Chapter 433 Guidance and Special Effects Models
Over the past week, "Avatar" has been wreaking havoc in mainland China and no one can stop it, causing serious setbacks to the confidence of many Chinese filmmakers.

Now Liu Zhou suddenly said that next year the restrictions on Hollywood will be relaxed and the number of Hollywood blockbusters imported will be increased, which has made some filmmakers even more depressed.

Over the past month, two consecutive Hollywood special effects blockbusters, "2012" and "Avatar", have ruthlessly revealed the gap between the mainland and Hollywood.

Especially "Avatar", which makes people feel out of reach.

If we increase the number of imported blockbusters now, it will further squeeze the living space of domestic films, which will also make life more difficult for mainland filmmakers.

Of course, some people also think that what Liu Zhou said in "Dialogue" makes sense, that domestic films should have more competition in order to develop better.

However, those who think this way are a minority after all. More people are still worried that their future jobs will be difficult or even that they will have no jobs at all.

Therefore, some people who have complaints in their hearts can't help but complain online.

Compared with these people, ordinary audiences, just like the fans at the "Dialogue" scene, are happy to see it.

In the past, many wonderful blockbusters could not be seen in theaters unless they were introduced by China Film Corporation. People could only wait until they were updated online. Now it is different and the audience has more choices.

Some people were worried that the news Liu Zhou said was inaccurate, so they went to check it out, but the results were all true and verifiable and posted online, so many netizens also confirmed the authenticity of the news.

Therefore, many netizens are also discussing this matter in various film and television forums on the Internet.

Just when the WTO ruling was causing a stir in the mainland, on January 27, the General Office of a certain academy issued the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Prosperity and Development of the Film Industry."

The "Guiding Opinions" introduced ten policies to promote the development of China's film industry, the first of which is to vigorously promote creation and production.

In this article, there is a sentence that strives to promote the development of heavy industrial films such as science fiction, fantasy, and large-scale action.

Seeing this, Liu Zhou couldn't help but be overjoyed.

The relevant policies are definitely not formulated on a whim, but the opinions of industry experts will be carefully listened to.

With this policy, the censorship of science fiction, fantasy, and large-scale action films will inevitably be relaxed, and plots such as civilian soldiers fighting aliens and large monsters attacking the Magic City will become possible.

Even borrowing certain large weapons and equipment for filming no longer requires layers of approval like it does now.

The industrialization process of Chinese films is about to enter the fast lane!
Of course, the "Guiding Opinions" are not only beneficial to science fiction films, but also good news for the development of the entire domestic film industry.

At a time when the confidence of many filmmakers has been severely shaken, the introduction of the "Guiding Opinions" has undoubtedly given Chinese films a shot in the arm, allowing everyone to see hope for Chinese films again.

After the "Guiding Opinions" were released, major media platforms and portals pushed them as headlines, and experts from all walks of life began to interpret them from various angles.

"China wants to transform itself into a film powerhouse and has launched seven development goals!"

"Ten measures have been introduced to prosper the film industry, and favorable policies have been welcomed for the development of the film industry!"

"Promote the listing of state-owned film companies and promote the formulation of a film industry promotion law!"

"The spring of domestic films may attract more funds to flow into the film industry."

……

At the same time, major domestic film companies also held collective meetings to study the contents of the "Guiding Opinions".

Large state-owned enterprises such as China Film Group, Shanghai Film Group, and Xi'an Film Group have begun to discuss the possibility of group listing, as the "Guiding Opinions" proposed to actively promote the restructuring and listing of state-owned and state-controlled film companies.

For large state-owned enterprises like China Film, this will allow them to leverage the capital market to grow bigger and stronger and once again become the leader in Chinese film.

The strong rise of Golden Harvest Group has not only had a huge impact on private film and television companies such as Huayi, Bona and Guangguang, but also had a significant impact on state-owned film and television groups such as China Film and Shanghai Film.

