Huayu: From charlatan to great entertainer

Chapter 146 Hollywood Agent
The Sundance Film Festival is held every January in Park City, USA.

Lu Kuan and Liu Yifei set out from Peking with their assistants Yang Siwei and A Fei, and transferred from San Francisco to Salt Lake City, the capital of Utah, and then took a bus to Park City.

The nearly 20-hour journey was too grueling. Boss Lu was in no mood to have an in-depth conversation with the blonde beauty who was winking at him. He just wanted to get out of the cabin as soon as possible with his heavy steps.

My feet finally touched the ground, and the cold wind of Salt Lake City blew in my face, which felt softer than that of Beijing.

A young couple walking among a group of colorful foreigners was very eye-catching.

The drive from Salt Lake City to Park City was very short, and everyone in the group leisurely watched the snow scene outside the window.

Utah is a typical inland state in western America. Its mountains and canyons are covered with lush jungles. Its unique red rock landforms and rushing rivers have attracted countless tourists.

In addition to natural landscapes such as the Great Salt Lake and Arches National Park, many classic films such as "Forrest Gump" and "Mission Impossible 2" were filmed at the Mormon Temple and Monument Valley here.

Park City, home of the Sundance Film Festival, is a quaint mountain town.

As the city had just hosted the Winter Olympics last year, it was very popular and many people were unable to book rooms during the film festival due to traffic congestion.

As soon as the four got out of the car, Yang Siwei chased after them, shouting.

"Director Lu, Xixi, something big has happened!"

"Someone from the studio sent a message, take a look."

Boss Lu was dissatisfied: "When faced with a major event, you should remain calm. Why are you panicking?"

He took the phone, and Liu Yifei also leaned forward.

Public Opinion Monitoring: [Young director Lu Kuan and "Road Girl" Liu Yifei were seen in a car together in broad daylight. They both got out after about an hour, and the man was seen throwing away an unidentified tissue.]

Below are a few MMS photos, of course, they are from Zhuo Wei.

"Fuck! You don't even know about the tissue, it's Xiao Liu's snot tissue, okay!"

Boss Lu started cursing, as if he wasn't the one who said he was calm.

He admitted that he bought the car with the intention of having sex in it, but you can't just slander someone's innocence like that!

"Hey, Lu Yao, please contact Blog.com immediately and block Zhuo Wei's account. Control public opinion."

The authority dog ​​has appeared, close the door, and release the water army!
The key point is that Boss Lu really didn’t do it. It feels so bad to be wronged!
This Zhuo Wei is the same. He has the nerve to criticize me based on a few unfounded photos. I want to criticize him!
Concubine Liu Yi stuck out her tongue in embarrassment, but judging from her expression, she didn't seem to care much.

She felt relaxed, as if she had never experienced cyberbullying before.

"Xiao Liu, you guys go back to the hotel first. I'm going to go to the film festival."

"A Fei, you stay with them. The country is in chaos, so please be safe."

Ah Fei hesitated and said, "Boss, then you..."

"I'm fine, here I am..."

Lu Kuan almost blurted out that he was familiar with this place, but he was familiar with it from his previous life.

Sundance is a paradise for independent filmmakers in the United States. Independent filmmakers sounds nice, but to put it bluntly, they are poor filmmakers, including students.

Lu Kuan and his roommates, who studied at the University of Southern California in their previous life, come here almost every year and sometimes bring their works to the exhibition.

If you happen to come across a dead mouse, you will become rich, just like Quentin.

Concubine Liu Yi looked suspicious. She seriously suspected that Lu Kuan had other intentions behind leaving them behind.

"Then we can go together. This is my first time here too!"

This was just her petty and lustful thoughts. Lu Kuan was planning to go find his gay friend from his previous life - Emil.

Emile is of mixed American and French descent and studied in the United States. His father died early and his mother is a Wall Street banker of Jewish descent.

This is also a guy who is obsessed with directing. In his previous life, he and Lu Kuan were partners who worked together in perfect harmony. They would submit low-cost independent films to Sundance every year.

