Chapter 27 New Novel

As May approaches, the weather in the capital becomes hot.

Everyone started wearing short-sleeved shirts, and girls also put on pretty skirts. The smell of hormones on the campus of the Central Academy of Drama became stronger.

Since he had promised editor Qu He to send him the manuscript at the end of the month, Liu Zhou was also thinking about what to write for his next novel.

After thinking for a long time, an urban fantasy romance drama broadcast in 2019 by Wanwan came to Liu Zhou's mind.

It was "Want to See You" that made Xu Guanghan famous.

If the TV series "Twinkle Twinkle Star" is a small hit, then "Want to See You" is a big hit!
Xu Guanghan instantly became a top star thanks to this TV series.

But he is from Taiwan, and the Wanwan agency behind him may not quite understand how to use mainland traffic, and don’t know how to package and promote it, so they failed to let Xu Guanghan secure his position as a top star.

But despite this, Xu Guanghan is still very popular in mainland China thanks to the broadcast of the drama. You can imagine how popular this TV series was at the time.

Liu Zhou chose to adapt this drama into a novel not only because it is a bit sad, but also because it contains some fantasy elements.

The hero and heroine in 1998 and 2019 travel through time and space through a tape, looking for each other's love story.

This is similar to Twinkle Twinkle Star, which is also about traveling through time and space.

However, to adapt it into a novel in this era, relatively major changes need to be made.

After all, it’s not even 1998 yet.

If the timeline changes, then many details need to change accordingly.

This time, Liu Zhou wanted to borrow some of the settings and plots from this TV series to write a love story set in the 1980s and 1990s.

After the selection, Liu Zhou began to write the outline.

The novel is set in Liu Zhou's hometown, Yangcheng, a city much more developed than Wanwan's Wannan City, even in the 1980s and 1990s.

Moreover, in the 1980s and early 1990s, Guangzhou was the center of popular music in mainland China. A number of popular singers such as Mao Ning and Yang Yuying were almost all trained by music singers in Guangzhou.

This creation needs to involve some things from the 1980s, and Liu Zhou needs to find more information, so it is not very fast to write the outline.

It took Liu Zhou nearly a week to write the outline and prepare some materials.

On this day, after everything was ready, Liu Zhou began to write.

With sufficient preparation, one can write faster. In just one afternoon, Liu Zhou wrote nearly ten thousand words.

When Liu Zhou put down his pen and stretched, someone suddenly came over and said someone was looking for him downstairs.

Liu Zhou was a little surprised who would come to see him, but he still went downstairs.

As soon as he got downstairs, Liu Zhou saw the person he had been looking forward to meeting some time ago.

"Brother Jia, I didn't expect it to be you."

The person who came was Jia Zhangke. It had been almost three months since they last met at Donglaishun.

Liu Zhou had some expectations at the beginning, but now he has lost hope in investing in "Xiao Wu".

Unexpectedly, when he had given up hope, Jia Zhangke suddenly appeared in front of him, which made Liu Zhou feel surprised.

In response to Liu Zhou's enthusiastic greetings, Jia Zhangke said a little awkwardly:
"I'm not your senior. We're not even from the same school. I hope I'm not disturbing you by coming to see you."

"The Central Academy of Drama and the Beijing Film Academy are like a family. You are also from the Department of Literature, so of course you are my senior. Today is the weekend, and I have nothing to do. There is nothing to disturb me."

"Since you are free, can I treat you to a meal?"

"no problem."

The two came to a small restaurant at the gate of the Central Academy of Drama. Jia Zhangke originally wanted to go to a bigger restaurant, but Liu Zhou felt it was unnecessary as the food in the small restaurant was just as delicious.

The food was served quickly, and Jia Zhangke stopped chatting and directly stated the purpose of his visit:

"Liu Zhou, does the investment you mentioned last time still count?"

"Of course, after waiting for so long, I thought you, Brother Jia, had attracted investment. I felt a little regretful at the time."

"Thank you, Junior Brother Liu Zhou, for your appreciation. I'll do one first."

After saying this, Jia Zhangke drank a glass of beer in one gulp.

There is really no harm without comparison. During this period, Jia Zhangke was really feeling miserable.

When he returned from Hong Kong with honors, the school paid great attention to him and students talked about him enthusiastically, which made Jia Zhangke a little proud for a while.

But later I found that many things are temporary. When I wanted to make a feature film, I didn't get any support from the school.

When I went out to seek investment again, I found that the short film award I won was nothing in the eyes of others.

In the past few months, Jia Zhangke and his colleagues have been looking for investment everywhere, but to no avail. Instead, they were met with a lot of cold stares.

Perhaps the only good news is that Yu Liwei lived up to expectations in Hong Kong and successfully applied for 50,000 yuan in funding from the Hong Kong Film Development Council.

But this amount of money is not enough.

