novellhall Chapter 306 Teacher Chen Xun, I hope you can invest.
Chapter 306 Teacher Chen Xun, I hope you can invest.
Chapter 305 Teacher Chen Xun, I hope you can invest.
The project, which was originally planned to take six months, was completed two and a half months ahead of schedule because of Chen Xun!
Even the workload of adjusting the lip movements in the later stages is reduced by more than half.
Bian Jiang, holding the dubbing script in his hand, walked up to Chen Xun and bowed deeply: "Teacher Chen Xun, I have truly learned a great deal these past three months!"
"We've been doing voice acting for over a decade. We used to think that technique was the foundation, but now we realize that the characters are the foundation. What you taught us is something we can use for a lifetime."
Chun's voice actress also stepped forward with tears in her eyes, clutching the character's emotional breakdown notes that Chen Xun had written for her when they recorded the climax scene: "Teacher Chen Xun, without you, I simply couldn't have endured that scene, and I couldn't have portrayed Chun's spirit at all. Thank you so much."
The young voice actors around them chimed in.
Her eyes were full of admiration and gratitude as she looked at Chen Xun.
In these three months, they not only completed the dubbing of an animation, but also took a solid acting class.
[Affection for the animation's creative team +10]
[Professional voice acting reputation +10]
Subtitles appeared before Chen Xun's eyes.
He smiled as he accepted the bouquet of flowers from the staff, bowing slightly to everyone: "No need to thank me, this is a work we all completed together!"
"It is my honor to be able to accompany everyone to bring this film, which we have been waiting for for twelve years, to a perfect end."
The wrap party that evening was held at a restaurant near Enlight Media.
There was no extravagant display, but it was full of lively, everyday charm.
After several rounds of drinks, Wang Changtian pulled Chen Xun outside the private room and solemnly handed him the official cooperation agreement for the overseas distribution of "Big Fish & Begonia" once again.
"Chen Xun, I won't say anything more. For all of Coloroom Pictures' future projects, starting from script preparation, you will always have priority in collaborating."
"Whether it's voice acting, investment, or overseas distribution, Enlight Media will always reserve the best spot for you."
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Chen Xun smiled as he accepted the agreement and signed his name on the spot.
He knew that from the moment he signed his name, he was not only a participant in domestic animation, but also one of the core promoters of domestic animation going global.
The noise from the banquet continued.
Chen Xun's phone vibrated; it was a WeChat message from Robert, with two documents attached.
One document is a draft final agreement for the privatization investment of Bona Film Group. Yu Dong has finalized all the details and is just waiting for Chen Xun to sign it.
There was also a complete project document for "The Wandering Earth" sent by Guo Fan's team, as well as several missed call notifications.
Rob made a note in WeChat.
"Bro, Director Guo Fan started contacting us three days ago."
3
"Knowing that you were finishing up the voice-over work, I didn't dare to bother you too much. I just asked when you were free so I could talk to you about the project in person. He said he had all the materials with him and would come to find you wherever you were."
Chen Xun looked at the message, his fingertip paused on the screen, and a look of understanding flashed in his eyes.
He was all too aware of Guo Fan's situation during this period.
Three investors temporarily withdrew their investments.
With a funding gap of 6000 million, the project was on the verge of stalling, and the entire industry was pessimistic, saying that China could not produce hard science fiction. He was like a lone traveler carrying a torch, bumping into walls everywhere in the dark, and could only try his best to grasp every possible glimmer of light.
He replied to Robert, "Meet Director Guo Fan at a coffee shop near China Film Group at 10 a.m. tomorrow."
I put down my phone, but the toasting in the private room continued.
Chen Xun, however, had already begun to plan the layout of "The Wandering Earth" in his mind.
Bona's 5000 million investment has been finalized, and there is enough reserve funds for the later stages of "Crosscurrent".
With the dubbing of "Big Fish & Begonia" finished, he can finally free up his hands to catch the spark that is about to ignite the first year of Chinese science fiction.
The next day at 10 a.m.
An affordable coffee shop next to China Film Group.
It's a casual restaurant located downstairs in an old office building.
A cup of coffee costs a dozen yuan, and most of the people coming and going are film and television professionals who are running projects. They all speak in a low voice, and there are always stacks of scripts and project proposals spread out on their tables.
When Chen Xun arrived, Guo Fan was already there.
He sat in the far corner, with his back to the door, almost buried under the mountain of documents piled on the table.
Chen Xun only saw it clearly when he got closer.
The man wore a black windbreaker with a frayed collar and white frayed cuffs, paired with slightly dusty jeans and old sneakers with dried mud stains on the edges.
He was looking down, sketching on the storyboard with a pen, so focused that he didn't even notice someone approaching.
There was a stack of documents on the table.
Four neatly bound world-building books, with the title "Chronicle of the Wandering Earth Worldview V27.3" on the cover.
You can tell how many times it's been revised just by looking at the version number.
The storyboard, laid out in the open, was covered with dense drawings on every page, with even the lens focal length, lighting angles, and special effects parameters clearly marked.
Next to it was a stack of advisory letters from academicians of various institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, covering fields from astrophysics and earth sciences to mechanical engineering, totaling more than a dozen.
There's even a palm-sized 3D printed model of a planetary engine, with the airflow channels at the engine nozzle clearly depicted.
"Director Guo?"
Chen Xun gently tapped the table.
Guo Fan looked up abruptly, almost dropping the pen in his hand.
