Chapter 181: Filming Wrap-up and the Latest Situation of Golden Harvest Group
After Liu Zhou rejoined the crew in September, he devoted himself wholeheartedly to the filming.

Except for occasionally returning to Beijing to handle some company affairs, Liu Zhou almost always stayed on the crew.

Now the post-production of "New World" has been completed and the finished film has come out.

Liu Zhou did not hesitate at all and directly scheduled the film for the Lunar New Year holiday.

After Golden Harvest announced the release date, there was a stir in the outside world.

Because poet Chen's highly anticipated magical martial arts masterpiece "The Promise" will also be released during the Lunar New Year holiday.

This can be said to be another head-on confrontation between two great directors in the mainland.

Last year, the duel between two great directors, Feng Kuzi and Zhou Xingxing, during the Lunar New Year period was talked about a lot. In the end, the box office of the two films both exceeded 100 million yuan, which made people clearly see the potential of the mainland film box office.

Unexpectedly, the next year, Liu Zhou and poet Chen would meet again during the Lunar New Year holiday.

This is what the media likes to report the most and what everyone likes to see the most.

However, since there are still two or three months before the movie is released, the popularity has not yet been hyped up.

Liu Zhou no longer paid attention to the follow-up of "New World".

He handed all these matters over to Zhang Zhao and Zou Chongyan, while he focused on filming on the set.

As the leading actor, Liu Zhou has the most scenes, and coupled with the fact that he had taken more than ten days off, his filming workload was quite heavy.

It was already November and the weather was starting to get colder.

The crew had already moved from Zhuozhou Film and Television City to Fangshan Shidu and Yishui Lake in Yi County.

The scenes of "Red Cliff" in the Three Kingdoms have been basically filmed, and the remaining time will focus on filming the final decisive battle.

When the crew was officially preparing at the beginning of the year, they ordered and manufactured a lot of warships, even some large ships. They are now displayed in Yishui Lake, reserved for the filming of the Battle of Red Cliffs.

The night was as dark as ink, and a row of warships were ready to go. The largest of them was brightly lit.

Liu Zhou was wearing a brocade robe, Tang Ni armor, a lion belt, and his white cloak was blown high by the wind. He had a handsome face and extraordinary temperament. People couldn't help but secretly admire the heroic Zhou Gongjin.

Liu Zhou held the railing with his right hand, looked around the deck and the officers and soldiers of the warships beside him, and shouted loudly:
"God bless Jiangdong, send the east wind to help me, Cao Cao will die and be defeated today."

After saying this, Liu Zhou drew out the sword from his waist, with murderous intent:
"Pass on my command, and march forward at full speed to Chibi."

Boom boom boom!
Woo~
The drums are beating loudly and the trumpets are blaring.

Suddenly, thousands of boats set out and rushed towards Cao’s water stronghold on the opposite bank.

Liu Zhou stood with his sword in his hand, and behind him a large flag with the word "Zhou" on it fluttered.

……

"Card."

Hearing Lao Mouzi's voice coming from the side, Liu Zhou immediately put away his solemn expression and relaxed.

"Director Zhang, how is it going? Do you want another one?"

"No, it's great. It's almost five o'clock and the sky is getting light. Let's stop here."

Hearing Zhang Yimou's words, Liu Zhou felt relieved.

This scene of the entire army attacking has been filmed for more than a week, which means everyone has been pulling all-nighters for more than a week.

It is easier to shoot close-ups, but it is more difficult to shoot long-range shots, which takes more time.

When the staff announced that they had called it a day, not many people cheered. They had been waiting for filming since 7pm and had been working all night, so everyone was very tired.

The production director and production manager asked everyone to pack up, and the crew provided free breakfast.

After filming for a whole night, Liu Zhou was hungry. When he heard that it was time to finish work, he went to get breakfast without changing his clothes and kept stuffing buns into his mouth.

The most important decisive battle scene in the entire movie "Red Cliff" was relatively complicated to shoot. It took nearly 30 minutes to present it in the movie, and the shooting period was also very long.

Fortunately, Zhang Yimou was personally in charge. Although there were a lot of people and the scene was huge, everything was still well organized.

From late October to the end of November, Liu Zhou shot night scenes for more than a month before he finally finished all his shots.

However, Liu Zhou was finished filming, but it did not mean that the filming of the Battle of Red Cliffs was over.

Liu Zhou actually wanted to see the scene of the burning of Red Cliffs, but the actual filming was not a completely real scene with so many warships being burned.

Many scenes of this decisive battle were shot using real-life shots + special effects shots + models, and were shot from multiple aspects.

The warships of Cao's water fort turned into a sea of ​​fire. For this kind of large-scale war scene, the only shots that can be taken are medium and close-up shots. Long shots are difficult to shoot. Not to mention the cost involved, just the coordination and command is a big problem.

Therefore, models and special effects are needed. First, the model is made in proportional scale to simulate the burning of the fire ship, and then special effects are added to finally form the picture.

This technology is already very mature. The plane crashes and building collapses in Hollywood movies are all created using this kind of models and special effects.

Although this is cheaper than real-life shooting, the cost of special effects production is also high.

Of course, in addition to the special effects, a lot of custom-made ships and set pieces also cost a lot of money.

