《a luchuan film》Will be at 2024-10-1 broadcast,《a luchuan film》 Wiil be Screened in theaters.
In the nearly five years since the movie - a luchuan film - was completed, actor Li Chen once thought that things had changed - which was a euphemism for the film not being released - and he even forgotI have also participated in such a movie. Two years ago, I saw a public account writing about disappearing movies. I flipped through it and saw a luchuan film, and then I remembered that there was such a movie.“
There are many people in the circle who have the same idea as Li Chen.
《a luchuan film》is directed by Lu Chuan, who has seemingly disappeared from public view in recent years.In the past few years before the film was completed, apart from collecting debts from the employer and looking for project cooperation, Lu Chuan rarely took the initiative to contact the outside world. Failure to complete the film was an original sin for the film director. I myself felt ashamed.Yes, I won’t go out if I can’t.”
Since the movie - a luchuan film - started filming in Chongqing in October 2018, Lu Chuan has fallen into an unprecedented financial crisis.He did not listen to producer Han Sanping and wait until 85“ of the budget was invested before starting production. Instead, he started production in Beijing when only 30” was received.At that time, their budget for the entire film was 350 million.
Lu Chuan has been preparing for the movie since 2016.This is an ambitious plan - a science fiction blockbuster with Hollywood industry-level visual effects.However, there was no precedent for domestic films at the time, and AI technology to assist film and television had not yet appeared. Lu Chuan could only realize his creative vision through a series of extremely cumbersome processes such as storyboarding, previewing, and re-molding.ization, coupled with the continuous overthrow and reconstruction of the worldview, the preparation time for this film was extended to two years.
From 2016 to 2018, when the film and television industry was booming, many domestic movies with box office sales of over 1 billion, 2 billion or even 3 billion have been produced.
Lu Chuan felt that at that time, there was money everywhere, big brothers everywhere, and everything was in a good logic.“ And 4 of their 6 investors are listed companies, which makes Lu Chuan feel at ease, as the money that has signed the agreement is in his pocket.
But in the month when Lu Chuan started filming, the State Administration of Taxation issued a notice deploying work to standardize taxation order in the film and television industry.For a time, companies were hit by thunderstorms one after another, and the capital that was once a hot wave ebbed rapidly.What affected Lu Chuan was that the investments that were supposed to be credited to the crew's accounts had been delayed.
There is no turning back when the bow is drawn.Lu Chuan could only look for money while filming and streamline the team to reduce costs. The first to go were the five Hollywood giants in art, photography, props, etc. who had an average weekly salary of 20,000 US dollars. Later, he streamlined the filming team andThe cost of food and accommodation was reduced... and at the same time, the money from myself and the company was put into the crew.In Li Chen's impression, the director at that time never had neat hair.
By the time filming wrapped in July 2019, the crew had been reduced to more than 300 people, and they were staying in hotels with an average cost of 100 yuan per person per day.
But the funds for the film’s most expensive post-production visual effects part have not yet been secured.
At a dinner after the completion of the project in 2019, Han Sanping encouraged Lu Chuan to take over the project and use his own methods to secure the funding for the project.”Lu Chuan said that he had advanced a lot of money, and Han Sanping pat“” Lu Chuan's thigh. “The advanced money counts as your investment. Only if you invest, will everyone believe in you and think that you are a shareholder.”At the same time, Lu Chuan's right thigh was also slapped hard by Wang Zhonglei.
For many years afterwards, Lu Chuan felt that he had been deceived by these two pats on the thigh.
Taking on a movie means taking on all its financial problems, making up for all the financial gaps, and shouldering all the legal risks that originally belonged to the major shareholders.
It was Lu Chuan's most anxious period at that time. Not only was there no money for the project, but also because the film's release was delayed, five lawsuits were filed involving more than 25 million yuan in arrears.
Our family is a family of scholars. No matter how poor our tutor is, he is not allowed to borrow money from others - he has never owed money or had to file a lawsuit.%Lu Chuan said that when he suddenly faced these problems, he felt particularly desperate and helpless.