I don't expect to be shortlisted or win an award, but it would be great if I could enjoy the food and lodging provided by the organizers. The main thing is to come and watch the film!

Boss Lu had no choice but to take Liu Yifei, the little follower, and asked Yang Siwei and A Fei to go to the hotel to check in and put their luggage away first.

Without Liu Xiaoli by her side and being in a foreign country, with Lu Kuan by her side, the little girl seemed to be more lively.

The snow on the ground was slippery. Liu Yifei pulled Lu Kuan's arm and looked around excitedly.

Boss Lu looked at her clothes with disdain. She was wearing a light red cotton coat and a blue scarf, which looked so tacky.

It was really that face that saved me.

"Xiao Liu, don't you think you're dressed like a country girl today?"

Liu Yifei felt aggrieved: "Really? I think the combination is very good, it suits my youthful and beautiful girl temperament very well."

Boss Lu was too lazy to give her any scientific knowledge, she was just a mourner!
Hongxingwu should quickly hire a fashion expert and aesthetic mentor to improve the little girl's outfit.

Boss Lu came to the organizer's service desk, took out a movie guide, and went through the list from beginning to end.

The films in the main competition and non-main competition units will be arranged in order and illustrated, and the sample films submitted by him and Emil in his previous life will also be given a few pages of introduction.

This is to support the film dreams of independent filmmakers and poor students. It usually contains the film title, synopsis, genre rating and director's contact information.

This is to make it easier for buyers to find directors to discuss cooperation.

"What are you looking for? I've already seen our movie. It's in Hall 8 and it premieres the day after tomorrow morning."

"Shh, don't make any noise."

Lu Kuan stared at the tiny handwriting and searched line by line, but was interrupted by Concubine Liu Yi and almost had to start over from the beginning.

found it!
Rose and Phantom / Drama / NC-17 / Emile (France, the United States)
Fuck! This grandson!
Concubine Liu Yi leaned over to look at the small words and asked, "What does this mean?"

Boss Lu glanced at her and said, "It means you can't watch it now."

"No one 17 and under admitted!"

"Tsk, you went to see these things with Teacher Feng in Venice, why are you looking for them again at Sundance?"

Boss Lu now had to take the girl's feelings into consideration, and he had no choice but to defend himself: "I've heard of this Emil. He's a young director with potential. I want to ask him to do something for me."

He took Liu Yifei to a coffee shop and made a phone call immediately.

"Hey?"

"Is this Mr. Emil? I'm the winner of last year's Venice Golden Lion Award. I'm looking for you..."

He's not showing off, he's just saying that other people might not pay attention to him.

"Dudududu..."

Lu Kuan looked confused.

Hang up? Damn it, you think I'm a liar.

During this period, Americans still had strong self-confidence, especially Hollywood's cultural confidence.

Some of them even only focus on North American movies and ignore the three major European films.

It depends on the standard of measurement. Some films from the three major European countries are not even as popular as a local porn film.

Profit, this is the American people's standard of measurement.

Boss Lu held his forehead helplessly, thinking that if he tried again, he might be
"Xiao Liu, you will tell the story later."

Concubine Liu Yi was just about to laugh when she pointed at her nose in disbelief.

"Me? What do I say?"

"Just say you're a buyer from China Film Group and invite him to the lobby of the Sundance Resort to discuss cooperation."

It's just the hotel they stayed in.

"Okay! I'll try!"

Concubine Liu Yi was ordered to lie and looked very excited.

"Hello, is this Emil?"

Emil looked at the familiar number, but it was clearly a female voice with a very American accent.

"It's me, what's wrong?"

"I'm a film buyer from China Film Group, yes, China. Can you tell me about your film?"

Emile was overjoyed and put down the camera.

"Really? Do you Chinese watch foreign language porn too?"

Concubine Liu Yi rolled her eyes helplessly, then glared at Lu Kuan who was snickering beside her.

Look at the good job you found for me!
"We'll be waiting for you in the Sundance Resort lobby. See you later."

