immediately.

Chen Siqi also briefly introduced Schmidt Lawley to them: "His Green Valley Company was the distributor for *Road to Glory* in North America. The string of nominations Yan He received during the North American awards season was also because he helped Lu Yan He with public relations here."

Hearing this, Li Songfan and Wan Xin knew the extent of the relationship between Schmidt Lawley and Lu Yan He.

Lu Yan He said to Schmidt Lawley: "You sent me several scripts before, but I'm sorry, my schedule for the coming period is already arranged for other filming. We can cooperate again when there is a suitable opportunity."

The box office explosion of *The Mist* made Lu Yan He a hot commodity in the eyes of American film companies, and Schmidt Lawley, who had worked with Lu Yan He, was naturally the same. Not to mention, the fact that Lu Yan He was able to connect with the director of *The Mist* in the first place was also because he had built a bridge in the middle.

"You'll come to the premiere of *Love Letter*, right?" Lu Yan He asked.

"Of course."

After greeting Schmidt Lawley, Lu Yan He saw Muken Zorge and Hua Ruzhen again.

He didn't expect to see them here and was very surprised.

"This is the director of *The Mist*, Muken Zorge, and this is his wife, Hua Ruzhen, who is Chinese," Lu Yan He introduced to Li Songfan and Wan Xin. "So, Muken's Chinese is very good."

Upon hearing this, Li Songfan and Wan Xin quietly breathed a sigh of relief and began to greet them in Chinese.

Muken Zorge didn't know the two of them, but he knew they were actors in *Love Letter*.

And Hua Ruzhen clearly knew the two of them.

"Little Lu, you have quite a lot of face; you were able to invite these two teachers for your directorial debut," Hua Ruzhen shook hands with the two of them. "Hello, teachers, I am Hua Ruzhen. Besides being his wife, I am also a film and television investor. Later, I will focus more on investments in our Chinese-language film and television dramas. May I add the two teachers as friends? I will definitely have many times when I need to understand information later and will need to ask the two teachers for help."

Upon hearing this, Li Songfan and Wan Xin both took out their phones.

While they were adding each other as friends, Lu Yan He also asked with pleasant surprise: "Sister, is your investment work later confirmed?"

"It's almost a certainty," Hua Ruzhen said. "I will return to the country often later, and we can meet up more."

Lu Yan He nodded, very pleasantly surprised.

Li Songfan and Wan Xin might not be called highly respected old seniors in China, but at least they could be called veteran actors with high national recognition.

However, because Chinese-language films have a relatively small international presence, these veteran actors in China are not like the veteran actors in many other countries—not to say they are famous internationally, but at least they are frequently seen at various international film festivals.

Just like the experience of being shortlisted for the four major international film festivals, Wan Xin had been acting for so many years, and this was the first time a film she participated in had been shortlisted.

Is their acting not good enough to be seen by everyone on the international stage?

Of course not.

Works—to put it bluntly, it's still about the works.

Actors need to be seen in movies.

Actors are truly shining in the cinema.

Therefore, this time when Linghe contacted them and invited them to attend the Hezhou Film Festival with the crew, they agreed after a little hesitation. Even as veteran actors who had been acting for many years, they still yearned for this kind of stage.

In fact, when they first learned that *Love Letter* was shortlisted for the main competition at the Hezhou Film Festival, they even worried about whether the crew would invite them to attend the film festival together—

It wasn't anything else; they also knew that for every additional person attending, Linghe would have to bear the travel expenses for one more person, and this price was not low.

They even thought that if, due to this consideration, Linghe couldn't bring more actors, they would be willing to bear the relevant expenses themselves.

Of course, no matter how much Lu Yan He saves money, he wouldn't save it at this time.

Not to mention if there was no money.

Since the company didn't lack this bit of money, and *Love Letter* being shortlisted for Hezhou was an honor for the participating actors, Lu Yan He basically sent invitations to all the actors who participated in *Love Letter*. However, only for the few actors with more screen time, such as Chen Bige, Li Songfan, and Wan Xin, did Linghe bear the expenses for the nine days from before the opening ceremony until after the premiere. For other actors, Linghe only bore the food, clothing, housing, and transportation for the four days around the premiere. If everyone wanted to come earlier or leave later, the extra expenses had to be borne by themselves.

Otherwise, if everyone stayed for two weeks, Linghe would have to spend several million more. Although Lu Yan He was unwilling to be stingy in this regard, he didn't want to be a generous nouveau riche either.

Li Songfan and Wan Xin were initially a bit hesitant, feeling that staying here for nine days, with their English level not being very good, they wouldn't understand English movies and wouldn't know what to do in their spare time.

