Tao Mu had always acted resolutely and decisively. Now that he had decided to be the producer of the mainland remake of “Black and White”, he asked Director Xu Musen to bring the screenwriter of “Black and White” to the capital that night. Tao Mu also invited Zhou Hong, the director of “The Great Wall of Flesh and Blood”, and the screenwriter team to serve as a consultant.

You c an fi nd t he la te st cha pte rs at ( th e bl mu se . c o m )

Sure enough, when professionals go all out, the efficiency is simply on another level. Under the guidance of director Zhou Hong and screenwriter Fan, combined with the various professional film critiques Tao Mu had seen in his previous life to give a general direction for the revision. The script for “Black and White” took only a week to revise. Screenwriter Fan was best at adapting war dramas. The characteristic of classic Second Sino-Japanese war dramas was that the plot was full of ups and downs. The original script of “Black and White” focused more on the description of human nature. Whether it was the plot or the lines, the whole script was full of concise but thought-provoking fatalism. Now with this strong alliance, the revised script not only echoed the mainstream theme values, but also became more sophisticated and effective in terms of lines.

A week later, Tao Mu went to visit the leaders of SARFT with the revised script. Tao Mu was a person with high EQ, and was sophisticated in all aspects related to socializing. Normally he liked to keep good relations with all the people he came across and valued maintaining these contacts. So when he had use of them, it would not give people a tendency to “use people when he had need and forget people when he didn’t”. In addition, at the previous Lingxiao Award ceremony, Tao Mu left a good impression on the leaders of SARFT. Therefore, in this meeting, when Tao Mu took the initiative to bring up the passing of the script of the remake of “Black and White”, the leaders of SARFT were not too rigid.

But they couldn’t help but drag Tao Mu to listen to a spew of complaints.

“…..You don’t know how difficult those people in Hong Kong are. Their eyes and noses practically grow on their foreheads, acting so arrogant just because they could make a few movies. They look down on mainland movies and feel that our mainland cultural system is lacking any positive aspects. We spent great amounts to invite Hong Kong production teams to co-produce a movie because we see that the development of Hong Kong film industry is good, so we want to exchange money and resources for them to support mainland movies, right? But in the end, what do they do?”

“While looking down on us, they also want to come to the mainland to make money. It is the same crew but the treatment is completely unequal. Even if it is an unknown third-rate star who comes from Hong Kong, when they come to make a movie, they want nothing more than to live in a five-star hotel. Looking down on mainland actors, and saying that mainland actors are not good at acting in movies and TV dramas. Though it is called a co-production film, but the hero and heroine have to be their Hong Kong people, Taiwan people, and only the corner roles are left to us.”

Yet it was not enough for the mainland to retreat to such a level. The Hong Kong people could still stir up all kinds of trouble: “…..often uniting to reject and bully our mainland actors. And the most overboard thing is that they could even spread the unequal treatment to two different lunch boxes.”

So later, SARFT issued a written document.  Clearly pointing out that in the co-production of Hong Kong/Taiwan and the mainland, mainland actors must play the main role. And various other clauses. The main purpose was also to protect mainland actors from being bullied by the Hong Kong/Taiwan crew.

As for the review of scripts, the leaders of SARFT were even more resentful: “…..things that clearly cannot pass the review. Don’t mention their Hong Kong movies, even if they are Hollywood blockbusters, we SARFT will treat them all equally. If it can’t pass, it can’t pass. Isn’t it the same process for our mainland moviemakers? Why are they so much more noble just because they are from Hong Kong? Asking them to change the script and they are full of complaints, shouting that we don’t understand the art of film and that we are just blindly directing. When dragging it to the end they half-heartedly serve up complete nonsense just to get by. And then after the release, when the response is not good, the blame is shoved to us again.”

“Our SARFT has simply become a professional scapegoat!”

“When the people from Hong Kong want to enter Hollywood, how come they can take into account the different aesthetics and cultural differences of foreigners? When their films are not popular in Europe or the US, why don’t they say that the Americans and Europeans don’t understand the art of movie-making? So it turns out that only us mainlanders don’t understand movies, huh? Could audiences all over the world be able to distinguish between three, six, nine, etc.? The Chinese yuan is just not worth as much as the dollar or euro, huh?”

“The way I see it, they’re just blindly worshipping everything foreign. They’re simply bullying people. They’re just looking down on us!”