Boss Lu gave her a thumbs up and said, "Not bad, not bad. Your acting skills have improved. You can lie without blinking."

The Sundance Resort was the most expensive hotel during the film festival. After Emil hung up the phone, he thought that it was only a dozen minutes' drive away, so he decided to go and see what it was like.

Why not try your best? Maybe you can meet your mentor?

His film "Black Phantom" is a pornographic film starring a black woman. I didn't expect that there are such buyers with great aesthetic tastes in the mysterious East!
Emile walked into the lobby and looked around. There were very few Asian faces.

Suddenly, an Asian girl in a light red down jacket waved to him.

"Yes, that's him, the fat guy with a beard."

This is Lu Kuan giving her some advice.

"Hello, beautiful lady from the East!"

Emile was stunned when he saw the young-looking Concubine Liu Yi, but he wanted to kiss the back of her hand politely.

Boss Lu quickly pulled the little girl aside and offered her his big hand like a palm-leaf fan.

Emil, the bearded big bear who was over 1.9 meters tall, suddenly reacted and looked at him unkindly.

Who are you?

Concubine Liu Yi burst out laughing on the side.

"Hello, I'm Lu Kuan, last year's Golden Lion Award winner!"

Emil finally realized what was happening and his face flushed red. "You two teamed up to lie to me? Are you crazy?"

Boss Lu had no choice but to take out his cell phone and show him some photos from the Venice Film Festival.

Including photos with Quentin and Takeshi Kitano.

Emil was shocked: "Quentin!? Kitano Takeshi?! Are you really the Golden Lion Award winner?"

He really didn't pay attention to this gossip. He spent the whole last year in Congo shooting his porn film about black women.

Why bother? Come to Guangdong and ask locals to take the same pictures. "Guaranteed genuine!"

"Please sit down and let's talk."

Emile then sat down doubtfully, and the two began to talk.

He obviously did not inherit his American father's directing talent, otherwise he would not have made such a disgusting pornographic film.

After a few rounds, I was already impressed by Boss Lu's film papermaking.

"Oh my god! That's amazing! I've seen Mou's 'The Red Lantern,' and your 'Whiplash' is also participating in Sundance? I'll definitely go watch it and learn from it!"

Lu Kuan interrupted his flattery and got to the point.

"Emile, the lady just now lied to you. We are not buyers for China Film Group."

Before the Emir could get mad, Lu Kuan added, "I want you to open a film company for me in Hollywood. My company in mainland China will hold the majority stake. I'll give you 2% stock options in the subsidiary and an annual salary of $10."

Concubine Liu Yi looked at him in surprise, wondering why Lu Kuan suddenly set his sights on this fat man from the United States.

The development of the domestic film market and the international film market is extremely out of sync. He can roam freely in China, but Hollywood has its own rules and needs an agent with an American face.

Lu Kuan's current business empire does not yet extend to America. If he has to find a partner, he would rather trust this "movie-crazy" friend with whom he had been in his previous life for more than ten years.

He has a straightforward personality, without too many twists and turns. At USC, he just focused on making and producing films, and he has strong professional abilities.

It's just that his thinking is too wild and unrealistic, and he needs a qualified producer to suppress him. Some people are also a bit lascivious...

In his previous life, when Boss Lu was poor and destitute, he took the initiative to help him and sent foreign currency from the United States. This shows that a friend in need is a friend indeed.

What's more, he has a mother who is a Wall Street banker, who may be able to provide some financing convenience in the future.

Emile couldn't digest the news for a while. Not to mention the options, but this $10 annual salary?

That’s a lot for a poor student!
He was both shocked and suspicious.

"Why me? What am I supposed to do?"

Boss Lu counted off his tasks on his fingers: "Stock up on copyrights for the company in the North American market and prepare scripts for filing; help me recruit some special effects professionals from USC, NYU, and UCLA; and supervise production when my domestic company and Hollywood studios have co-productions..."

He spoke a lot in a very eloquent manner, and to sum it up, he was acting as an agent to help him implement his will in the United States.

