Traveling back to 1977

Chapter 708 No Need for Sales
With tickets in hand, there's no rush.

Unlike the anxious audience outside who didn't have tickets, the people entering the venue were orderly and disciplined, taking their seats after entering.

Chen Fan and his two companions were also looking for their seats. Movie tickets that could be used as gifts usually had good seats.

Jiang Lili took the ticket and looked at the seats. After looking at several rows, she quickly locked onto the location, grabbed Chen Fan's sleeve, and walked quickly there.

Go further in, and sit down. The screen is right above you, no need to look up, and it's in the very center—the best seat in the entire theater.

The three seats were connected. Jiang Lili was at the very back, and Chen Fan, whom she had pulled, sat in the middle. Jiang Tiantian was to Chen Fan's left.

Chen Fan looked left and right, sensing something was off, and tugged at Jiang Lili's sleeve, "Let's switch places."

Jiang Lili glanced at the girl to her right who had pressed down the seat, then turned around, her eyes filled with a question, "Do you know her?"

Chen Fan silently turned his head and saw that there was also a girl to Jiang Tiantian's left... What a coincidence?

Never mind, let's watch a movie.

Seeing that he was seated, Jiang Lili immediately lowered her head and smiled secretly. Then she put the bag in her hand on her lap and took out one item after another.

Sunflower seeds, peanuts, and soft drinks.

On the left, Jiang Tiantian was also carrying a small basket containing a thermos of hot water, as well as several packets of snacks and braised meat. These were all for Chen Fan, as the two sisters were worried that the movie would go on for too long and they might get hungry.

As for the two little monkeys and two raccoons, they were naturally left at home. Chen Fan warned them not to play with fire, or they would wet the bed at night. This scared the four little guys so much that they stayed far away from the fireplace even when they were warming themselves by the fire.

There were originally three gyrfalcons, but they were wild children who wouldn't go home until the sun went down every day, so Chen Fan naturally couldn't be bothered with them.

The two sisters' actions were just the beginning; once the people around saw this, they all took out their own sunflower seeds... but some started cracking them open, while others just held them in their hands without touching them.

The movie is at least an hour and a half long, and the melon seeds are limited; once they're gone, they're gone. Of course, you have to eat melon seeds at the crucial moments.

A few minutes later, a white beam of light shone onto the screen, and a rectangular image of light and shadow appeared on the big screen.

Chen Fan was quite surprised; it was a widescreen movie?

What a big deal!

The movie theater had just quieted down, but as soon as the light screen appeared, it was instantly filled with noise again.

Jiang Lili was also very curious and leaned closer to Chen Fan, asking in a low voice, "Why is this light screen so wide? It's different from the movies I've seen before."

Chen Fan explained, "This is called a widescreen movie. It was first developed by the French physicist Henri-Jacques Chrétien to solve the problem of visibility for tanks. He developed an anamorphic lens, which was later found to be applicable to film equipment. At that time, an experimental widescreen movie was also filmed."

However, due to cost and technical reasons, it was resisted by film industry professionals at the time and was never used.

Later, in the 50s, as television sets gradually became popular in the West, film companies applied this technology to movies in order to attract audiences.

The earliest cinema in my country to install widescreen equipment was the Shanghai Grand Cinema in 1958. It was originally intended to screen the widescreen film "The Veteran's New Story" produced by Shanghai Film Studio. Unexpectedly, Shanghai Film Studio used it for the filming of "The Ferryman".

Shooting a widescreen film requires 35mm color film, and the Shanghai Film Studio really went all out this time.

At this moment, Chen Fan suddenly remembered that when filming "Cloud Lake Love", 35mm color film was also used. Could it also be a widescreen film?

Jiang Lili smiled broadly, "Since this technology is so precious, it certainly won't be used casually; at the very least, the script needs to be good."

She didn't understand widescreen technology; she only knew that the film was adapted from a novel by Chen Fan, and that the more advanced the filming technology, the more attention Chen Fan's work received.

This is what is meant by sharing in the glory.

After a brief period of noise, images appeared on the screen, signaling the start of the movie.

The scene quickly quieted down.

A few lines of subtitles flashed by, one of which stood alone: ​​This film is adapted from the novel of the same name by the famous writer Chen Fan.

Surprisingly, this drew a round of applause.

Chen Fan was a little confused. Why was they clapping here?

Then he heard several people in the rows in front and behind him talking quietly about his newly published paper, and he suddenly realized and laughed.

