Entertainment: I just want to be the boss behind the scenes

Chapter 146 Celebrity Reasoning Online Variety Show
The woman who came to visit was called He Chen, a program planner at Mango TV. She was currently preparing an online variety show with the theme of "Celebrities Acting out Reasoning".

"A mystery-themed online variety show?" Meng Bai pondered, "Something like ABC's "Who is the Real Murderer?"

"Who is the Real Murderer" is a "mystery competition reality show" produced by the American ABC TV station in 13, inviting more than a dozen guests from all walks of life to stay in a manor.

In each episode, one person will be "killed" by the murderer, and the survivors will need to deduce based on clues at the scene and ultimately compete for the grand prize of $25.

It has a bit of the flavor of "Snowstorm Mountain + No One Survives".

American reality shows like to have this type of show where a group of amateurs participate in competition.

Because they have a huge amount of prize money as bait, these amateur guests often burst into real human dramas that are more exciting than those of celebrities or scripts.

I can only say that this is an evil capitalist country that has a firm grasp on how to make money by exploiting human nature.

"Well, the subject matter and format are somewhat similar, but we are going for a different style." He Chen explained: "I wonder if you know about the Korean JTBC variety show "Crime Scene" last year, Mr. Meng?"

Meng Bai suddenly realized: "Oh, it's the Korean version. I've seen it."

Similar to "Who is the Real Murderer", "Crime Scene" is also a variety show with the theme of "crime reasoning", but it is much more fresh and clean than the American version.

The guests were changed from ordinary people to celebrities, and the competitive element was cancelled and replaced by situational role-playing. Its nature is closer to a board game called "Murder Mystery" many years ago, and it is a reasoning program that is more suitable for the physique of East Asian babies.

"Mr. Meng has seen it before, so it seems I don't need to introduce it further. We at Mango TV are also planning to plan a similar online variety show and are currently negotiating the copyright with JTBC." He Chen said in surprise.

As the leader of domestic suspense-themed web dramas, Arclight Films has been working on projects one after another. But even so, the core figure of Arclight, "Mr. Meng", can still spare the energy to pay attention to this relatively unpopular variety show project that has just been released, which shows the efforts behind it.

Sure enough, no one succeeds easily.

He Chen introduced to Meng Bai that just as "Soul Ferry" opened up the online drama market at the beginning of last year, "The Rap of China" in the second half of the year also opened up the popularity of online variety shows.

Mango TV is backed by Mango Satellite TV, and its main entertainment and film and television resources are basically in traditional film and television.

Faced with the gradually booming online drama market, they plan to find another way and open up the new track of online variety shows.

In the past two years, with the popularity of the second generation of Korean wave, many domestic entertainment producers have gone to the neighboring kimchi house to "purchase goods". It just so happens that in the past two years, Arc Light Films has produced several hit web dramas in succession, bringing about a wave of "suspense themes".

So He Chen and his team wanted to seize the opportunity and chose this "mystery-themed" project.

"It's a good idea." Meng Bai nodded, and then asked, "But what is the purpose of Producer He coming to us at Arclight? To be honest, we don't have any plans for online variety shows at the moment."

"It's like this. Actually, I came here this time to invite Mr. Meng to be the chief screenwriter of our new program." He Chen said readily.

For other types of variety shows, apart from the planning of the program itself, the content can also be directly copied from the original version.

For example, last year's popular "Running Man" had diving, acupressure mats, and name tag tearing, which were all game segments in the original version. You can just take them over and replace the guests.

But "mystery variety shows" are different. The core of the show is to let the audience and guest members deduce the truth of the case together, and the script is of paramount importance.

Not to mention that directly copying the program would lose its meaning, more importantly, many of the case methods and plots also have obvious national characteristics.

Instead of going through the trouble of making a localized adaptation, it is better to just rewrite the script.

"Yesterday at the seminar, I happened to hear you chatting with Mr. Liu from Leshi.com. You said that there were many unit stories that had been deleted before, and you wanted to find a good way to make them visible. That's why I came to visit you today specifically to discuss script cooperation with you." He Chen said.

When it comes to scripts with "suspense and mystery" themes, Arclight Films may not necessarily have the highest quality in the entire domestic film and television industry, but it is definitely the one with the most "internet feel" and the most ability to attract online audiences.

"How many issues do you plan to produce for one season?" Meng Bai asked.

