In 1980, Mai Jia, Shi Tian, Huang Baiming, three young people set up an independent production company "Struggle", which was later injected by the Golden Princess Cinema Line and reorganized into "New Art City", both sides have ambitions to kill a blood road under the monopoly of Shao and Jiahe. When we first start working together, we still need to build confidence.
After the three people followed the "Crazy Old Thousand" and "Salted Fish Turned Over" full of pots, they had to continue to work hard and rush out two movies in 4 months. Because to go to the Christmas and Spring Festival stalls given to them by the Golden Princess, it is not only necessary to ensure that the film is delivered on time, but also to ensure the quality and box office, which is not small. Although it is said that the three stinky cobblers are zhuge liang, it seems that they still need to ask for foreign assistance to complete the task.
Mai Jia first found an old friend Wu Yusen and asked him to help shoot the entrepreneurial work of New Art City. Wu Yusen was still jiahe's resident director at that time, filming jiahe for them. That help new art city belongs to the outside to catch extra money, have to steal, can not use the real name, so the pseudonym Wu Shangfei. Shoot what? Wu Yusen wanted to shoot Chaplin, so he asked Shi Tian to imitate Chaplin and change the Great Depression era in the United States to the background of the Republic of China, and the title of the film was called "Funny Times". This funny era was launched in the Christmas slot in 1980, and the box office exceeded HK$5 million, which was a step higher than the previous two 3 million.
Immediately after the Spring Festival file launched the sister article "Happy Immortal Nest" of "Funny Times", looking for Wu Yusen's brother Wu Ma's director, Wu Yusen and Noon Ma are the same door, who is their master? It is the master of violence Zhang Che.
Wu Yusen and Wu Ma later co-directed the commemorative work "Righteous Courage and Courage" for the 40th anniversary of the film of his mentor Zhang Che, which is the last word. "Happy Fairy Nest" focuses on family fun, in which the scenes of children actors singing and dancing are very popular with family audiences. The box office launched in the Spring Festival slot once again exceeded 5 million, becoming the runner-up of the annual Hong Kong Spring Festival box office.
Who was the champion that year? It is the "Modern Bodyguard" that ranks on the Jiahe line at the box office of more than 17 million. At that time, before this, the Box Office of Hong Kong films has never been 10 million, this time "Modern Bodyguard" once again broke the box office record of Hong Kong's port, and it is a ride against the dust, New Art City's "Happy Fairy Nest" and "Modern Bodyguard" are compared, the box office is indeed a lot worse, but it is not shameful to be the runner-up, after all, the Xu brothers, especially Xu Guanwen, but before the emergence of Stephen Chow, the king of comedy in Hong Kong, so in this calculation, the three brothers of Mai Jia are also considered to be victorious in the first battle, and the two schedules of Christmas and Spring Festival have a good performance.
The golden lord's father, the Golden Princess, is very satisfied, but whether he can take advantage of the chase later is a nerve-wracking problem. After all, New Art City can cope with shooting two or three films a year by only three people, and if there are more than 5 films, it will recruit talents. They initially wanted Wu Yusen to join, but Wu Yusen was in Jiahe Big Company, he didn't want to come out, and he didn't think that New Art City would develop much, so he recommended Xu Ke to Mai Jia. Their understanding of Xu Ke is still a very avant-garde New Wave director, who has made three scenes that are not very commercial, of course, a little worried. But one is wu Yusen's strong recommendation, and the second is to know that Xu Ke is indeed talented, if you are willing to work together to make mainstream commercial films, there should be a chance.
So Xu Ke joined, but Xu Ke did not want to make "Crazy Old Man" and "Funny Times" this kind of rotten mountain film of the Republic of China, what is rotten mountain? It is the kind of humorous action movie of the Republic of China, and the people in the play are basically torn clothes. Xu Ke said that if he still shoots the Republic of China, then the background of the early years of the Republic of China will be changed into the kind of Western culture packaging, so he made a very exquisite cartoon comic style, which is also the background of the Republic of China, but it is the Western culture packaging of "Ghost Horse Zhi DuoXing". After the launch of this play, the reputation was very good, and he also won the Golden Horse Award for Best Director, and the box office also exceeded the 5 million of the previous works of New Art City, and he reached 7 million Hong Kong dollars, which was very popular in the Taiwanese market.
"Ghost Horse ZhiduoXing" was launched in the summer of 1981, and after it, New Art City launched a film starring Shi Tian, directed by Mai Jia, written by Huang Baiming, and the fixed team of the three brothers, "Chasing Girls". This time, it is no longer the rotten cottage film of the national background that they used to be good at making, but the fashionable life theme of Hong Kong's urban youth. "Chasing Girls" has a box office of nearly 9 million, which is also a great success.