However, after not hesitating for two days, Linghe sent over a notice list, which contained interviews with major media and estimated times, as well as several film industry activities held in Hezhou, the film premiere... The schedule was full. This was all work that Linghe had coordinated in advance, and they could choose the work they were willing to accept according to their own time and arrangements.

Even their agents were very surprised.

Although it was said to be promoting the film *Love Letter*, in reality, these tasks were also providing them with a formal opportunity to truly enter the film festival.

After the opening ceremony ended, Lu Yan He was going to have lunch with his friends from the *Jump Up* film team at noon, and he also invited the two teachers, Li Songfan and Wan Xin, to join them.

"You have worked hard for the next two weeks."

The *Jump Up* team that came this time was still led by Linyu, bringing a colleague from her department, while Li Bi brought a colleague of his, forming a four-person squad.

"I feel like you all run to film festivals very hard every year, basically running to at least six or seven international film festivals a year," Wan Xin said with concern as she listened to them talk about their usual work rhythm.

Linyu: "Actually, it's okay. Although we run to six or seven international film festivals every year, usually for smaller film festivals, we won't have four of us come like this time, and it won't be the same few of us every time. Everyone runs separately, so it's relatively relaxed."

"However, you run to so many places every year, is the budget enough?" Li Songfan asked curiously. "I have some friends in film and television media who have had fewer business trip opportunities in recent years because of insufficient budget."

"Our business trip budget is earned by ourselves; of course, there is also advertising revenue," Linyu said with a smile. "We have *Jump Up* film subscription accounts on various platforms. Usually, some ordinary comprehensive reports are free to read, but deep interviews we do at various film festivals, including some exclusive reviews, are all membership or paid reading systems. These two years, it has still been able to support us to go on business trips all over the world."

There are too many branch brands under *Jump Up*. Besides film and television, there are those specializing in food and those specializing in reading. Although the headquarters will coordinate, everyone's daily work budget still mostly has to be earned by themselves—

Chen Siqi has always had a concept: if a department needs to be supported by the headquarters for a long time, unless its nature is a non-profit department, otherwise, either abolish the department or change the people.

Having already had the name of *Jump Up* and given a very high platform, if they still can't support themselves, there must be something wrong somewhere.

Li Songfan and Wan Xin looked at each other.

They were clearly surprised by this model.

In their era, media basically lived on subscription fees and advertising fees, which is not much different from the monetization methods of various media today. Why are those media they are familiar with facing huge economic crises?

However, during this lunch time, they had some other feelings.

During lunch, they were basically coordinating the schedule for the next three days.

Li Songfan and Wan Xin had actually never seen such a real internal media discussion meeting.

Although it wasn't formal, it was just conducted during the meal.

"Director Song Muqing's time has not been set yet. I will call his representative again this afternoon to communicate. If his schedule is really too full, we can't keep waiting for his time. The first three days are when there are the most film people, and they will leave one after another later. We must ensure that we see these people first," Linyu said to her colleague. "You must get everyone's time in Hezhou this afternoon as much as possible, preferably their itinerary arrangements. Get as much as you can."

"Okay."

"Li Bi, the highlight here for you is the three film-person dialogue activities we contacted in advance," Linyu said to Li Bi. "We won't live stream these three dialogue activities, so the pressure is a little less, but we basically have to ensure that we can edit the video that night and launch it online as soon as possible. Timeliness is the first priority."

Li Bi nodded: "Don't worry. Although only two of us came this time, three groups of people have already been arranged to work in shifts domestically, and there are people who can receive the footage we send back for editing at any time. Sister Zixing's side also supported three people to help edit the film."

"Do you need so many people to edit the film?" Lu Yan He was very surprised.

He didn't know the specific details either.

Li Bi said: "This time we will edit a large number of short videos from twenty seconds to one minute and put them on major short video platforms. The volume is very large."

Linyu explained: "Content related to film festivals has been too high-brow in the past. Except for real film fans, the general public is actually not interested, unless we Chinese win an award, and everyone might click in to see it out of curiosity. Li Bi and I both think that since we are here, we must find a way to push the volume up. Therefore, we need a strong team to select golden sentences suitable for short video platform dissemination from our hours of video to attract attention and traffic. Of course, there is another key point: our reporting activities this time have received exclusive sponsorship from Ransen Convenience Store. They gave a very generous sponsorship fee, and we still hope to give them a satisfactory sponsorship effect. In every short video, there will be the brand name and logo of Ransen Convenience Store. If the volume goes up, its advertising coverage can also go up."

Lu Yan He suddenly realized and nodded.

"But you only have two photographers, can you film it all?" Lu Yan He asked again.