The SARFT leader was filled with righteous indignation: “And we don’t need them to look up to us! Our mainland market is so big, and our Chinese consumer market has become the world’s largest consumer market. All over the world, people from any country who want to come to China to make money must abide by our rules. You do as the natives do. This is the right and proper thing to do.”

Tao Mu’s ability to supervise and produce such good TV series as “The Great Wall of Flesh and Blood” and “Fashion Storm” at the age of nineteen was enough to prove Tao Mu’s ability. After all, the profession of a producer was not the same as that of an actor. Actors were relatively single skills, and only needed to show their best side in front of the camera. Therefore, some actors who were “natural born talents” could make their debut as child stars, and their talent alone was comparable to the efforts of many people for more than ten years. In general, actors don’t need to think too much about teamwork and coordination. The biggest difficulty they faced that fell under coordination, was probably acting with a fellow actor. As for the rest of the time, it was others who had to conform to them. In terms of coordination, actors were relatively passive occupations. Even when saying a word in front of the media, one must take into account the opinions of the copywriter. This also led to the fact that even the most glamorous star actor in front of the stage might not have speaking powers in the industry than an ordinary director with a solid foundation.

But producers were different. Producers needed to coordinate the overall situation. A competent producer needed to consider the budget of the crew and consider all aspects of the entire crew. It was also necessary to take into account the artistic and commercial value of the film. Nor was it a job that one could do well with talent.

If Tao Mu didn’t have more than ten years of work experience in his previous life, he probably wouldn’t be able to play the role of a producer at all. But others didn’t know about Tao Mu’s fantastical experience, they only saw Tao Mu’s success.

What did a successful nineteen-year-old producer mean to a fledgling film market? At least in the eyes of the SARFT leaders, Tao Mu was definitely a young man worthy of cultivation. This could be seen from the fact that “The Great Wall of Flesh and Blood” and even Tao Mu himself became the biggest winner at the Lingxiao Awards ceremony. The SARFT leaders definitely had high hopes for Tao Mu.

China had a tradition of “heroes come young” since ancient times. Even the most stubborn old-fashioned old fogey would maintain a tolerant and gentle heart when facing young talents. What was more, although Tao Mu was young, he was not arrogant and prideful. Although he was full of mettle, he was not conceited. Both his mannerisms and way of doing things made others feel very comfortable. The SARFT leaders were also willing to cultivate young people like Tao Mu.

They firmly believe that if there were more filmmakers like Tao Mu who promote the mainstream theme and promote positive energy, what need was there to worry that  the mainland film market would not develop?

“This time you can accept the producer job of the mainland remake of “Black and White” is also a good thing. You have to do the job well, do it seriously, and let those people in Hong Kong see the capabilities of our mainland filmmakers. Although our mainland film market has started late, our mainland filmmakers can also make good movies. Hong Kong people can’t make good movies in the mainland, not fully because of the restrictions of the mainland’s cultural system, but because they themselves don’t care about it and haven’t considered respecting the customs of our land.”

“We have a vast territory in China. Even if people from the south go to the north, they may be unaccustomed to the status quo. Let alone cultural ideas?” The SARFT leader said: “If a mature filmmaker only films those prohibited themes. And without these vulgar gangsters, gunfights, pornography, gambling, drugs, he could no longer make good works. Then how could we recognize that he is a good filmmaker?”

The SARFT leader’s mindset was simple. Our Chinese imperial examination system for thousands of years could produce so many beautiful literary articles. Even the standard eight-part essay (TN: one had to master to pass the imperial exams in Ming and Qing dynasties), there are many classics passed down to the present. Now we are just asking you to write a simple propositional essay——and we haven’t delineated the scope of writing either, just warned you what you couldn’t write.

Something so simple couldn’t even be done. Yet you blame us for the many restrictions we have given!

The SARFT leader patted Tao Mu on the shoulder and said earnestly: “You are still young and have great potential for development. Don’t learn some bad habits from those bad people. Blaming the gods and accusing people, a belly full of complaints, able to say 10,000 words of complaint without repeating. Yet when you ask them to make a movie, they can’t even make 100 million!”

Either complaining that this year’s SARFT was not capable, or that this year’s audience was not good. Anyway, if the film was not good, then it was the whole world that had no vision.

The SARFT leaders didn’t want Tao Mu to learn this kind of ethos at a young age. Instead, he should have a positive attitude and make more classic works such as “The Great Wall of Flesh and Blood”, which was well-received critically and in the box office, and was also especially mainstream.