Lu Chuan boasts that he used to be a "business idiot", and his hiring logic is to hire whomever he likes and has good connections with. He doesn't know what things he needs to take care of as a founder. "I think professionals take care of professional things.Handing it over to the company is the biggest major."
Therefore, in the era of surging film and television capital, his company was managed by friends. He invested in several entrepreneurs and projects of young directors. However, he did not see the legendary hundred-fold return. Most of the investments did not even cost the principal.Didn't get a point back.
Because of this, Lu Chuan suffered from insomnia for a long time. The capital hole was too big. A small goal was an abyss that I couldn't cross at that time.“
At the end of 2019, Lu Chuan was invited to study for an MBA.”Hitting your children on a rainy day is just idle time.“So Lu Chuan became a rare director student in business schools.It was also there that Lu Chuan heard the words KPI for the first time.
Like a mouse falling into a rice vat, Lu Chuan felt that the business school course had opened his eyes.Lu Chuan turned on the ”Plug and Play“ mode. After the break after class on corporate human resources management, he walked out of the classroom and called the company's HR and asked the other party to fire an executive. That was his good friend in the company.I have been working for 7 years and have never signed a single contract.But Lu Chuan no longer accepts ”hard work“, he wants to see ”credit“.
Lu Chuan is determined to rectify the company. He wants it to fulfill its mission - to complete - a luchuan film -.
Starting from 2020, film director Lu Chuan is determined to start filming commercials.This is the fastest monetization channel he can think of.”Survival logic, if I can give you enough advertising money to rub my back, I can do it too.“
Since that year, Lu Chuan has been filming advertisements everywhere with his back on his back. He shot eleven advertisements in 2020 alone. Every month, his advertisements appear in WeChat Moments. People in the industry say that Lu Chuan is crazy about grabbing money..”At that time, rumors about him were at their peak in the industry. He and the movie - a luchuan film - would often become topics at other people's dinner tables. Of course, most of them were not optimistic about it.
Jia Kai is one of the few people who firmly believes that Lu Chuan can complete a luchuan film.She is the chairman of the Chinese Film Group and an early investor in a luchuan film. Later, she learned about the film's progress through messages from Lu Chuan from time to time.
About four years ago, the two met at a film festival. Lu Chuan told Jia Hui, "Don't worry, I will definitely finish this film. I won't make other films until it is finished."“Jia Cai felt that this sentence” had the feeling of spending a lot of money.This is indeed the case. During the most difficult three years, Lu Chuan made all the money he could by filming commercials, appearing in variety shows, filming TV series and Winter Olympics documentaries, except for movies.
At the beginning of this year, a TV series filmed by Lu Chuan was completed. He repeatedly calculated the funds on hand and found that when the production fee for the series arrived, the money in the company's small capital pool was exactly the same as his-a luchuan film--'s finished film budget was even.At that moment, he felt that the dark cloud above his head was gone.
In March this year, Li Chen received a notice of reshooting for a luchuan film. At the reshooting site, he met Lu Chuan again, whose hair was not even neat. He held an iPad and showed him the post-production of the film.Like a few treasures, look at how I made this lens, which team I hired to make it, how I made that lens, and what else needs to be done now.“Then he said, ”I haven’t done anything in the past two years. If I make some money, I will do something. If I make some money, I will do something.“ Hearing these words made Li Chen's nose sore.
In the past two years, especially this year when it was certain that the film would be completed, Lu Chuan no longer remained silent when he heard rumors about himself and the film.”I have become very brave in the past two years. I will call you if you don't know.“Shame and all that are trivial.”When you are responsible for the life and death of an organization... We are a business, and you can't smear behind your back at will, because we don't owe anyone anything, it's others who owe us, do we have any responsibility?For any director, if you can’t invest 1/3 of a project, can he complete it?And we are doing this now by advancing funds, not by investing.No one can say these things, this is my bottom line.“
On April 22, reshoots for a luchuan film were completed. Lu Chuan posted on Weibo that he had no regrets. He had been dragging the ship for eight years and could finally dock.”
The following is Lu Chuan’s dictation, compiled and released by “houlang Research Institute” - there may have been only 70,000 yuan in the account
In 2014, Mr. San (Han Sanping) came to talk to me before leaving China Film and Television, saying that you should try to shoot something that combines authoriality and marketability, and highlight the marketability. Simply put, you have to shoot things that make me money.Play, I said yes.
