Chapter 645: The Positioning of the Spirit River

As always, although the status of the four major international film festivals stands firm and their artistic value is universally acknowledged, it does not mean that film selection relies absolutely solely on the films themselves.

What is a film festival? A film festival is where the top-tier film masters are willing to bring their new works, where the most promising filmmakers can be launched, and where the hottest movie stars are willing to come to promote their films.

Its very positioning determines that it is not so pure.

As a director who has only made one film, and that film previously participated in the Toronto Film Festival, having his second work enter the Main Competition Unit directly is still very difficult for Huang Tianlin.

It all depends on how Artistic Director Wintour Robe views this film.

Lu Yan He did not expect that Wintour Robe would send him an email asking for his opinion on the director Huang Tianlin.

Lu Yan He was greatly surprised.

Is this... compliant?

Lu Yan He's first reaction was that, as a cast member of the film "Tropical Rainy Season," this was not appropriate.

But looking again at the content of the other party's email, the Main Competition and the Sitour Film Festival were not mentioned at all; if not for Lu Yan He knowing that "Tropical Rainy Season" was striving for nomination in the Main Competition Unit of the Sitour Film Festival, it would appear simply as an artistic director of a major film festival caring about the situation of a new director.

Lu Yan He thought for a moment; since the other party did not mention it, he would not mention it either, and would simply speak objectively about the feelings Huang Tianlin gave him during the filming of "Tropical Rainy Season."

He replied to the email: He is a film director with a very personal style and talent; regarding the filming of "Tropical Rainy Season," including some footage I have seen so far, I believe this film will become a very notable work in my acting career; although my role in this film is not large, he has filmed a side of me that has never appeared in other films.

Wintour Robe replied to his email very quickly: Thank you for your reply, Lu. Additionally, if I invite you to serve as a juror for the Main Competition Unit of next year's Sitour International Film Festival, do you have time?

Lu Yan He was stunned.

Serve as a juror?

Lu Yan He thought, if he serves as a juror, would "Tropical Rainy Season" be unable to be nominated for the Main Competition Unit?

Was Wintour Robe hinting at something?

Perhaps he is still unwilling to easily let a new director enter the Main Competition Unit of the Sitour Film Festival?

Lu Yan He replied: Thank you, Mr. Robe, thank you very much for your invitation; I am also very willing to accept this invitation, but, I am sorry, I have four films to shoot next year, so it may be difficult to find time.

Wintour Robe: You are truly too diligent; your output has been very high in recent years.

Lu Yan He: I encountered many good scripts and did not want to miss them, so I could only accept them all.

Wintour Robe: I hope you will bring more works to Sitour.

Lu Yan He: Okay, I certainly will.

The Sitour festival is held in February; films nominated for the Main Competition Unit are generally confirmed no later than the end of January.

Now is precisely the time when film selection is in full swing.

Not only "Tropical Rainy Season," but also "Raise the Red Lantern," directed by Wang Zhong, scripted by Lu Yan He, and starring Chen Bige, is urgently rushing through post-production, hoping to see if it can catch the Sitour Film Festival.

The reason for wanting to catch the Sitour is, on one hand, because the style of this film suits Sitour, and on the other hand, because Wang Zhong previously won Best Director at Sitour; he can be said to be Sitour's own faction, so his films have a greater hope of winning awards when taken to Sitour.

Lu Yan He has not yet seen "Raise the Red Lantern" up to now; he does not know what this film will look like.

After all, the films of the National Master are the kind that look easy to learn at first glance; it seems that anyone with a bit of foundation could imitate them, after all, his films are not the kind where technical difficulty is visible to the naked eye.

But if his films were truly that simple, if they truly relied only on grand scenes and visuals to win, he could not have stood firmly in the position of National Master for so long without falling.

All art films ultimately compete on internal strength.

Lu Yan He does not doubt Wang Zhong's ability to film the critical nature of this movie; he is just curious how much "ghostly aura" Wang Zhong will endow this film with.

The "ghostly aura" in Wang Zhong's films is not the ghost of a genius.

And "Raise the Red Lantern" is precisely a film that appears to write about people, but in reality, the few women in that courtyard live as if they were ghosts.