In order to express their support and encouragement, the leaders of SARFT also carefully studied the script of the remake of “Black and White” brought by Tao Mu. After examining it carefully, they confirmed that there was no sensitive content that may be reported by others. So they directly passed the script.

After the script was passed, the leader of SARFT recalled the previous actions of the Hong Kong director, and couldn’t help but remind: “When shooting, you must follow the script. Don’t give us one script, and then when you shoot it is another script. The final review is still required before the final version is released. If you do this kind of operation, the film will not pass the review and the release schedule will be delayed, so don’t complain that we didn’t warn in advance.”

Tao Mu almost laughed out loud. It seemed that SARFT leaders have also developed psychological shadows from these flashy operations. Otherwise, they wouldn’t even utter such a remark that was part complaint and part reminder in front of his face.

Sounded like extremely pained words from the bottom of the heart.

What else could Tao Mu do? Of course, he could only obediently agree. And express that as the producer of the mainland remake of “Black and White”, he would definitely keep an eye on the crew and not let them mess around. Try their hardest to catch up with the New Year holiday schedule.

“Then I wish you a great box office success in advance.” The SARFT leader continued to pat Tao Mu on the shoulder in encouragement.

By the way, he also secretly reminded Tao Mu that when he was supervising the remake of “Black and White”, he must steal lessons from the Hong Kong film team. Although the SARFT leaders hate some of the styles and habits of the Hong Kong filmmakers, they have to admit that the production standards of the Hong Kong filmmakers were still very good. Therefore, the leaders hoped that Tao Mu could steal lessons and learn their art, and then make a critically acclaimed blockbuster movie that belonged to the mainland.

There were even leaders who had a whimsical thought, suggesting that Tao Mu could also make a movie version of “The Great Wall of Flesh and Blood”. They felt that the ratings of the TV series were so high and the reputation was so good. The audience base was also so solid. Moreover it also contained hot-blooded shootout scenes. So there was no reason it could not compare to the Hong Kong shootout movies and Hollywood blockbusters, right?

Tao Mu was a little surprised. Following the trend to remake big IP was the development direction of the mainland film and television industry in the next few years. Could it be that there have already been signs since now?

Tao Mu smiled and agreed. Promising that he would work hard to learn every day to improve. Most of the leaders who could hold power were in their 40s and 50s, or even in their 60s and 70s. In their eyes, Tao Mu was about the same age as their own children and grandchildren. Elders like children who are humble, polite and well-learned. So when Tao Mu showed this side of himself, he really got the favor of all the leaders.

So when the leaders wished Tao Mu’s movie a big success, they also told Tao Mu not to neglect the shooting of “Soldier Elite”. Someone mentioned: “Cooperating with the military to shoot a promotion drama for conscription is also a political task. You must put more energy on this drama. If there is no way to balance it, we would rather you relax your supervision on “Black and White” and instead focus on making “Soldier Elite” well.”

This was also a sincere statement. Tao Mu understood.

However, when Tao Mu tried to propose that he wanted to invite the SARFT leaders to dinner. The SARFT leaders refused without hesitation. The leaders expressed that they didn’t want to have dinner with the hypocritical Hong Kong director who disdained them for not understanding the artistry of movie-making, and always throwing the blame to them!

Tao Mu had never been in contact with this level before, so he really didn’t know that the two sides were this sick of seeing each other.

But even if there were many filmmakers complaining that the SARFT leaders were not good. However, Tao Mu still felt that the leaders were quite cute because of his own position. Just like his old man Song, although old-fashioned and stubborn, as well as difficult to communicate sometimes. But as long as you find the correct communication method, you would find that these old grandpas and grannies were actually very agreeable. The most important point was that they were very protective of their own people. As long as they made up their mind to support someone, they would give the maximum tolerance and support within their authority.

You c an fi nd t he la te st cha pte rs at ( th e bl mu se . c o m )

And as we all know, Tao Mu, who had just become the biggest winner of the Lingxiao Award, was an obvious biological son of SARFT. Backed by a big tree, it was good to enjoy the shade. Under the shade, although Tao Mu knew that some of the review requirements of the bigwigs really limited the artistry and integrity of the movie, he still couldn’t say anything bad about them. And he really felt that the SARFT leaders were still very easy to communicate with.

At least much easier to communicate than those people he had encountered in his previous life.

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