Chapter 33: Make The Readers Suffer, I’ll Take The Blame
The company introduced two MV teams to Yu Wei. The first one was quite professional, with a quotation starting at four hundred thousand…
Scene setup plus rent ten thousand, equipment rental two hundred thousand, post-production editing not technically difficult, a few ten thousand should be about right.
The director has handled MV production for many big-name singers and even international singers, with spot-on aesthetics and award-winning works.
According to the company, four hundred thousand is considered low cost for them, with basically no profit, mainly because they see potential in him and want to connect.
Yu Wei believed this. Now many song MVs cost millions at minimum, and the wealthier ones have no upper limit, spending wherever it goes…
Actually, they were quite sincere, and their business capability was impeccable, but for him, it was still a bit too expensive, since he also needed to shoot a short film.
The only downside of expensive things is that they’re expensive.
“A, four hundred thousand…”
“BBBBB.”
In comparison, the second team was a bit amateurish, with a quotation under one hundred thousand, and no standout representative works.
Rumor has it they started out shooting advertisement films, and the company seemed to hint that he shouldn’t choose them, clearly not optimistic about them.
“Advertisement films are good.”
Yu Wei wasn’t just comforting himself. Many advertisement films have plots, and even if the ultimate purpose is selling goods, they can tell a complete story.
Nowadays, song MVs have lots of meaningless camera shots, emphasizing various senses of imagery and visual impact, which doesn’t match the style of plot-oriented short films at all.
This somewhat specialized team was actually just right. The song MV just needs to be handled perfunctorily, while the short film is the core focus.
When Yu Wei chose the second amateur team, the person in charge of the Film and Television Department was dumbfounded. Young people really can’t cut it; they can’t even handle such a simple choice.
Just treat it as saving money for the company…
The short film was still in the preparation stage, but in Yu Wei’s novel, the plot of Sound Mixer was almost finished and could be wrapped up today.
In an entertainment novel, the movie shooting process only needs to be briefly mentioned. The key is the final product showcase stage.
Originally, Yu Wei planned to write about directly releasing it across the whole network, but that would be too bland and wouldn’t highlight the protagonist’s scoring system selling point.
The biggest fear in writing entertainment is deviating from the core. Many novels he’s read did that—great in the early stages around gimmicks, but inexplicably turned into ordinary entertainment later.
If we’re doing scoring, we have to do it from start to finish.
Then Yu Wei arranged a short film creative competition, similar to one episode of Director, Please Guide, where directors bring their own works to compete and can also mutually evaluate and score.
The protagonist is just an ordinary contestant, but due to his bold “crossover” behavior, the competition process caused a huge uproar.
Competing, showcasing, showing off…
This set of process is too classic. Readers are all veteran bookworms who’ve read countless books. The protagonist enters a competition—anyone could guess with their feet that he’ll win an award.
A plot that’s obvious from a glance—Yu Wei didn’t know if readers would have the patience to keep reading, but he certainly couldn’t stand it.
This plot is like pre-packaged meal; you know the taste before it’s even served…
So Yu Wei decided to add a bit of salt. While the protagonist is acting, the antagonists are also acting. The film that Wei Yu gave a low score tanked at the box office, so they decided to strike back.
Smashing someone’s livelihood and cutting off their wealth—this deep grudge makes it unreasonable for them to just quietly watch the protagonist show off. Taking action is inevitable.
The flop film’s investors didn’t want to swallow a silent loss, so they directly launched a public opinion war, starting rumors that Wei Yu had pre-contacted the competition organizer to preset the champion.
Wei Yu needs the competition to prove his crossover, and the organizer needs his built-in traffic—this is indeed a fact…
Once such rumors spread, even if Wei Yu wins the award in the end, he’ll be called undeserving. If he doesn’t win, he’s just plain bad.
Getting the award or not, he’ll be cursed either way—it’s an open scheme.
Is there a solution to this situation? Of course. Use absolute strength to shut down the gossip. As long as netizens recognize this film, the so-called preset won’t exist.
If you can win fair and square, why rig the match?
It’s still the routine of competing and winning awards, but Yu Wei added a new sense of anticipation. The award must be won, but without taking a loss.
“Wei Yu, you’ve suffered these days. I’ll clear your name right now!”
Yu Wei grabbed his keyboard and started writing, preparing to put a period on the Sound Mixer plot.
[At the end of the competition, Wei Yu took the finale spot.
The audience seats erupted in enthusiastic applause. This was the one they anticipated most, not just because of the singer crossover gimmick, but also due to off-stage factors.
Director Deng’s microfilm was of high standard earlier. If Wei Yu’s film couldn’t beat it yet still won an award, then the competition would indeed seem fake…
Wei Yu knew what the audience was thinking, but he didn’t care much, just following the process to give his introduction.
“The work I’ve brought, Sound Mixer, tells of human voyeurism. Facing a blind person, would you be wary of them?”
Compared to an introduction, Wei Yu’s words were more like a question. Everyone exchanged glances, feeling this topic was intriguing.
Then the big screen began playing his contestant work. The film started dark, followed by a piano piece.
No wonder it’s called Sound Mixer—this is a music short film related to piano? If so, this film should be decent, after all, Wei Yu’s musical talent is beyond doubt.
But the subsequent development completely exceeded everyone’s expectations. The short film’s opening was quite eerie—dark scenes aside, there was even a corpse.
You call this a music movie?]
“Writing any more would be spoilers.”
With the idea of not spoiling readers in advance, Yu Wei simply described a few key scenes from the short film, then ended the plot with the short film’s open ending.
Forget spoilers—for readers who haven’t seen this film, it might as well be a heavenly book…
“You’ll forgive me after watching the short film.”
Yu Wei himself didn’t quite believe this. The big brother who listened to Heart Wall back then still hasn’t forgiven him and keeps shouting in the comment section for a confrontation whenever he’s free.
Actually, due to information gaps, readers were used to him writing such vague plots, but today Yu Wei was about to do something even more offensive…
Verse 36, new song.
“First time doing clickbait, no experience, hope you go easy on the cursing.”
He didn’t want to, but to exchange works, he had to lure readers in and kill them. Gossip party would definitely click in for the hype of a new song.
Yu Wei didn’t want it to be too misleading either, so at the end, he echoed back with an on-site audience question:
“When is Wei Yu releasing a new song?”
It felt like posting chat records in a group chat titled beautiful legs, with a few pictures attached, but inside it’s all chicken legs…
It is beautiful legs, no issue there. Just tell me if my chapter has new song elements—can clickbait even be called deception?
Make readers suffer a bit; he’ll take the blame.
After they finish the short film and listen to the new song, they’ll still forgive him… probably.
After posting the new chapter, Yu Wei didn’t dare check the backstage messages and directly opened the system panel.
[Novels’ literary works: Heart Wall, Sound of Rain, Sound Mixer]
[Exchange requirement: Chapter 36 follow-up read count greater than 500.]
[Exchangeable works: None]
[Exchanged works: Heart Wall, Sound of Rain]
The data requirement had indeed gone up again…
Yu Wei took a deep breath, then hesitantly opened the author backstage, where a glaring “Author poet holds” stared him in the face.
“Wasn’t it a new song? Where’s the song?”
