Chapter 611

"Leaving so soon?"

Yuan Hai asked in surprise.

He thought to himself, now Huang Tianlin has nothing to say.

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Chen Siqi said: "There is still a lot of work in the country; I can't stay for long."

"Then—" Yuan Hai suddenly realized one thing: for today and tomorrow, Lu Yan He's schedule was full, with shooting tasks from morning till night, "How about I have them adjust it? Yan He, I'll give you a day off tomorrow to shoot other scenes first."

Before Lu Yan He could speak, Chen Siqi immediately said: "Producer Yuan, no need to give him a day off because of me. I don't need him to accompany me either; I'm too lazy to go anywhere. It's quite interesting to watch him act on set; it's been a long time since I've watched him act on set."

Hearing this, Yuan Hai looked at Lu Yan He.

Lu Yan He nodded.

Yuan Hai: "Alright, anyway, if you have any needs, just tell me; don't be polite with me."

Lu Yan He and Chen Siqi looked at each other and nodded to Yuan Hai.

Yuan Hai helped them tear the chicken and put it on the small table. He wasn't in a hurry to leave either, but instead took off his disposable plastic gloves and said to Chen Siqi: "Siqi, when you have time this afternoon, I'd like to find you for a chat, is that convenient?"

Chen Siqi nodded, "Of course it's convenient. I'll be staying on set this afternoon; Producer Yuan, you can come find me when you're free."

Once Yuan Hai left, Chen Siqi immediately said to Lu Yan He: "This Mr. Yuan is quite decent in his ways. I came here on short notice, and there aren't any restaurants in this wilderness, yet he was able to magically get a locally featured roasted chicken for us to add to our meal."

Lu Yan He smiled and said: "Generally, a capable producer is quite resourceful. In terms of dealing with people and things, a director can be willful, but it's rare to see a producer who isn't good at socializing."

"What do you think he wants to talk to me about?" Chen Siqi asked curiously.

In Chen Siqi's view, as a producer in Malaysia, Yuan Hai actually had nothing that he needed to talk to her about separately at the moment.

Lu Yan He shook his head, "I don't know either."

Chen Siqi never expected that Yuan Hai would come to find her for the sake of the *Jump Up* Theater.

Yuan Hai himself had a production company in Malaysia, and the directors he signed weren't just Huang Tianlin.

However, the local market in Malaysia was too small. The investment Yuan Hai could get each year was limited, and the film projects he could produce were even more limited. Many people could only take on some small shooting projects from local TV stations during their spare time, or simply take on some private work outside during their idle periods.

Yuan Hai wanted to participate in the *Jump Up* project.

"I heard that you are also recruiting directors on a large scale and building production teams," he said, "I don't know if there are any suitable projects. If there are, let's see if there's a possibility of handing them over to us to shoot? We'll take on the production."

Chen Siqi looked at Yuan Hai in surprise, not having recovered for a long time.

Seeing that she hadn't spoken for a long time, Yuan Hai thought it was difficult for her, so he immediately said: "If it's not needed, it doesn't matter. I'm also used to trying my best to take on more projects from outside. The company has many people, and the production team is the same; the pressure to support the team is great, please forgive me."

"Ah, no," Chen Siqi shook her head, "I was just inspired. Before you told me, I had never thought that we could find production teams from abroad to make *Jump Up* Theater scenes."

Now, one of the biggest problems facing *Jump Up* Theater was the pressure of production.

In the entertainment industry, for a period of time, the number of directors who have talent, time, and ideas to come and shoot *Jump Up* Theater scenes is actually limited, including those who have been discovered and those who haven't; it's impossible for them to be as numerous as crucian carp, for you to pick and choose at will.

Now that *Jump Up* Theater has just started, the reserve of directors and production team personnel can still support the start of so many scenes, but as the good directors found before are all used up, it will become increasingly difficult to find production teams to shoot suitable projects later on.

After all, she couldn't demand that those directors who had already succeeded in *Jump Up* Theater still use the same pay they got for shooting their first *Jump Up* Theater scene to shoot the second or third. And the model of *Jump Up* Theater also destined that even if the production budget could increase later with the increase in advertising fees, no matter what, it would be impossible to increase it to the point of paying people the market price.

This was just the most basic difficulty.

The *Jump Up* Theater model must rely on the emergence of a continuous stream of new directors and other creators to form an effective cycle in order to keep shooting on such a production basis.

