Losing Money to Be a Tycoon - Chapter 313
Chapter 313: A Perfect Script that Housed All Toxic Points!
Pei Qian pondered for a moment and still decided that he could not take the risk.
It would be best if he could bluff Fei Huang Workspace into spending large sums of money and come up with their own ideas and script. That would increase their chances of incurring losses!
Thus, Pei Qian chose to avoid talking about his hopes for Huang Sibo. Instead, he changed the topic entirely.
“There’s no need to rush things like creativity. Many famous directors improvise their script as they film, don’t they? I believe that Director Zhu Xiaoce can do the same!
“The most important thing is that it seems too unambitious for a filming workspace, that was established nine months ago and that has Tengda Corporation as its backing, to continue working on short videos and generating revenue from sponsored partnerships and an online shop!”
Huang Sibo opened his mouth, instinctively wanting to rebut Pei Qian.
So what if they had been established nine months ago? Was that a long time?
Many filming workspaces closed down after six months, much less nine. The fact that Fei Huang Workspace could survive for nine months was good enough! Even though some of their productions incurred losses, most of them were well-received!
However, as he looked at Boss Pei, Huang Sibo became too ashamed to speak up.
Indeed, Tengda Games had come up with so many good games in just nine months!
Compared to Tengda’s success, Fei Huang Workspace’s achievements were not even worth mentioning.
It was no wonder that Boss Pei felt disappointed in Fei Huang Workspace.
Slightly embarrassed, Huang Sibo said, “Well… Boss Pei, do you think Fei Huang Workspace should venture into filming proper movies now?”
Pei Qian nodded. “That’s right. You’ve already worked on short videos and documentaries. The director and staff are all considered skilled now. What are you waiting for?”
Huang Sibo frowned. “Er… we don’t have enough money?”
Pei Qian smiled subtly. “If you don’t have enough money, you can film a movie that has a lower production value. If you’re still short on cash, you can ask me for more. How big of a problem is that?”
Huang Sibo looked like he was being put in a spot. “Well… the budget is only one problem…
“Boss Pei, it’s not that I’m being conservative. The problem is that filming movies and filming short videos are two entirely different things!”
Huang Sibo began to explain why he thought so.
Each episode of Boss Pei’s Daily Life only lasted a couple of minutes. Each episode of A Day in a Great Inventor’s Life did not last that much longer; on average, they lasted ten minutes. The longest episode only lasted half an hour.
However, a proper movie to be screened in cinemas had to last at least ninety minutes.
On the surface, it merely looked several times longer. However, underneath laid a massive difference.
A short video that only lasted several minutes could be made up of different comedic clips. The story could be messy and all over the place, but as long as it could make viewers laugh, the short video would be considered a success.
On the other hand, it would not be enough for a ninety-minute-long movie to merely make the audience laugh.
In order to produce an outstanding movie, the story had to be complete and pull at the audience’s heartstrings. That was far more difficult than creating a short video.
Coming up with comedic material alone would not be sufficient to create a good movie.
Many movies that had been produced to ride on web series’ popularity failed terribly, precisely because the producers were not powerful or skilled enough to produce a proper movie. They saw movies as merely extended versions of their short videos. That was where they failed.
“Boss Pei, that is why it’ll be very risky for us to try and produce a proper movie. It’s best if we don’t take that risk unless we’re a hundred percent confident.
“At the very least, we need to come up with a good script, right?”
Huang Sibo looked very earnest.
Pei Qian remained silent for a long time. It looked like Huang Sibo knew a lot about this!
However, now that he had put it that way, Pei Qian was all the more interested in producing a movie!
The high chances of failure were exactly what attracted Boss Pei!
Of course, at the end of the day, Boss Pei was still extremely benevolent. Since there were high risks involved and they were likely to fail, Pei Qian could not allow Huang Sibo and Zhu Xiaoce to take the blame.
As the saying went—if I didn’t go to hell, who would?
Boss Pei had to get ready to shoulder all responsibility for this!
After considering for a moment, Pei Qian said, “Since that’s the case, Tengda will fund the movie. I will think of a script. You and Director Zhu Xiaoce will just be in charge of filming.”
