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Chapter 24 North Shadow

On October 7, the day before the opening of the preparatory meeting.

"Empty Mountain Spiritual Rain" was screened in the auditorium of the Beijing Film Academy.

This movie tells the story of a rich man and a general who snatched a precious scripture, but was stopped by a poor man who was framed as a prisoner. In the end, the poor man took office and became the presidency of the temple. The rich man died in a bad life and the general was faceless. This plot is the most popular in the mainland and has no political risks at all.

"Empty Mountain Spirit Rain" has not had a good box office reputation in Hong Kong and Taiwan, but in terms of artistic value, it is still extremely outstanding. The plot, costumes, props, pictures, music, and artistic conception are all in line with the aesthetic interests of Chinese traditional culture.

The reason for its box office failure is that the pace is too slow. For example, at the beginning, Xu Feng and others followed the monk and walked in the temple. After nearly two minutes, if it was a general commercial movie, it should be edited quickly and passed by. In order to express the Zen meaning in the temple, Hu Jinquan took many shots. Although the pictures are beautiful and the artistic conception is far away, the movie is not a photography exhibition. Hong Kong and Taiwan have long entered the modern industrial society, and the pace of life is very fast. Ordinary audiences are no longer adapting to slow-paced movies, and they will be very impatient to watch.

Second, the martial arts drama is not outstanding enough. As a martial arts film, there are few fights and not exciting enough, and the entertainment is seriously insufficient. At the same time, because the fights are not amazing enough, the identity of martial arts masters cannot be highlighted, resulting in the imbalance of the tension of the drama and the loss of the tension that the movie should have - in a situation where swords and mutual constraints, the fights are related to life and it is a matter of careful testing between the masters. However, if both sides have ordinary martial arts and fights like ordinary people, careful testing will become a game for children to play house, making jokes.

The mainland is still an agricultural society at this time, and martial arts films are also new things, so these two shortcomings of "Empty Mountain Spirit Rain" are not so obvious. At the same time, because it is an internal screening, the audience has a high cultural quality and can easily read and understand the artistic conception and Zen meaning that Hu Jinquan wants to express. Therefore, after the screening, the on-site response was excellent and everyone praised it.

This is exactly the result that Shen Chong wanted. He paid a high price and bought the ownership of "Empty Mountain Spirit Rain" in one go. The main purpose was to gain reputation during the National Film Workers' Congress - to create a very strong atmosphere for its film companies, which will help him expand his popularity and influence in the mainland.

As for making money through TV and videotape channels, it is just used to fool Zhang Aijia. After all, she is a Taiwanese. There is no need to make this point explicit in the current serious confrontation of cross-strait political environment.

Because of the warm reaction, after one was released in the morning, another screening was released in the afternoon, and it was still full.

After the screening, a tall and thin man walked to the podium in front of the screen, picked up a microphone wrapped in red cloth, patted it twice, and then pressed his hands down to signal everyone to be quiet.

"Next, please invite the provider of the copy of "Empty Mountain Spirit Rain", Mr. Shen Chong from Hong Kong, to give a speech to everyone." The man was named Situ Zhaodun, who is the head teacher of the 78th-level director department of Beijing Film Academy. When Shen Chong walked onto the podium, he was the first to applaud and said loudly: "Welcome to Mr. Shen."

"Thank you, Teacher Situ."

"Mr. Chen, please."

The Beijing Film Academy was hit by the turmoil and only re-enrolled students and resumed teaching last year. The auditorium was in a simple manner, but looking at the crowded heads below, Chen Chong was a little nervous even though he had been through many battles.

"Dear leaders, teachers, and classmates, hello everyone." The applause was not very warm and soon calmed down. Chen Chong didn't care. He bowed and said, "First of all, I want to tell you a truth I just realized, that is, when you arrive at Beijing Film Academy, you must not drink alcohol, especially when you can't drink with Teacher Situ. As long as you drink alcohol, you will do stupid things in a mess. Now, I am standing on the stage like a fool, which is a living example."

There was laughter in the audience.

"Beijing Film Academy is a holy place for Chinese film education, with a lot of talents, and I am just a young man who dropped out of school." Chen Chong held his hands with his hands, made several slashing actions, and said: "To give a speech about movies here, it is purely a big knife in front of Guan Gong. If there is something wrong or wrong about it later, Guan Gong, please stand up immediately and slash my tongue. Don't be polite."

There was a burst of laughter in the audience and then applauded, which was much more enthusiastic than before.

"Everyone here is either experienced seniors, knowledgeable professors, or talented students. So no matter whether it is experience, knowledge or learning ability, I can't argue with it." Chen Chong praised the audience and said, "As the saying goes, there are shortcomings and inchs, I think about it, and the only strengths of my buzz cut are probably that I have some experience in making money, so here I will tell you about the relationship between movies and making money."

Chen Chong ignored the buzzing discussions from the audience, took a few steps, came to the temporary small blackboard that the two students had just built, picked up the chalk, and wrote the words "The Business Logic of the Movie" on it.

"Movies are different from other literary and artistic forms. They are not only works of art, but also commodity nature. Since they are commodities, they will definitely involve issues such as money and interests." After writing the words, Chen Chong turned around and said: "As we all know, Hong Kong is a commercial society. In a commercial society, the main attribute of movies is commodities, followed by art. The movie "Empty Mountain Spirit Rain" that you just saw just now is a typical example..."