Chen Siqi knew before that Lu Yan He's Linghe Company was actually looking for suitable young directors in Southeast Asian countries and regions to carry out cooperation in terms of films. However, probably because film itself involves a lot of international cooperation, there are actually many technical personnel from abroad in Chinese-language film crews, including many well-known directors who actually carry out a lot of international cooperation. Therefore, Chen Siqi had never thought that *Jump Up* Theater could also look for production teams from overseas.

On one hand, it's because in the field of television dramas, there has almost never been such a precedent, and everyone takes it for granted that for a format like a drama series, if you find a director from abroad to shoot it, it won't be shot well. After all, drama series are, to a certain extent, more grounded than films and require a "one of our own" who truly understands Chinese culture to shoot stories that the audience likes more.

On the other hand, Chen Siqi herself also felt that for scenes with such low budgets as *Jump Up* Theater, even slightly famous directors in the country couldn't be hired, so how could they afford to hire foreign directors?

As soon as Yuan Hai spoke, it suddenly made Chen Siqi realize that not all foreign directors are expensive.

The Chinese film and television drama market is already the largest market in the world. This has also caused the pay of film and television production personnel to rise. However, in places like Malaysia and Thailand, their own markets are not that big, and consequently, their film and television production talent is actually not that high.

Two or three million RMB to shoot a drama series of two to three episodes—this might be a very low cost for the Chinese market, but for Malaysia, it might not necessarily be a cheap budget.

The problem lies in whether the people here in Malaysia can actually shoot it? Shoot it well?

Regarding this question, if it were someone else volunteering, Chen Siqi might have to investigate more and figure out the other party's background. But this person is Yuan Hai; he has a proper production company and has done many film and television projects. And most importantly, he himself is a Chinese, speaks Chinese very fluently, and his own cultural background is connected.

*Jump Up* Theater isn't shooting any history or serious dramas.

Chen Siqi said: "Producer Yuan, I am very interested in this proposal. I want to learn more about your production company. By the way, you should know that for *Jump Up* Theater, the production budget for each scene is basically only?"

Yuan Hai nodded: "I've heard."

"That's good. To be honest, although the production budget for *Jump Up* Theater will rise a bit later, it certainly won't rise significantly. It's impossible to be like those American dramas, British dramas, or even Korean dramas we know, with a production budget of tens of millions of dollars per drama," Chen Siqi said, "If your production company is really interested in *Jump Up* Theater, then we can take one or two projects to try it out first."

Yuan Hai nodded.

After Lu Yan He learned of Yuan Hai's idea of finding Chen Siqi, he was also quite surprised and hadn't expected it.

However, upon thinking about it seriously, it's actually not hard to understand.

Lu Yan He himself opened a film and television drama production company, so he knew how great the pressure of supporting a company was.

For a company, even if it does nothing, the labor costs plus fixed expenses such as company rent are in the eight figures.

The film production company Yuan Hai runs—film itself is a high-risk industry, not to mention that in Malaysia, the local market is too small, the competition in the Asian market is too fierce, let alone the market in Europe and America.

They can almost only survive in the cracks of a small pond.

Investment is hard to find, and the influence of film and television dramas is not enough. Without creators with fame and influence—Huang Tianlin is already the most representative figure in Malaysian film in recent years—and he has only shot one film, which met everyone at the Toronto International Film Festival, and the word-of-mouth was quite good.

One can imagine how great Yuan Hai's pressure is.

To be honest, if a Chinese-language drama with a normal volume of tens of millions of dollars were handed over to Yuan Hai's company to make, not to mention whether any company would dare to hand it over to them, they themselves wouldn't dare to take it. Because the company scale isn't that big, they can't do such large projects.

*Jump Up* Theater happens to be a "small project" theater.

A drama, with a volume of two or three episodes and a production budget of around 600,000 USD, happens to be a volume that Yuan Hai's production company can afford.

Chen Siqi asked: "You've been in contact with him for these few days, do you think he is a person who can be cooperated with?"

"Yes," Lu Yan He nodded without hesitation, "Actually, I haven't just been in contact with him for these few days. From the very beginning of contact with this film, Sister Ziyan and I have been in contact with him for half a year, especially Sister Ziyan, who has been in contact more and more frequently. Sister Ziyan's evaluation of him is very high."

Chen Siqi: "Then I have to change my flight; I want to go see his company and meet his production team."

After Chen Siqi has been the editor-in-chief of *Jump Up* for so many years, when deciding whether to cooperate with someone, she actually increasingly needs to meet this person in person and chat. Of course, if she can meet a few more times and chat a few more times, it's even better. For cooperation in the field of content creation like hers, most of the time, what she looks at isn't how beautiful the other party's proposal is, but how reliable this person is.