"As for why you?"

Boss Lu paused for a few seconds before he said mysteriously, "Do you know Taoism? It's a mysterious Eastern religion."

Emil's eyes widened. "The Taoist priest with white eyebrows from Quentin's movie?"

The trailer for Quentin's "Kill Bill" has been released, and it's not surprising that Emil knows this role.

Boss Lu nodded, took the teacup on the table, dipped his index finger in the water, and "pointed at the dragon and snake" on the table!
Another fat guy! Another fat guy of Jewish descent!

Harvey: I know this trick.

"See? This is a Chinese Taoist talisman. I used it to predict you. You are the best candidate for my partner!"

Emile looked at Lu Kuan as if he were a fool. He didn't believe it, but he didn't dare not to believe it!
These days, the mysterious ancient Eastern country is still very mysterious in the minds of foreigners.

Boss Lu shook off the water stains on his hands and made a few "predictions".

"Your mother is Jewish, your father is Anglo-Saxon, and he's a heavy drinker."

"He died when you were fifteen. His three lovers came to his funeral. Your mother..."

Emil was shocked: "Stop, stop, stop! I believe it, I believe it!"

Concubine Liu Yi looked at Lu Kuan in disbelief. This fat man was easy to fool, but she was not!

How did Lu Kuan know all this?

Judging from the look of horror on the fat man's face, every word is authentic!

Boss Lu smiled calmly and stopped talking.

How did he know? He heard Emil bragging about it when they went to the health clinic together in their previous life.

It is said that his length and duration are inherited from his father, and his father was a romantic man until his death...

The three of them had dinner together in the hotel, and Emil was officially in the trap.

He soon received the first task assigned by Boss Lu.

"have a look."

Emile took the manuscript, which was an English script called "Paranormal Activity".

Liu Yifei turned her head and glanced at him. Lu Kuan had been writing this thing on the computer for a long time on the plane, and she had just taken it to print when she returned to the hotel.

It turns out it was prepared for this fat guy.

Emil quietly flipped through the script, and the "movie fanatic" quickly got into the mood.

A young couple moves into a haunted house, and the constant strange visions bother them, so they decide to use a camera to capture evidence of the haunting.

If I were to describe the plot of this incredibly cheap horror film, it seems like it could be summed up in just one sentence.

But Lu Kuan marked a very simple camera and lighting arrangement in the script.

Emil, a top student at a higher film school, devoted himself to acting out the scene in his mind and couldn't help but applaud the creativity of his old partner from his previous life.

The most amazing thing is the creativity of the film’s subject matter.

The simple storyline, in the style of a pseudo-documentary, maximizes the audience's sense of involvement.

Especially when a supernatural force slowly lifted the quilt while the woman was sleeping and suddenly pulled her off the bed, even Emil, who was just reading the script, felt a little cold.

Emil praised it highly: "It's amazing that you can achieve this effect with a handheld DV."

The first "Paranormal Activity" was a handheld film with a budget of only $1.1. This shooting method is commonly used in news and documentary filming.

The reason for using this method in the film, in addition to cost considerations, is to create a sense of realism of a pseudo-documentary, and show the fictional content to the audience like a real documentary.

Emil wondered, "Is this our first film project? It seems..."

He left some things unsaid. This film is certainly very creative, but two people went to great lengths to set up a film company just to make a movie with a budget of less than 2...

Isn’t it a bit too shabby?
He doesn't realize the value of this work and the entire "Paranormal Activity" universe.

Lu Kuan didn't say much to him for the time being: "This is just the first part. You should shoot it first. I'll give you a month."

"I plan to approach Lionsgate through Quentin's connections and introduce the film to them."

"But if we just handed the script over, the people at Lionsgate would tell you it's a bunch of shit and then turn around and write a similar script themselves."

With such low costs and easy-to-plagiarize creativity, moral integrity is dispensable. Hollywood filmmakers will definitely not let go of this piece of fat, even if it seems a bit dry now.

Emil pondered Lu Kuan's statement and asked, "Is the style of the back one the same?"

