Xingning City Culture and Media Bureau, Animation Department.
Xu Cheng sat at his seat at the desk by the window. He looked at the documents in front of him casually, thinking about the food pairing for tonight while leisurely turning the pen in his hand.
His work has always been very leisurely.
Compared to the film and television department next door, which is often too busy to be found, he only needs to look at the forms submitted every day to make sure that the works do not contain any content that is not suitable for children, and then he can sign and release them. Under normal circumstances, production companies that are clear about the review standards will not make mistakes at this stage. For this reason, this initial registration review is just a simple process.
Of course, everything has its pros and cons. His job is simple, but because Blue Star Animation has always been less developed than film and television, the treatment and performance of the animation department will be somewhat inferior.
It’s just that due to the favorable policies of Blue Star in recent years, the animation department has also been doing much better in recent years. Especially with the long-lasting cash cow of commercial animation, Animation Films, the animation department has also entered a mode of easy wins, which is really great.
Thanks to Huaying and Muxuxing.
Just like a senior high school student praying to the God of Examination, after thanking the animation department's cash cow, Xu Cheng continued to flip through the pages. It was at this time that the familiar words "Huaying" suddenly jumped into his field of vision.
Huaying has a new work?!
Xu Cheng was refreshed and no longer felt drowsy. He immediately flipped through the table in his hand and continued to read -
Title: The Old Man and the Sea
Original: Hemingway
Production company: Huaying
Producers: Mu Suxing, Li Lianggong, Xin Zongyi, Tan Qingyi, Xia Yongyuan, Zhang Ru, Chen Yidan, Wang Mengke, Lin Hongxin.
Xu Cheng:
Wait! This is the list of producers!
Xu Cheng pinched his arm and found it really hurt, then he couldn't help rubbing his eyes. However, the string of names clearly visible on the black and white paper told him clearly: Yes, that's what he saw.
Xu Cheng felt like he was going crazy.
What kind of divine lineup is this
Not to mention Mu Suxing, to this day, the name of this young man is almost a guarantee of profit, and he can be called a walking cash cow in the industry. No matter whether it is animation, comics or games, wherever he goes, there is no such thing as loss. As for the series of names that follow, they still exist in animation textbooks today.
Tan Qingyi is a famous oil painting master from Blue Star, founder of the New Oil Painting School, and judge of the National Fantasy Film Festival.
Xin Zongyi is an internationally renowned animation master and pioneer of Chinese animation. His works are famous for their grand scenes and profound inner portrayals of characters.
Chen Yidan, director of the Blue Star Animation Institute, became famous for his feature-length art animation "Strelitzia". His works have even been recommended to the mayors of Toronto to help them understand the local social situation. He is a master who combines illustrators, cartoonists and novelists.
Wang Mengke, Zhang Ru, Xia Yongyuan…
Xu Cheng swallowed hard, and felt that his breathing seemed to become rapid.
Has Muxuxing captured all the artists in the entire Blue Star animation circle
No wonder Xu Cheng couldn’t believe it.
In fact, when the country just issued policies to support animation, the director of their animation department had thought about inviting some well-known artists to create animations under the leadership of their animation department. However, each time, they were either rejected by some old artists or the quality of the animation scripts was not up to standard, and eventually nothing came of it.
How did Muxuxing get these old guys
Or, from another perspective - what kind of animation script did Muxuxing come up with that convinced these arrogant artists and made them willing to become one of the many producers
Thinking of this, Xu Cheng suddenly felt hot inside.
What can make these artists excited must be artistic animation. And isn't artistic animation exactly what their animation department lacks the most right now
What kind of heaven-sent political achievement is this
Thinking of this, Xu Cheng could not sit still for a second. He dropped his pen and jumped up from his seat. Without even asking his secretary for instructions, he hurried to his director's office!
"Director, big news, big news! Very big news!"
The door of the office was pushed open with a bang. Seeing the employees in his department panicking and not caring about anything, the director frowned unhappily: "Xiao Xu, I'm not saying anything bad about you, but people who work here have to be calm and steady. Look at you now, what do you look like? Looking at your posture, people who don't know would probably think we're some celebrity paparazzi agency."
Xu Cheng panted: "No, no, Director, it's Mu Suxing..."
The director understood: "Huaying has a new work? That's right, The Prince of Tennis has already ended, and the Harry Potter series will be released next year. There will definitely be a new work in the gap between them. This is not the first time that Huaying has a new work, why are they so flustered this time?"
As he took the form from Xu Cheng, he glanced at it casually: "Pfft—"
After a brief moment of shock, a wave of ecstasy surged into his heart. The director put down the form and walked back and forth in the office, muttering to himself:
"These old guys have always looked down on commercial animation, so the animation will definitely be an artistic animation."
"For these animation masters to be willing to come down the mountain, the animation script must be at the master level, right?"