Upon recognizing Chen Xun, he immediately stood up and hurriedly began tidying up the documents spread out on the table, trying to make room for Chen Xun.
As a result, his elbow knocked over a water glass on the table, spilling half a glass of cold water all over the storyboard.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!"
Guo Fan's face flushed instantly, and he hurriedly grabbed a tissue to wipe his face, his movements revealing the awkwardness and naiveté typical of a science and engineering student: "Hello, Professor Chen Xun, I'm Guo Fan. I'm so sorry, there's too much material, it's a bit messy."
He looked completely different from the director who later made the "Wandering Earth" series and stood on the Golden Rooster Award stage.
He had none of the airs of a famous director, nor the aura that investors expected a director to have. He was like an engineering graduate student holding his graduation project, anxiously waiting for his teacher to grade it.
"It's alright, Director Guo, please sit down. Don't be shy."
Chen Xun sat down with a smile.
My gaze swept over the storyboard book, which was wet with water; the margins were filled with dense annotations.
Even the actors' movement patterns and the placement of props in the shots are clearly written down.
He immediately understood.
In his previous life, he had read countless behind-the-scenes stories about "The Wandering Earth".
Guo Fan forced himself to become an all-around STEM guy for this project.
With a background in law, he devoured textbooks on astrophysics and engineering mechanics in order to create hard science fiction.
They consulted four academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, revised the script more than two hundred times, and created a world-building setting of 80,000 words.
From the smallest detail like how much a bowl of noodles costs in an underground city to the grandest calculations about Earth's orbital trajectory, everything has been meticulously planned down to the extreme.
The two had just sat down.
Guo Fan didn't even bother to order coffee before he eagerly started talking.
There were no polite small talk, no empty commercial hype; all he said was "The Wandering Earth."
"Professor Chen Xun, I know your time is precious, so I'll just get straight to the point."
He presented the world-building set to Chen Xun.
The awkwardness from before vanished, and he felt like a switch had been flipped, radiating light from head to toe: "We've been preparing for this project for four whole years. It's adapted from Liu Cixin's novel of the same name. The core story is about the sun about to have a helium flash, and how humanity, instead of abandoning Earth, builds 10,000 planetary engines to take Earth out of the solar system and find a new home."
He traced the Earth's orbit diagram in the concept art: "The biggest difference between us and Hollywood sci-fi is the core!"
"When Western science fiction encounters the apocalypse, it always involves building spaceships and running away, and it's all about individual heroism. But we Chinese are different. Our attachment to our land and our homeland is ingrained in our bones."
"If the house collapses, we'll repair it; if the flood comes, we'll quell it; if the sun is about to explode, we won't run away, we'll take our homes with us."
"This is a kind of romance that belongs to the Chinese people, and it's something we absolutely had to capture on film!"
Director Guo Fan made ample preparations for this meeting with Chen Xun.
He took out the storyboard and explained it to Chen Xun page by page.
The planetary engine is 11 kilometers high, with a base diameter of 30 kilometers and a single-engine thrust of 150 trillion tons. This data was determined by an academician from the Institute of Mechanics who spent half a month calculating with his students, and it is absolutely in line with physical logic.
After the Earth stops rotating, the globe is divided into zones of perpetual day and perpetual night. The underground city is built beneath the engine, at a depth of 5000 meters.
The rice, its social structure, resource allocation, and education system were all fully set up.
Even the future monetary system, the design of soldiers' shoulder insignia, and the gear shift logic of transport vehicles have complete design drafts.
"We hired a domestic team for the special effects and produced a 3-minute test clip. The effect fully met our expectations."
As Guo Fan was speaking, he reached into his backpack to take out a hard drive, but in his haste, a thick stack of business cards fell out.
They were all from major film and television companies and investment institutions. The edges were worn and frayed, clearly indicating that he had carried them around on his person and delivered them countless times.
He hurriedly stuffed the business card back, a slightly embarrassed look appearing on his face. He scratched his head, and his tone became a bit softer.
"Professor Chen Xun, I won't hide it from you, the project isn't doing too well right now."
"The three investors who were originally slated to invest all withdrew at the last minute, saying that China couldn't produce hard science fiction and that my project was a bottomless pit from which I would definitely lose everything."
"The project currently has a funding gap of 6000 million yuan. We can't even raise enough money to start the team. If we can't find investment soon, the project will have to be put on hold indefinitely."
He said this to countless investors, but mostly he was met with perfunctory shakes of the head or arrogant demands.
They turned a sci-fi film into a romance film with a large following, changed the collectivism in the script to individual heroism, and replaced the lead actor with a top-tier young star.
He talked himself hoarse, traveling all over China to find investors, only to be either directly rejected or forced to make changes beyond recognition.
But he had no choice. This was China's only chance for hard science fiction, and he couldn't just watch it die in its infancy.
He has mortgaged his house, emptied all his savings, and even invested his wife's dowry in this project. He has nowhere left to retreat.
He looked up at Chen Xun, his eyes filled with a desperate gamble: "Teacher Chen Xun, I've come here today to invite you to join the game."
"You are an Oscar-caliber actor. With you here, both the credibility of the project and its subsequent distribution will be elevated to a higher level."
"We would be extremely grateful for any investment, even if it's only a few million."
"Furthermore, we would like you to make a cameo appearance in the film, which would make it easier for us to promote the film and attract investment later on."
He was even prepared to grit his teeth and agree to any demands that the investors might make, as long as Chen Xun was willing to invest money, even if they didn't cross any lines.
After all, this was the last straw he could grasp.