Because my first four films, such as "Looking for a Gun" and "Kekexili", were all literary films, but at that time the entire industry had changed, and they were all making genre films. We had to grasp trends, talk about audience experience, etc.Series of new concepts.
So I took a photo of the nine-story demon tower.But I was a little nervous at the time, because I always had to remind myself that this is a commercial film, but if you still want to have authorship, you have to have both, and in the end, I didn’t balance authorship and entertainment well.But this triggered my interest in genre films, including a lot of visual effects work to learn at the time, which I found very fascinating.
I started preparing this story - a luchuan film - in 2015. At that time, I really wanted to make something that showed the mature film industry. In terms of content, it was also part of my youth experience, because I once worked in the 749 unit.
Our art hire is from Mad Max; the photographer I hired is David Tattersall, who shot Star Wars Episode 123 and The Green Mile; and the visual effects director is also you.The ones I've heard of - Avatar - were involved in everything, including props... At that time, these five giants were all from Hollywood.
At that time, the Chinese film market was also attractive to overseas countries, and exchanges were particularly prosperous. It was completely export-oriented. I was able to attract people in Hollywood at that time, and they basically gave me a discount.
The budget set in 2017 was 350 million, which is not that high in China. At that time, there were already many productions worth 600 million. (350 million) is really very economical for a film of this size. II think it can be done.
At that time, the entire industry was booming, and I felt like there was money everywhere and big brothers everywhere I went.There is all kinds of good news, one director's studio was acquired by a certain platform, and another one was acquired by a big boss.Although my company’s entrance did not say that there was an endless stream of people like the industry, our movie flag was indeed relatively easy to raise. Soon we had 6 investors, 4 of which were listed companies. For a business novice like me,Speaking of which, I feel very stable.
Mr. San said that you should wait until 85“ of the money is paid to start the machine. At that time, our account may have reached 30”. It is expected that two more funds will arrive next week or the week after that. When it reaches 50“, another company said that it will be enough for a month.It’s all here. I said that these are old neighbors, and I went to attend their internal green light meeting. They are listed companies, real big platforms, so I felt that there was no such thing as running away, so let’s shoot.
As a result, the industry came to a halt just in time for 2018. At that time, the world was turned upside down and many companies were suddenly hit by thunder. 35” of the investment in the company we led suddenly ran into problems and was shelved. We didn’t say we wouldn’t invest, so we just shelved it.This was all a down payment at that time, and I felt that the 35% was money already in my pocket.How could such a large Internet platform, a company that makes a lot of money every day, miss such a small amount of money from us?Why should I start a business later?I found that you can't rely on a third party. This can only happen if my own company becomes bigger and stronger.
At that time, a manager who was leading the investment in this company and was also a friend kept urging me to wait a little longer. I said, how can I wait? Junkai’s contract has been signed, because as an actor, he only signs these days, otherwise heI was filming other scenes later, so I was stuck in the middle, and I had to turn on the camera.
Once the camera was turned on, it couldn't be stopped, and at that time, the most important action scene in the fighting arena was almost filmed. There were thousands of people on the crew there, and you spent millions of dollars a day, so it was a bit nervous at that time.For example, this issue should have received 10 to 20 million, but the actual amount may be several million, but do you know how much the crew spends in a day?It may be one million or hundreds of thousands. Extra performers need cash every day to pay for their car, gas, accommodation, and many other things.
They immediately began to cut costs, and Hollywood creators were the first to leave the group because they really couldn't pay them.As long as the movie can be filmed, the luxuries can only be put down first. These are all luxuries.Then we streamlined some teams and vehicles, and finally the number was reduced to more than 300 people, and the accommodation conditions were also reduced. In the end, it might only be 100 people per bed, and further down it would be unavailable.You can save money everywhere, in all kinds of ways.Even so, the crew's money was already very tight in the middle of filming. We only had 70,000 yuan in our account.
Only if you invest, will everyone believe in you
At that time, it felt like a long time on the set, and I was worried about the money every day.