"If we bring more photographers ourselves, we don't have that much budget; it burns money. One person's food, clothing, housing, and transportation would burn nearly 100,000. So, we hired a few photographers locally, and they will complete all the filming with us. The four of us are four small teams," Li Bi laughed. "Every time we come out, it's like fighting a war, and we have practiced a set of skills."

Linyu also laughed, pointing to the two subordinates who came out with them this time, and said: "They are all people who can stand on their own."

Lu Yan He gave a thumbs up.

He whispered to Chen Siqi: "I suddenly feel that you are actually better at leading a team than I am."

"You don't need to lead a team either," Chen Siqi laughed. "Sister Ziyan has already led it well for you."

Lu Yan He: "The *Jump Up* team is really doing very well now."

This is not Lu Yan He having a filter for *Jump Up*—of course, he is not saying he doesn't have a filter for the *Jump Up* team, but he says so, saying the *Jump Up* team is really doing well, which has nothing to do with the filter.

Wan Xin and Li Songfan listened to the young kids at the table talking about their work, which was also quite an eye-opener.

They might know the situation of media people in the traditional print media era quite well, but the changes in media in recent years have been too fast.

Whether it is the carrier or the form of expression, it shows a trend of changing with each passing day.

It's just that, given their current position in the entertainment industry, they don't need to personally understand what specific changes have taken place in the surrounding environment. No matter what happens, there are agents and teams to help them handle it. Therefore, many older generation artists don't even use mobile phones much, let alone talk about understanding what the current media environment is specifically like.

Of course, it is precisely because of this point that many older generation artists can only rely on and trust their own teams, eventually either making mistakes in coordination or misunderstanding the meaning, resulting in many bizarre errors. For example, they are told that the hottest meme recently is XXX, but it is not explained clearly how this meme is played. These artists want to reflect their "grounded" side, so they play this meme according to their own understanding, but end up playing it out of hand. A word that was originally intended to express that young people want to lie flat was played into a lecture that young people are not striving or working hard, triggering public anger.

Unlike the discussion of the *Jump Up* team they heard now.

It is actually very different from their understanding of the media industry.

In the past, major media outlets would do exclusive interviews to make high-quality products, prepare everything in all aspects, and at the same time, the most important thing was how to write an in-depth exclusive interview manuscript. That manuscript had to be polished for at least several days, unlike what these young people said: interview today, and the next day, they have to make a finished product that can be released publicly from the material.

What shocked them even more was that in the past, reports were chosen by the media based on the content provided by the interviewee. Now, before their interviews have even started, they already know very clearly what content they want to push.

"It's really different now," Wan Xin sighed.

Li Songfan couldn't help but ask: "Is it also very difficult for the audience to understand completely if everything is made into such a short video of about one minute?"

"Yes," Li Bi nodded decisively and admitted. "But even if it is made into a complete interview video, in the current media era, no audience wants to understand a person completely. Now audiences first understand a person through fragmentation, and after becoming interested in a person, they go to find more content about this person to watch. Text, pictures, short videos, long videos... There are too many forms of media now, and there are too many forms for audiences to choose from. We *Jump Up* have to do every form to let everyone choose, but time is limited. We have to grab the time when audiences are interested in this content, so we can't wait until the film festival is over to launch a high-quality interview manuscript or launch a long interview video. By that time, the audience's attention has already shifted to focus on other things."

"First, through pictures, short articles, and short videos, open up the coverage of publicity, attract more people who might be interested in this, let them know that such a thing happened, know that the Hezhou Film Festival has started, these film people have come to the film festival, what works these film people have filmed, and what their latest thoughts and information are," Linyu said. "And with such a data foundation, when we go to write long articles and make long videos later, we won't have the terrible ending of working hard for a week or two and having few people watch it in the end."

Wan Xin suddenly realized.

Wan Xin asked again: "So the interviews you are going to do for us later will also be disseminated in this form?"

"Yes," Linyu nodded.

Li Songfan: "No wonder every work of yours, Yan He, is so popular. You have a very scary publicity team."

Lu Yan He nodded and smiled: "Yes, I say so too."

Chen Siqi: "Actually, this set of gameplay is not applicable to film and television dramas anymore. The cost is not on the same order of magnitude. For the publicity of film and television dramas, if you want to set off a quantity on short video platforms that can feed back the playback results of film and television dramas, the cost of pushing the volume is very large. This is different from our kind of interview content. If we have 50,000 or 100,000 people watching, it is already a big explosion level. Moreover, our content actually usually has a fixed audience, and the stickiness is also high. After we have built a brand in the past few years, those who want to understand international film and exclusive content basically know that they have to come to us to watch, so the stickiness of our subscription members is much higher than those of video platform subscription members."