Especially China Film Group, which has strong support from the state and is the most important film and television group built by the government. Unexpectedly, its comprehensive strength is now not as good as that of a private enterprise.

Although China Film Group is also a shareholder of Golden Harvest, that bit of shares is more symbolic. Golden Harvest has grown to its current size almost entirely on their own.

Moreover, most of China Film's more profitable projects are in collaboration with Golden Harvest.

Although China Film Group’s primary responsibility is not to make movies, as a film and television company, making movies is its facade.

But even such a Chinese-owned film and television company that was focused on building up its business could not compare with a private enterprise, which really made the leadership of China Film Corporation somewhat embarrassed.

Therefore, if China Film Group can be listed as a whole, a large amount of funds can be raised.

Now China Film does not need to worry too much about other investments and can focus its energy and funds on production to regain its position as the number one film and television company in mainland China.

At the same time, Jiahe Group is no exception. The company's senior management also discussed in the conference room the impact of the "Guiding Opinions" and what benefits it will bring to Jiahe.

One important point may be the impact on Jiahe Film and Television Industrial Park.

Now that the "Guiding Opinions" have come out, both Hangzhou and Zhanjiang may offer greater preferential policies.

Liu Zhou is now considering whether he can expand the scale of investment and build a theme park in addition to the film and television industrial park.

However, if another theme park is to be built, the investment may soar, possibly even reaching tens of billions. Liu Zhou is somewhat worried whether Golden Harvest Group can afford such a large-scale investment.

However, Liu Zhou still asked Zhang Zhao to communicate and negotiate with the two places to see the situation first. If it is feasible, he would grit his teeth and do it.

After all, this opportunity is rare. If you want to build a theme park in the future, not only will the approval process be more stringent, but the investment will also have to be several times higher.

After discussing with the company's senior management, Liu Zhou called Zhang Zhao to his office.

I first told him about the idea of ​​the theme park, and then continued:

"After the release of the Guiding Opinions, the development of domestic films will be faster, a large amount of hot money will flow into the film industry, and those Internet capitals may be invested in the film and television industry more quickly.

Their thinking mode is very different from ours. They don’t care about qualifications, scripts, or even the quality of the work. They only care about traffic. But they have huge funds, which is not comparable to some current film and television companies. So the competitors we will face in the future will be very different.”

"Boss Liu, do we have to follow their footsteps?"

"Of course not, we are the industry leader, how can we let others lead us by the nose?

After a large amount of funds poured in, although it had a great impact on the development of the domestic film and television industry, it would inevitably make the circle become impetuous.

At this time, we should stick to our philosophy: content comes first!
Gimmicks can only create hype for a while; only truly high-quality content will be fully recognized by the audience.

So we have to be patient, write the script well, and make a good movie!
There are many directors in the South Korean film industry who are known as World Cup directors, which means World Cup directors. The World Cup is held every four years, and many directors only make a film every four or five years.

It's not that they are inefficient, but that they are constantly polishing the script.

I don’t ask us to do the same, but I hope that the boutique brand of Golden Harvest will not be lost.”

After the hot money poured in, many companies and filmmakers were lost and were shocked by the incredible capital operations of Internet capital.

You are working so hard to make a movie, while others are just playing around with finance and making ten or even dozens of times more money than you. Do you think you can still keep your original intention?

For a listed and huge company like Jiahe, if Liu Zhou, who came from later generations, wanted to engage in capital operations, he would be able to do it in a variety of ways.

But if it does this, Golden Harvest may no longer be a film and television company, but may become a financial company.

By then, no one will have the patience to make movies like they do now. The quality of movies and TV series will definitely decline seriously, and Golden Harvest will lose its most precious thing.

It is impossible for stock investors to be so enthusiastic all the time. When the tide recedes, the most important thing will be the content.

After emphasizing this with Zhang Zhao, Liu Zhou turned his attention to other things.

Although Liu Zhou has been busy with this and that after filming "Interstellar", there is only one thing he cares about most, which is the preparations for "Aftershock".

