Volume 3 Summer Rain Chapter 0357: End of the Road
The reason why Hollywood movies can conquer the world, in addition to the dazzling special effects, is that there is a group of people who have also made great efforts. It can be said that without them, there would be no success of Hollywood.
They are talented screenwriters.
Unlike Hong Kong, where screenwriters are not valued, screenwriters have a high status and considerable income in China.
Last year, the average income of members of the Western Writers Association of the United States was 47,000 U.S. dollars, which is already a very high level at present. Moreover, this is an "average" number, and the high-income members are averaged out by the low-income members.
In the words of later generations, most screenwriters are flexible employees. Their working style is very flexible. They work all day if they want to, and lie down . This lifestyle may be a little poor, but it is free.
What's the saying - if it's for freedom, both can be thrown away.
I have freedom, so why do I need a bicycle?
Screenwriting is an industry where the top guys are favored and the lower-level people can make a living, but before they become famous, their lives are often difficult.
You work hard to write a script, but it can only be sold for a few hundred dollars, or maybe even just a few dozen dollars.
Hollywood film companies are not stupid. They have people who are responsible for scanning the scripts in the Screenwriters Association's screenwriter database. If they see an interesting script, they will spend money to buy it and enrich their company's screenwriter database.
Once they buy the script, it may just gather dust in a warehouse and never be made into a movie; or the wonderful scenes may be extracted and integrated into other scripts to piece together a new script.
Of course, this refers to failed screenwriters.
As for those big screenwriters, they can get hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even millions of dollars in royalties for writing scripts for movies produced by big film companies, plus dividends.
The difference between a flop screenwriter and a great screenwriter is whether the scripts they write can be made into hit movies.
If the script is made into a successful movie, then the failed screenwriter will become a famous screenwriter, and will be able to break away from a career where the script can only be sold for tens of dollars and successfully enter the club of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
What is the most important thing for a movie to be successful?
Of course, take pictures!
Just like when you want to get involved in society, the most important thing is of course to “get involved”. If you don’t get involved, there’s no point in getting involved.
For a screenwriter, if he wants to be successful and get ahead, the most important thing is for his script to be made into a movie. If it’s not made into a movie, who the hell will know who you are?
In China, the Screenwriters Association is very powerful and can fully protect the interests of screenwriters. Anyone who wants to be a screenwriter is happy to join the Screenwriters Association.
You have to know that the Writers Association does more than just collect membership fees, they really stand up for the screenwriters.
If the interests of the screenwriters are damaged, they, as the screenwriters' family, will immediately gather people to seek justice for the screenwriters; if the screenwriters feel that the price offered by the film company is too low, it's okay, the Screenwriters Association has negotiation experts who will come forward to negotiate on the screenwriters' behalf.
What? The film companies are banding together to lower prices? What are we waiting for? Strike, strike now, to increase our income.
The Chinese Screenwriters Association has a history of many strikes in history. Every time there is a strike, the salary will be increased. Later on, the income of screenwriters was comparable to that of directors and actors.
The actors here are not ordinary actors, they have to be at least at the level of the 5 million club.
It can be said that the China Screenwriters Association is an industry association for film and television screenwriters. It is a trade union of the same industry and has independent legal personality. It can negotiate and sign contracts with investors on behalf of its members and is legally binding on its members.
The association fights for the rights and interests of its members and protects their interests. Regardless of whether it is a salary or copyright dispute, all screenwriters who join the association will receive legal assistance from the association.
The association has detailed regulations from minimum wage to travel allowances. More importantly, the Chinese Screenwriters Association elects people through voting to negotiate with film and television production companies to maximize the interests of association members.
It is the role of the American Writers Guild that has made Hollywood movies so popular.
On the contrary to China, Hong Kong does not attach importance to the screenwriting industry and believes that this industry is dispensable. Flying notes are the characteristic of Hong Kong movies.
In Xiangkeng, famous screenwriters often become destitute and die in poverty.
Apart from anything else, during the golden decade of Hong Kong films, the film industry took advantage of this opportunity to speed up the pace of formalization and organization - the Hong Kong Film Industry Association, the Hong Kong Film Directors Association, the Hong Kong Performing Arts Association, and the Hong Kong Professional Cinematographers Association were established one after another, but the only thing missing was the Film Screenwriters Association.
The reason why the Screenwriters Association has not been established is largely due to the low status of screenwriters in the Hong Kong film industry. The main reason for this is that people in the Hong Kong film industry believe that the threshold for screenwriters is not high.
Under Hong Kong's unique film industry system, it is very easy to become a screenwriter. Even Zeng Yanlan, who was a martial arts stuntman, has written several hit scripts.
Precisely because the threshold is not high, screenwriters have long been neglected in the Hong Kong film industry. However, during the years when Hong Kong films were booming, kung fu films were all the rage, and no matter how good a screenwriter was, he could only work for kung fu stars and martial arts directors.
Others come up with the story concept, and the screenwriter is responsible for writing the script.
The screenwriters in Hong Kong can be roughly divided into two types. The most numerous are like the director's think tank. The director or producer comes up with an idea and then finds a group of screenwriters to collectively write the story and script.
Well, it's a bit like Gunner Company.
The other category is called the play-opening masters. They are a small group of the top screenwriters. They enjoy almost the same power as the director. They can come up with complete story ideas and make "ideological guiding" contributions to a film. Such people are also called - gold medal screenwriters.
However, most of the screenwriters who can become gold medal screenwriters in Xiangkeng have changed their careers to become directors, which is also the reason why there has always been a shortage of screenwriter talent in Xiangkeng.
Although there are many classics in Hong Kong's films, most of them are copycat works that lack content. Even in the glorious period of Hong Kong films in the following years, bad films still accounted for the vast majority.