Just when everyone was at a loss, Yu Liwei remembered the young man he met at Donglaishun and suggested coming over to ask. Jia Zhangke still remembered Liu Zhou, but at that time he didn't really believe that Liu Zhou would invest money.

But at this time everyone had tried their best to give it a try, so Jia Zhangke gritted his teeth and came to the Central Academy of Drama.

What he didn't expect was that Liu Zhou was so happy about investing and valued him so much.

Liu Zhou's words were like a stream of sweet spring water, which immediately moistened Jia Zhangke's heart that had been dried up by the blow.

"Brother Jia, drink slowly. I told you I'm not kidding."

Liu Zhou probably also knew why Jia Zhangke was so excited. The first step to success is always extremely difficult.

"Junior Brother Liu Zhou, you don't know. Well, forget it. I won't talk about those bad things. Anyway, thank you very much, Junior Brother."

"So, how much money have you raised, Senior Brother Jia? How much money are you still short of?"

"We applied for 50,000 in Hong Kong, and then our short film won 50,000 in prize money, but 20,000 of the prize money was divided up. In the end, some of us pooled nearly 20,000 yuan, and raised a total of 100,000 yuan.

It will cost me about 200,000 yuan to finish filming this movie, so I am still short of 100,000 yuan. How much money can you invest, Junior Brother Liu Zhou?"

At the beginning, Jia Zhangke was very ambitious and hoped to raise 500,000 yuan to make a movie.

But reality slapped him hard in the face, and he kept cutting the budget, finally reducing it to the limit of 200,000.

The biggest of these is that Jia Zhangke plans to replace the 35mm film used for filming movies with 16mm.

Nowadays, movies are made with film, but there are huge differences between different films.

16mm film is the worst kind. The pictures taken will become blurry and rough when put on the big screen, which is very different from the 35mm film used for mainstream movie shooting.

Let’s put it this way, 16mm film is generally used to shoot news or in teaching because it is cheap and light.

As for film, you get what you pay for. If Jia Zhangke had no other choice, he would have chosen 16mm film, unless he was stupid.

"I can invest all the remaining 100,000!"

"Really?"

"Of course!"

"That's great, Junior Brother, you've helped me a lot!" Jia Zhangke's voice unconsciously became a little louder.

Liu Zhou could understand why Jia Zhangke was so excited. These days, getting investment for a movie was even harder than beating a nightmare-level dungeon. Now that he had completed the dungeon, he was considered restrained for not shouting to the sky with excitement like a real game fan.

"Brother Jia, is a two hundred thousand dollar investment really enough?"

Liu Zhou had taken directing classes for nearly a year and knew that Jia Zhangke must have made a lot of sacrifices to make a feature film with such an extreme budget.

At this time, the main cost of making a movie is the cost of film, the actors' salaries, and food and beverages during the filming period.

Jia Zhangke and his team are all doing this for love, so they will definitely save as much as possible on pay, food and accommodation. The only thing that can be cut is the cost of film.

Choosing 16mm film is undoubtedly the only option, which is also the fundamental reason why the early works of these sixth-generation directors are rough and blurry.

However, Liu Zhou did not think of investing more money to let him use better film. Firstly, he did not have that much money. Secondly, Jia Zhangke and his team could only unleash their greatest potential when the external environment was the most difficult.

The reason why the movie "Xiao Wu" won awards abroad is not because of the picture quality, but because of Jia Zhangke's talent.

"Enough, of course it's enough."

Jia Zhangkeke didn't dare to say it was not enough. If he scared Liu Zhou away, all would be lost.

"So when are you going to start filming?"

"If the funds are in place, we can start filming next month. The team is ready, and the location has been confirmed to be in my hometown of Fenyang. Now there are only some formalities to be handled in Hong Kong, but Yu Liwei is already handling them."

"Brother Jia, I have a small request. I wonder if you can agree to it."

"What do you want me to ask?"

"Can you schedule the filming in July? I also want to go to the crew to observe it."

Jia Zhang could understand that Liu Zhou was worried about the use of funds. After all, this was only the second time they met and they were not familiar with each other.

It's normal that people are not confident in entrusting such a large sum of money to themselves.

"No problem, it just so happens that we can be more prepared."

"In that case, there is only one last question left. Brother Jia, we are talking business. Although you have your own filming team and your team and I provide the same funding, if this movie generates any profit, I will also want 50% of the profit."

"Okay, I can make the decision and promise you this."

Although Jia Zhangke knew that this profit distribution plan would be a bit of a loss for him, he himself did not know whether the film could make a profit.

His biggest hope now is to make the movie, and everything else will be put aside.

If the movie really makes money in the end, then Liu Zhou deserves it, so Jia Zhang agreed to Liu Zhou's conditions without any hesitation.

"Then I have no problem. When can we sign the contract?"

(End of this chapter)