"This Muxuxing is really a talent..." The director couldn't help but exclaimed. As the director of the animation department, he has also seen the development of Huaying over the years, just take the recent tennis animation as an example. Every time he thought that Muxuxing had brought him enough surprises, the latter would always release another super-large satellite!
Thinking of the major and minor political achievements in the past few years, the director immediately made a decision in his mind.
"Xu Cheng, go contact Huaying and tell them..." The director stopped talking halfway. He looked Xu Cheng up and down and shook his head in disdain: "Forget it, forget it, I'll do this kind of important thing myself. You go inform others that our General Administration should also take proper care of advanced enterprises like Huaying that support national policies."
Xu Cheng understood.
What the director meant was that as long as there was nothing particularly out of the ordinary about Huaying's work, there was no need to nag about it and it should just be approved.
He had no objection to this. After all, whether it was Huaying or Muxuxing himself, their actions in recent years had been beneficial to their animation department and had no harm at all. It was natural to support such an enterprise.
The entire General Administration reached a consensus on this decision in an instant.
At the same time, the official Weibo account of Huaying Animation also announced the next plan of its boss.
It was still the familiar Weibo, and the familiar self-contained marketing, but the difference was the star-studded names in the producer column. Huaying did not need to hire additional water army. As soon as Huaying posted this Weibo, various news websites and marketing accounts did not even bother to verify the authenticity, and chose to repost it without hesitation!
No matter whether it is true or false, let’s earn traffic first. Even if it is fake news, Huaying will take the blame.
With this idea in mind, no matter what their relationship with Huaying is, almost all news websites and public accounts put this news in the most prominent position.
“The most dreamy production team ever!”
"Huaying's new work has booked the Eleanor Best Animation Award in advance!"
"Grandpa, your favorite animator has really updated!"
Netizens had different reactions to this news that instantly went viral:
"? Are the marketing accounts crazy for traffic? They spread all kinds of news randomly? Can you have some moral integrity? How much money did Huaying Marketing Department give you for the hype?"
"+1 for the marketing department going crazy. By the way, the person above is probably living in a dream. As everyone knows, Huaying has never had such a thing as a marketing department."
"Well, to be honest, I'm a fan of Huaying, and I also think this news is a bit outrageous. Tan Qingyi, Xin Zongyi... these are animation masters from many years ago. So many big names are coming out to accompany Xingxing to make a new animation? As a fan of Xingxing, I can't even imagine it."
"I checked the source of the news, and it turned out to be from the official blog of Huaying. This... I even checked the date. Isn't today April Fool's Day? What is Huaying's marketing department doing? Are they trying to commit suicide like the PR department? This is considered a scam, right? No one has come out to explain yet?"
"Manually tag the PR department of Huaying Animation. Don't commit suicide. Don't commit suicide. Come out and clarify the rumors immediately!"
While netizens were eating melons, they were waiting for the people from Huaying to come out and clarify the rumors. Then they waited and waited, but in the end, no one from Huaying came out and instead, one of the producers, Xin Zongyi, suddenly opened a Weibo account and posted his first Weibo post.
Xin Zongyi v: I am not good at playing with young people's things, so I will just try to post a random Weibo. I would like to thank Muxuxing and Huaying Animation's official Weibo for giving me this opportunity. I am honored to join the production team of "The Old Man and the Sea".
I am crazy about the fans of Huaying Public Relations Department:? !!!
"Oh my god! I've been sending private messages to Xingxing all morning asking him to come out and clarify the rumor, and now you're telling me that this is actually true?"
“Oh my god, I suddenly realized that the marketing account actually said something truthful instead of using clickbait as a headline… This is really an update from the animation producer that my grandfather likes!”
"Stop talking. This animation department freshman is already confused. Is it likely that there are people with the same name as Lan Xing? Aren't these animation masters highlighted in college textbooks?"
Not to mention that netizens were in a state of confusion, Huaying and Mu Suxing's phones were also bombarded with calls: there were reporters who wanted to know the exact news and invited Huaying's people to participate in media interviews; there were director friends in the circle who sent their blessings; and there were also many famous and unknown animation industry practitioners who recommended themselves!
Mu Suxing expressed his gratitude to all his close friends in his circle of friends. As for interviews with reporters, Mu Suxing refused them all. He was not prepared to stand on the crest of the wave until the production of The Old Man and the Sea was completed.
As for the industry practitioners who came to him on their own initiative, Mu Suxing did not reject them immediately. He only asked them to leave their contact information and representative works on Huaying and he would consider them later.
Huaying had no intention of marketing, and Li Lianggong and others were not the type to like hype. With the production team deliberately keeping a low profile, the popularity of "The Old Man and the Sea" naturally dropped after less than a month.