The film is scheduled to start shooting after the Spring Festival, so some preparations must be completed before the Spring Festival.

So when there was a lot of discussion about the "Guiding Opinions" on the Internet, Liu Zhou came to a studio in the Beijing Film Studio in a low-key manner.

"Aftershock" has a lot of special effects. There are two ways to do this kind of special effects. One is pure CG production like "2012". In this way, the audience can see that the special effects are made and are not particularly real.

Another type is model plus CG, with models used for close-ups and CG used for long-shots. This combination of virtual and real special effects looks more realistic, but is more expensive because a large number of models need to be made.

Liu Zhou used the latter model plus CG approach for "Aftershock".

Therefore, a lot of sets needed to be built for the filming of "Aftershock". In addition to restoring several streets based on the real Tangshan in 76, many scenes needed to be built for special effects shooting.

The restored streets were built by Tangshan, and other special effects required set construction that could only be done in the studio. For this purpose, Liu Zhou rented the largest studio in Beijing Film Studio for set construction.

However, as soon as Liu Zhou arrived at the Beijing Film Studio, Han Shanping came over and said with a smile:

"I heard you were coming over here, and I just happened to want to see how special effects were made, so I came to take a look."

"Boss Han, don't you need to study the Guiding Opinions?"

"That's not urgent right now."

"Okay, let's go in together."

When they arrived at the studio, Liu Zhou called the team leader who was responsible for the special effects of "Aftershock" to explain to Han Shanping.

Led by the team leader, the three of them walked directly into the studio. As they walked, he introduced them to Han Shanping:

“The special effects for the earthquake are the most complicated I’ve ever made. The most complicated ones are the two models: the panoramic model of the entire city of Tangshan before the earthquake, and the model after the earthquake.

The original real scenes in the movie have completely disappeared in the disaster. In order to capture the panoramic view of Tangshan in 76 and restore the real scenes, there are only two methods: one is pure computer production, and the other is the combination of models and computers.

After communicating with our Golden Harvest special effects director, we adopted the second option.”

As he was talking, he brought Liu Zhou and the other person to the panoramic model of the city before the earthquake. In front of them was a miniature city model that was ten meters long and ten meters wide. In front of the model was a huge photo of the city and many photos of different buildings.

Next to the model, the staff of Jiahe Special Effects Studio were busy. Some of them were using water guns to spray paint on the delicate model to make it look old, some were using pens to carefully draw on the model, and some were processing the details of the model.

The staff were all very focused. They just glanced at Liu Zhou and the others and continued working.

Han Shanping nodded slightly. They were indeed an elite team, as could be seen from their work attitude.

This made him feel ashamed. Hualong Digital, a subsidiary of China Film Group, used to be the number one special effects company in China. At the beginning, Golden Harvest would cooperate with Hualong Digital, but now Golden Harvest doesn't even want to work with them.

Although Hualong Digital's equipment cannot be compared with that of Golden Harvest Special Effects Studio, it is not backward either. China Film occasionally invests money to purchase new equipment.

However, the quality of the personnel was too different, and what made him a little depressed was that most of the capable people in Hualong Digital had gone to Golden Harvest Special Effects Studio.

This wasn't a case of poaching, but rather some capable and aspiring people who took the initiative to jump over, which left him with no excuse to go talk to Liu Zhou.

Now Hualong Digital has become half-dead, and the orders it receives are mainly some simple special effects productions and special effects work for some TV dramas.

Han Shanping quickly came to his senses and heard the team leader pointing at the model and explaining:
"Due to time constraints, we only built a part of the city in our model. When the camera is raised to three meters high, we can see the real environment five kilometers away. The environment five kilometers away is added by the computer."

Liu Zhou had been here several times and watched the model being built bit by bit. He didn't think it was anything special and just watched quietly from the side. This time he came to confirm whether there were any problems.

It was the first time that Han Shanping saw it. He could not help but marvel at it and stare at the model carefully.

(End of this chapter)