We will slow down the front in 2019.Because our film is a sci-fi film, there are a lot of scenes to be set. The process of setting the scenes takes 3 to 5 months. It is usually preset and then shot in 20 days.But we don’t have money to pre-set, so we can only spend time in one scene. We don’t dare to finish shooting this scene completely. We have to wait for money to shoot exterior scenes, exchanging time for space.It would be too painful to wait until a sum of money is set aside for everyone to eat, drink, poop, and sleep, and then quickly give them these two scenes.
The process of industrialization is to wait for the crew to complete all the scenes, or I will do three first, and when I shoot these three, I will do two more, and then I will shoot these two. This is a normal logic.But we can't do it, because we are always short of money, so we can only eat one meal and look for the next one later, just like the logic of breaking out of an encirclement while fighting a war.
Later, an old friend of mine went to Chongqing to visit the company. He said, Chuan'er, I really can't vote for 35“, but I can make the final say on 10” within my scope of authority. I will vote for you directly.He saved me.This sum of 35 million is the fund to support my completion.
To be honest, it is not easy for investors like me. It is too difficult in the industry.I have a boss buddy who called me and said, I only have 8 million in my account, I will give you 5 million, and I will live on 3 million.But I can’t invest the money later.I could feel the camaraderie.Five million was received on Monday.A big reason why I work hard today is because I can't live up to their trust.
After the project was finalized, I began to pay attention to industry reports or read some financial news. I began to care about these shareholders and how their companies were doing, and whether they could still invest funds. This may sound like a bit of a thief.
Starting from July 2019, I suddenly discovered that this matter was serious, and I felt a very crisis.For example, the day before, I was asking for money from a certain shareholder and having dinner with him. It was normal.The next day I saw a piece of news about what a certain company was doing.Only then did I realize how much he was carrying.Being an entrepreneur is not easy.
Frankly speaking, I am not the kind of creator who has the strong ability to attract metal in any era or cycle.As a person floating in a large industry, I am bound to be affected by this wave.
At that time, we had no money in our account, and the capital invested a total of about 200 million. The entire post-production period was completely idle. In addition to supporting the company, we also maintained a post-production team of more than 20 people. I still had a creator mentality at the time., just put money in little by little, hoping to finish the film.
At that time, we successively advanced millions of dollars. Thinking that investors’ money would come in, we withdrew the advance funds.Anyway, Beijing kids will just take advantage of their parents no matter what. Anyway, my dad has a lot of houses and has always been richer than me.
In fact, I went to a business school at that time. There were many young and wealthy classmates in the class who were listed on the stock market. When I asked how much the annual output value would be, I thought to myself, should I let them invest some money in me?But I still had a little face, so I never opened my mouth to them.But luckily I didn't say anything, because the epidemic came right after and knocked everyone down.I saw with my own eyes that my classmates were massacred in various ways. They closed many stores overnight, took on huge debts, and finally sold their assets. I thought to myself that I was lucky that no one was in trouble.
Then one day I, Zhong Lei, Han Sanping, and a few others had dinner together, and then the third master said, Chuan'er, you see everyone is having a hard time. If you take this project on, you may have wealth and freedom.I said, how can I afford so much money?He said that you should learn from (two names of directors). They have already become a production company, and you are still working part-time. You go ahead and see if you can use your methods to secure the funds for this project.Bar?“Pa” slapped my thigh.
I said that I had advanced the money, and the third master said that the advanced money is considered as your investment. Only if you invest, will everyone believe in you and think that you are a shareholder.At the same time, Wang Zhonglei patted my right thigh to show encouragement.
They slapped me on both sides of my thighs, which put me into this game.
I felt like I was being fooled for several years, and I never thought about being cast in any movie.But now if I can’t vote for my own movie, why shouldn’t I vote for it?I believe in myself and I will be more serious and cautious.
In the past, the director was essentially a surrogate in the entire industry. When the task was completed, the child was picked up.Then, whatever the price is, it belongs to others, and you never have the chance to have anything to do with it. When you go to a film festival, you have to ask others if you can borrow a copy.
