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However, the problem of overspending is not in front of Li Xiaole, because it is not his turn to take care of the money at all.

Different from what most people imagine, Hollywood producers do not have the so-called financial power at all, and the investor's money does not go to Li Xiaole, the producer, but directly to the intermediary insurance company, the biggest difference between Hollywood and the film industry in other countries is that he has a set of film and television insurance systems that can be used as an intermediary.

As long as it is a formal film project, the production company has to pay a lot of insurance for each actor, every crew member and all aspects of the film.

These insurance costs are not personal accident insurance, but budget/contract level insurance, which means that no matter what problems occur during the filming, the insurance company must ensure that the film can be completed, and if either party to the production and investment violates the contract, the insurance company will also be responsible for binding and ensuring the interests of the other party.

For example, when the film was signed, the investor claimed to have a production fee of 50 million, but all the actors and directors signed the contract and filmed halfway, only to find that the movie actually only had an investment of 20 million, and the actor director had been driven out of the shelves and couldn't get off the stage, Chen Kaige's "Wuji" was like this, the amount of investors actually shrank significantly, which is still haode, and there are many investors who simply ran away halfway through the shooting. As a result, a film in progress becomes an unfinished building, and this kind of problem occurs in the Chinese film industry in large numbers every year.

And the reverse is the same, brokerage companies and producers often play investors, such as a large domestic brokerage company, often promising that a certain big-name actor will appear in a certain movie to find investment, but when the investor invests money to the filming money in the hands of the producer, the brokerage company temporarily replaces its own second-tier actors, making the investment company cry without tears.

The first level of insurance of the American film and television insurance company is to protect this, the investor's money is not in the hands of the producer, directly to the insurance company's accounts, so that the insurance company supervises and pays the remuneration, as long as the producer is found to have breached the contract, and the two parties cannot coordinate, then the insurance manager must compensate the investor in full for the investment.

Conversely, if there is a problem on the part of the investor, then the insurance company will also be responsible for contacting the new investor so that the film can be filmed, in short, the insurance company is similar to Alipay, which is the producer and the buyer and the seller.

Another role of the insurance company is to prevent overspending on film shooting, if in China, once the film starts shooting, the amount of investment is up to the producer, for example, Jiang Wen almost increased the original cost of each film shooting by two to three times, and the investor was choked enough, but with the insurance company as an intermediary, if it is found that the director and producer have squandered wantonly and exceeded the shooting quota, then the insurance company will take over the production rights of the film in accordance with the law of breach of contract to ensure that the film is completed to ensure the interests of the investor，

This time, Vidalk Miller, the insurance manager sent by Sony, is an extremely experienced film insurance manager, he was very worried about whether he could control the ability of the crew in the face of an Asian director who had no experience in shooting films in the United States, and after carefully reviewing the script and Jihua of "Life Remote Control", he found that although the Chinese director named Li Xiaole was very organized to shoot Jihua, he was exactly the same as he expected in terms of cost control, and there was a serious overrun problem.

The entire filming process of "Life Remote Control" is overspending by about 100%, the original cost of 35 million US dollars, he has spent nearly 20 million, although the remaining plot is not much, even if the post-production theory of 15 million is no problem, but the trouble is that there is a very expensive ring, that is, there is a considerable part of the future shijie scenes in "Life Remote Control".

Among them, those future buildings can be composited by computer production in the later stage, and the special effects team "Black Sails" from China is surprisingly amazing, and it is not difficult to complete this work, but the problem is that those future mechanical products are all close-up shots, and they must all be made of real objects to have a movie-level texture, and this very futuristic design is very expensive from design to production.

Although it can't compare to George Lucas, who spent nearly $20 million to build the high-tech equipment in the movie in Star Wars, "Life Remote Control" also needs at least $5 million budget to complete this part of the work.

And Li Xiaole's budget table obviously didn't pay attention to this part, or he has become accustomed to fooling the audience with some simple fake scenes in Chinese movies, after repeated calculations, Miller came to the conclusion that there is only $500,000 left to deal with this link, which makes Miller feel very helpless, a movie with obvious flaws is very unwilling to see he, an insurance manager.