He Chen introduced: "Twelve episodes, one per week, just enough to finish a season."

"That's equivalent to having twelve scripts." Meng Bai frowned and said, "Four scripts a month, and this kind of script is different from a movie or TV script. I'm afraid it will be too late if we rely on Arclight alone."

"Don't worry about that, Mr. Meng. Our project team has a small team of screenwriters, and we can also collect scripts from outside." He Chen said, "We invited you mainly because we hope you can be the overall gatekeeper of the entire program content."

Meng Bai now understood that this was equivalent to being a planning screenwriter in a film and television project, responsible for the overall plot. The specific details would be completed in collaboration with the junior screenwriters below.

"When do you plan to start preparing for this project?" Meng Bai asked.

"It will take some time, probably next month." He Chen said with a smile: "We have been waiting for the results of this seminar to be finalized before we dare to start."

Meng Bai nodded: "We have several new projects to be busy with recently, so time is tight. So, I will contact you when it is convenient at the end of this month or the beginning of next month, and we can talk about it in detail." "No problem!" He Chen was overjoyed: "Then I will wait for news from President Meng."

After seeing He Chen off, Meng Bai returned to his office and thought quietly.

To be honest, he is quite interested in this project.

It's not just about the program itself, more importantly, it is an opportunity to cooperate with Mango TV.

Although it is still a new platform, with the support of Mango TV's huge entertainment resources, Mango TV will have no problem maintaining its position in the "second tier" in the future.

And as He Chen said, some of the short stories he had written before that were difficult to integrate into formal projects can be fully utilized through this variety show format.

Perhaps, Arclight Pictures could add an online variety show department and try out online variety show projects.

However, in this case, it is not enough to have only a chief screenwriter responsible for the plot, he must at least participate in the planning and production.

Of course, I can talk to the other party about these things later. I can also take this opportunity to find someone to learn more about Mango TV and He Chen.

What is more important now is the preparation for the two projects "Forensic Qin Ming" and "The Best of Us", as well as the remaining filming of "The Disguiser".

Speaking of "The Disguiser", he happened to chat with Hou Hongliang about Wang Yuejun's situation during the seminar.

According to the doctor's previous advice, it would take her at least a month to recover and get out of bed.

But this girl is quite strong. It has only been more than three weeks, but she still managed to go back to the set and insist on filming despite her injuries.

If it weren't for her annoying agent who was always complaining that the character's plot was cut too much, Meng Bai would have a pretty good impression of her.

Just when I was thinking about calling Li Xue to ask about the progress of the filming, I didn't expect Meng Bai's phone to ring first.

I took a look and coincidentally, it was Li Xue's.

"No wonder this person is so annoying. I was just about to contact you, Director Li." Meng Bai joked in a light tone.

However, Li Xue didn't seem to be in a happy mood, and said in a deep voice: "There is a situation that I need to tell you."

"From your tone, it doesn't seem like it's a good thing." Meng Bai asked, "Is someone else injured?"

MD, the fact that it didn’t rain on the day of the opening ceremony did have an impact.

"That's not the case." Fortunately, Li Xue denied his guess.

"Then what else?" Meng Bai asked puzzledly.

Li Xue said in a tired tone: "It's still Chen Qian. He feels that Xiao Wang's role has been cut too much in the plot and wants to add more scenes."

"Fuck, didn't I tell him at the beginning that we made the plot changes because of the girl's physical condition? We would like to arrange more in the script, and her body has to be able to bear it."

"He knew the action scenes weren't suitable, so he wanted to add some to the drama scenes." Li Xue said, "He changed some of the plots himself. I'll send them to you."

Meng Bai opened WeChat and clicked on the file sent by Li Xue.

After just a quick glance, he couldn't help but frowning.

"Which idiot wrote this crap?" Meng Bai said, "If you show this kind of plot to a dog, even the dog will shake its head."

"Who said it wasn't?" Li Xue said, "But he is now using his status as a financier to pressure the crew to make changes according to their wishes."

"Let him roll himself up and throw it into a non-recyclable trash can." Meng Bai said without hesitation.

"Are you free now? If you can spare the time, come back." Li Xue said with a troubled tone.

Meng Bai took a deep breath and calmed himself down.

After thinking about the things on hand, it seemed that none of them had to be done in the next day or two, so he agreed: "Okay, then I'll deal with it here today and fly back tomorrow."

(End of this chapter)