These days, those who can afford to go to the cinema are mostly young workers or college students. Nowadays, movie tickets cost between 10 and 30 cents. For example, today's movie, because it's a widescreen film and the Shanghai Art Theatre has relatively good screening conditions, has a ticket price of 25 cents.

Moreover, the scarcity of tickets for good movies has given rise to scalpers.

Scalped tickets are ridiculously expensive.

For example, last year a short film called "Homecoming" was imported and screened in Beijing. The ticket price was only 15 cents, but scalpers were asking for 2 yuan, and the supply still couldn't meet the demand.

If Chen Fan hadn't gone to see this movie today and had instead taken the tickets to the door to sell, three tickets for five yuan would have been snapped up in no time. If he were even more greedy, he could have easily sold them for ten yuan!

At this movie ticket price, most people with elderly parents and young children wouldn't spend the money, and students who haven't gone to university probably don't have that kind of money either.

Therefore, only artistic young people who have both a salary or subsidies and the time and passion for art and literature will be willing to spend money to watch movies.

So it's perfectly reasonable to have a few college students around.

Chen Fan had visited several universities during this period, and was at the peak of his popularity among students. When they saw Chen Fan's name, they spontaneously applauded, which was quite natural.

After the applause, the movie officially began.

The first scene depicts the picturesque water towns of Jiangnan.

The camera begins in an ancient town, meanders along a small river, then speeds up, flashes past a lake, and enters another wide body of water.

A covered boat is crossing a small river.

The camera zoomed in again, and a handsome face took up almost half the screen.

Immediately, people below clapped and cheered, "It's He Lin! He Lin!"

Their enthusiasm was in no way inferior to that of later generations of star-struck fans.

Actually, He Lin's portrait and name were already on the posters outside, but I was just a little excited to see the person in person now.

Amidst the cacophony of noise, Jiang Lili suddenly turned around, tugged at Chen Fan's sleeve, and whispered, "You're prettier than me."

Chen Fan turned to look at her, his eyes full of smiles.

However, I was somewhat surprised. When did this girl become so bold?
I used to blush even when I spoke, but today I dare to express my love in this kind of setting.

Even though it was noisy all around and no one else could hear it, it was still quite unusual.

But it was still quite heartwarming to hear, especially since the girl's face was still flushed and her eyes were full of passion, making her look exceptionally cute.

He really wanted to pat her head, but this was a public place after all. Pulling on her sleeve was acceptable, but a head pat was out of the question. If he was so capable, he should take her outside, turn a corner, find an alley, hide behind a big tree, and as long as no one could see, a kiss would be fine.

So they could only hold hands in private, since they were down there and no one was afraid of seeing them.

As the film continues, the plot unfolds gradually before the audience.

Overall, it remains largely consistent with the original plot, but with dramatic twists that make it more vivid on screen.

Not long after, the female lead also appeared.

He's not a newcomer, but he's not very famous yet, at least not as famous as He Lin.

But in later generations, almost everyone knows her; that person is Pan Hong.

There was no applause when she appeared; only some people were whispering among themselves.

Under the cover of the chatter, Chen Fan squeezed Jiang Lili's small hand, leaned closer and whispered, "She's not as pretty as you."

Jiang Lili's complexion, which had just recovered, flushed red again, all the way to her ears.

Chen Fan held her hand tightly, looking at the big screen with a complicated expression.

Pan Hong also suffered a lot back then.

Her original name was Liu Rong, but when she was a child, her father was assigned to the right team. In order not to implicate her family, she chose to divorce and separate from the family. After that, she followed her mother, changed her surname to her mother's, and her name became Pan Hong.

But after the family separated, the father ultimately chose to end his own life.

Pan Hong was unable to continue her studies after graduating from junior high school and was assigned to work on a farm. It wasn't until 73, when the Shanghai Theatre Academy was recruiting students and she was admitted to the acting department, that she was finally able to escape her misery.

This experience is indeed somewhat similar to that of the two sisters.

However, Shen Xueyi chose to stand with her husband at all times. Despite the hardships the two sisters endured, they never complained about their father. They were eventually able to see the light of day again, which can be considered as having made it through.

Thoughts flashed through my mind, but only for a few seconds.

There were countless similar incidents in those years, and it wasn't just about Pan Hong and the Jiang sisters; there's no need to dwell on them.

This movie is quite long, a full 110 minutes, which is much longer than a typical feature film.

Having more content also has its advantages, namely, it basically presents all the content from the original work, which can be considered a complete success.

This gave Chen Fan more confidence in the second installment, "Love in the Clouds and Lakes".

