Chapter 699: Chapter 85: Advertisement, One Day Not Seen _2
After making the decision, before everyone left, Li Yan asked Luo Ling, who was responsible for this matter, to stay behind and gave her a few special instructions: "Remember, we don’t have a big director, and it’s not a major investment. You need to highlight two points: first, regardless of how many minutes each star’s role is, list all the stars we have in this film and emphasize them; the other is Heavenly Film, you can emphasize it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Paradise Group, to let the clients know our strength."
"Understood!" Luo Ling fully agreed, a production from a subsidiary of a major group, with so many stars involved, saying it’s a medium-small investment, others might not even believe it. As for the new director, who cares about that? Perhaps they might even think it’s the company’s attempt to support the director.
...
The meeting concluded, and everyone got to work. Li Yan was left alone again. He couldn’t let himself settle down, or else he would start overthinking. So, he continued to address the issues at hand.
The plan for product placement was only his unilateral decision and had not yet been discussed with the other two main investors, Chu Yi and Mo Yan, nor with the film’s chief producer, supervisor Qiao Pan, or director Zhou Yuan.
Li Yan was confident that he could persuade Chu Yi and Mo Yan. Investment is about making money; being able to recoup some funds before the release is good for everyone, reducing pressure on the box office. Because product placement won’t increase costs by much, but the revenue is substantial. An advertisement worth 1 million can reduce 2.5 million worth of box office pressure. However, Qiao Pan might not see it the same way since he has poured considerable effort into this film.
Sure enough, after Li Yan called, both Chu Yi and Mo Yan agreed and expressed their full support for his decision. After all, Li Yan is the major stakeholder here; if there’s a loss, he’d lose more, so he naturally wouldn’t do things detrimental to profitability.
As for Qiao Pan, he had been busy all along. During the filming period, not only did he have to manage all timelines well, but he also had to coordinate the schedules of all stars and actors. At this time, naturally, the ordinary crew had to accommodate the big names. Some big names only worked for a few days and even required the whole crew to cooperate with them. However, due to the tight shooting schedule, no matter how much they accommodated, the crew wouldn’t have any rest; when one person was waiting, they’d film another, and even deployed an assistant director to shoot some location scenes, preparing in advance.
He also knew that if Li Yan personally called him, it usually meant there was something important to discuss; otherwise, the power was generally delegated to him, allowing him and Zhou Yuan to manage all the crew’s affairs.
"President Li, is there something important? I’ve already had someone send the crew’s progress to the company."
"It’s unrelated to progress, Old Qiao, I have something else to discuss with you. How about dinner tonight?" Li Yan decided it would be better to find an appropriate time to talk since he understood Qiao Pan’s dedication to the film and didn’t want to forcefully complete cooperation.
"I’ve got work tonight, let’s skip the dinner. Perhaps you’re asking about Zeng Zixi’s situation? She’s doing okay, although lacking foundation, she has good comprehension and strong communication skills. I’ll teach her well and have her assist me in handling distribution issues. You don’t need to worry."
"This...I totally trust you. Okay, let me get straight to the point. If you think I’m wrong, just say so."
Seeing Li Yan say this, Qiao Pan put aside everything around and seriously asked: "What’s the problem? Has someone complained about me?"
"No, it’s my issue. I was thinking about the 10 million investment and the tight schedule, it’s a big pressure for the crew and for you all. If necessary, I can attempt to increase the investment..."
Qiao Pan initially thought it was some other issue, but upon hearing about the investment, he wanted to politely decline, though what followed made him quite moved. "Well... I will try to control the funds, but if the funds are ample, I think we could invest more in late-stage publicity and even start promotions earlier."
"That’s exactly the issue. Increasing investment also brings recovery pressure for us. So, I thought of product placement..." Fearing he might strongly oppose, Li Yan then elaborated on his views on product placement, indicating that the focus would still be on the storyline and appropriate advertisements would only be added with necessary props, avoiding any forceful ads.
After listening to Li Yan, Qiao Pan remained silent for a moment and then slowly said: "President Li, to be honest, personally, I don’t have much aversion to product placement. I’m not chasing any art form; I just want to prove myself and continue to mix in this industry. So, when many rejected me, you thought of me first, for which I’m very grateful. Now I’m working hard mainly because I don’t want to be unable to bounce back and also not to let you down."
Qiao Pan’s words unexpectedly touched Li Yan because this was originally a mutually beneficial cooperation. He wasn’t a philanthropist aiding Qiao without conditions; on the contrary, he wasn’t overly generous with the investment.
"Regarding product placement, I’ve actually researched it too, but because of our late start and the short time, making a good film is already difficult enough, so neither I nor Xiao Zhou exerted much effort in this area. Since President Li has a plan, I believe you can surely execute it well. Don’t worry too much about our opinions, we all need a successful film to prove ourselves, but before that, we must first ensure the boss doesn’t lose money; otherwise, we won’t be able to prove anything, not to mention securing funds for the next project. Once confirmed, come directly to the crew and find us, we will make suitable adjustments according to the clients’ requirements."
