Chapter 81: Women's Thoughts and Cooperation on Fiber Optics

"Room—the only lone seedling for a feature film at this year's Cannes Film Festival!"

"Berlin Silver Bear Director, first campaign at Cannes, success or defeat?"

"Ceng Li stated: Very happy to be shortlisted, looking forward to the arrival of the Cannes Film Festival!"

After the shortlist for the 59th Cannes International Film Festival was announced, the area around Wei Jin and Ceng Li became much livelier, mainly due to interviews from some media and blessings from friends.

Regarding these interviews, Wei Jin and Ceng Li handled them with ease, stating that it was an honor to be nominated, and whether they could win an award would depend on the judges' intentions.

After all, when facing interviews, one cannot speak too definitively, otherwise, it would be embarrassing to be slapped in the face later.

The media's reporting on Wei Jin was quite positive; after all, as a representative figure among young directors, Wei Jin's achievements had already surpassed many of his elders.

Since his debut, Wei Jin had filmed five movies in three years. Although commercial films made up the majority and were not well-received by certain film critics and traditional circles, his two art-house films were still quite good.

His first film, Buried, was directly shortlisted for the Berlin International Film Festival and won a Silver Bear; his second film, Room, had always been low-key, but it also ended up being shortlisted for the Cannes Film Festival, and it was even the only Chinese-language film in the Main Competition Section of this year's festival.

The media were quite optimistic about whether Wei Jin could win an award this time, because the jury president for this festival was Wong Kar-wai, and among the judges was Zhang Ziyi. Although Wei Jin did not have any close relationship with them, they were at least not strangers, and Zhang Ziyi even had a schoolmate connection with Ceng Li, which could help a little.

Compared to the media's pursuit, what gave Wei Jin more of a headache were the women around him.

Over the past two days, Hu Jing and Fan Bingbing had both found gaps in their schedules to curry favor with Wei Jin in various ways under the guise of celebrating his nomination for the Cannes Film Festival. Wei Jin naturally knew the reason, but since he didn't have any suitable projects on hand for the moment, he could only strip away the sugar coating and fire the cannonballs back.

Gao Yuanyuan was even looking forward to Wei Jin's Search, striving to win an award next year; she was not willing to lose to Ceng Li.

Wei Jin didn't have the heart to tell Yuan Yuanjie for the time being that he didn't intend to direct this film, fearing that Gao Yuanyuan would fly into a rage.

Even Senior Sister Yan Danchen called to invite him to visit her on set. How could Wei Jin not know this blatant "Sima Zhao's heart is known to all"?

Wei Jin felt a headache on one hand, but on the other, he sighed: female artists of this era still had some artistic pursuits after all.

Over the past two days, besides accepting interviews, Wei Jin had also handled quite a few miscellaneous tasks for the company, and at this moment, his heart was entirely focused on the promotion of the variety show project.

Since the implementation of the separation of production and broadcasting policy in 1999, private companies like Pegasus, Pegasus Taihe, Happy, and Tanglong produced their own programs and cooperated with television stations, rising rapidly and being called the "Four Young Masters of Private Television" by the industry.

However, the latter two companies were a bit like fillers and had both slowly declined.

Only the programs produced by Pegasus and Happy could currently compete with the self-produced programs of television stations.

The former had the most popular entertainment news program, Entertainment Live, and the most popular music program, Music Billboard.

The latter had the ace variety show Happy Mobilization, which was comparable to Happy Camp.

The variety shows produced by the two companies cooperated with hundreds of cable and wireless television stations across the country. The programs were broadcast on television stations for free, and then they would demand a certain amount of advertising time from the stations, then solicit their own advertisements and sponsorships, which could be described as earning a fortune.

According to industry companies, in the first few years of this century, the annual advertising revenue from programs alone for both companies exceeded 100 million, or even more.

It was evident that the blue ocean field of variety shows had great potential, and Wei Jin naturally didn't want to miss out, but how to do it was a problem.

There was a lot of knowledge and expertise in variety shows; otherwise, for the same program, some directors could make it a national phenomenon, while others would film it to the point where people and dogs alike detested it.