Just these props and scenes cost tens of millions in one fire.

Even Zhang Yimou, who is usually generous, felt a little pain. This is a real burn, and once it’s burned, it’s really gone.

But when watching the playback on the monitor, Zhang Yimou's pain immediately disappeared, and he suddenly felt that the filming was very enjoyable.

"Director, is my shot ready?" "It's finished. Congratulations. It's finished."

"In that case, I'll go back first."

"You're in such a hurry, aren't you going to leave after finishing the wrap-up banquet I prepared for you?"

"No, there are only a few days left before the Lunar New Year holiday, I have to rush back as soon as possible to prepare for the promotion of the movie."

"Okay, then come back when the movie is finished."

Liu Zhou's scenes have been filmed, and there are still some other miscellaneous location shoots and model shoots, which will take at least two to three weeks to finish.

"no problem."

Not only is he the leading actor in this film, he is also the executive producer and investor. He has to attend the wrap party of the film, which should be held in Beijing anyway.

Sitting in the car heading to the capital overnight, Liu Zhou finally breathed a sigh of relief.

He joined the crew in May and left at the end of November, taking more than ten days off in between. Liu Zhou has been filming for almost half a year.

This time he was acting rather than directing, and although there was some novelty in the beginning, in the end, Liu Zhou was left with only fatigue.

From now on, I will never act even if Liu Zhou is beaten to death. Occasionally making a guest appearance is okay, but I won’t even consider playing a major role.

Besides, starting from next year, Liu Zhou might be a man on the rich list, so it’s not quite appropriate for him to act on stage.

Just having the character of Zhou Yu is enough.

……

After returning to Beijing, although the promotion of "New World" was about to be launched, Liu Zhou still rested at home for two days before coming to the company.

The company's top executives gathered in the conference room.

This is not only a promotional discussion meeting for the movie "New World", but also a summary meeting of the company in the past year.

The company's vice president Zhong Lifang told everyone about the company's situation, and the general managers of each company also reported on the situation of each company.

Liu Zhou now had a detailed understanding of the entire group company. Although there had been reporting documents before, the information was too mixed to allow him to form an overall impression.

For the entire group, forget about making a profit this year.

Liu Zhou directly invested 400 million yuan in the restructuring of Golden Harvest Media Holdings Group.

This is considered as Liu Zhou's additional investment in the company's development funds. It does not count this year. Starting next year, he will no longer invest such a large amount of money.

However, although so much money was invested, the effect is still very good.

In fact, out of the 400 million yuan, except for the 80 million yuan invested in the big project "Red Cliff", most of the rest was used in Golden Harvest Cinemas.

Gao Jun, general manager of Golden Harvest Cinemas, spent more than three months thoroughly understanding the situation of cinema chains in Hong Kong and overseas.

At the same time, Golden Harvest International, which is responsible for the overseas distribution of Golden Harvest Group, will also be fully under its control.

He visited all the overseas connections and also talked about the changes in Golden Harvest and its investments in the future.

After sorting out and taking control of these two companies, Gao Jun also shifted the focus of his work to the mainland.

The first thing he did was to help Golden Harvest Films Beijing Company apply for a distribution license.

Then, together with Zhang Zhao, we integrated the resources from the previous studio period and established a new distribution channel.

Therefore, from now on, Golden Harvest Group can distribute its own films, whether in mainland China or overseas, without having to give up this part of the profit to others.

However, the cinema chain license has not been obtained yet. Coincidentally, Liu Zhou and Gao Jun both planned to acquire a small cinema chain as a roundabout way to save the country.

Initially, a total of 30 cinema chains were established, but now three years have passed, and not every cinema chain is doing well, and many are losing money.

However, although there is no cinema chain license yet, it does not affect the construction of new cinemas.

The previous plan to build a luxury cinema in each of the four major cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen has now begun to be implemented.

Gao Jun has already negotiated for the two locations of Pengcheng and Yangcheng, and construction can begin after the New Year.

As for Beijing and Shanghai, the negotiations are almost completed and construction will probably begin by the middle of next year.

These four luxury cinemas will be the flagships of the mainland Golden Harvest Cinema Chain, with each cinema requiring an investment of at least 30 million yuan.

So the busiest person this year is Gao Jun, who has been flying back and forth between various cities and overseas non-stop.

Liu Zhou plans to officially promote Gao Jun to vice president of the group after obtaining the cinema chain license next year.

As for the company's production business, due to corporate restructuring, there are almost no new investment projects in the mainland except "Red Cliff", not even TV series.

However, this year is a year for cultivating internal strength and accumulating strength. Starting from next year, Jiahe Group will launch an all-out attack.

A number of high-quality projects have been screened out so far, and after discussion and decision, they will be invested in and launched.

So far this year, the mainland has only produced one TV series which was filmed last year.

But this TV series is the best drama of this year and the national ratings champion of this year.

That’s right, it’s “Drawing Sword”!
Although the investor has become Liu Zhou's company, the main actors are still the original cast, so "Drawing Sword" still has the same flavor.

From the moment it was broadcast on CCTV-8, it demonstrated strong appeal and became a phenomenal TV series this year.

(End of this chapter)