Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Who knew, it might be advantageous to his future!
Had they not seen how from the very beginning, Wei Zhiqian could, for Tan Mo’s sake, let Kefeng Films make such a huge investment in Tan Jinqi?
Although Broken Continent was very successful now, who would have thought it would be at the very beginning?
Nobody dared to guarantee that Broken Continent would succeed.
Yet, Wei Zhiqian had Kefeng Films invest in it.
It was akin to how a simple smile from beautiful women on Weibo could cause people to splash the cash.
Wei Zhiqian would even be willing to become a tyrant for Tan Mo. If they could win Tan Mo’s favor, would they ever need to worry about their future in the company?
Everyone understood the situation perfectly.
But understanding was one thing. There was no need for such simplistic, crude and low-class flattery!
It had to be done naturally, like being blown along by a spring breeze, without leaving a trace. Tan Mo had to be happy to hear it.
Such straightforward and low-class flattery immediately exposed their true intentions. What if it gave Tan Mo a bad impression of them?
Wouldn’t it have the opposite effect?
‘Who was this person who could not even do something as simple as flattery well?
Everyone looked in the direction where the voice came from.
Their eyes collectively landed on a big, tall, perhaps even slightly muscular young man.
The young man sported a very clean and tidy crew cut. His slightly long, rectangular face displayed complete honesty and frankness.
‘When he saw that everyone had turned to look at him, the young man even had an expression that said, “What are you all looking at me for?”
‘When everyone saw that it was him, their facial expressions seemed to say, “No wonder.”
‘Tan Mo could not immediately respond.
So, this young man was usually this frank?
Shi Shulei introduced everyone present to Tan Mo, one by one.
Apart from the five people whom Tan Mo had met the last time she saw Shi Shulei, there were 25 others.
Shi Shulei did not expect Tan Mo to remember them all.
He would just introduce them first.
Whether Tan Mo could remember was a separate issue; he should not leave out the introductions.
For the others, Shi Shulei would typically mention a few special characteristics of each person.
But when it came to introducing that honest young man, Shi Shulei had a bit of difficulty finding the right words.
“This is our post-production. He’s in charge of editing,” Shi Shulei started, “He has a great sense of humor, humor that’s even a bit direct and forthright sometimes. So after Wang does the first cut, he takes a look, supplements it a little, and the episode is basically good to go.”
If it still was not funny, it meant that the guest for that episode really did not have any sense of humor.
However, I Sing, being a singing variety show, would not require its guests to come up with any funny content.
Tan Mo understood what Shi Shulei meant.
Because he was such a direct and forthright person, the young man did not even know how to flatter someone.
He probably hardly used flattery at all. Today, he had decided to join everyone else in using flattery, but ended up hampering their efforts instead.
“Come, everyone draw the curtains and tum on the projector. Let’s have the meeting here,” Shi Shulei said.
‘There were too many people, and the conference room within the department was not big enough.
So everyone hurriedly drew the curtains, and someone switched on the projector.
‘There was only one projector in the department.
So whenever a meeting was held in the conference room, they would have to move the projector to the conference room.
If the meeting was held in a larger space and required a projector, they would have to move the projector there from the conference room.
It would not be as convenient as having the meeting in the conference room.
Fortunately, the current projector was small and smart. It was not much trouble to move it around or alter the size of the projected image.
Moreover, the projector screens in both the conference room and office were the same size, so there was no need to keep fine-tuning the size all over again each time.
They only needed to adjust the position of the projector slightly.
‘The company used shutter blinds. Once those were shut, very little light was left in the room.
Hence, they turned on some of the lights.
If it was too bright, it would affect the projector.
The right amount of brightness would not affect the clarity of the projected image.
Once all this was done, Liu Jingfu delivered the presentation to Tan Mo.
After listening, Tan Mo asked, “What did Mr. Xu say about this?”
Their plan could only go ahead with the agreement of both Mr. Xu and Mr. Yan.
‘As soon as Xu Dashi was mentioned, the smile on Liu Jingfu’s face hardened significantly.
It was as if Party A had been mentioned.
But Xu Dashi was not Party A. He was their superior.
‘They could not challenge him, or worse, show any disdain. They had to constantly maintain a smile. It was really too difficult.
At the mention of Mr. Xu, Liu Jingfu cursed in her heart but tried her best to maintain a polite smile, ‘Mr. Xu said that he still feels like something is missing. He said the audience would easily get tired of a simple competition. Viewers are already weary with their daily lives, and their key purpose of watching
variety shows is to derive joy from them. So he asked us to come up with something else that would make people happy.”
‘But…’ Liu Jingfu said helplessly, “For a singing competition, I can’t think of any kind of segment that can make people happy.”
Shi Shulei nodded, troubled by the issue, “That’s why we asked you to come over, to see if you can come up with any new ideas.”
“Right now, one of the main reasons why reality shows are popular is that the audience gets to see what artistes are like in their private lives. Artistes are usually distant from viewers. Viewers only get to see the images they portray in movies and dramas, or on stages. However, since the introduction of
reality shows, the audience has been able to see artistes eating, chatting and interacting, It’s as if they are watching their daily lives.”
Of course, it was only “as if* it was their daily lives.
As long as cameras were present, which artiste would completely reveal who he or she really was privately?
That said, most of them would at least reveal traces of their real personalities.
“So, why don’t we include such a segment too?” Tan Mo asked.
“How will we record it? Will we actually have to go to the artistes’ homes? That will be difficult. Many artistes are not willing to open up their homes. In fact, for variety shows that feature artistes’ homes, many of them actually rent another house for the filming. But the rental fees are then transferred to the
program team to cover.”
“Why go to artistes’ homes? There’s nothing interesting about an artiste staying at home alone. However, if the artiste invites friends and family over, won’t it become a home-based reality show? What has that got to do with a singing competition?” Tan Mo asked with a smile.
“Since this is a competition, we can let the artistes stay together. We’ll find a villa and let the artistes live in it as a group. They will eat, live and practice together. One episode of competition, one episode of watching them practice. And after each stage of the competition ends, the artistes returning to the
residence, eating, chatting and resting. All of this content will be shown to the audience.”
“In particular, most of the artistes we invited based on our previous screening criteria don’t know each other. We can let viewers observe how the artistes socialize with people they don’t know, how they live together. Of course, to add an element of conflict, we can also deliberately look for artistes who’ve had
clashes in the past and arrange for them to be together. Even if they don’t tear each other apart to protect their images, it’s possible that they won’t speak to each other.”
