Chapter 527

"Content?" Jiang Dongsheng muttered, looking puzzled.

He previously worked at Weibo, mainly responsible for product development; operations wasn't his strong suit.

Fortunately, Jiang Heng wasn't looking to hire a marketing genius; he valued obedience, competence, and good character.

As the venture capital circle often says, venture capital is investing in people.

If the personnel selection is wrong, there's a high chance the startup team will become corrupt, lose money, and ultimately ruin the project.

Although the Douyin short video project was being incubated within the Outstanding Rising Film Company building, Jiang Heng was swamped with affairs and couldn't monitor it constantly.

Therefore, the choice of CEO remains very important.

Even if there are things he doesn't understand, Jiang Heng is willing to give guidance.

"Yes, content is the most important; it determines whether this product can leapfrog and become the industry leader."

Seeing Jiang Dongsheng deep in thought, Jiang Heng continued: "So my idea is to encourage originality—first, take out a hundred million! Go back and have people draft a creation incentive plan, giving cash rewards based on users' followers and video play counts."

"Alright, Director Jiang, once the incentive plan is ready, I'll send it over to you right away for review!"

"Mm!"

Jiang Heng nodded, then said: "Review also needs to be taken seriously—even more so than the incentive plan, understand?"

"I know; there will definitely be creators uploading vulgar videos just to get traffic!"

That's inevitable; for now the state isn't paying much attention to this, leading to many chaotic situations. But someday it will be regulated—if early review isn't done well, it'll be too late when the time comes!

Jiang Heng's statement has basis.

In his previous life, the short-video app Miaopai, which collaborated with Weibo, was taken down for 79 days for rectification due to lowbrow tone, deviant values, and vulgar parody before being allowed back online.

A span of over two months, in the fiercely competitive internet track, is already an eternity.

Jiang Heng naturally couldn't stand by and let his product suffer this; preventive measures are still needed.

Jiang Dongsheng said: "Exactly, manual review is too time-consuming and labor-intensive, high cost, low efficiency; we still need to use algorithms for AI review."

Jiang Heng said: "That's inevitable; assign someone to focus on this and get it done ASAP!"

"I know!"

After chatting a while longer, Jiang Heng had Jiang Dongsheng leave.

Currently, Douyin is still in internal testing, but Jiang Heng has already started pondering its promotion.

The method is simple—just throw money at it!

He plans to partner with the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, unleashing a red envelope rain, aiming to become industry leader by 2015.

By then, grasping the core algorithm technology, leveraging first-mover advantage, plus entertainment-star traffic, internal creation incentives, and splashing tens of billions more, securing the industry top spot, there will be nothing left for the "bytes" side to do.

As long as this product is done well, even if we don't make movies later, we won't fear living off past gains!

But for now, he still needs to keep filming to make money; he just doesn't know what to shoot at the moment.

He won't go for artsy films.

First, he truly lacks the artistic sense; if he does it poorly, it'd backfire and tarnish his brand. Commercial blockbusters, though, recycle a few genres—sci-fi has been overdone lately, so mythological tales would be better.

The problem is that Journey to the West, Investiture of the Gods, and traditional myth stories have all been filmed many times; not only are audiences aesthetically fatigued, but he himself is somewhat tired too.

As for mecha, not only did his Pacific Rim series flop, but Transformers' reputation has kept falling, with audiences accusing it of cash-grabbing.

As for monster movies, domestic still lacks that atmosphere; we might as well wait for Zhang Yimou's Qin-version Great Wall to release before saying more.

Jiang Heng, momentarily unsure what to film, couldn't sit still in the office—he'd glance out the window at the scenery, then sit at the computer and couldn't resist launching a game.

After playing a bit of Big Talk Journey to the West, Jiang Heng sighed: "Surely we can't just make another Monkey King Returns, right?"

In this life, he early on brought a group of up-and-coming domestic directors under his wing—either signing them directly or investing in collaborations—and he knows their situations well.

In his previous life, Tian Xiaopeng, who directed Monkey King Returns, hasn't worked on that animated film this time around.

The reason is simple: in Jiang Heng's Lion's Ridge film from years ago, Tang Seng actively entered nirvana, turned into relics, and flew into Wukong's body, vastly boosting his magic power, allowing him to easily annihilate the three demons of Lion's Ridge—a truly stunning scene.

Consequently, he feels that his own conception of Sun Wukong, after leaving Five Fingers Mountain, remains sealed, because the plot where Tang Seng dies and then erupts to slay the mountain monsters is too petty; with Lion's Ridge setting the bar high, making a similar animated film now seems unlikely! Jiang Heng also thinks Lion's Ridge and Monkey King Returns share similar plot setups—would doing it again really be okay? Then he thinks, hey, it's for profit, no shame! But a voice then pops up in his mind: shame, damn shame.

Jiang Heng repeatedly pondered, growing increasingly irritable.

After checking each version one by one, none were correct!

What annoyed him more was picking up his phone and seeing a bunch of women leave messages—seemingly caring, but actually all targeting the female lead of the American version of Alien: Covenant.

Upon closer inspection, he found that aside from Clara and Zhang Ruozhu, all the female artists under the company had left messages.

The former, knowing she's Korean, has always remained in the second tier among Outstanding Rising Film Company's actresses, usually playing sexy beauties; opportunities for big-investment female leads are nil, so she never dared dream of that.

As for Zhang Ruozhu, she likely just joined the company and is young, so she probably never entertained that dream either; Jiang Heng still appreciates women who have self-awareness.

He immediately called Du Huan to ask about the company's recently prepared film projects.

Du Huan blinked, then still reported a few names.

Jiang Heng said: "Pick the one with the biggest investment, and let Clara take the lead!"

"Ah ah, let her? Director Jiang, she's too alluring, and her accent is a bit…!"

"Can't it be solved?"

"Uh, there is a way—I'll have the screenwriter tweak the script again!"

"Alright, let's do that!"

After hanging up, Jiang Heng silently thought, "Consider this your bonus for helping the company make money!"

Afterwards, he called Zhang Ruozhu again.

The crew of Lost in Hollywood has wrapped; she's now back in Jingcheng, reuniting with her parents and her transferred younger siblings, waiting for autumn school to start! "Director Jiang, do you need me for something?"

Zhang Ruozhu's voice sounded a bit flustered, because someone like Jiang Heng deals with major matters every day.

"Suddenly calling me—could it be something serious? Just thinking about it makes me inexplicably nervous!"

"Nothing much—I've just been busy and irritable lately, wanting to go out for a drive, wondering if you're free?"

Zhang Ruozhu stared for a few seconds, then hurriedly said, "Free, free, free!" (End of chapter)