There is no limit to the length of an episode of an American drama on Starz, most of them will exceed 50 minutes, and some will even exceed 1 hour. The duration of domestic TV dramas is fixed at 45 minutes.

If the mainland version directly adopts the content of the American version, it will first encounter obstacles in terms of broadcasting.

Must be clipped.

The editing of "Band of Brothers" ran into trouble, and it was cut into 14 episodes of the American version of "Band of Brothers" with 10 episodes, which broke the rhythm and messed up the rules, which was very unpleasant.

Since CCTV wants to participate in the investment in "One Bamboo Dingjin Mountain", it is definitely not the cooperation mode of "Band of Brothers", CCTV can ask to enjoy all the shooting materials, and then edit it itself according to the Chinese's own viewing habits!

The American version was too extravagant, deleting all the water-injected plots and only putting dry goods, resulting in a lot of shooting materials being wasted.

But in fact, the water injection plot is not necessarily useless.

The plot has ups and downs, and if it drags on, it can often increase the audience's expectations and prepare for the climax.

But there is one thing to be aware of.

Starz is a pay TV station! Subscription fees are extremely high!

It is irresponsible for the user to play the water injection episode in the Starz station. Moreover, the user group of STARZ station generally has a high level of education, has the ability to receive a large number of pure dry goods, and is not willing to waste precious time watching the water injection plot.

Compared with this, the other extreme is the stinky, long, and inked Korean drama.

This kind of TV series, commonly known as "soap operas", is dedicated to those housewives. They have a lot of time to watch TV and can do household chores while watching TV.

This leads to the fact that the content of the TV series must not be too deep and must not be too much information.

Even if you don't watch one or two episodes occasionally, the plot can still be connected.

This is important.

Otherwise, housewives watch TV while working, and they can't catch the plot without watching a single shot, so they abandon the drama.

In terms of China's current TV environment, the main market is also soap operas.

The plot should be simple, procrastinating, the information supply should be slow, and the audience should be given enough time to react.

This necessitates a lot of water injection.

With the failure experience of "Band of Brothers", Director Zhao has already understood that even if "A Bamboo Dingjinshan" is filmed well, if it cannot be edited into a version that conforms to national conditions, it will still not have too good ratings.

Tang En was able to understand Director Zhao's thoughts.

The American version of the editing is a set of pure dry goods and fast-paced.

The mainland version of the editing set must have complex branch lines and irrelevant dialogues, and elongate the content of the TV series by injecting water.

The American version has 10 episodes, and the mainland version can be expanded to 30 episodes.

"Director Zhao, this will be very troublesome, mainly for three points. Tang En frowned, "First, it will greatly increase the production cost. This part of the cost is not included in the plan of New Universal. ”

Whether it is a movie or a TV series, the post-production process is usually rough cut first, then rendering, color grading, ordinary special effects production, then fine editing, high-end special effects production, and then dubbing and post-production soundtracks, subtitles, etc.

The process varies from company to company, but the overall direction remains the same.

The production team will only post-produce the part of the footage that may appear on the screen, and most of the footage of the original dailies will not be post-processed.

Take "A Bamboo Dingjin Mountain" as an example, an episode is 1 hour, and the rough cut version is 2 hours. The production team then post-processed the 2 hours of rough cuts. After the rough processing, another round of fine cutting is carried out into a 1-hour version, followed by a more elaborate round of post-production. Finally, a round of final cuts and remedial revisions may be required.

This is the American version.

If it's the continental version, it's troublesome.

If you want to edit the mainland version of 30 episodes, you need to cut at least 50 episodes when you cut it! Even if the Chinese side asks for less, you must cut at least 35 episodes.

The post-production team then had to post-process the content of the 35 episodes.

The workload is far greater than that of the American version!

"A Bamboo Deposit Mountain" doesn't require much special effects, but don't forget, it was a story 100 years ago, and if you want to show the appearance and architectural style of that era, you have to use computer model processing and color rendering.

The American version has less content and less cost in the later stage.

The mainland version has a lot of content, and the cost is greater.

The budget of $40 million is simply not enough.

Director Zhao is an expert in the industry, of course he understands this truth, and said with a smile: "Boss Tang, you are too worried." New Universal just needs to make the American version of the starz channel on its own way. As for the continental version...... All you need to do is give us all the raw and processed sample footage, and we'll handle it ourselves. ”

"You deal with it?" Tang En shook his head repeatedly, "Director Zhao, it's not that I despise your strength. If you're going to borrow some of the post-production material that we've produced, and then you can make the extra part yourself, and then combine it into a 20 or 30-episode TV series, I'm afraid it's going to be difficult. Even if we told you all the rendering parameters without reservation, you wouldn't be able to do it. ”

The dailies are from 100 years ago and have dark tones. The original footage is live-action and is in bright tones. CCTV wants to post-produce the same color tone as the American side, which has a technical obstacle.