Lu Yan He always feels that the "Raise the Red Lantern" he sees in this world will have a bit less of the original's realism and a bit more of a "ghostly weeping and chilling" atmosphere.

Just like "Sanshan."

It was only after Lu Yan He truly became a creator himself that he sincerely felt one thing—

Creation is too personal.

Unless you can truly completely settle your mindset and create from the perspective of commercial creation (which often still involves a gap between what you think and the actual situation), otherwise, any creation cannot escape the creator's own aesthetic preferences.

It cannot be faked.

If Lu Yan He's attitude towards replicating those successful works in the past was to replicate them as closely as possible to the original, now Lu Yan He has accepted that exact replication is impossible; for the same script, everyone's understanding is different. Lu Yan He now only strives to ensure that the most successful aspects of the original work must be preserved.

For "2 Broke Girls," it is this character relationship setting, and the biggest characteristic of this sitcom is the comedic effect produced by the collision of the two female leads and the people around them with completely different values—but the underlying tone is that, no matter how different, they are all real people and warm people; no matter how sharp-tongued or mean they are verbally, they always accept everyone.

For "Raise the Red Lantern," it is the two words "eating people" and "alienation"; these are the two biggest themes of this film's text, and the two images of lighting the lamp and pounding the feet are also preserved.

This is truly something that requires time and experience to truly understand and accept.

Otherwise, compared to the previous work, there will always be differences, always distinctions.

Lu Yan He is increasingly understanding why, compared to looking at this and that, the more awesome people are, the more they look at people.

Just like many entrepreneurs who eventually succeed, some investment tycoons invest once, fail, invest again, fail again, and keep investing until the fourth or fifth time, when the person succeeds, and the investment multiplies many times over.

In the field of creation, it is even more so.

People who can make good films, as long as they do not act blindly, definitely have the fundamentals here. Director Chen's subsequent films, even if the criticism remains, are criticized differently from the kind of money-grabbing trash films; essentially, everyone still recognizes Director Chen's film aesthetics; what is not recognized are certain values he stuffs into the films.

What Lu Yan He is thinking is, if "Oh My Sea" is filmed quite well, can it also be submitted to a film festival?

Of course, he dares not dream of the Main Competition Unit.

He is thinking of other units; non-competition units are also fine.

Please... you.... collect_()

He has this idea because this time dealing with Wu Chi, plus some footage he has seen, makes him feel that Wu Chi is actually just like the directors Quentin and Park Chan-wook that he knows; they are absolutely not traditional, mainstream art-house directors known to the public; in fact, many of their works are very commercial, but they possess their own unique styles and are auteur directors, so they are equally favored by film festivals.

The so-called establishing their own school.

Lu Yan He feels that Wu Chi gave him this feeling.

Of course, whether it can become a force is truly unknown; we can only watch slowly.

But at least start building reputation and credentials at film festivals.

Lu Yan He then sent a message to Chen Yin to talk about this matter.

Chen Yin replied: Received, understood. Actually, I have also recently taken a liking to an art film and want to buy it.

Lu Yan He was somewhat surprised and asked, "What does 'buy it' mean?"

Chen Yin said, "It means buying the film rights for the company. From then on, this film will belong to the company, and the company will handle its subsequent operations. This film was directed by a very young director named Zeng Bo; the film is called 'Picnic on the Balcony.' The actors are not professional actors, but this film is very special. It possesses a true poetry belonging to the people of the lower class. Those people, crushed by life into such destitution, still try to find a piece of spiritual purity. The fragility of such people, the poverty and the fragility of their dignity, is particularly sharp, making one feel heartbroken."

Lu Yan He: "Can I come to the company sometime to watch this film?"

Chen Yin: "Sure."

Lu Yan He trusted Chen Yin's judgment. The reason he had let Chen Yin manage the company's film and television production-related business in the first place was that Chen Yin understood it and possessed an aesthetic sense. For an executive of a production company, this was a very scarce resource.

And Xu Tianming was the kind of person who understood business and management very well but did not understand content and aesthetics very well, so he was responsible for everything related to products.

Lu Yan He asked Chen Ziyan to go watch 'Picnic on the Balcony' together.

Chen Ziyan was quite pleased to hear that Chen Yin wanted to buy films from outside.