"Ghost Horse Wisdom Multi-Star" and "Chasing Girls" have greatly improved their achievements of 5 million compared with the two films at the beginning of the year, and the theme has also changed. At the same time, the team has also changed from the original three brothers to the new Yicheng 7-member group, these 7 people are Mai Jia, Shi Tian, Huang Baiming, Xu Ke, Zeng Zhiwei, Teddy Robin and Shi Nansheng. Zeng Zhiwei is the younger brother of Mai Jia, a martial artist of Dragon and Tiger, who was already a screenwriter and director at that time, and the director's "Dirty Thief" and "Kicking Pavilion" are very successful kung fu comedies.
Teddy Robin is a well-known musician who has begun to work as a film producer during the New Wave period, mainly working with Zhang Guomin. Previously, McGarthal had also invited Teddy Robin to work together, but was rejected by Teddy Robin. Later, Xu Ke personally called him to ask him to play the male protagonist of "Ghost Horse Many Stars", although Teddy Robin and Xu Ke did not know each other, he had seen Xu Ke's "Butterfly Change" and was very impressed with Xu Ke's talent, so he gladly joined.
Another was Shi Nansheng, who was Xu Ke's girlfriend at the time and later became his wife. Shi Nansheng has worked in Jiayi TV and Li TV and has a lot of production and management experience.
These 7 people in the new art city, except for Shi Nansheng, all of them looked very skeletal, and their dress was also very different. Zhang Aijia, who later became the head of Taiwan of New Art City, recalled that she received an invitation to shoot in New City, came to Hong Kong, and when she saw these people who were wearing vests at the time, their appearance was so strange, they muttered in their hearts, should I not be deceived?
Later, Zhang Aijia found that although these people looked strange in form, they all had stunts, which could be called eight immortals crossing the sea, (there were also ridicules "strange pass") each had their own magical powers. In addition to Mai Jia and Shi Nansheng, the rest of the people can both choreograph and direct behind the scenes, and can perform in front of the stage. Specific to individuals, Xu Ke is good at vision, likes to explore film special effects, and understands that painting has artistic talents. Huang Baiming is considered a Wendang, and most of the films in the early stage of New Art City are written by him, of course, mainly collective creation, but the writing is completed by Huang Baiming. Zeng Zhiwei has a flexible mind, rich social experience, and is good at providing some interesting bridges. Teddy Robin is good at scoring, and new art city's representative works "Ghost Horse Wisdom Multi-Star", "Best Partner", "Dragon and Tiger Storm" and so on have all been added to his soundtrack.
Shi Tian is a good hand at the late stage of the film, he used to be a voice actor Chinese, so he attaches great importance to the dubbing of Chinese.
In the 1980s, Taiwan was the main market for Hong Kong films, and the Chinese of New Art City films were all controlled by Shi Tian, such as Mai Jia playing bald head and Jingtai in "Miscellaneous Family Boy" and "Best Partner", and the Cantonese version was interpreted in Taishanese, but the Chinese version of Shi Tian found Shandong dialect to match Mai Jia, forming the characteristics of Mai Jia. "Ghost Horse Zhi Duo Xing" was renamed "Night Incense" in Taiwan, and "Chasing Girls" was renamed "Bubble Girl", which was also Shi Tian's idea, and the results were all successful. Therefore, Shi Tian has contributed to the development of the Chinese market of new art city.
As for Shi Nansheng, they are called the housekeepers of the new art city by Mai Jia, and Mai Jia is so, with Shi Nansheng's supervision, our company has no peach news, and there will be no unspoken rules forcing its female artists to accompany customers to dinner. So the company's image is healthy.
Secondly, she is fair and knows how to protect artists. Later, the most popular artists in Hong Kong at that time, including Hui Guanjie, Tam Wing Lin and Zhang Guorong, were willing to sign a new art process, because they were willing to think about the artist, and the artist was assured to use it for you.
Third, Shi Nansheng is well-known and proficient in Chinese, Cantonese, English, and French, so the company's foreign affairs are basically hers. The so-called beautiful and capable, of course, is a good hand.
The boss of the 7-person team, Mai Jia, has the most overall view, and the judgment of all projects usually needs him to make a final decision in the end, and the docking of new art city and the capital Fangjin Princess is also his responsibility.