Now I think that after the epidemic, the industry should have new industrial logic. For example, if you say IP must be my own, we developed this IP, why should we sell it?Why can't we let it settle in our own company?Since we want to build this company, it should have a longer life. Its value is actually the value of IP. It is not the cycle of my life, it is the cycle of IP.So the movies I’m developing now won’t work if I don’t vote for them.
If you fight hard, you must survive on this front
But at that time, the company had little money, and the project had little money. It was normal for me to take money from home to pay the company salary.
When I was reducing the crew during the filming, I was also reducing the number of people in the company. Our company went from a maximum of more than 70 people to more than 40 when I came back from the filming. Afterwards, we held a closed-door meeting and 18 more people from the high and middle levels were gone.
When we said goodbye to the team being iterated, we said, I'm sorry, we can't take so many people with us; I said that the people who stay will not live a good life, and the people you leave are not necessarily wrong, becauseI want to lead a group of people to break out of the siege. The only task of those of us left is to make this movie survive, but look at how much the gap is now.
I didn’t want to put too much energy into managing the company before. I also wanted to make movies.As a founder, I don’t know what things I have to take care of. I think it is the most professional thing to hand over this matter.
After taking the MBA, I found that almost all the knowledge about business in my mind was wrong.
At that time, we raised some money and have been investing in entrepreneurs and young directors. Do you think we made the right investment?Nothing wrong with it either.In fact, the risk is quite high.I don’t understand what people are saying. At that time, some of the team members were our shareholders, and they were all financial professionals. People said that in the future, the income could be 10 times, 20 times, or 100 times. Why not invest.
I really didn’t understand at that time. I was a business veteran. It turns out that I hired people based on the logic of friends. I would use whomever I liked and had a good relationship with. Later, I heard the words KPI for the first time in business school.
But if you don’t get a penny of your investment back, how can you withdraw from it?
The person has already lost the money, so you are too embarrassed to chase him to his home and just make friends.
I just do what I know right now.
At that time, the logic of survival was that I would do whatever I had to do. If I could get advertising money for back rubs, I would do it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the skills, but shooting ads was my specialty.
It turned out that someone was looking for me (to shoot an advertisement), and I was really picky. At that time, I was a little aloof, and I couldn’t shoot anyone who didn’t have the time, was in a bad mood, or felt that the brand didn’t match me, right?
But in 2020, I sent a team to look for advertisements. After all, we shot well and offered low prices, so the job came right away.Then take on a reality show.
You find that advertising is the fastest, with a short cycle and can be shot in two or three days, but it takes two months from the meeting to the completion of the film.I always have to sit there and laugh, which is quite painful. As a film director, I was not willing to accept this in the past, but now I am very good at this kind of professional laughter.
It’s true that I worked hard. I shot more than a dozen advertisements that year, and almost every month there would be advertisements in WeChat Moments. People in the industry said that Lao Lu was crazy about grabbing money.We wanted to create a brand and survive on this front. At that time, we didn’t know what else we could do.
Shooting commercials first saved the company team, and also saved the core post-production team. The important thing is that the company began to have positive liquidity.
I soon discovered that it (advertising) trains you. Advertising process management is very strict, because all profits are based on the cycle. If you exceed the cycle by a little, it is considered voluntary labor.So after shooting these 20 or 30 commercials, our company's internal cost management process has been consolidated. Whatever we shoot now, first of all, we must not exceed the budget, and secondly, we must not exceed the cycle.Long-term repeated use of commercial projects has greatly helped our team and company management and internal control, including the establishment of OA systems.
But although advertising is fast, it doesn’t cost much. Our visual effects team has more than 20 people all year round, and the little money we earn is really not enough.And the more you shoot, the more desperate you become. Your heart is to sell white rice noodles, but in the end, what you make is a cabbage that is of good quality. People sell it quickly and put it on the market, and you feel very sad inside.Painful, especially looking forward to returning to the movies.
And the commercials are all directed at me. I can’t even let other directors shoot them or produce them for me. This is a problem that prevents me from developing in the advertising industry.This year we are going to forcefully recommend co-directors. The client must acknowledge this matter. If they don’t acknowledge it, we would rather release it first. Otherwise, we will not be able to move forward with this matter.
