Perfect Superstar

Chapter 234 – Influence

This episode of “Star Interview” took nearly 70 minutes to complete.

This meant that more than one-third of the content would be cut and not appear on TV screens.

But it didn’t matter. The song “When You Are Old” alone was enough to make this episode of “Star Interview” very exciting.

After the interview, Mu Rong even felt a little unsatisfied.

She had hosted hundreds of episodes of the show, but there are very few that give her the same feeling.

Perhaps to make up for her regret, Mu Rong specially invited Lu Chen to sit in a coffee shop near the television station.

She wasn’t alone. She was accompanied by a deputy director of the variety channel program group at Beijing TV Station.

This deputy director, surnamed Zhu, was a burly man from the north with a straightforward personality and a loud voice.

Director Zhu, of course didn’t come out to chat for no reason. He was interested in the upcoming TV series “Autumn In My Heart.”

To be precise, it was Beijing TV’s second channel that was quite interested in this TV series.

In fact, since Lu Chen posted on his blog the news of shooting “Autumn In My Heart” with Chen Fei’er as the female lead, there have been quite a few units interested in this weekend TV series.

There were television stations, advertisers, intermediaries, and more often entertainment brokerage companies.

The former came to inquire, while the latter hoped to get a role.

Although Lu Chen was a newcomer in the film and television industry, with Chen Fei’er as gold-lettered signboard, even if the TV series turned out to be a big flop, it would still attract a lot of attention, and there were no shortage of people willing to bet on it.

Currently, the domestic film and television industry in China has a large scale, with the number of TV series produced each year increasing steadily, reaching a quite alarming level.

At least 90% of these produced TV series couldn’t be broadcasted on provincial and central TV stations, and many of them couldn’t even attract local and municipal TV stations. They could only be put online, relying on click-through rates to make some money.

The truly powerful online media also only select high-quality productions to promote.

So, like Lu Chen, who originally didn’t belong to the film and television industry, and who was a newcomer, suddenly have the whim to write his own scripts and play as the leading actor, pull in investments and find cooperation partners to make a TV series was really incredible.

But this kind of “nonsense” was playing out well, making many people envy and jealous.

In the final analysis, Chen Fei’er was the key.

“Autumn In My Heart” was Chen Fei’er’s TV series debut!

By relying solely on her gold-lettered signboard, they could save millions in publicity and hype costs. It was quite normal for Beijing TV’s second channel to be interested. Even now, taking advantage of the opportunity of “Star Interview” show to contact Lu Chen has been considered very reserved.

But Director Zhu really found the wrong person when he approached Lu Chen about this matter.

“Autumn In My Heart” was indeed a project led by Lu Chen, but when it comes to investment, publicity, and sales matters, he handed it all over to his sister, Lu Xi.

So, when Director Zhu tried to make an inquiry, Lu Chen could only give him Lu Xi’s contact number.

Selling TV series to TV stations was a very complicated matter.

Generally speaking, based on episodes, prices could range from tens of thousands to millions. There were too many factors that affect the prices, such as the script, actors, directors, themes, and so on.

Furthermore, it could be sold for the first broadcast to multiple TV stations, or exclusively to one, with different prices.

In addition, if the first broadcast has high audience rating, the price of the rebroadcast would be very high. There were many examples where the first broadcast didn’t make money, but the rebroadcast made a lot of money.

However, more often than not, many TV series go door-to-door to sell or even half-sell and half-give away, but unable to achieve the desire results!

Therefore, even though Lu Chen could not promise anything to Director Zhu, he still remained very polite.

Who knows, he might request some help from them in the end.

Director Zhu also has his own reservations, and his interest in “Autumn In My Heart” wasn’t too great. If it weren’t for Chen Fei’er’s joining, it wouldn’t have caught his attention at all.

It was just that there were a lot of TV series being made, but the number of high-quality works or works that could sell very well was very limited.

Beijing TV’s variety channel was not only facing competition from its peers, but also competing for resources with other channels on the same platform.

In addition to the leading satellite TV, the second variety channel, the fourth lifestyle channel, the fifth movie channel, and the eighth youth channel all have fixed TV series programs for broadcast, with internal performance ranking implemented between different channels.

The higher the performance, the higher the reward, and the more resources one receives naturally.

Therefore, the outsourcing of channel programs was ubiquitous in order to save costs and improve efficiency.

But cost-cutting was not as effective as investing in a good program or high-rated TV series, which could generate great benefits and bring huge profits.

Now wasn’t a few decades ago. The internal reform of television stations has long been completed, and the competition mechanism was very mature

Although the second variety channel ranked second in the Beijing TV station, it has been closely followed by the fourth and fifth channel, which created a strong sense of crisis for them.

Director Zhu naturally felt a lot of pressure.

Buying a bad TV series or a good one can have different outcomes, and it could either make his position shaky or stable.

