A great director who grew up happily

Chapter 318 Domestic Version of Weta Workshop

Over the past three months, the temperature has gradually dropped, from the gentle autumn breeze to the bone-chilling north wind, but the busy city of Beijing is still noisy and even tense.

People in the workplace are busy preparing for their year-end performance reports, striving to move up the hierarchy and looking forward to their next year-end bonuses.

Students are nervously preparing for their final exams, trying to get decent scores so they can receive red envelopes or avoid being beaten before the New Year.

Among these students, the most hardworking are the college students. Each of them works hard and has a study attitude that is even harder than that of a senior high school student. They work hard in the teaching building, study room and library with brand new textbooks and key points marked by teachers. Sometimes they frown, sometimes feel lost, and sometimes sigh to the sky.

To sum up all my words in one sentence, I will definitely not skip classes next semester.

Of course, there are also those who are relatively relaxed, such as Qiao Yingzi. She did not go to school. She stayed in her bedroom at home, stroking the cat with one hand and flipping through a book with the other, reviewing leisurely without worrying about the exam next week.

At this moment, there was a sound of knocking on the door. The cat on Qiao Yingzi's leg seemed to have received an order. It jumped down instantly and ran out of the bedroom with its happy short legs.

"You're such a good fellow, Zhang Xiaofan! I fed you so many snacks for nothing."

She shouted angrily, and then chased after the kitten that had betrayed its owner.

When Song Qian saw the kitten and her daughter running over, she was very happy. She squatted down and touched Zhang Xiaofan who was clinging to her legs and acting coquettishly, then began to take off her down jacket.

Qiao Yingzi picked up the kitten and asked, "How are Aunt Tong and Duoduo now?"

"Not bad, much better than before. The only bad thing about their family now is Fang Yuan, who has lost a lot of weight compared to before." Song Qian replied with a smile.

Tong Wenjie has a weak constitution and has been bedridden for a month after giving birth to Fang Duoduo. She usually needs Fang Yuan and her mother-in-law to take care of her and cannot be left alone for the time being. Song Qian feels sorry for her best friend's health, so she makes soup and sends it to her every now and then.

"Then I'll go see Aunt Tong tomorrow."

As soon as Qiao Yingzi finished speaking, the kitten in her arms meowed, as if agreeing with her and wanting to follow and take a look.

"Okay, just stop joining in the fun. You can have a little nest anywhere."

After patting Zhang Xiaofan's head gently a few times, he put it on the sofa.

"Yingzi, you'll have a holiday after your exams, right? How about mom take you on a trip abroad? Isn't Jinnian filming a movie in Thailand? It's a good opportunity for us to go and see him."

Song Qian asked. She was a cram school teacher and was busier during holidays. She hadn't taken her daughter out for a trip in several years. Now that Qiao Yingzi was in college, she had a lot more free time, and she wanted to make up for the years of debt.

"Mom, don't you need to go to class?"

"I haven't taken any classes from before the New Year yet."

"Oh, but it's a bit late to go to Thailand. He finished filming a few days ago. I saw a group photo of the crew on Wang Yidi's WeChat Moments."

Qiao Yingzi didn't really want to go out because the weather was too cold. She preferred to stay at home and enjoy the heating.

"Finished filming?" Song Qian asked in surprise. "Did he finish filming so quickly? I saw the online promotions and other directors' films took a year or two to prepare. I remember he just started filming in October."

"The TV series will start filming in October."

Qiao Yingzi explained helplessly that she was too tired to complain about Chen Jinnian's shooting speed. Just looking at the shooting time, it seemed like every movie was a joke. It had become a routine operation to finish a movie in one month.

"So he returned home?"

"I'm not sure. I'll ask later."

In fact, Chen Jinnian did return to China. Not only that, he was also in the viewing room of Communication University of China, showing his directorial works to the leaders of the school and official media.

However, these are not the two newly shot films, but "Presence", which took three months to post-produce. With his free polishing, the texture of the film has been improved by several levels. In addition to the magnificent snow-capped mountain visual effects produced by special effects for display, a war shot was restored to match the ending song "Dislocation in Time and Space".

Of course, Chen Jinnian's approach increased the length of the micro-film to ten minutes, which is a bit long compared to the simple story content.

The film was over in a short time. The atmosphere in the entire screening room was very depressing, especially after the ending song sounded. He observed that many people had red eyes and some were secretly wiping away tears.

Dean Guan of the Academy of Drama, Film and Television looked specifically at Chen Jinnian. He had read the script in advance and even approved some of the resources, but the final effect of the film really exceeded his imagination. The degree of completion did not seem like something that could be produced by students who had enrolled earlier. It was completely at the level of a commercial blockbuster.

Seeing that everyone else was silent, he was the first to speak and break the silence. "Jinnian is a freshman in our college. He just enrolled this year. As a director, he is indeed inexperienced. If there are any shortcomings in the work, please bear with me."

"Tolerance? I think you are just showing off, your tail is about to reach the sky." With a joke from Chief Editor Yang of People's Daily, the oppressive atmosphere in the viewing room was swept away.

"Everyone's knowledge is still there. This is the basic work for winning the award. I even think that submitting it at the university level is a bit bullying. I am a little curious about your production cost." A vice president of Communication University of China asked

Facing the question, Chen Jinnian answered calmly, "If we only count the filming costs, it's less than 50,000."

"Impossible, you even did special effects."

"Yes, I used some special effects shots. To complete the film's post-production, I set up a special effects production company. The initial investment in equipment alone was around 30 million. I led the team to polish it over and over again for three months to achieve the current visual effects. If you take into account the above costs, it's definitely not 50,000."

Everyone was shocked after hearing this. There was no such way to spend money. If calculated based on the production cost per minute, Chen Jinnian's movie should be the most expensive movie in China.

“Why not outsource it? It’s much cheaper than building it yourself.”

"Outsourcing technology isn't good enough. These days, big-budget films pour all their money into actors' salaries, leaving very little for film production. "Investiture of the Gods" and "Grave Robbers," released this summer, are good examples. Faced with meager budgets, the films can only use a large number of low-quality special effects shots. Given such widespread demand, domestic special effects companies are completely lagging behind world-class standards. In this situation, I might as well follow Jackson's lead and build my own Weta Workshop from scratch."

Chen Jinnian spoke freely and made no secret of his ambitions.

"The success of Weta Workshop is due to the Lord of the Rings series. Do you think you will get your own Lord of the Rings?" The vice-president shook his head, obviously not optimistic about his idea.

"I'll be back soon," he said with a confident smile.