Chen Chong used the behind-the-scenes story of "Empty Mountain Spirit Rain" as an introduction to the business model of Hong Kong and even Hollywood, including the production and manufacturing of equipment, the shooting process of movies, the rules of distribution and screening, the secondary playback of videotapes and TV stations, and the development of surrounding business models, etc. The entire film industry chain is explained one by one in a category.

Not only that, he also took out some systems and rules of the mainland film industry that he had found in recent months, compared with Hollywood's mature business model to deepen audiences' understanding and understanding of what they said.

In his previous life, Chen Chong had already accumulated a lot of gossip in the film industry. After traveling through time, he had a wide range of contacts and magazines. Therefore, he could write all kinds of interesting stories and humorous jokes at will without any effort. Although the content of the whole speech was boring, the process was never boring. From time to time, bursts of laughter and applause broke out in the auditorium.

This speech started at 3:30 pm and was spoken until nearly 6 o'clock. It was filled with four blackboards. Not only did Chen Chong speak so happily, but the audience below also focused. In more than two hours, no one left the seat and walked away, but there were many new listeners standing in the back row.

"In the eyes of the government, movies are propaganda tools, in your eyes, movies are works of art, in the eyes of people like me, movies are commodities, and in the eyes of projectionists, movies are jobs." Chen Chong summarized it with a sentence and said: In short, movies are very complex, and Chinese movies are especially complicated. Therefore, if the films in our country want to rise and go to the world, it requires everyone's joint efforts!"

The audience applause was thunderous.

Chen Chong bowed three times in a row and then prepared to step down, but amid the applause, someone heard someone shouting loudly: "Teacher Shen, I have a question to ask!"

Situ Zhaodun quickly stepped onto the stage, held Chen Chong, held his hand, and greeted the audience. The applause continued for a long time. After finally stopping, he congratulated Chen Chong on a few words, turned around and said, "Students, time is tight. If you have any questions, please raise your hands. Let's come one by one."

The arms immediately came from the audience.

"Teacher Shen, do you think the commercial film company you mentioned will appear in China? If it will appear, when will it appear?"

Chen Chong picked up the enamel jar brought by a female classmate, took a sip of water, moistened his throat, and said: "According to the central government's emancipation of the mind and reform and opening up, commercial film companies will definitely appear one day in the future, but I can't answer when the country allows the establishment of commercial film companies."

"Why?"

"Movie policy is a national event, and I am just a young man in Hong Kong." Chen Chong raised his hand and looked at his watch, and said with a smile: "Although I was promoted from Mr. Chen to Teacher Shen in more than two hours, I am afraid that if I want to become Director Chen of the Film Bureau, I may have to work hard for another 100 years. It is better to go to that time and I will answer you again."

Chen Chong's humor is very popular among the audience. The laughter from the audience was mixed with applause, and there was a burst of noise. The old guys sitting in the front row also looked at each other and laughed at each other.

"Marx said that capitalists can do everything in order to pursue profits. May I ask Mr. Shen, in Hong Kong and the United States, how to control the quality of movies in a society where capitalists are all capitalists? After all, the lower the cost, the higher the profits, and the lower the cost, it will inevitably damage the quality of movies."

"This is a very good question." Chen Chong picked up the teapot and took another sip of water. There was no way. After talking for so long, his throat was smoking. He said in a slightly hoarse voice: "At the same time, this is also a very complicated question. Let's do this. I use the stories that happened in 1973 and 1974 in Hong Kong to illustrate this problem." (Note 1)

As he said, he turned around, picked up the blackboard eraser, ready to wipe off the text from one of the blackboards.

"Mr. Chen, don't move first." Situ Zhaodun stopped him immediately. He turned to ask the audience: "Have anyone made a record of Mr. Chen's speech just now?"

"I did it." A boy wearing glasses stood up to report.

"All records?"

"I didn't remember the front ones very much, but I remember the back ones."

"Okay, you sit down." Situ Zhaoduan took the blackboard eraser, and used it himself to wipe off the contents on the last blackboard, and said, "Mr. Chen, use this."

Smile...

Beijing Film Academy asked Situ Zhaodun to come forward and invite Chen Chong to give a speech, probably in return for the etiquette of giving him a copy of "Empty Mountain Spirit Rain". No one would think that he, a young Hong Kong man in his early twenties, could tell anything, so he did not arrange a full-time recorder.

As a result, what Chen Chong said was detailed, the system was complete, and the insights were unique. For mainland filmmakers who lacked information resources and had stagnant theoretical research, it was of great reference value and guiding significance. It was a very valuable thing, and Situ Zhaodun was not allowed to pay attention to it.

This speech was a temporary idea. Chen Chong was not even prepared for the manuscript, but he had been thinking about how to open up the mainland market for a long time. So although he was hasty, he had all the contents he should say. In Beijing Film Academy, the highest-end education base in the Chinese film industry, sowing a seed of marketization of films can have very positive effects on the future.

Judging from the audience's reaction, this speech was a great success and achieved its intended purpose.

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Chapter completed!
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