Chapter 829: Chapter 820: Calculating Against Each Other (6)

Who are these people! How could she compete with such people? And she even made a three-year agreement with her adversary, to see who would win two Best Actress awards within that time.

But with Xia Siyu’s cooperation, Shang Feifei was able to enter the second-floor audio-visual room for shooting. Han Yifan wasn’t idle either, helping her with lighting, monitoring equipment, and starting the shoot.

Bo Yan changed into a different outfit and drove out in another car, thankfully without attracting a crowd. After all, aside from a few artists like them, there were indeed other guests staying here. Paparazzi usually target vehicles and only tend to follow familiar license plates.

Today, his mission was to cooperate with a brand. The talks had been mostly settled beforehand, and today’s visit was for shooting an advertisement. The shoot today was slightly complex and would likely take a considerable amount of time.

Even Han Yifan, who had been criticized by Shang Feifei for “not focusing on his main business,” was busy today with preparations for starting his own company–he and Bo Yan had long been ready to work together. That’s why Han Yifan handed over the bar to someone else to manage, which wasn’t just for Shang Feifei’s sake; he had his own considerations too.

Bo Yan had plans to make a movie, and he didn’t want to depend on any one company. So he partnered with Han Yifan to register a cultural media company. The cultural company was established in his first year in the entertainment industry, and Bo Yan and Han Yifan used a bit of their own capital to test the waters.

These days, there are two models for making money in the film and television industry: one is to have quality content, a solid script, skilled actors, good marketing, and decent production. The other is small-scale production and investment. Actors are all newcomers, fresh from film and drama colleges. How small can the investment be? It could even be as little as one million yuan–low-cost, with distribution on platforms.

As long as the investment is sufficiently small, platforms can easily promote it to make a profit. And the company indeed made money. Because the actors were completely unknown, purely newcomers, their fees were low. Of course, even though they were greenhorns, Bo Yan did not pick them randomly. He had connections at N University and in the film academy, and he actually selected a few younger classmates. Whether they performed well or not was secondary; the key was that they were good-looking.

They were newcomers, so the projects given to them were either nonsensical historical time-travel or fresh campus stories–genres that newcomers could handle without needing much acting skill. As long as they weren’t wooden, a little grooming made them look quite attractive. Then it was about focusing on the content–the script had to be up to par. The directors were also experienced graduates from the film academy, personally interviewed by Bo Yan, not just talkers or empty-headed, but those with ideas.

The total investment in the first film was only five million yuan, which was essentially all of the cash Bo Yan and Han Yifan had at the time. The first year was for setting up, shooting began early in the second year, and by the end of it, the film was released. After its debut online, it didn’t explode in popularity, but the pay-per-view numbers on the platform were decent, with revenue sharing reaching thirty million yuan.

The profit may not have been huge, but it was a success due to the small investment. After deducting the costs of production and marketing, the net profit was twenty million yuan. In addition, the director, scriptwriter, and actors all received significant experience and practice. The platform had already renewed for a sequel.

Han Yifan, having closed the bar, was now focused on this venture. Though he didn’t interfere with scriptwriting, he insisted on quality content, putting pressure on the scriptwriter. Now that the company was profitable, he didn’t withhold payment from the directors and actors. The sequel was quoted at a higher rate.

Once this team was well-polished, it could be used directly for Bo Yan’s future film projects.