"Actually, to put it simply, our stuff, short videos, and fragmented information are aimed at the general public, while long articles and long videos are aimed at fans who are truly interested in this content and will take the initiative to watch it," Chen Siqi said. "Fragmented content relies on free volume pushing, and high-quality in-depth content uses subscriptions to solidify fans."

Wan Xin and Li Songfan were both full of surprise.

Using a commercialized mindset to make media content has completely exceeded their scope of understanding.

Domestically, Aurora Video and Icefield Video are long-term cooperative platforms for *Jump Up* Media, and *Jump Up* has a column in these two channels.

Before the Hezhou Film Festival officially opened, this column had already started updating content.

Including reviews of previous Hezhou Film Festivals, the honors that Chinese-language films have won at the Hezhou Film Festival, and the films and film people worth paying attention to at this Hezhou Film Festival.

These videos are about ten minutes long and have made a series of reports.

In order to cooperate with the upcoming launch of *Jump Up* Theater, the narrators of this series of report videos are all actors from several plays in *Jump Up* Theater.

These programs were also promoted by Peng Zhixing on the popular show *Birth of an Actor*.

At this moment, many people in the industry suddenly realized with shock that the publicity matrix of *Jump Up* Media had unknowingly formed a huge force—

In the past, everyone thought that Lu Yan He and *Jump Up* had an unusual media relationship, and the media seemed to have a special preference for them. Now everyone realized that they themselves were the media.

From a small print media that no one was optimistic about, step by step, it was built into a media matrix covering text, pictures, video, traditional media, social media, video platforms, and many other aspects. No one expected this.

At this time, looking at the *Star* electronic magazine that Ye Mai Network asked Yu Jiang to do, it now has almost no voice. Comparing the two, the development situation is completely different.

At this time, almost all the film critics with some reputation in China were invited by this series of programs and videos. Centering on the Hezhou Film Festival, they conducted dialogues on film history, film works, and film people. Domestically, they did reviews, and abroad, they did reports. The Hezhou Film Festival gained unprecedented exposure and attention in China.

Of course, Lu Shan, who pitted Lu Yan He, was naturally not invited by anyone.

Domestically, because of the marginalization of the film criticism system itself, the group of film critics has actually not been eye-catching enough. Often when they are seen by the public, it is because a certain film critic has made some shocking and rebellious remarks. Over time, film critics have even become a derogatory term in the hearts of the public. In fact, there are still many film critics who love film and have been doing film criticism work truly. However, they actually have few opportunities to come to the public.

This time, *Birth of an Actor* invited film critics as members of the observation group to comment on the actors' performances in each episode, and the film column of *Jump Up* Media also grabbed various film critics to appear on camera and write reviews, disseminating through their media.

*Jump Up* Media has rich content to publish, the public has rich content to watch, and film critics have made money, gained fame, and gained attention by relying on the cause they love.

A good environment should be such an environment where everyone benefits and circulates with each other.

And when the representative of the Hezhou Film Festival in China fed back the situation in China to Hezhou, Artistic Director Wu Yang's attitude toward Lu Yan He's group became even more enthusiastic.

Any film person who comes to the international stage is always representing their own country while also backing their own country.

Lu Yan He, if you only have enough popularity yourself, you can only get the welcome and enthusiasm of the organizer.

But if you mean a huge country and market behind you following the Hezhou Film Festival, OK, you have become the gold master of this film festival. It is not only those who give money who are gold masters.

Wu Yang, as the artistic director of the Hezhou Film Festival, also has to be responsible to the local government, sponsors, and partners. The film festival is a huge market, and award honors are just a link in this trading system.

Such a huge market as China suddenly paid unprecedented attention to the Hezhou Film Festival, which for Wu Yang is a huge achievement.

Wu Yang even knew very clearly that when other film festivals saw the influence of this Hezhou Film Festival in China, they would definitely increase their efforts to let Lu Yan He deepen his cooperation with other film festivals.

On the third day after the opening ceremony, Wu Yang personally and the Hezhou Film Festival official released a dynamic.

It was a photo of him and the couple Lu Yan He and Chen Siqi having dinner together.

Wu Yang said: Very happy to have dinner tonight with the world's most watched young actor Lu Yan He and Chen Siqi, the person in charge of *Jump Up*, a media with great influence in China. Whether it is art or business, this young couple has made too many amazing achievements with their unparalleled talent and wisdom. They brought Chinese film art to our Hezhou Film Festival. Hope they enjoy the upcoming Hezhou trip. P. S. They will hold an international film critic film festival in June. I have been invited to attend. Looking forward to the China trip in June!

After reading Wu Yang's dynamic, Chen Siqi smiled at Lu Yan He and said: "So skilled, this person is just too skilled." ===== CHAPTER 593 =====