Just when he wanted to talk to Li Xiaole, what he never expected was that Li Xiaole took the initiative to come to him and make a speechless request.

"Miller, I'm going to shoot a scene that I didn't have a script, I have to rent a cemetery, I have to hire about 50 extras, I have to have elaborate costumes, I have to have a professional priest, and I have to have a choir that sings hymns...... It takes about 500,000 yuan,"

Li ...... I'm afraid it won't work. Miller solemnly warned Li Xiaole out of responsibility: "Although I can't interfere with your shooting, I have the obligation to remind you that you have no room for budget now, if you shoot additional scenes and exceed the budget, then according to the insurance contract, the company will deduct the part of your producer's share, you have to think clearly, what kind of technology equipment do you still use to design the 500,000 US dollars......

"I know that all the responsibility is on me, and I have to shoot this scene." Li Xiaole's resolute answer made Miller feel very inexplicable: "Although this scene is not in the movie, it is the most important sublimation in the whole movie, if you don't shoot this scene, then this movie is just an ordinary summer popcorn-like comedy, if it is filmed, it will become a really good movie, believe me~ Miller, this is a scene that can bring $100 million at the box office." ”

"Okay......" Miller looked at Li Xiaole's eyes and hesitated for a moment and finally sighed, of course he didn't believe Li Xiaole's "100 million dollar declaration", but as a film insurance manager, he had seen the same look in the eyes of many film directors, that kind of enthusiasm at all costs to achieve the goal, no one can stop such an enthusiastic artist, James Cameron was filming the Titanic, and even in order to give up his dividends to Fox many times in order to increase the budget of the film.

James Cameron succeeded, but he was only a special case, and the rest of the people who were 99% left to do so paid a terrible price, the most famous example is the Italian genius director Sergio Leon came to Hollywood with great ambitions, in order to make "Once Upon a Time in America" into the perfect classic in his mind, he overspent the film for 8 hours, and then cut it into a 2-hour version and released it after the box office was miserable, and finally lost his job and returned to Italy 5 years later......

Miller seemed to see another Sergio Leon, but he eventually nodded and said, "Okay, just do as you say." After agreeing, watching Li Xiaole go out satisfied, sitting on the office chair, Miller even gloated a little in his heart, because if this stupid Li Xiaole overspends, then the insurance company will get the producer's dividend at a small price, and he himself will get a lot of bonuses, but the price of a stunned young director's growth has to let him get benefits, why not.

In order to shoot this major scene, on the night before, Li Xiaole gathered the Mike family in the film, Henry, Jolie, the two old actors, Scarlett and Matthew, and the twenty-year-old actors Jeff and Celine, who played their adult children, all to their rooms, and sat around to talk about the main points of tomorrow's shooting.

During this month's filming time, Li Xiaole can obviously feel that Matthew has gradually established a strong relationship with Henry and Jolie, his crew has always maintained a family-like relationship, and every day let the actors practice as characters when they are not on camera, it is easy to have emotional links with each other, not to mention that he especially asked Henry and Julie to take care of Matthew, Matthew has even begun to unconsciously enjoy this false father-son relationship, he doesn't know that all this is deliberately created by Li Xiaole.

Seeing Matthew and a group of young actors fighting separately, seemingly in a happy state, Li Xiaole coughed lightly to remind them that they had quieted down.

"Lee, what did you do when you came to us today? Do you want us to choose a suit for tomorrow's funeral? Matthew asked with that "Chand" smile, which caused both Jeff and Selin to laugh at the roots, and it was so funny to watch Matthew sneer at the director every time.

"I'm coming to you today because tomorrow's plot is very important, and we have a limited time to rent a cemetery for filming, so I want to give you some pre-event explanations, I think your performance is far from what I expected." Li Xiaole swept over the three of them sternly, and all three of them were stunned.

"Director, the emotion we want to express tomorrow is the sadness of the death of a loved one, we understand, we will ......all play it," Jeff, who plays Mike's son, tries to prove that he can understand what Li Xiaole means.

"You're right, you understand the grief and try to express it, but your problem is that you don't understand the grief of losing a loved one." Li Xiaole pointed out the crux of his problem with an expressionless face, Jeff is not bad, but he is quite far from the real haode performance.