Therefore, she wants to meet other people in Yuan Hai's company and see their production team. Having done *Jump Up* Theater for so long, Chen Siqi herself also has a standard for what qualities a good producer and a good production team should have and what things they shouldn't have.

Lu Yan He nodded and said: "That's fine, but does Producer Yuan have time to take you there? I see that he has basically been staying on set every day for these two days and hasn't left."

"It doesn't matter; it's even better if he's not there. He can let others receive me," Chen Siqi said.

Lu Yan He nodded.

"As long as you have an idea."

"Do you know what I'm thinking about? I feel I'm a bit exaggerated; I might be a bit crazy," Chen Siqi suddenly said.

"Huh?" Lu Yan He asked, "What's wrong?"

"I'm thinking, if the *Jump Up* Theater model can be replicated, perhaps in the future, our *Jump Up* Theater can go to all parts of the world to collect production talent. Not only to cooperate with us and shoot the novels in our *Jump Up* magazine, but also to find scripts locally and shoot local stories. *Jump Up* Malaysia Branch Theater, India Branch Theater, Singapore Branch Theater..."

"After I thought of this, I suddenly thought again, why has the promotion effect of the overseas version of *Jump Up* always been unclear? Apart from the fact that physical books are not doing well, there is another point. I also forgot one point: even if the overseas version of *Jump Up* is no longer a magazine but a themed book, the authors and articles on it are all our own from China. For local readers, it is too unfamiliar. I'm thinking, when I continue to do the overseas version later, I want to invite local writers to make a themed book and invite a few influential local writers to write articles around this theme."

Chen Siqi's proposal inspired Lu Yan He quite a bit.

"This sounds like it's worth a try."

Before, they had always been thinking about letting *Jump Up* "go out," so they all forgot that in many cases, the prerequisite for "going out" also requires them to better "go in."

This set of methods has actually been used too many times in the film and television drama industry. If they value which overseas market, they find an actor from that country to participate.

Behind the so-called international lineup, there are actually the most simple commercial considerations.

And their previous approach to doing the overseas version of *Jump Up* was constrained by the fact that they already had a lot of good works published. They took it for granted that the problem of the overseas version of *Jump Up* encountering setbacks was that the promotion wasn't in place, that the physical publishing industry was not doing well, and that the work of connecting a good book with a market wasn't done well.

In fact, what they considered good might not necessarily be that good for local readers.

Just like many highly acclaimed overseas works, when they come to China, they also encounter a cold reception.

Cultural backgrounds are different, and aesthetics are also different.

Once the topic of work comes up, Chen Siqi's eyes are bright and shining.

Lu Yan He felt that she couldn't wait to fly back to the country the next second to discuss this matter with her team.

When Lu Yan He came out after taking a shower, Chen Siqi was holding her laptop, her fingertips were typing wildly on the keyboard, typing extremely fast.

Lu Yan He went over to take a look; she was writing down ideas for the next step of promoting the overseas version.

The page was already densely packed with text, and ideas were gushing out like a spring.

Apart from what she just said, Chen Siqi was also writing on it that they could refer to the "star effect" that *Jump Up* exerted when it first started in the country, inviting directors, screenwriters, and actors who are very famous locally or even internationally to write columns. Rather than inviting stars to shoot covers to attract a wave of fans to buy books, it's better to use this method to form the impression of *Jump Up* as a literary treasure.

Physical books, in this era, are destined to be impossible to be mainstream, so let's walk the niche track well. In this track, let's exert the attributes of *Jump Up* to the extreme.

There are so many people; no matter how niche the track is, as long as you walk it well, you will definitely be able to walk out with flowers and applause.

Lu Yan He sat down beside Chen Siqi, put his arms around her waist, and watched her type, without opening his mouth to disturb her.

I don't know how long it had been, but Chen Siqi suddenly felt a weight on her shoulder.

She turned her head and realized that Lu Yan He had fallen asleep while watching.

Chen Siqi came back to her senses, closed the laptop, put it aside, and patted Lu Yan He's thigh.

Lu Yan He opened his eyes, somewhat sleepy.

He saw that Chen Siqi had already closed the computer and asked: "Finished writing?"

"Mm, finished writing," Chen Siqi nodded, "Let's go to sleep."

Lu Yan He yawned, "Let's go."

As a result, once they got into bed, Lu Yan He was energized and didn't need to yawn anymore.

Recommend the old book *I Became the Scandal Protagonist Overnight*