Chapter 269 Movie Special Effects Company (I)
Liu Hongmin: "Now that we have discussed the external reasons, what about the internal reasons?"
Wang Yaowei glanced at Zou Shifang, who said, "The internal reasons are actually caused by external factors. There are only so many actors in Hong Kong, and even fewer have been famous for a long time. Our company has Stephen Chow, Jet Li, and Andy Lau. Even He Jiajin and the Kung Fu Twins are second-tier stars. As long as we can poach one of them, a small company can gain a foothold in the film festival. Every day, a large number of companies want to poach our stars, famous directors, and even our behind-the-scenes staff."
"Fortunately, our company has always treated celebrities and employees well, so the loss is not big. On the contrary, many people have been poached from other major companies. But they seem to be happy with it and have even taken the initiative to terminate the contracts of many behind-the-scenes staff." Wang Yaowei said with a smile: "I asked around, and other companies can no longer support so many people because of the reduction in projects."
"So, our company's financial situation is good!"
Zou Shifang said complacently: "Don't you see who is pampering the finance department?"
After making a joke, he gave the reason, "Because we produce high-quality movies and TV series, each project will make a lot of profit. Although these profits may be delayed for some time, as long as the subsequent projects are not dragged down, we can easily recover the money from the previous projects. Especially when high-grossing movies appear, it is our time to settle accounts. If you want to obtain the copyright of high-grossing movies, you must pay the previous balance. Therefore, even if we can't get the balance back, we won't lose too much."
Tomorrow Films' annual net income is between HK$ million and HK$2 million, while the salaries of its employees are only HK$ to million. After deducting the dividends given to famous directors and stars, Tomorrow Films can at least save HK$ to million for the next year.
When the accumulation reaches a certain level over the years, dividends will be distributed. In the past three years, there have been two distributions, each time of 100 million Hong Kong dollars.
The three giants of Tomorrow Film Company are now all wealthy people with a net worth of tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars, and the richest one, Wang Yaowei, is worth over 100 million.
Apart from the dividends, Xu Xiaoming only had the salary and dividends of a director, and he didn't earn as much as Zou Shifang, who wrote novels. Wang Yaowei was different, he also wanted Liu Hongmin to manage the toy factory, so the toy factory would give him a bonus worth 18 million every year.
If Liu Hongmin were a businessman, he would sell Tomorrow Films in the next two years because the Hong Kong film market would decline in a few years, and Tomorrow Films would inevitably depreciate along with it.
Liu Hongmin has been weighing whether to list Tomorrow Films. Once listed, he can cash out the stocks in his hands. According to the scale of Tomorrow Films, it is no problem to get 10 billion or 800 million Hong Kong dollars. The reason why he is hesitant is that 10 billion or 800 million Hong Kong dollars does not seem to be a lot of money. He can earn it by writing a set of "Frozen Throne".
What's more, he has a large amount of Japanese yen from the Japanese, which would be worth tens of billions of Hong Kong dollars if he took it out.
It's time to find some time to take inventory of the Japanese' assets.
This matter should be handled by Zou Shifang.
"Old Zou, go check out how much assets I have with the Japanese!"
Zou Shifang nodded, "Okay, you guys chat first!"
After he left, Liu Hongmin asked Wang Yaowei, "What's going on at the toy factory?"
Wang Yaowei: "There are some restless elements at the toy factory. They are just waiting for your signature before I can take any action against them."
Liu Hongmin nodded. "Don't be sentimental. I have already paid them enough. If they are still greedy, then we will clear them all out. Those who are worthy of being sentenced will be sent to prison. If you do something wrong, you must pay the price."
Wang Yaowei took out a document and pushed it in front of Liu Hongmin. Liu Hongmin took a look and his face turned grim. There were more than a dozen senior executives. He signed his name in a few strokes and said, "Try to make this as big as possible, otherwise it won't have a deterrent effect."
"Okay!" Wang Yaowei continued, "Except for these people, the rest are small fry and can be fired directly. The toy factory has made too much money in the past few years, so these talents have become jealous."
Liu Hongmin sneered: "Even if they earn ten or a hundred times what they earn now, it's not a reason for them to have evil thoughts."
After talking about the toy factory, Liu Hongmin asked again: "Is Mai Zishan in the company?"
Wang Yaowei nodded, "Yes, he is working on the special effects machine."
"Oh?" Liu Hongmin became interested. "Take me to see it."
Wang Yaowei took Liu Hongmin to the newly built editing room. After pushing the door open, he saw Mai Zishan and a few others discussing around a huge machine.
Hearing someone open the door, several people immediately turned around to look over. When Mai Zishan saw Liu Hongmin, he immediately walked over in surprise, "Boss, are you back in Hong Kong?"
Liu Hongmin nodded, then asked, "How is it? Are the special effects of Source Code easy to make?"
Mai Zishan smiled and said, "It's just as we expected. It works, but there are flaws. We have synthesized about a minute of footage. Boss, would you like to take a look?"
"Okay!" Liu Hongmin nodded.
Mai Zishan asked him to sit down in the simple screening area nearby, and then personally took the edited footage and put it on the projector for playback. Soon, a picture appeared on the screen, a high-tech train speeding past tall buildings on a viaduct.
It can be seen that the style of the viaduct is very rustic, but the style of the surrounding high-rise buildings is very trendy. Obviously, this is a viaduct in a mountain city and a building in Hong Kong.
From the picture, you can see the blurred traces between the viaduct, train and high-rise buildings. People in the new century can tell the fakeness at a glance.
Wang Yaowei praised it highly, "Not bad! You have done a great job."
Liu Hongmin looked at him, but could not see any other emotions on his face. Obviously, for people of this era, such special effects are already very real. In fact, it is because people of this era have never seen special effects, and they have watched movies with poor picture quality for many years, so they don’t care about the blur at all and think it is because of the film.
"This is the special effects machine, right? How do you use it?"
Mai Zishan explained: "This is a cutout machine, which can combine two images into one. It was invented by the Americans. We spent more than 20 million Hong Kong dollars to buy this machine."
"It's really not cheap!" Liu Hongmin was also surprised. In the past, a mobile phone worth more than 2000 yuan was enough to cut out a picture. Now, a mobile phone that can only cut out a picture costs more than million Hong Kong dollars. It's simply unreasonable.
However, if you want to shoot "Source Code", you really can't do without this machine. Without it, Mai Zishan and others would have to cut the film frame by frame, and then stick it to another film frame by frame. It is time-consuming and laborious, and it is easy to make mistakes. Sometimes, the film rolls are all wrong and have to be re-shot.
(End of this chapter)