This way, Boss Pei would be solely responsible for the movie failing. Tengda would be the one incurring losses, and the morale of Fei Huang Workspace’s employees would not be affected.
Huang Sibo was evidently stunned. He quickly said, “Boss Pei, you’re mistaken. I’m not afraid of shouldering responsibility, I’m just—”
Pei Qian smiled and waved his hand. “I understand.
“You are the CEO of Fei Huang Workspace now. You have to be responsible for the projects you take up. It’s right that you are critically analyzing risks and ensuring that the workspace can generate profits.
“Just take this opportunity as part of your training. You can also take it as Fei Huang Workspace’s advancement in the filming industry.”
Huang Sibo’s eyes welled up.
He was touched!
He could tell what Boss Pei was thinking. Boss Pei was worried that if Fei Huang Workspace failed, Huang Sibo and Zhu Xiaoce’s confidence would be greatly affected. That was why he was offering to invest in this project and take sole responsibility if the movie failed!
However, no matter the final outcome of the movie, Fei Huang Workspace would surely gain a lot of experience during the filming process. That would speed up their growth.
Huang Sibo wanted to say many things, but he also felt that he would be acting too formally if he thanked Boss Pei profusely.
Finally, he summarized everything that he wanted to say in a word of thanks.
“We’ll follow Boss Pei’s instructions, then. Fei Huang Workspace will do its best to cooperate and do a good job of filming!
“There’s another thing, Boss Pei. Fei Huang Workspace cannot make you do all the work for nothing. We will pay you a hundred thousand yuan for your script. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s a token of our appreciation. Please don’t turn it down.”
Huh? A hundred thousand yuan for my script?
Pei Qian had just casually made the suggestion, but when he heard the figure, he perked up immediately.
“Alright! I’ll send you the first draft of the script in a few days!”
This was an unexpected surprise!
He had pulled a similar stunt when they filmed Boss Pei’s Daily Life back then. Pei Qian made a guest appearance in the short videos and earned a sum of money for playing himself.
Now, he had found yet another avenue to earn money.
He was going to be a scriptwriter!
The upper and lower limits of scriptwriters’ market pay were quite far apart. Top scriptwriters could earn a six-figure-sum for writing just one episode’s script. On the other hand, newer scriptwriters only earned a few thousand yuan—or over ten thousand yuan at most—per episode. Even then, they were expected to continuously alter the script at any hour of the day or night.
The System would probably find paying Pei Qian a hundred thousand yuan for writing a movie script acceptable. It would probably not be considered fraudulently acquiring System Funds.
At the same time, there was no need for Pei Qian to write the script in great detail. All he needed to do was offer an idea.
It was a perfect arrangement!
The two men chatted for a while longer until Huang Sibo stood up and bid farewell.
Now that they had officially decided to film a movie, Huang Sibo’s passion for work was reignited.
There was still a lot of work to be done when he returned to Fei Huang Workspace. The most urgent of which was to hire more employees.
…
After Huang Sibo left, Pei Qian opened a new document and began writing the script.
Pei Qian knew nothing about movie scripts.
However, since he was going to be paid a hundred thousand yuan for this draft, he had to make sure that he did a sufficiently good job. There was no need to come up with a mental outline: he intended to get straight to work on the new document!
“First, the genre!”
Without any hesitation, Pei Qian typed the words ‘science fiction’ in the document.
Sci-fi movies were the most expensive to produce. They were also the easiest to screw up since so many sci-fi films were horrible. It was perfect for Pei Qian, whose aim was for the movie to fail in the box office.
Having decided the movie’s genre, Pei Qian was already halfway to success!
Now, it was time to come up with an outline of the movie’s story.
Thirty minutes later…
The document still only contained the words ‘science fiction’.
Pei Qian heaved a long sigh. D*mn, I’m not cut out for this at all.
At first, he thought that he could just come up with a rubbish story that would insult his audience’s intelligence. However, when he wanted to start writing, he discovered that even coming up with a rubbish story was extremely difficult.
At that moment, Pei Qian wished that he could recall the storylines of all the horrible movies he had watched.