Therefore, he didn’t put on any airs towards Lu Chen, nor dig anything out from Lu Chen’s mouth. He wasn’t disappointed. He only wanted to establish a good relationship. If it was worth making a move in the future, he would be able to take advantage of it.

Under such circumstances, couple with Mu Rong’s cooperation, the communication between the two parties was very harmonious.

On November 15th at 8:30 pm, the new episode of “Star Interview” was broadcast on time on the Beijing TV variety channel.

This episode of the program has attracted the attention of a large number of Lu Chen fans.

Lu Chen had already posted an announcement on his blog, and even broadcasted the program content that night.

As a result, his new song “When You Are Old” became a hit!

This new song by Lu Chen had never been heard before, and as a song written for his mother, it touched the heartstrings of countless people. Video clips of his performance have been widely forwarded in blogs.

Songs that praise, eulogize, and cherish mothers were not uncommon in China, but they were basically melodic works with a preaching flavor, so their popularity wasn’t high. They were usually only sung at government or social group events.

This made “When You Are Old” even more precious. Its lyrics were not complicated, and could be said to be easy to understand. The melody was gentle and beautiful, and the requirements for singing skills weren’t high, making it easy to cover.

The guitar playing and singing style of folk songs was the most suitable for dissemination, coupled with the emotional feelings contained in the song, therefore it was considered by many music critics as one of Lu Chen’s best works, and was strongly recommended on blogs.

In the circle of pop music, people have once again seen Lu Chen’s talent.

Lu Chen seemed to have endless source of musical inspiration, always able to write beautiful and melodious works. Obviously, he was very handsome, but he didn’t rely on his face to eat. He did it with his songs!

Someone listed all of Lu Chen’s works on a forum, including his own albums and songs he wrote for others. None of them was mediocre, and each one could be a main or secondary track on an album.

The most annoying thing was that so far, all the works that have been officially launched by Lu Chen have been listed on the original music list, which was a record in itself.

In the history of China’s pop music industry, there might be singers or musicians who were more outstanding than Lu Chen, but none have produced works with such consistently high quality!

Many people were amazed by this and believed that the future of the pop music will belong to the era of Lu Chen.

Such high praise might be a bit excessive for the current Lu Chen. Some were amazed, some were jealous, some were disdainful, and some were         resentful!

However, the ups and downs on the internet have not yet affected Lu Chen, and he has no time to pay attention.

On November 16th, Lu Chen and Li Feiyu left the capital together and arrived at Jinling to participate in the opening ceremony of “Autumn In My Heart”!

…

Kaiyuan Community, Ningyuan City, more than 300 kilometers away from Jinling.

In the second bedroom Room 201 of Building 7, Meng Meng was sitting by the bedside, flipping through her textbook.

Her bone marrow transplant operation was successful, and there were no obvious rejection reactions. Coupled with her good physical condition before the operation, she was discharged from the hospital shortly after the operation and went home for recuperation, undergoing postoperative drug consolidation treatment.

According to the doctor, as long as there were no accidents, her leukemia was basically cured.

Now, with the rapid advancement of science and medical technology, even illnesses that were once considered incurable can now be treated. In the past, even if a bone marrow transplant was successful, the recurrence rate was also very high.

Now, with new drugs and new techniques, as long as there was enough funding for treatment and a successful match, there was a high cure rate.

And for this family, this was the best result!

It was just that Meng Meng was a little depressed. It was because her serious illness has caused her academic performance to fall behind. She would probably need to repeat a year of study in order to go to college, otherwise, she couldn’t even hope to get into her ideal school.

Although Meng Meng’s grades were average, she still wanted to work hard to go to college, even if it was just an ordinary one.

Suddenly, the door to the room was pushed open, and two girls wearing masks walked in.

“Meng Meng, we’ve come to see you!”

Meng Meng immediately smiled with joy, as they were her best friends.

She felt quite stifled at home, but she couldn’t go out for a short time. Moreover, her mother didn’t allow her to play with any electronic devices, and even her phone was confiscated.

So, the happiest time for Meng Meng was when her classmates and friends come to visit.

This time, her best friends didn’t bring flowers or fruits, but a thick stack of printed paper.

Meng Meng asked curiously, “What is this?”

Her friend smiled and said, “You’ll see!”

Mengmeng opened it and immediately saw the words printed on the first page of the manuscript paper.

“Autumn In My Heart” / Author: Lu Chen.

She widened her eyes in disbelief and said, “Is this a novel written by Brother Lu Chen?”

Her friend smiled and said, “That’s right, it’s going to be adapted into a TV series soon, and Lu Chen will be the male lead, with Chen Fei’er as the female lead. We’ll be able to watch it when you get better!”

Meng Meng tightly held the manuscript paper in her hand, longing to recover quickly.

She believed that the novels written by Lu Chen and the TV series adapted from them would be very exciting!