Chapter 353: Exchange

"The Fault in Our Stars" has no grand scenes and requires no CGI special effects, so the post-production is very fast; the rough cut is already finished.

It is worth mentioning that because "The Fault in Our Stars" is a co-production with investments from both China Film Group and the Youth Film Studio, the crew has incorporated several domestic staff members this time.

For instance, the editor is Yang Qian from the Youth Film Studio; he has collaborated with Cao Yang on several films before, and Cao Yang finds him easy to work with.

The biggest characteristic of Yang Qian is that he edits entirely according to Cao Yang's intentions, unlike other editors who might argue with the director for a long time over what they consider good or unsuitable shots.

Perhaps because he had long since adapted to Cao Yang's "streamlined" filming style, Yang Qian felt a bit unaccustomed at the start of editing "The Fault in Our Stars" since Cao Yang is not the director.

The main reason is that the workload has increased significantly.

If Cao Yang were the director, a shot would likely have only two or three alternatives, with no excessive redundant footage.

But the director of "The Fault in Our Stars" shoots a large number of alternative takes for a single scene, having actors redo it with different performances, which undoubtedly adds a lot of workload for the editor.

However, Yang Qian knows that this is the norm.

Extremely streamlined filming like Cao Yang's is the exception.

After the rough cut of "The Fault in Our Stars" was finished, Cao Yang watched it a few times with Yang Qian, then told Yang Qian his thoughts and requirements, letting him edit accordingly.

Columbia has already begun to take action.

They contacted the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the organization that initiated World Wish Day, and joined forces with them to find some critically ill children and teenagers, communicating with their guardians to facilitate the next steps.

Of course, they aren't just randomly finding critically ill children and teenagers; Cao Yang knows without thinking that most of those found in North America will be white, and there will be additional conditions attached.

Cao Yang didn't participate in this; even though this marketing method was proposed by him, Columbia hired a professional team to handle it, which is definitely more professional than him.

Furthermore, participating in this kind of thing in the U.S. is a hassle for Cao Yang.

However, it is possible to follow suit domestically.

Not for marketing the film, but just to take this opportunity to do some things within his power.

Cao Yang mentioned this to Han Zong and Hou Yuan, asking them to also hold a Wish Day event in the name of China Film Group and the Youth Film Studio.

No hype or fanfare is needed; just do it quietly.

And he urged them that this Wish Day is not really for wishing to meet celebrities or anything; they must not let some people use this as an opportunity for hype, as it is mainly for the follow-up treatment of those critically ill children and teenagers.

Cao Yang also didn't let them specifically mention his name; with Cao Yang's current status, there is no need to hype so-called "good deeds" to gild his reputation.

Hou Yuan asked Cao Yang if he wanted to register a foundation for himself, such as a "Cao Yang Charity Foundation" or something similar, as this has many benefits.

The public, not knowing the truth, hears such a "high-end" name and thinks it is true charity, intended to help those at the bottom who really need help.

Actually, heh...

Of course, it cannot be denied that there is still a small amount of charity funds truly used for good deeds.

But the nature of most of them was not intended for doing good deeds from the very beginning.

There are too many uses for this thing.

Well, let's talk about the purpose of some so-called charity foundations in the U.S.

One is tax exemption.

When an individual or company donates to a charity foundation, the donation amount can be deducted from taxable income.

By donating assets to a charity foundation, the donor can reduce the size of their estate, thereby reducing potential estate taxes.

Some charity foundations are established as part of estate planning, allowing the donor to transfer assets during their lifetime or after death while retaining a certain degree of control over these assets.

And the most important point: the investment income of a charity foundation is usually tax-exempt, meaning that if you invest in the name of the foundation, the income does not need to be taxed.

This is also why shareholders of many large U.S. companies are various foundations.

Furthermore, this type of charity foundation has a "controllable" aspect: it allows donors to specify the use of funds and can even establish "donor-advised funds," allowing donors to continue to guide the use of funds during their lifetime or after death.

Of course, it is not without restrictions.

Investing in the name of a foundation means the income is tax-free, but at least 5% of the assets must be distributed for charitable purposes each year, and the remaining assets can continue to be invested and appreciated.

It looks like this is to ensure the "charitable" nature of the charity foundation.

But if you think so, you are overestimating them a bit.

The calculation basis for this 5% includes direct expenditures for charitable projects, management fees, and grants, etc.

See this "management fee"? Does it sound familiar?

Second, wealth inheritance is one of the most important purposes for establishing a charity foundation.

In the U.S., many wealthy people pass on wealth through foundations, which not only ensures that funds do not need to pay high estate taxes but also allows their children to enter the foundation to participate in management.

Finally, social influence is also an important reason for the wealthy to establish charity foundations.

By funding education, medical care, or scientific research, the wealthy can indirectly participate in shaping public issues and enhance their social influence.

Moreover, occasionally doing some so-called "good deeds" with the foundation and hyping it up can also improve one's personal reputation.