"This is quite good," Chen Ziyan said. "I have long felt that since Linghe's production projects are basically following the 'small and beautiful' route, besides producing our own works, we should actually look at many low-budget films within the industry. There are truly too many people in the circle who go bankrupt trying to realize their dream of becoming directors. Among these films, there are many that are eye-catching. We can watch more; if they are good, we buy them. The price is actually not expensive. For those with flashes of brilliance, where the overall result is not quite satisfactory but can be remedied after evaluation, perhaps we can buy them too, invest another sum of money, and let the director reshoot some scenes based on revision opinions, then re-edit the film."

Lu Yan He listened with some surprise.

"Because the most important point is, hasn't Linghe established contact with overseas distributors through 'Love Letter'? Moreover, our relationships with film festivals of all sizes around the world are quite good. Although we do not have distribution channels, we can act as copyright agents, or directly buy the copyrights and become the copyright holders to operate them. Otherwise, relying solely on our own productions, how many films can we make in a year?"

Chen Ziyan's words made Lu Yan He ponder.

"You have also always wanted to push Chinese-language films to the world. Is there any way more effective than this method to push Chinese-language films to the world?" Chen Ziyan said. "There are truly too, too many small-budget, small films domestically. Ninety-nine percent of them have no chance of being shown in theaters, or even no chance of meeting the audience."

Lu Yan He nodded: "I understand. I will tell this idea to Chen Yin and the others and have them study it. I am just worried about whether we have that much capital. We almost couldn't turn over our funds ourselves in the first half of the year."

"First, 'Love Letter' exploded at the box office, quickly earning back a sum of cash. 'Chinese Paladin' will wrap up filming this year and the payments will basically come in next year. Not to mention, 'Wu Lin Wai Zhuan' Season 2 will start airing during the Spring Festival, which will also bring back a large sum of money. In the short term, what you need to consider is that with such a large sum of cash on the company's books, if you don't spend it, the money is constantly depreciating," Chen Ziyan said. "Second, as I said, we are following the 'small and beautiful' route. If the price is high, we just won't buy it. We are not a company that must buy something specific. We just have the extra capacity and the idea, so we can slowly pick some out."

Lu Yan He: "True, I understand."

"'Home Alone' has a production budget of several million, yet the estimated box office target is over a hundred million. If it weren't for the fact that you wrote the script and that you said the box office for this film would definitely be good, I would definitely think this is a fool's dream."

"Regarding the film industry, I have always felt that it is certainly not the case that the higher the investment, the higher the box office," Lu Yan He said. "If a film has a large investment, and that largeness lies in technological innovation, or in using money to create visual effects in this film that cannot be seen in other films, then this rule might come true. But if a film has a large investment, and that largeness lies in the director's fame or a luxurious cast of actors, to be honest, I think the probability of a bloodbath is greater. Not many audiences will truly go to the movies just for a few people. It must be that the fame of a few key creators makes the film known to everyone, and the film itself has a good subject matter, or something related to the film that the audience likes. Only by adding these two together can the audience be attracted into the cinema."

"'Home Alone' is not a case where I was unwilling to make its production costs a bit higher. Actually, I could have completely demanded that my script fee be paid out as an eight-figure sum, and then the production cost would have broken the eight-figure mark," Lu Yan He said. "It was just unnecessary. I did not save on expenses in any aspect of the production. Rather, its theme, its subject matter, and its story clearly stated that it only needed to spend this much money. And this theme, this subject matter, this story—I thought of it, others did not, but the market likes it. So if the box office explodes, what is the problem? Does anyone, before watching a movie, specifically check its cost, deciding to watch only if the cost is high, and not going if the cost is low?"

"What you say makes a lot of sense, but not everyone who knows this principle really dares to do it," Chen Ziyan said. "At your position, still using such a simple concept to view film investment and box office is rare. I am afraid you might forget, so let me emphasize once more: for the vast number of film companies domestically, film is not about making money through the box office. Of course, we don't need to learn from them. We just do our own thing. Although a small workshop is small, it belongs completely to us."

"Mm." Lu Yan He nodded. "I think so too."

Recommended new book 'Sword of Demon Hunting' (End of this chapter)