Not to mention CCTV, China Film is currently unable to print commercial blockbusters, mainly because of the technical bottlenecks of chromatic aberration, shadows, brightness, black spots, contrast and other aspects of rendering. It is still waiting for the qualification approval of the joint venture with Kodak.

Director Zhao was not surprised by Tang En's statement, and said with a smile: "If you just hand over all the materials and documents to us, this will naturally not work. However, I plan to send an experienced and capable post-production team to the United States to study and work with you on the American version of "A Bamboo Dingjinshan". When your people are done making it, our people will take over and make the continental version. ”

Tang En was stunned for a moment, looked at him in a daze, and then smiled, "Haha!"

Mr. Han also burst out laughing.

Director Zhao was still pale at first, but he was infected by the atmosphere of Tang En and Mr. Han, and he laughed without restraint.

As a result, the three women present all looked at each other, and they didn't know why.

The two hostesses were shocked that the always strict Director Zhao would have such a "presumptuous" side.

Qing Tian is the big eyes blinking, and the admiration is overflowing.

She didn't hear any cause and effect.

She only knows that it seems that the big boss of China Film and the director of CCTV are begging her godfather for help.

Ha ha!

Godfather is amazing!

What a feeling of happiness!

After laughing for a while, Mr. Han pointed at Chief Zhao and said, "Old Zhao, old Zhao, I have convinced you." Okay, if you can negotiate, I'll send you a few clever post-production masters. ”

Director Zhao hurriedly refused, "Don't, don't use it." We don't have many resources and talents. This is a hard-won opportunity to go abroad for further study, and I also want to cultivate a group of more talents for CCTV. ”

Mr. Han laughed and said, "Why go abroad to further your studies?

Tang En waved his hand and said, "From my Chinese level, you should understand that I am a good friend of this country." It's just a little trouble, it's nothing. ”

Mr. Han said solemnly: "Brother, we all see your friendship with the Chinese people. Yesterday, I also reported this matter to the leader. ”

Director Zhao said movingly: "Boss Tang, this is the first time I have seen a foreigner who can speak Chinese at this level, which shows your enthusiasm for cooperation with China more than countless paper evidence." On behalf of CCTV, I want to thank you. ”

CCTV was able to send a team to participate in the post-production of "A Bamboo Dingjinshan" and learn from it at close range. And you can also get hands-on practice after learning!

This experience is so precious!

Don't look at what Director Zhao said just now, when the post-production of the American version of "A Bamboo Dingjin Mountain" is completed, the team of New Universal can all be withdrawn, and CCTV's people will take over and continue to produce the mainland version.

However, they are inexperienced and incapable, and once they really run into trouble and need help, will New Global watch?

Tang En was able to say yes in person, which was a great kindness.

Tang En waved his hand lightly, "With the strength of New Universal, it is not a problem at all to produce "One Bamboo Dingjin Mountain" alone. I will choose to cooperate with CCTV just to help you. Of course, when you send the production team, you will have to bear all the expenses and additional expenses yourself, and this is a lot of money. ”

Mr. Zhao assured: "We have a special talent training fund to ensure that we will not cause trouble to New Global. ”

Don nodded, then frowned again, "But there are two more points. The mainland version has more content, which will infringe on the follow-up long-term interests of "A Bamboo Deposit", which is very serious. ”

Director Zhao didn't understand this statement.

China does not.

Don explained it to him.

In addition to the broadcast of "One Bamboo Deposit Mountain" on StarZ, one of the main sources of income is DVD sales.

The question is, many people have already seen it on the Starz stage, why do they still buy DVDs?

In the same way, most fans have already seen movies like "The Lord of the Rings" and "Titanic" in movie theaters, why are DVDs and videotapes still selling hot after they are released?

The reason for this is the extra content!

The DVD version will have more content than the release version!

For example, "Game of Thrones", DVD sales are crazy. Why? Because in the DVD version, more and more exciting content has been added!

The TV version of "Game of Thrones" is already yellow and violent enough. But after watching the DVD version, it's called an eye-stimulation.

Many unfinished scenes on TV stations will be shown heartily in the DVD version.

Of course, there are many TV station versions that have illogical plots because the duration is too short and the content is too small, and the missing content will also be added to the DVD version to make up for the loopholes.

Naturally, the mainland version cannot appear in any large-scale pictures, but the content will be richer and the logic will be clearer.

This is tantamount to stealing a part of the DVD market.