Of course, this does not mean that the audience is no longer interested in this animation, but more people keep this expectation in their hearts and patiently wait for the day when the animation is officially completed.
At the same time, the topic of animation did not end there.
As "The Old Man and the Sea" gradually withdrew from the hot search list, an article titled "The Animation Era is Coming" suddenly jumped onto the hot search list. The author of the article is a two-dimensional blogger with millions of fans. In the article, he analyzed the development of the Blue Star animation industry in recent years, and pointed out that nowadays commercial animations such as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" have broken the box office record as animated films, and artistic animations have many animation masters from Blue Star leading the trend. It can be seen that with the support of the Blue Star government, the era of animation is about to come.
The entire article is well-reasoned and every conclusion is consistent with reality. Therefore, after this article was published, it was immediately approved by everyone.
really.
From a business perspective, not only has Huaying's annual profit been rising year by year, but this year countless companies have rushed to enter the animation industry, and many entertainment companies that originally focused on TV series and movies have also begun to get interested in animation.
From an artistic point of view, the names listed in the production team column of "The Old Man and the Sea" are enough to eliminate all doubts.
With such a thriving animation industry, why can't it usher in a golden age of animation
…
"Anime era...?"
Mu Suxing raised his eyebrows meaningfully and put down the magazine in his hand.
In fact, it is not just the magazine in his hand. With the spread of the article on the Internet, coupled with the influence of "The Old Man and the Sea", the entire animation industry is now full of hope for the future. The statement "the animation era is coming" can be seen everywhere. Even when he travels these days, he often bumps into reporters asking him about his views on the upcoming animation era and the position of Huaying.
Mu Suxing did not comment on this and as always refused all interviews.
Inside the office, the clock on the wall pointed to ten o'clock in the morning.
Muxuxing turned around and sat down at his desk. Because the serialization of "The Prince of Tennis" had come to an end and the work on "The Old Man and the Sea" had not yet officially begun, he was in a relatively idle state, and the entire desk seemed relatively blank.
Except for the two pieces of paper in the middle of the desk.
At this moment, the pen writing on the white paper still has a drop-like luster, obviously it was written not long ago. The left paper clearly wrote several major events that have happened in the animation industry this year, and the paper on the right wrote another future in a parallel world.
Mu Xuxing lowered his eyes and stared solemnly at the two pieces of paper in front of him.
Last August, Qianye Entertainment was on the verge of bankruptcy due to its first CG animation film and fell apart. Its CG animation studio was acquired.
In February this year, Ye Changlin's "Sound of Rain" was released.
In May, Ji Xinrong's first commercial animated film "Grass and Trees" was released, but it suffered a box office failure. Animation filmmakers were hit hard and countless animated films were defunded.
June, July, August…
Everything happened just as he remembered.
And in the coming future—
From August this year to the end of this year, Yunsu Group will acquire Bluestar's animation studio with certain strength and launch a pan-entertainment plan, which is to form a comprehensive business chain from novels to comics, games, animation, TV series and movies.
At the time, this was considered good news for the animation industry.
Considering the animation industry as part of a huge business chain, doesn’t this mean that the animation industry will only get better and better in the future
However, Mu Xiuxing, who was familiar with the development of later generations, knew that this was not the case.
What was mistakenly believed to be the beginning of the animation era at the time was nothing more than the last false prosperity of the Blue Star animation industry and the beginning of a nightmare for all animators on Blue Star.
Neither profound artistic animation nor interesting commercial animation is what Yunsu Group wants. What they want is a boring but stable money-making template. As for other things, such as whether Yunsu Group's behavior will lead to the bankruptcy of countless production companies and the careers of countless producers, and whether the colorful animation of Blue Star will be replaced by assembly line fast food animation -
This is beyond their consideration.
Just like they did to the gaming industry.
In his previous life, he was powerless to do anything about it, but fortunately in this life, all this has not yet begun, he is not unprepared, and there is still room for things to turn around.
The gunpowder has been buried for so long, it's almost time to detonate it.
Thinking of this, Muxuxing no longer hesitated.
"Hello, Brother Sheng? Come back early tonight. Um, I have something to talk to you about." He held the phone in one hand. Although he knew that the person on the other end couldn't see it, he still curled his eyes and smiled: "I promise, you will be interested."
After doing this, he put down his phone, got up and walked out of the office.
The sharp-eyed assistant came over immediately. Without waiting for the other party to ask, Mu Suxing looked down at the time on his watch and briefly instructed: "Notify the management to have a meeting at 10:30."
Du Yutang was stunned and subconsciously looked at Mu Suxing again.
It’s not that there was anything wrong with Mu Suxing’s order, but as an assistant, he instinctively felt that his current boss seemed a little different from his previous bosses, but he couldn’t tell exactly where the difference was.
But this is obviously not his business.
He bowed his head slightly and responded respectfully: "Yes, President Mu."