Friends in the industry advised me that as a film director, if you keep making commercials, your brand value will be depleted.In fact, I have some obstacles in my heart, because not being able to finish the movie is an original sin for the film director, and I feel ashamed myself.So at that time I simply had no contact with the outside world.
But then I got over it.One day I was having dinner with a buddy. At that time, I had already shot more than 20 commercials. He said that people in the industry have been saying that you shoot commercials recently. You look crazy.But at that time, it was a thing that you could shoot commercials every day during the epidemic, so everyone’s initial surprise quickly turned to envy.I told him that day, brother, I stopped filming commercials and started filming dramas.
Rush in and become a barbarian in the drama industry
When we were planning our strategy at the beginning of 2021, I said we must make dramas.
First, the income from the advertising business is not enough to support the expenses of the film business. Second, after taking the MBA, I realized that a single product line is actually very dangerous for the development of the company, and the most competitive aspect of our company is obviously content research and development.So we do drama.Compared with movies, the market for drama series is more commercial.
This ship is bigger, we must get on that ship.
We quickly built a theater industry team. I proposed that the project should be launched in the same year, so I put forward the slogan "open the factory and serve the industry".
Before 19 years ago, we were based on our own research and development projects, but the cycle was long and the results were slow, and the children were relatively young. It was difficult to gather so many experts in a team, and we couldn’t afford to hire them.
I said we must rush in. We must become barbarians in this industry, just like advertising.
We are not qualified to do copyright and have no money, but content capabilities are our strength, so we use this to enter the market.I rushed out on my own and found a project from a brother company. They bought "good doctor" from South Korea, but they couldn't implement it. I said let's work together. I'll help you develop the platform and I'll help you make money.This production fee.And then there was the extraordinary healer.
But this process was not smooth sailing, and was rejected by some platforms because there were many rumors about a luchuan film. In the end, the Mango Channel that we collaborated with did not say until the film was broadcast that Director Sichuan was really too good.Many people have advised us not to cooperate with you. Why?First, you are short of money now - a luchuan film - and you said that we want to cooperate with you. Will you transfer the money from making dramas to - a luchuan film -?The second thing is that as a film director, you will not shoot it yourself, and you will not pay attention to it, because you have a movie to make.
But in the end, she said that firstly, she didn’t expect me to write the entire script myself; secondly, the finances were very transparent, and we didn’t embezzle anything; thirdly, I filmed it myself on set every day from the start of filming to completion.
Then we cooperated with another brother company - Born by Life -. They also had problems with development. I said to bring it over. It was not just about writing a script, so I helped them find a screenwriter to write the script.Then we looked for a platform together and entered the Mist Theater.
On February 4th this year, "Born by Life" was completed.Neither of these two dramas ran over schedule or over budget.Start on time and finish on time.
After these two battles in the series, we are basically stable.The team has been trained, the management process has been cleared, the work has been completed, and the reputation has been rebuilt.More importantly, because of the production of the series, new investors saw the value of our company and attracted new investors for a luchuan film.
When I was working on a series, many people thought that if I had a movie, I would definitely not go all out. That was wrong. When I was working on a series, I gave it 100“ to the series. I had to survive on the track of the series., I want to use the series to support the movie, so I have to do the best I can in this matter.But in addition to my 100” investment, I also spend 20% of my time on the film when I should sleep or rest, because I still have to have a meeting with Dneg (Double Negative, a famous British visual effects company).
Dneg is a giant British visual effects company. What - Dune - Avatar - Prometheus -... only Hollywood movies that are awesome are made in the UK. We have nearly 1,000 shots now with him.Made.No matter how much we save elsewhere, we cannot save on production. I hope that if we leave this work, some people will see it.
At first, they quoted me a very high price. Once I finished watching it, the price they quoted me was higher than the cost of my entire movie.But I’m itching. If you don’t cooperate with such a top visual effects company, how can you get the truth?
After the filming was completed, we caught up with the epidemic. I guess they were idle, so we started chatting. We would meet once a week, such as cutting shots and how to design this?I think the whole industry thinks this movie is dead. Only my visual effects companies never think so because I always have meetings with them.
