Chapter 168: Strength to Pull Up Mountains, Spirit to Cover the World

Now the PR Department has been renamed the Public Relations Department, and besides packaging artists, its job is to steer public opinion and attack people.

Over the past few months, Fang Hong has used this department frequently, so naturally its functions have been elevated.

Currently, this department's annual budget is twenty million, used solely for maintaining the corporate image and the artists' image.

Of course, this money is still earned back from the artists — you can't just spend without earning.

Twenty million is the fixed expenditure; for other matters, like when Fang Hong needs to specifically attack people and set the tone, additional funds are applied for and specially approved for special handling.

Promotional work for film and television is counted under the film and television budget, not under the Public Relations Department's own funds.

The Public Relations Department also doesn't directly promote or steer public opinion; it also cooperates with outside media and media companies.

Now the Public Relations Department is in the same department as artist management. Fang Hong fulfilled his promise and gave it to Huang Bing, though of course Chen Zhixi still oversees it directly.

Now "Fleet of Time" has been in theaters for half a month, and its subsequent box office has already collapsed — mainly because audiences found it genuinely nauseating.

People have grown numb to this kind of "ache of youth" — their youth really wasn't like that! "Every damn one is about abortion — 'So Young' had abortion, 'Fleet of Time' has abortion too — does love not count as youth without abortion?"

"The Jade Rabbit's original 'Those Years' was so good — how did it fall so low?"

Someone shouted.

"Thank goodness Liu Tianxian didn't have an abortion — she's preserved our most beautiful image. The Principal still has a conscience."

"Please return the uterus to women!"

"."

Bear with it — there's one last abortion, "You Are the One I Love." Filming it like this is to stop others from copying the trend: make it so bad the audience becomes immune, kill off this subject.

Fang Hong is going further and further down the path of being inhuman!

No choice — it's about making money. Currently, "Fleet of Time" has broken through 305 million in total box office.

Another film breaking through 300 million at the box office — at this point in time, that level isn't high, but it isn't low either.

This year, "Transformers 3" also broke 1 billion, and "Kung Fu Panda 2" broke 600 million.

What was surprising was that Rabbit Ticket sold 1,032 movie tickets, equivalent to sales of tens of thousands of yuan — not bad at all, a solid first step.

At the current box office level, Rabbit Ticket holds a 3% distribution share, meaning Rabbit Ticket brings in around nine million.

This clearly has potential.

Of course, this is without ticket subsidies.

Fang Hong sent a proposal to Tencent's Investment Strategy Department, wanting them to invest in Rabbit Ticket.

"Jade Rabbit has the content, Tencent has the channels — bring those cinemas in too, and in distribution and marketing we'd be unrivaled; dominating the film world is just around the corner." That's how he pitched it.

But they ignored him, so he changed the name and sent the proposal to Meituan, asking Meituan to throw in some investment.

Bringing in Meituan was to prevent them from incubating Meituan Films — the predecessor of Maoyan Entertainment — and Meituan's group-buy model would be number one in the future.

To put it bluntly, it was for its traffic and channels.

As for investing in Meituan, Fang Hong had zero interest — the thing was too harmful to heaven's harmony, getting rich by squeezing the labor of the bottom with big data algorithms.

Although Fang Hong likes money, he doesn't like extreme exploitation.

But when others do it, he won't say anything, won't oppose it — just takes it in stride, doesn't participate.

Now Rabbit Ticket is developing step by step. The software has already been developed to version 2.0; with user feedback and college students testing it, they know where the problems are.

Additionally, Fang Hong invested another twenty million for operations and server construction — the previous thirty million hadn't been spent yet.

But this money also had another task: building movie big data.

That meant organizing all the data — movie box office, movie reviews, viewership, number of cinemas, number of screens, historical total box office — and uploading it to the Data Center.

Additionally, all relevant information on directors, actors, producers, etc., was to be fully organized.

This collection and processing required a lot of time — resources were lacking, but time was plentiful.

Anyway, it was just a matter of slowly searching, slowly looking, slowly analyzing.

Fang Hong also rented out the 15th floor as Rabbit Ticket's office space.

Now the initial Animation Department team had been set up — a team of 68 led by Shi Zhimao had already begun producing animation.

Anyway, they just had to copy the storyboards — of course, Western animation; domestic animation wasn't making money for now.

Animation in the West makes terrifying money at the box office and from merchandise.

Animation staff were easy to find, and the directors had a Western sensibility — what they needed was all kinds of equipment: graphics tablets, digital cameras, 3D scanners — that is, devices to convert physical objects into digital models.

External hard drives, digital pens, drawing tablets — all required high-end equipment. Animation was essentially burning money frame by frame.

Making animation was far more complicated than live-action film — rendering detail frame by frame, plus building models and scanning.

Basically, you make the physical object first, then scan it into the computer — it's very difficult either way.

Do it well and you make money; do it poorly and years of time and funds go down the drain. Of course, the upside was that special effects could improve quickly — a lot of it overlapped.

Coincidentally, "The Gallows" had a North American box office of 22.76 million dollars, and around 20.20 million dollars elsewhere on Earth globally.

Now the box office had bottomed out — meaning there wouldn't be much more.

The current total box office was 44.96 million dollars, meaning Jade Rabbit could take 11.24 million dollars, equivalent to 78.68 million yuan.