Actually, in the United States—note, in the United States—some charity foundations have another function, which is to receive some "anonymous" donations; once these "anonymous" donations reach the foundation's account, they become "legal" money.

Of course, this cannot be done too excessively; being targeted is a big trouble.

Cao Yang rejected the suggestion of setting up a foundation domestically, and Hou Yuan laughed and didn't say anything.

Establishing a foundation is considered a "fashionable" thing domestically now, and some famous stars have already learned to do this; Hou Yuan is actually not very willing for Cao Yang to do this.

As an academic, he is also considered part of the system, and doing these things will sooner or later lead to trouble.

Since Cao Yang refused, Hou Yuan felt relieved; he had already prepared to analyze the pros and cons for Cao Yang.

As for "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," the post-production work is proceeding in an orderly manner; the most time-consuming part is still the CGI special effects.

This film has a large number of CGI special effects, which cannot be rushed, and this is also one of the main highlights.

Berman led the team to contact Warner again; the negotiations for "Batman" are much harder than for "Joker."

Even though Warner really wants Cao Yang's "name," when it involves an investment of nearly 200 million U.S. dollars and is a film aimed at the box office, even a fraction of a percentage point is argued over for several days.

On the contrary, regarding Cao Yang's proposal through Berman to make "Joker" a co-production, Berman only said that as long as it is a co-production, it can be released directly in China without occupying the "imported film" quota.

Warner just asked which companies wanted to invest.

When they heard that China Film Group and the Youth Film Studio where Cao Yang works were involved, they agreed without hesitation.

Warner's idea is very simple: for an art film aimed at winning awards, having an extra investor to share the investment is, of course, excellent.

Let alone China Film Group and the Youth Film Studio; for this kind of film not aimed at the box office, Warner welcomes any company to share the investment with open arms.

Of course, the prerequisite is that the film's box office doesn't explode.

If the box office explodes, Warner has plenty of ways to make the film "lose money," and even if Wall Street came, they wouldn't find any legal loopholes.

Well, legal ones.

As for some seemingly unreasonable places, like a certain domestic film where a broken straw hat was reported as costing 6,000 USD.

This obviously looks unreasonable; it's just a prop. Does the film effect of a straw hat sold for 30 RMB at a street stall differ from a 6,000 USD straw hat?

Would the audience notice the value of the straw hat on the actor's head?

Of course not; who would observe this thing for no reason?

However, they have purchase records and receipts, which are legally valid, and investors can only stare helplessly with no way to do anything.

However, with the participation of China Film Group, no matter how high the future box office of "Joker" is, Warner will not play tricks—not because they don't dare, but because it's not worth it. Unless Warner doesn't want the Chinese market in the future, and unless any company in the Warner system doesn't plan to enter China in the future.

Cao Yang told Berman that since "Batman" is hard to negotiate, there's no need to rush; just negotiate slowly.

It should be Warner that is anxious; since they have already passed the budget for filming "Batman" internally and Nolan has agreed to be the director, they should be the ones in a hurry.

According to Cao Yang's plan, "Batman" must be released before "Joker," which can be considered a warm-up for the market; when the time comes, a tie-in will save a lot of promotion for "Joker."

Cao Yang roughly calculated that from preparation to completion, "Batman" will take about 8 to 10 months, plus the promotion work before release and choosing a suitable slot; it will take about a year to be released.

That is to say, even if everything goes smoothly, the second "Batman" will not be released until around February next year.

It is also possible that Warner will wait until the summer slot to release it; after all, the summer slot is more conducive to harvesting box office and is the highest-grossing slot in North America.

Because "Joker" doesn't have many grand scenes and doesn't require many special effects, half a year is enough from preparation to completion.

Moreover, this film can only exert its maximum effect against the backdrop of next year's global financial crisis.

This subprime mortgage crisis that started spreading from the U.S. began to form this year, but it won't reach its climax and spiral out of control globally until next year, September 2008.

Therefore, "Joker" must wait until after September 2008 to be released, or perhaps even wait to participate in the 2009 Oscars before a wide release.

This is the only way to maximize profits.

As for whether Warner will agree to delay the release for so long, if they are told now that it will wait until 2009, they might have some complaints.

But if they wait until the financial crisis arrives and combine it with the plot of "Joker," even if Cao Yang wanted to release it early, Warner would probably withstand Cao Yang's pressure and delay the release time.

Regarding the keenness of the film market, there is no need to doubt the vision of the Hollywood Big Seven; if they didn't have this vision, they wouldn't have reached the level of the Hollywood Big Seven.

Therefore, there is no need to rush the filming of "Joker"; it won't be too late to film it at the end of the year or early next year.

In the blink of an eye, it is April 29th, which is World Wish Day, aimed at helping critically ill children realize their wishes and conveying hope and strength.

"The Fault in Our Stars" did not choose to be released on this day, but held a large-scale event called "Conveying Hope and Strength, Your Wish, I Will Realize."

The subtitle is: "This is just a small joke of fate, a fault in our stars; what you need to do is to face life with a strong smile and overcome fate."

