I Know Everything - Chapter 53
Chapter 53: One song moves an entire movie.
The next few days of shooting weren’t very fast but the shots were well taken.
The two Fang Shu in the ‘Love Letter’ didn’t require much acting skills.
The most important thing was they were suitable for the roles and that they show pure love in their acting in the key scenes.
But it didn’t need to be too intense such as love you to death or unable to live without you. Chen Huan and Han Dong’er’s acting didn’t need to be that exaggerated.
But one shouldn’t look down on exaggerated acting as not everyone could pull out a really good exaggerated acting.
Even people at the level of Yang Mi and Xu Xiaoming couldn’t pull it off.
They need to act like Ma Jintao in order to not annoy people. (Those are real actors the author is talking about, I didn’t get it since I don’t watch Chinese dramas but Yang Mi is really pretty though.)
While they were shooting, Chen Huan also paid attention to get more familiar with Han Dong’er.
In the movie, the two people never talked about their feelings but they definitely had some chemistry between them.
Therefore, there must at least be some tacit understanding between Chen Huan and Han Dong’er.
That connection was quite simple. As long as some people lived together long enough, they would start to develop some form of tacit understanding.
Chen Huan was just doing that. He would chat with Han Dong’er whenever he was free and talk about different topics.
Of course, it was impossible for Han Dong’er to say much to him. When they started chatting, it was mostly, “Oh.”. “En.”, “Huh?”. It was already considered a lot.
But Chen Huan didn’t get discouraged as he persisted with it.
This made the nearby Sun Yan feel vigilant.
You little gigolo, you want to seduce our family’s Dong’er?
This afternoon after shooting a scene, Chen Huan originally planned to go chat with Han Dong’er but he saw Zhu Mei, Ding Lun and Shi Liyou come back with a grin on their faces.
“You guys won the lottery?” Chen Huan’s first reaction to them was this.
“Of course not!” Zhu Mei was still more restrained but Ding Lun couldn’t stop his excitement, “Xiao Huan, ‘Paper Kite’ first week box office came one! It’s 15 million!”
“15 million in the first week?” Chen Huan said with hesitation.
“Xiao Huan, you can’t be too greedy.” Shi Liyou seemed to have understood him as he said, “The box office of literacy films can’t be compared to those commercial films. First of all, the number of theatre screenings was limited. Xuanwu Filming got us to 200 screens, which is already a very good number.
The ticket price for artsy films was also cheaper as they don’t have 3D or IMAX screens and were usually around 15 yuan. Moreover, we can’t be like those blockbusters and it is already very good for us if we can fill 30% of the seats on prime time slots and weekends.
If we count it like that, do you think it’s still low for us to get 15 million in a week? You have to know even if we add the 1 million for advertising, the whole movie didn’t cost more than 7 million! With the box office this week, we already secured back the capital and the next week will be pure profit! If we wait for 3 to 4 weeks, it won’t be a problem for us to earn a dozen million more!”
“It was all thanks to Chen Huan’s ‘Mama Do You Remember’.” Zhu Mei also immediately praised him.
‘Mama Do You Remember’?
Han Dong’er, who was sitting boringly aside, perked up.
“What!?”
Sun Yan, who was resolutely guarding her little miss, suddenly exclaimed in surprise, “‘Mama Do You Remember’ was written by Chen Huan? Wasn’t Lu Xiaofeng a woman? How can it be him?”
Okay.
Chu Liuxiang wrote the books and Lu Xiaofeng wrote the song.
Chen Huan was paying homage to Gu Long as he thought his character’s name was poetic and artistic. (Gu Long is the one who wrote the books that featured the two nicknames the MC is using.)
Han Dong’er turned her head toward her agent.
Unless it was related to music, she didn’t go much online, much less Weibo’s news.
Last time when Han Dong’er and Bu Yiyi’s fans quarreled, Han Dong’er only posted that because Sun Yan warned her about it.
While they were filming, Han Dong’er didn’t usually touch her cell phone so she didn’t know anything that happened outside.
Sun Yan was completely different as she had to collect information all around and learn about fashion before she could come back and discuss it with Han Dong’er.
She explained slowly to the small empress after seeing her confusion.
These days, ‘Paper Kite’ was very popular. The reason wasn’t because of its more than one million box offices per day but because of the movie theme song.
The English song written by the newcomer Lu Xiaofeng and sung by the past second-tier rock singer Shui Qingshan had been trending in social media since the release of ‘Paper Kite’.
On the first day, more than twenty music or entertainment bloggers rushed to recommend ‘Mama Do You Remember’ to the masses. Numerous people were moved and got emotional when they listened to the song.
Amongst them, the user I Love Mantis Shrimp with 17 million followers was the most excited.
“I’ve never shed tears when watching a movie before but when I heard a friend recommend to go watch ‘Paper Kite’, and heard ‘Mama Do You Remember’, I couldn’t help but cry! The first thing I did was take the train back to my hometown and eat with my mother! Thank you Teacher Lu Xiaofeng! Thank you Teacher Shui Qingshan!”
Those Weibo celebrities, those professional celebrities in particular, had the most hardcore fans.
With their recommendation, everyone’s reaction was to search for the song.
Since it was the era of copyrights on the internet, it didn’t matter if you wanted to listen to it but one needed to pay if they wanted to download it.
But ‘Mama Do You Remember’ gave them a surprise as it was free to download on several major music streaming services.
The explanation given on the page was this,
“Teacher Lu Xiaofeng hopes that this song is written for mothers to not be involved with money so the copyright is free. Everyone is welcome to sing it if they wish to do so! But if it was used for commercial purposes, we hope you donate more money to charity and don’t let down the hard work that Teacher Lu Xiaofeng put into it!”
Look at this!
Look at this!!
How cool is that?
How kind and beautiful this songwriter’s heart was?
Based on this point alone, many already like ‘Mama Do You Remember’ and Lu Xiaofeng before they even listened to the songs.
Even more people shed tears after listening to the song.
Hardly anyone wouldn’t feel touched by it when it came to the deepest motherly loves.
There was no doubt that ‘Mama Do You Remember’ was very popular.
In just three days’ time, the song soared in the rankings of the majors’ music websites and became the top song.
Of course, this song being at the top was a bit hollow.
Because it was a free song, there would be obviously more people listening and downloading it.
But no one talked badly about it.
The first reason was that ‘Mama Do You Remember’ was just too good as numerous music celebrities had publicly praised it as a classic song. On the first day, Wang Tangyuan recorded his studio version and uploaded on the net with a sincere post,
“To my mother, to Teacher Lu Xiaofeng, to my peers and the next generation!”
The two heavenly kings Su Mo and Zhu Shengyu as well as Zhou Jing and Xu Ping, also sung ‘Mama Do You Remember’ and uploaded for everyone to see.
The rest of the second-tier or third-tier along with web celebrities also sung ‘Mama Do You Remember’.
With the support of these heavenly queens and kings, who dared to say that ‘Mama Do You Remember’ was bad? It was going against the mass and them.
The second reason was that ‘Mama Do You Remember’ was obviously a classic song that would make a lot of money without the need of publicity. However, Lu Xiaofeng decided from the beginning to let everybody download and sing it for free. This mindset attracted admiration.
The guy already let millions and millions of profit go, what could they say?
Were they qualified to do so?
Therefore, ‘Mama Do You Remember’ was very popular these past few days and it was trending highly.
It was because of ‘Mama Do You Remember’ that ‘Paper Kite’ could get such a good result.
Shi Liyou wasn’t wrong.
In fact, ‘Paper Kite’ first week was the best box office result from a literacy film this year!