New Art City advocates collective creation of collective wisdom and efforts. After the Seven Stars Gathering, he would basically go to Mai Jia's house every night to discuss creation. Mai Jia's home has a room of less than 8 square meters, 7 people sit in it just enough to fill it, and one more person can only sit outside, which is the legendary small house called "Struggle Room". These 7 people have been discussing all night in it, and their role division of labor is also different when creating, for example, Selling Jia will first set a general direction, Xu Ke will come up with a lot of strange and unexpected ideas, and Zeng Zhiwei will design some interesting little jokes.
Teddy Robin, known as Luo Jibin, will find out what is illogical. Shi Tian is called "Pessimistic Stone", and he always thinks that there is a problem in the script here and there. Huang Baiming is "optimistic Yellow" because anything works with him. Because Shi Nansheng is in charge of administration, she will look at this project from the perspective of company development.
In short, each expresses its own opinions, and various angles compete with each other endlessly, but in the end, they will always seek common ground while reserving differences, first let Huang Baiming write, and then implement the collective supervision system, looking for a director to perform the shooting. In the smoke of the struggle room, many record-breaking classic entertainment films were born. The most famous of these is "Best Partner".
In 1981, new art city went from 3 to 7 people, and the box office of the films created and filmed also rose by a large margin. The signboard of New Art City Company has also been polished very brightly, which has impressed its peers in the film industry. But if you want to say that compared with the two major film empires of Shao Jiahe, the gap is still a big cut. Mai Jia and the 7 of them want to take advantage of the victory to pursue, and they must fight high in a battle, but what to shoot? The seven monsters of the new art city, after discussion, believe that it is necessary to break through the local production, take the modern city of Hong Kong as the background, join the international vision, the local skinhead detective theme, plus the 007 Bond-style secret agent film, Hong Kong-style action plus high technology, with this kind of big entertainment film, challenge the hegemony of Shaw's Jiahe.
However, to shoot such a large-scale production, it must cost a lot of money to make strong support from capital.
Second, we must have the wisdom and execution of collective wisdom and efforts. New Art City was fortunate to have the strong support of the Golden Princess, and the group of 7 people was extremely creative, so it quickly promoted the plan.
According to this story, there are two male protagonists, the bald detective is starred by Mai Jia, who is responsible for comedy and funny, in fact, New Art City also wants to praise its own people. Another character is a beautiful boy, who is looking for a popular idol. Originally it was Zhou Runfa who was looking for him, because he was just beginning to become popular at that time, and the price was not so expensive. But when asked if there is no schedule, I can only think of another candidate.
At this time, Xu Ke proposed to invite Xu Guanjie, and these people felt that this proposal was a bit fanciful when they heard it, because Xu Guanjie had always been paired with his brother Xu Guanwen to perform Xu's comedy. Xu's comedy is the comedy of Jiahe. In other words, Xu Guanwen is Jiahe's, and it is unlikely that everyone will go to Jiahe to pry people's corners. Xu Ke said that he had inquired that Xu Guanwen was Jiahe's person, and Xu Guanjie did not seem to sign it, and he had to try it when he had the chance.
Xu Guanjie is of course good, he and his brother Wen Wu Yingjie 4 people to cooperate in the comedy has broken the record. Before we mentioned "Modern Bodyguard" 17 million, the new art city drama is 7 million, and Xu Guanjie himself was also the most popular singer in Hong Kong at that time, Mai Jia and Huang Baiming then asked Xu Guanjie to meet. Xu Guanjie listened to them tell this story and said that he was interested, and Mai Jia felt that there was a drama in his heart, but Xu Guanjie's next sentence made him and Huang Baiming dumbfounded- Xu Guanjie asked for a salary of 2 million Hong Kong dollars.
What was the concept of 2 million at the time? At that time, the cost of a medium production in Hong Kong was around 1 million, and the "Funny Times" in the early days of New Art City was this cost. If it is a big production, the production cost is between 1.75-2.5 million, and "Chasing Girls" is 1.8 million. In the early 1980s, the protagonist who had a good record, how much did a play pay? Between HK$150,000-200,000.
If "Best Partner" invited Zhou Runfa, it was almost 150,000-200,000, but Xu Guanjie's 2 million was equivalent to the production cost of a large production at that time. It was more than 10 times the price of a leading actor at that time. This kind of sky-high price made Huang Baiming think that Xu Guanjie should not want to act, so he opened his mouth widely and wanted to scare them away. When he and Mai Jia heard about this price, they actually wanted to find someone else, because they really couldn't afford Xu Guanjie.
But why did New Art City finally spend 2 million yuan to invite Xu Guanjie to perform "Best Partner", and how did they calculate this account? Next article to decrypt.