For this event, Columbia invited numerous media outlets and also conducted an online live broadcast.

During the event, Columbia joined forces with the Make-A-Wish Foundation to select 100 critically ill children and teenagers from North America, asking them to write down their wishes and seal them in a jar.

Columbia, in the name of "The Fault in Our Stars," decided to realize the wishes of these 100 people.

Every day, one critically ill patient is chosen to break the jar, symbolizing breaking the harassment of illness, and help them realize their wish.

Moreover, there will be cameras following to film the entire process of realizing the wish, and then it will be placed on the official website of "The Fault in Our Stars" for people to watch.

Columbia publicly announced that the day the last of these 100 patients realizes their wish will be the release date of "The Fault in Our Stars."

Of course, in a country like the U.S., anything can happen.

Therefore, there is the so-called spirit of contract.

To prevent these 100 patients from having some "unrealistic" wishes, long before April 29th, when selecting these 100 patients, many terms had already been signed with their guardians.

Are there any who are unwilling to sign or who ask for the moon?

Of course there are.

That is precisely why it is called "selection."

Undoubtedly, the guardians of these 100 patients had all signed agreements and Columbia’s liability waivers.

Before the "wishes" were even written down by the patients, they had already been "allocated," so no uncontrollable situations would arise; otherwise, endless legal trouble would await them.

What surprised Cao Yang the most was that Columbia had also registered this activity for a series of copyrights, including variety shows and films.

Because the marketing plan for this activity was originally proposed by Cao Yang, Columbia had signed an agreement with Cao Yang to jointly own this series of copyrights.

Cao Yang could figure out with his eyes closed that if this so-called "wish-granting" activity became a hit, Columbia would dare to turn it into a variety show—simply selecting 100 patients each year to help them fulfill their wishes.

They might even film it into a "heart-touching" movie.

Would doing this be criticized?

It is actually quite simple.

One only needs to drape it in a "noble" name; for example, promoting it externally by saying the original intention of this variety show was to raise funds for the follow-up treatment of these children still under God's care...

Look, doesn't that provide a name that will even be praised?

There are no such things as pure good deeds; it is all just business.

To generate a sensational effect early on, the wishes of the first few patients were clearly deliberately arranged, all being wishes with great appeal.

For instance, one young patient's wish was to have dinner with a former American President.

This might be hard to achieve in other countries, but in America, it is a very simple matter.

Retired American Presidents all have clearly marked price tags.

Moreover, this kind of thing is also a form of publicity for the former President, and coupled with the intricate ties between Hollywood and the Democratic Party, Columbia had already coordinated this with the former President long before the activity began.

Of course, among these early wishes, there must be some that "move America."

Hmm, Columbia had long since hired people to write the scripts, and they just needed to perform according to them.

No one expected that after fulfilling only a dozen or so patients' wishes, once the videos were uploaded to the official website of *The Fault in Our Stars*, the view counts for these videos grew higher and higher, showing a strong trend of going viral.

Columbia held an emergency meeting and quickly approved ten million dollars to promote this activity, determined to make it a hit.

Cao Yang also did not expect that this activity of helping young, critically ill patients fulfill their wishes would actually have a trend of becoming a massive hit.

He even specifically watched "one episode" of the videos; he could only say that the cameraman's skills were very profound, and the editing was good too—the wishes certainly couldn't be fulfilled all at once; there had to be development and twists in the middle, just like a damn TV drama.

Cao Yang was a bit puzzled as to why so many Americans liked watching this, given that it clearly involved editing and was like a "reality show," somewhat straying from the original intention of the promotion.

Just as this activity was in full swing, Cao Yang received two unexpected phone calls.

One was from Chen Kun, who said he was preparing a biographical film and there was a role added later called Meng Xiaodong, which could be considered one of the female leads, with an age range of twenty-something to thirty-something, and he asked if Cao Yang had any recommendations.

At first, Cao Yang didn't quite understand what old Chen meant.

How could old Chen, who is one of the most influential big directors in the country, be short of candidates for a female lead?

To be honest, every female friend of Cao Yang's fit this age range.

But not understanding old Chen's intention, Cao Yang couldn't agree to anything immediately, only saying he would check on schedules and then give an answer.

The second call was from Han Zong of China Film Group, and he was talking about the same matter.

China Film Group had invested in old Chen's new film.

It turned out that the reason old Chen wanted Cao Yang to recommend this role was that he wanted Cao Yang to help out when this film went for the Oscars or the Golden Globe Awards in the future.

After the last Golden Globe Best Foreign Language Film incident, old Chen had witnessed Cao Yang's influence, but as Cao Yang's senior, combined with his personality, he certainly couldn't say it explicitly.

That was why he adopted this "circuitous" method.

Old Chen is just a damn snob; why not just state the situation clearly and be done with it, instead of making Han Zong call again to explain.

"Meng Xiaodong?"

Cao Yang knew what old Chen wanted to film.

(End of chapter)