Then another thirty million was set aside to purchase the latest animation equipment — film production and special effects also had equipment usable for animation, so at this stage there was no need to spend that much; sharing would do.

Additionally, animation had an upfront investment of one hundred million for producing animated films — this took a long time. This whole year, Fang Hong was basically lying low, not going out, not socializing, fully developing his own foundation.

Anyway, it was all just setting up a framework and giving a budget — like planting a tree; later it would take huge sums of money to fatten it up.

Whether it could grow into a towering tree depended on whether the United States' blood transfusions were sufficient.

"Lao Yu, you need to work hard!" Fang Hong made a call to urge him on.

Yu Xian was also deeply frustrated — if he'd known, he wouldn't have come to the United States. It was damn not easy.

Still, his brother had given him enough money — keeping two delicate blonde girls was no problem.

That day, Liu Tianxian took two days off from the "White Vengeance" crew, saying she was going to attend the Golden Horse Awards, along with Fang Hong, Bao Jinjin, and Wang Ran.

Bao Jinjin had also received a Best Screenplay nomination; the two men were just accompanying them.

When Liu Tianxian arrived, she saw the office bustling with people coming and going, and just happened to see Fang Hong standing in the aisle, facing a woman and talking.

Liu Tianxian hadn't met this woman before — it was Shi Zhimao, the Animation Department supervisor.

They seemed to be discussing animation production, which Liu Tianxian couldn't understand.

Liu Tianxian slowly approached Fang Hong from behind and stood at his back. Shi Zhimao's gaze happened to fall on her, and Liu Tianxian raised a finger at her, signaling her not to speak.

Shi Zhimao took the hint and naturally wouldn't poke her nose into other people's business. She had been at this company for over a month now and had long heard the gossip about the boss and Liu Tianxian.

The two were in a romantic relationship — that was the rumor going around the company!

"Alright, got it. Then, Boss Fang, I'll head up first." Shi Zhimao listened to Fang Hong's instructions, indicated she understood, then slipped past him.

Fang Hong nodded, but the moment he turned around he heard a "Roar!" and couldn't help taking two steps back.

Liu Tianxian curled her hands into claws, made a fierce face, squinted her eyes and laughed "Haha": "Did I scare you?"

"Crazy."

Fang Hong was speechless, then headed toward his own office.

Liu Tianxian immediately took offense and chased after him: "Who are you calling crazy?"

"You, crazy." Having said that, Fang Hong went into the office and hurriedly tried to shut the door, not letting her in.

If she got in, she'd probably beat him up.

Liu Tianxian saw the door about to close and wedged her body against it, leaving only a palm-sized gap so the two of them could talk.

"Are you trying to die?" Liu Tianxian threatened.

"If you come in, then I'm done for. If you don't come in, I'm doing just fine — don't even know how free I am." Fang Hong said.

"Heh, I'm giving you face, aren't I?"

Liu Tianxian pushed with all her might against the door, with the fierce determination of one whose strength could topple mountains and whose spirit overshadow the world.

Fang Hong also pushed hard, but he was still pushed back little by little — the result of never exercising and sitting in an office every day.

The two pushed against the door in a contest of strength. The surrounding staff watched them and just took it as a bit of fun, not taking it seriously.

Instead, they hoped Liu Tianxian would subdue the Principal.

Because only Liu Tianxian could keep the Principal in check. The days Liu Tianxian was around were their most relaxed days.

No other reason — just that Fang Hong would listen to what Liu Tianxian said, but wouldn't listen to anyone else.

The door was pushed open little by little. Liu Tianxian, sure of victory, was very pleased with herself: "That's all you've got?"

"I'm letting you win." Fang Hong wanted to save face.

"I beg you, stop letting me win. Put some force into it, let me feel your strength." Liu Tianxian laughed "Hehe" as she taunted him.

Damn it. Fang Hong suddenly exerted force with everything he had, pushing the door back little by little again.

Liu Tianxian felt the pressure, but her face remained calm and composed: "Not bad, put in more force, harder."

Though her words sounded like encouragement, in truth they were mockery.

Fang Hong couldn't swallow the provocation, let out a breath, and strained again, his face flushed red from the effort.

"That's right, harder, don't stop." Liu Tianxian also pushed against the door with all her might, not letting him succeed.

Without seeing the scene, one would think the two were doing it — the woman urging the man to thrust harder, not to stop, that she'd look down on him if he stopped.

"Feifei, give me some face, so many people are watching!" Fang Hong said quietly, trying to negotiate peace.

Liu Tianxian wore a victorious smile: "Then tell me, what did you do wrong?"

"I shouldn't have called you crazy. My bad, my mouth is cheap." Fang Hong said.

"Anything else?"

"I shouldn't have tried to lock you outside, but it's already like this, so just give me some face, let me win, and I'll let you in afterward, alright?" Fang Hong negotiated.

This man really cared about his face. Liu Tianxian looked at him with a smiling squint: "No, your attitude in admitting fault isn't deep enough."

"Deep, very deep. I'll reflect, I'll self-criticize!" Fang Hong said.

"Seeing your good attitude, this young lady will give you that face."

After saying that, Liu Tianxian straightened her face and threatened again: "If you don't open the door, I'll kick this door to pieces."

(End of chapter)