Unfortunately, Pei Qian was no movie enthusiast. He had only watched very few movies.
What’s more, he absolutely despised lousy movies. He would never catch the premiere of movies and would resolve not to buy tickets to watch them if they had a bad reputation.
Thus, Pei Qian could not recall the plots of lousy movies no matter how hard he tried. He was completely uninspired.
Every time he wrote a line in the document, he erased it and was left with the words ‘science fiction’ again.
Pei Qian scratched his head.
“I can’t go on like this. I need to alter my thought process. Hmm… I can write in opposites!”
Pei Qian suddenly thought of a brilliant idea.
Be it films, novels, or games; they were all the same at their core.
If one wanted to produce a good film, they had to be sure of what their audience wanted to see. Conversely, if one wanted to produce a horrible film, they just had to be sure of what the audience did not want to see, right?
Many lousy movies had empty plots that caused their audience to feel bored and drowsy. This was a good line of thought, but it did not give Pei Qian much to work with.
What was really bothering Pei Qian now was the movie’s concrete plot.
He had to settle on a concrete plot first and then dilute it as much as possible. Only then could he make the plot empty and bland, so that the audience would become bored and drowsy.
What kind of plots was the most annoying?
Pei Qian could not help but think about one of the concepts in the web novel industry.
Toxic points!
So-called toxic points referred to things in a plot that would make the reader feel unwell. A brown-noser[1] was an example of a toxic point.
At that thought, Pei Qian happily wrote another line under the words ‘science fiction’: ‘The male protagonist is a brown-noser.
As the saying went, brown-nosers deserved horrible deaths.
If the male protagonist managed to win the female protagonist over in the end, the toxicity of the plot would be greatly reduced.
Thus, Pei Qian wrote another line: ‘The brown-noser ends up with nothing’.
After some thought, he decided that the plot was not harsh enough.
‘The male protagonist was made a cuckold.’
‘The child was not his.’
‘The male protagonist wanted to raise the child, but the child absolutely hated him.’
‘After suffering blow after blow, the male protagonist lost his mind and decided to take revenge on society.’
Pei Qian pondered for a moment and realized something was amiss. “…No, the male protagonist cannot take revenge on society. After all, he’s a weakling.”
Pei Qian did not want this movie to become a superhero film about ‘Green Hat Man[2]’ or something. If the movie accidentally spread overseas and he won another award, he would be in deep trouble.
‘After suffering blow after blow, the male protagonist breaks down and chooses to kill himself.’
Again, Pei Qian felt uncomfortable. “Er… if he kills himself, it would serve as a mini climax for the movie. It’ll take the path of traditional sad films. That doesn’t sound good.
“The male protagonist should live the rest of his life in misery.”
Yet, Pei Qian struggled with this as well. “That doesn’t seem right either. It feels a bit too plain. I should give the male protagonist some hope for better times nearing the end and then ruthlessly destroy it.”
Then again, what kind of hope should he give the protagonist, and how should he destroy it?
Pei Qian could not think of good ideas at the moment.
However, he was not in a rush either. After all, he only needed to come up with a rough script in two or three days.
Just as he wanted to close the document, Pei Qian thought about something else and intentionally bolded the words ‘science fiction’.
He could not forget that this was supposed to be a sci-fi movie.
He had to make sure that sci-fi elements appeared in the plot, so that he could spend more money on props and special effects.
Of course, as to what kind of sci-fi elements he should add…
He had to think about it tomorrow.
Satisfied, Pei Qian read the general framework for the plot once through, from beginning to end. He nearly passed out from the toxicity.
The plot was toxic—it was incredibly toxic!
One could say that this plot was going to house all the toxic points throughout history. Pei Qian could not leave even one toxic point out.
Then, he would just have to enrich the plot, add a sci-fi packaging, and dilute the story.
After all that, his work would be done!
“Ai, I am such a ‘huge villain’.”
Pei Qian felt like he was naturally gifted in creating lousy movies! He should have entered the movie industry a long time ago!
[1] Brown nosing is akin to bootlicking.
[2] The ‘green hat’ is a symbol of a cuckold in China.