After talking for a year, the production fee was reduced by about half, but I still couldn’t reach it.Finally, I boldly and shamelessly mentioned it and asked if you could support me a little bit.Now I feel so shameless that they actually said they would consider it.They also liked the movie, so they said they would spend half of the production fee as an investment, and they would not use it domestically, but overseas.This saved me again.
Dneg told me on the day they signed the contract that this was the only film they had invested in in Asia.Why invest in a company that earns production fees?The visual effects company that paid countless wages every day when I opened my eyes voted for my film - a luchuan film -.I think it's something to be proud of.
The most important thing about Dneg is that we only signed the big contract in the past two days. They have already made many shots for us in the past six months without signing the contract. It is very humane.
After the epidemic, we did an equity financing in June last year and successively raised 21 million. At that time, we told people that if the money came in, we would make a luchuan film. I immediately opened all the production gates. Now the worldThere are supplier teams from 16 countries doing post-production special effects for our movie.
I have nothing to fear anymore
I didn’t know until this year that the movie would be completed.
On February 4th - "Born by Life" - the series was finished filming, and I was just grabbing the money in my hand. I reviewed the budget again and again, and found that after the director's fee and production fee for the show arrived, the money would go to us.As soon as this small pool of funds was put into it, my budget for the completion of the film was almost gone.I felt so awesome that I started walking sideways and fell in love with whoever I wanted. I knew the movie could be finished.
In the past two years, especially starting from this year, the rumors about a luchuan film have decreased significantly.In the past, when it was not clear that I could save the film, I didn't want to say, "Who made your movie not come out? This is the original sin."
In addition, life has been difficult for everyone in the past few years. I keep saying outside that the funds are not available. Will it make things worse for others?So I kept my mouth shut.
I have become very brave in the past two years. Who can say no? I called over and said that I heard you said that my movie was not good at a wine shop. I asked why did you say that?I made three similar calls.You can feel the other person panic immediately. He said I didn't say it. I said someone heard it and told me. I think it was you who said it because you would say this. You actually know the truth. Why did you say that?I would confront him face to face.
At this time, you will find that the world is afraid of sunlight. When you face him directly and say these things, you will never hear these words again.
I spent a long time talking about it before making the first phone call. How could I, as a scholar, break up with him?But after the first phone call, I was immediately free.
When you are responsible for the life and death of an organization, these things are trivial, and your face is not important. We are a business, and you cannot smear behind your back at will, because we do not owe anyone anything, it is others who owe us money.Our, do we have any responsibility?For any director, if you can’t invest 1/3 of a project, can he complete it?And we are doing this now by advancing funds, not by investing.No one can say these things, this is my bottom line.
In the past two or three years, I have dealt with all the messy and unfinished things in the company. In 2022, when the last lawsuit was settled, I felt that the sky was clearing up.We did a round of equity (financing) last year. When they came in, they asked if you had any debts. I said firstly, there were no debts, and secondly, there were no lawsuits. I was very proud of it.
I enjoy everything now. From the Spring Festival to now, I only sleep three or four hours a day. The driver couldn't bear it anymore, so I changed three drivers - but I enjoy it very much, and I am finally with the movie.
It is what I am most eager to express at this time. The roughness and fineness are both the Lu Chuan of me at this stage. I think it is good, and it is done.These brothers threw money at me, and I have to give them an explanation.I ran this last one for five years. Although it took a little longer, I had an obligation to myself, my employer, and all my friends. I towed the ship to the port.
I feel like I have let go of a lot of things. For me, this is growth. I am not as anxious as when other films were released. It doesn’t matter to me now. I have nothing to be particularly afraid of. It is normal to receive both criticism and praise for this film.It has been 5 years since it was finalized. During these 5 years, I have reviewed it countless times. If it is not reliable, if it is not strong enough, if it is not a viable child, I will definitely turn around and leave.
Now - a luchuan film - for me, as Chen Guilin (the character in the movie - Zhou Chu's Three Evils -) said, I want the world to see me.There is no sense of gain or loss, as long as the movie is released, I will win even if it sells for one dollar, because it is really difficult, but we will not sell it for one dollar.Anyway, I lost money, I am the largest investor, and I stand with all you shareholders.