After the movie ended, Chen Fan led the way, taking the two sisters home.

On the way back, Jiang Lili and Jiang Tiantian were still discussing the plot, while Chen Fan focused on driving and occasionally responded with a few words.

After a long chatter, they arrived home in no time.

Upon entering the house, I found two little monkeys sitting on the coffee table with a pile of hazelnuts in front of them. Surprisingly, they had almost finished shelling them.

Two raccoon dogs were squatting under the coffee table, looking up at them, as if waiting to be fed.

As soon as the door opened and the owner entered the house, the four little ones immediately ran over, vying for a hug.

The two sisters put the things aside, each picked up two items, played with them for a while, then turned around and put them on the coffee table before going to make tea.

Chen Fan was about to go upstairs to change his clothes when the phone in the living room suddenly rang.

He could only turn around to answer the phone, "Hello, who is this?"

He Qingsheng's voice came through the receiver, "You're really hard to find. I've been trying to call you for ages, and you're only getting through now."

Upon hearing it was him, Chen Fan smiled, turned around, sat down on the sofa, crossed his legs, and slumped on the sofa, saying with a smile, "Then you're quite lucky. I just came back from outside. If the call had been answered two minutes earlier, this opportunity would have been wasted."

Hearing this, He Qingsheng had no choice but to scratch his head and say, "When will this phone problem ever end?"

Upon hearing this, Chen Fan suddenly had an idea and smiled, “Actually, it’s easy to solve. Didn’t the news report that the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications has reached an agreement with the American company WMC to purchase their 10,000-line program-controlled exchange? With this, there will be no need for manual wiring, and it will be able to coordinate 10,000 telephones to make calls at the same time.”

How many telephones does a city have these days? And it's extremely rare for 10,000 phones to be in continuous use at the same time. Once the provincial capital purchases this program-controlled exchange, this problem of making phone calls can basically be solved.

He Qingsheng snorted twice, "That sounds nice, purchasing program-controlled switches? Do you think it's that simple? I heard that one such machine costs at least 400 million US dollars. Not to mention where you'd get so much foreign exchange, even if it were some kind of seller's credit, you wouldn't be able to contact that company."

With so many cities across the country, and over 300 dedicated zones, which place wouldn't want to use such a machine to solve its communication problems? Besides, you can pay after use. The key issue is that there are far more users than available machines—it's simply not enough!

Chen Fan clicked his tongue and chuckled, "Judging from what you're saying, you must know someone at the provincial capital's telephone bureau."

Could it be that a member of the Writers' Association works at the telephone exchange?

At the same time, a thought suddenly occurred to him: "Isn't it supposed to be at least $300 million? Why is it over $400 million?"

The next second it dawned on me: Oh, my uncle must have added a profit margin.

He has to repay bank loans and provide after-sales service, which adds up to over a million... That's outrageous!
Then He Qingsheng said, "Hmph, of course I know him. My son works at the telephone exchange, and I have to listen to his nagging every day. It gives me a headache."

Chen Fan clicked his tongue. "What a coincidence?"

He Qingsheng was slightly taken aback. "What's such a coincidence?"

Chen Fan: "I mean, can he decide on the purchase of the switches?"

He Qingsheng frowned slightly. "That's not what I meant when I heard you say that."

He paused for a moment, then continued, "This isn't a question of whether he can decide it or not. Their director has already spoken: whoever contacts WMC company first and gets the machine first will get a promotion and a raise. What do you say?!"

Chen Fan chuckled, "Oh, is that so? What a coincidence! You actually know the general manager of WMC Company."

He Qingsheng, who was sitting in his office, immediately stood up upon hearing this. "Who?"

Chen Fan, "My uncle."

He Qingsheng, "..."

The next second, he slapped himself on the forehead. "Why didn't you say so sooner?"

Chen Fan said, "He only recently decided to do this business, and I didn't even know that Jiangnan Province needed this equipment. How can I tell you? I can't just go door-to-door to sell it, can I?"

He Qingsheng's face was beaming with joy. "There's no need for door-to-door sales. Just spread this word, and I'm afraid you'll be overwhelmed by the noise!"

Chen Fan felt a chill run down his spine as he listened, realizing that such a possibility might actually exist.

This news can't be kept secret for long; it will get out sooner or later. If it's really as He Qingsheng said, then there will be no shortage of people looking for him.
No, I need to contact my uncle right away and get him to set up the office as soon as possible, so I can push people over there.

(End of this chapter)