Hong Kong films are inherently deformed. There are many reasons for their popularity, but the most fundamental reason for their decline is their incomplete foundation. Screenwriters in Hollywood can be said to be an important part of a film. Without a good screenwriter, there can be no good film.
In Xiangkeng, screenwriters are basically just doing odd jobs, or filling in vacancies, and they don't have much status at all.
Without a good innate foundation, how can one achieve long-term glory?
The lack of professional screenwriters has also led to a lack of content in Hong Kong films. In the eyes of European and American audiences, Hong Kong films can be said to have always had irregular content and even inconsistent plots.
Even the gangster movie "A Better Tomorrow", which is hailed as a classic by Hong Kong filmmakers, is full of loopholes and not worth scrutinizing in the eyes of European and American audiences.
Xiangxun doesn't pay attention to copyright either. Your "Best Partner" became popular, and I changed the name and made a movie similar to yours. What can you do to me?
The most disgusting thing is that the main actors may be the same people. The audience doesn’t care which company produced the movie, they only recognize the actors.
"Wow, Liu Yinggoubi's film must be good..."
As long as you like a star, even if his acting skills are not up to par, you will think that this is a unique acting style of that person.
A certain pair of charming eyes have been charming for decades and are still charming, but many people say that there is drama in his eyes.
Damn it, he has been playing himself for decades and has never gotten into a role. No matter what role it is, he still has his own flavor. He always plays "a gangster played by so-and-so" or "a hero played by so-and-so", not a gangster or a hero.
However, Nan Yi feels that his professionalism is still worthy of recognition. He never uses borrowed positions or engages in fraud in his sex scenes, making him a role model for our generation.
This is going too far, let’s bring it back.
If you want to start a film project in China, you must first pass the script certification to prove that your story content is not plagiarized or copied.
The content of your script must not have been registered by others. If someone else has registered it, even if your script is much better than the registered script, with more explosion scenes, more plot progression, and completely different camera language, it cannot pass the certification.
And a script that has not been certified cannot be made into a movie.
Because of this, even if Nan Yi can't remember the complete content of a movie, it doesn't matter. Take "Jurassic Park" for example. After Nan Yi read the scripts of the screenwriters, the ideas were already very clear. He could definitely piece them together and come up with a script that is as good as the original.
Only this pieced-together script will be made into a movie, but the other scripts will be registered with the Screenwriters Association as sequels. And not only this batch, Nan Yi will also find a group of new screenwriters to customize a batch of "Dinosaur" scripts.
After finding one batch, they will find another batch, until the repetition rate of the scripts becomes very high and no new scripts appear.
Write all the plots related to dinosaurs, register them all, and create a script barrier to see who can make a dinosaur movie to steal your job.
A movie like "Jurassic Park" not only has the potential to get high box office, but its peripheral products and surrounding economy are so powerful that the dinosaur theme park must be completed before the movie is released.
If Nan Yi fails to make over 10 billion US dollars in revenue from "Jurassic Park", it will be a failure.
The gunman's office was not ready yet, so Nan Yi could only gather the screenwriters to a cinema under the AMC Theaters in Hollywood.
There were few people watching the 10 a.m. show, and there were no good movies released recently, so the cinema's business was very slow. Nan Yi talked to the cinema and booked a theater for two hours at a 40% discount.
When everyone was present, Nan Yi walked to the edge of the screen, leaned over to the microphone and said, "Hello, screenwriters. First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Adam Nan. I am the manager of Gunner Company and the person who provides logistical services to you.
Today we are holding the first meeting of the Gunman Company, which is to let everyone get to know each other. Usually everyone writes at home, and most of you may not have met your colleagues. After the meeting, we will have a meal together so that everyone can communicate well.
Ahaha, Alan, there is no need to rush to communicate now, there will be time for you to get to know each other later. "
While Nan Yi was talking, Alan Ball had already greeted a female screenwriter next to him. When necessary, remembering the names and appearances of all the employees under you is an essential skill for a manager.
This will make employees feel that they are valued. When the big boss several levels away knows their names, they will naturally develop a sense of belonging to the company.
Nan Yi has been carefully memorizing the information of each screenwriter in the past two days, just so that he can recite each person's name without any effort.
"Sofia, listen to me more seriously and take the lollipop out of your mouth." Nan Yi nodded at Sofia Coppola again. He originally thought that this little girl would be absent, but he didn't expect her to come.
Sofia Coppola shrugged and removed the lollipop from her mouth.
"OK, I'll continue. I'll introduce Gunman Company to you all." Nan Yi loosened his tie to make himself look more casual. "Gunman Company was just registered not long ago. Originally, everyone was recruited under the name of Red Sofa Entertainment, but from now on, you all belong to Gunman Company.
As for the relationship between Gunner Company and Red Sofa Entertainment, maybe there is no relationship.
Red Sofa Entertainment was jointly founded by several shareholders of Pan American Investment Holdings. You should all know that it previously acquired 20th Century Fox.
It was these shareholders who had a sudden idea to set up the Gunman Company and separated everyone from each other. From now on, we will be responsible for our own profits and losses. Our scripts do not necessarily have to be sold to Red Sofa, but can also be sold to other companies.
In this way, we have gained a certain degree of freedom and independence, but we have also lost some security. If we were still affiliated with Red Sofa, they would have to pay for our shit. "
Hahaha!
Nan Yi’s words made everyone laugh.
"Everyone here is basically a newcomer in the screenwriting industry, and they all dream of becoming a big screenwriter one day. Joining a ghostwriter company may be a helpless move for you. After all, before you become a big screenwriter and earn a lot of dollars, you still need to eat and have a source of income..."