Therefore, it wasn't something that could become an instant hit just by coming up with a plan or making a reality show; it required meticulous planning and a professional, high-quality production team.

Moreover, once a program was made, distribution was also a problem. Current television stations only broadcast without buying, and then took a cut of the advertising revenue. Once the program's ratings didn't meet the standard, it would be cut directly, which posed no risk to the television stations.

To put it bluntly, television stations held the broadcasting rights, censorship rights, and advertising rights; they were the "masters" of private companies and could cut you off whenever they wanted. However, as long as the program's effect was good, the production side could still maintain a certain amount of initiative; after all, competition was becoming increasingly fierce, and platforms would also choose to lower their posture.

Since Wei Jin had the intention to get involved in the variety show field, he naturally had to choose a reliable partner in the early stages. It just so happened that his relationship with Pegasus was quite pleasant, so he had previously called Wang Changtian to tell him that he had a new project and intended to invite Pegasus to cooperate. The other party also readily agreed and asked Wei Jin to come and discuss it in person, and today was the day he had agreed upon with Wang Changtian.

Early in the morning, Liu Yan followed Wei Jin to the Pegasus building. Looking at the somewhat familiar architecture, Liu Yan felt a few inexplicable emotions in her heart.

Walking into the lobby, quite a few people recognized Liu Yan, and of course, they also recognized Wei Jin. The receptionist hurriedly dialed the secretary's office, and before long, a woman in professional attire was seen walking toward the two of them.

"President Wei, hello, I am Li Xiaoping. President Wang has been waiting in the office for a long time."

Li Xiaoping greeted Wei Jin very politely, then looked at Liu Yan.

"Liu Yan, long time no see, how have you been lately?"

"President Wei, this is the Administrative Vice President of Pegasus, President Li Xiaoping."

Liu Yan remembered her current status, so she first introduced her to Wei Jin before replying: "President Li, long time no see, I am doing very well now, thank you for your concern."

"President Li, hello. Let's not keep President Wang waiting any longer, please lead the way."

Li Xiaoping nodded upon hearing this and led the way directly. The three of them soon arrived at Wang Changtian's office.

"Brother Wei, I've finally waited for you. This is your first time here, right? How does it feel?"

As soon as they entered the door, Wang Changtian greeted them enthusiastically, looking very curious about the project Wei Jin had mentioned on the phone.

"President Wang's place is naturally magnificent, and the employees are all elite soldiers and fierce generals. Wei has truly opened his eyes."

Under Wang Changtian's invitation, Wei Jin sat on the sofa, looked around, and spoke unhurriedly:

"Liu Yan, you sit down too, don't be formal. You are someone who walked out of our Pegasus; this counts as half of your maternal home."

Seeing Wei Jin bring Liu Yan along, Wang Changtian understood that Liu Yan was doing better than he had imagined, and he felt a bit emotional.

"Okay, thank you, President Wang."

"By the way, brother, I haven't congratulated you on being shortlisted for Cannes yet. This time, you must bring back a Palme d'Or. Let's see if Chen Shiren still dares to act arrogant in front of you?"

Wang Changtian said this out of dissatisfaction with Chen Shiren, who had previously relied on his status as a Palme d'Or-winning director to state in public:

"Painted Skin is a film without substance. Young directors should still strive to improve their own cultivation and not just engage in crooked paths."

"Haha, why bring him up? Bad luck. But President Wang must have earned quite a bit from Painted Skin, right?"

Pegasus invested no more than 6 million, and counting the distribution costs, they earned at least 20 million or more. Wei Jin was also reminding Wang Changtian to think clearly about the upcoming cooperation.

"Haha, that's true. I have to thank Brother Wei. Let's get closer in the future, brother."

Speaking of the previous cooperation, Wang Changtian was full of satisfaction and also full of expectations for this cooperation, making it worth sending Liu Yan to him.

"Easy to say, easy to say. If there's an opportunity, I certainly won't forget you, brother."

After some pleasantries, Wei Jin ended the boring flattery and stated his purpose. The new book is on the shelves, I earnestly request all book friends to reward me with a subscription and a collection, thank you all!

(End of chapter)