"Yes, I only wrote two or three."

"Let's shoot the first one first. After all, the cost is almost negligible. Then we can take it to Lionsgate to discuss distribution. Before that, we must register the copyright first."

Boss Lu said confidently, "If Lionsgate can't give me a satisfactory price, we'll release the DVD ourselves first and then find a distributor!"

In fact, this kind of filming method that is very easy to copy cannot be prohibited from being copied through copyright protection.

But before the first "Paranormal Activity" became a huge hit, no one would blindly imitate it.

All Lu Kuan has to do is to attract the attention of Lionsgate with a finished film, just like the Chinese-American director James Wan, so that the two sides can reach a deep cooperation and make a lot of quick money from this low-budget horror film.

After all, he has a script and creativity, but it has not been released, so he cannot do derivative business for the time being.

These are all business lines that need to be laid out slowly. The subsidiary of Wenjie (USA) represented by Emil is his first step into the heartland of American film.

James Wan, the Chinese-American director of the "Saw" series, will send a semi-finished film to Lionsgate this year. The latter is very interested and has invested a budget of 120 million US dollars in the production of the first film.

It’s too late to snag Saw now.

The only film that is easy to shoot, cheap to produce, and not picky about actors is the "Paranormal Activity" series, which is very consistent with Lionsgate's weird taste that is different from the traditional Big Six.

The first film in the "Paranormal Activity" series grossed $1.1 million at the box office with a cost of $1.93, and this was after it was first released on DVD and then adapted into a big screen film.

Don't be tempted to keep this astonishing input-output ratio for yourself.

It would be impossible for a "Hollywood newcomer" like Lu Kuan to achieve such results without the marketing and scheduling of film companies and theaters such as Lionsgate.

Film production is only the upstream link. If the post-production work cannot keep up, no matter how creative, high-quality and low-priced the product is, it will only rot.

Or it may be imitated and repackaged by someone with ulterior motives, and then become popular openly.

Boss Lu drank the lemonade with ice and felt a little chilled.

A foreigner is a foreigner, and this is the only thing he has in the cold winter. He missed the sip of hot tea in the courtyard of Beijing very much.

"You go to Los Angeles first to register the company. I will arrange for the registration documents to be faxed to the hotel internationally."

"Come to my room tomorrow morning to get the money, I will prepare the initial funds for you, and besides!"

Lu Kuan pointed at the script on the table and said, "I've already told you how to shoot Paranormal Activity. You don't need to have your own creativity."

"Oh yes, and this."

Lu Kuan then took out a script like magic, "Hard Candy".

"Take this and file it, register the copyright."

"Find the union actors and give me a week to finish it, including post-production. I will make an appointment with Lionsgate's buyers in advance."

Home by their parents, go out to rely on friends.

He knows Lionsgate, but Lionsgate doesn't know him. But everyone knows Quentin!

The tool man Quentin is online for a limited time. Considering the experience of Boss Lu taking him to Tianshang Renjian in Peking, maybe Quentin can return the favor this time.

We warmly welcome Mr. Lu, our friend who has come from afar!
On January 2003, 1, Pacific Time in the United States, the 16th Sundance Film Festival grandly opened in a park in Utah.

The Sundance Film Festival has its own distinctive style. It is a paradise and holy land for independent filmmakers.

The genius Quentin, the crazy and sad Robert, and the Coen brothers who were not famous at that time.

As well as the Chinese-American director James Wan mentioned above, they all made their mark here and are well-known in the world film industry.

It is worth mentioning that Zhang Yimou, who just premiered his masterpiece "Hero" in December last year, also brought "Ju Dou" and "Raise the Red Lantern" to Sundance in 12. At that time, he was officially called a maverick Chinese director and photographer.

The style of Sundance films is unique, and the style of the red carpet is also different from that of other film festivals.

But all this had nothing to do with Lu Kuan. He cooperated with Harvey to complete the entire publicity process, and then took Liu Yifei directly to New York to handle her denaturalization.

(End of this chapter)