Zhou Shuyu and He Yuanyuan were only college students. Their skills were certainly limited. However, they had a good foundation. They could still cut some clips to make a trailer. At least, it was no problem to attract people’s attention. And Liu Gongcai was the first one, that was attracted.
“What the... what is this?!”
A short clip of two people fighting in a duel; a short clip of a group of people fighting in melee; coupled with a short sea battle clip; intermixing with a variety of ridiculous beauty sceneries, a short 2 minutes 11 seconds trailer just came out like that.
However, that was more than enough. If it weren’t for the characters in the movie were speaking standard mandarin, no one dared to say that it was made by Chinese people.
Liu Gongcai and Xiao Yan looked at each other several times in succession. Apart from the four big words “Produced by Beidou Studio”, they could not find any other relevant information. Previously, he had already suspected that the Taoist was actually a team. Now he was even surer. ‘Maybe this Beidou studio is his team? Alas, Zhou Yu, what other secrets are you hiding?’
With this video, Liu Gongcai went to the Movie and Television Department, and the following decisions could not be made by himself alone.
.................
There was a “Behind-the-scenes” video that had been released before, coupled with the recommendation from the Internet celebrity – “The Beautiful Director”, and most importantly was that the quality of the movie was extremely good. Therefore, “Fruit Pirates” instantly went viral on the internet.
No matter which website the video appeared on, the comment area or the bullet screen would be overwhelmed with all kinds of comments.
“What Beidou Studio?”
“Since when there is a world-class CG production team in China?”
“Why have we never heard of it?”
...
There were so many questions, that the questions like “Is the trailer real” were instantly swallowed by other comments, because 2 minutes and 11 seconds alone were enough for people to kneel and shout, “shut up and take my money!”
In the trailer, there was a sea battle, combined with the previous Behind-the-scenes clips, it directly made people scream, “oh! it is so freaking beautiful...”
So many people had scolded Zhou Yu before, because everyone thought that the reason why he wanted to burn so many beautiful ship models were to get quick fame. So many despised him. However, now seeing this magnificent movie, which showed the medieval sea battle vividly, they finally understand that they had misunderstood the strange young man.
“Brother, I was wrong. I owe you an apology. But when will the full version be released?”
“Wanting to downvote this video, but did not expect that it backfired so much. Already on my fifth account now, let’s go all the way to the front page!”
“*Crying* OH GOD NO! Why do you have to do this to students. The summer vacation has just ended, and now you just released this trailer?”
Those who had watched the trailer video, all remembered the name of Beidou Studio. Whether it was fake news or not, with this video itself, it was more than enough to call them masters. The question was, who were those masters?
The only known member was Zhou Yu, who only shot the real-world part of the sea battle, but he also made it clear in the Behind-the-scenes clip, that the CG part would be completed by others.
In terms of the division of labor, Zhou Yu was most likely to be responsible for the props and sea battle scenes, but not for the technical part. So the real masters should be ‘other people’.
Unfortunately, no one knew who the others were, even Zhou Yu himself also said that they only communicated in an internal forum, and it would not be opened to the outside world at all, and the members would not reveal their true identities.
Hiding behind the computer, the mysterious team conquered the hearts of all animation fans with superb skills, it was full of Chūnibyō feeling. But knowing that they were a group of otakus, it seemed to make a lot of sense. The Internet is so big that it is normal to have some very skilled otakus.
All in all, a bunch of otakus got together and made big news.
In terms of what they said about they did not know each other, no one really believed that. You said that you did not know each other, and then you expected others to believe it? If it was a really good movie, by just selling the copyright would make them rich. At that time, how were they going to share the money? Otakus were also people, they also could not escape the money world. Maybe, they were fighting each other over the shares of the movie at this moment.
It was true that there was a fight, and the fight was very intense. But the people that were fighting were not from Beidou studio. They were the representatives of the Penguin Manga and Otaku gaming portal.
After Liu Gongcai of the Penguin Manga sent the video to the penguin movie and television department, it caused a huge stir in their department. The main work of Penguin movie and Television was to adapt the excellent manga into anime. Sometimes they might also invest in some commercial movies, but they did not have many good achievements.
Assassin was also a very popular project in Penguin Movie and Television department. It seemed impossible to make an animated TV series, but it was not impossible to make an animated movie. This project had already started the internal research phase. From the market research to the production cost, everything had been done secretly. Therefore, when they heard that the author of Assassin, the fast-handed Wang had made an animated movie and had released a trailer, they all thought that this guy had made Assassin movie without their authorisation.
But when they looked at the title of the movie, they were relieved. Luckily, it was called Fruit Pirates, not Assassins.
Then, all of them were completely shocked by the quality of the movie. Especially, Zheng Qi of Penguin Movie and Television, he just slammed the meeting table very hard.
‘Fffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu, I have spent so much effort and money trying to gather all the talented animators from everywhere around the country. In the end, a random mysterious team could make a movie that made me completely look like a fool. I can’t do this anymore!...’
After the frustration was dissipated, Zheng Qi and Liu Gongcai closed the door and talked for a while, naturally with the aim of getting the copyright of Fruit Pirates, because they did not see any signs of sponsors and publishers in the trailer. It meant that it was still an ownerless thing, so they had to get it quick!
The problem was how to get it.
The fast-handed Wang, or the Taoist, was a strange person. Everyone knew about how strange he was. The manga department had already apologized many times everywhere for the artist’s inability to attend the award ceremony, which had already become the joke of the whole company. Especially that non-interference confidentiality agreement. Amongst all the artists that they had signed, this was the only one that had this kind of treatment.
How were they supposed to get the copyright from this kind of strange person? What if he suddenly got mad, he might even want to destroy it. In fact, it was almost destroyed. In this matter, Zheng Qi and Liu Gongcai should award Zhou Shuyu for her outstanding achievement.
In the end, the final decision was to divide the work into two parts. Zheng Qi would be in charge of setting up the project and getting approval from the relevant government department, while Liu Gongcai would be in charge of contacting Zhou Yu. After all, he was the person who was originally in charge of Zhou Yu.
Liu Gongcai had a gloomy expression all over his face when the meeting finished. To tell you the truth, he really did not like to contact Zhou Yu. That guy was too weird. Nevertheless, it never occurred to him that there would be another person that would contact Zhou Yu this weirdo for the same purpose.
That man was Gao Shu from the Otaku Gaming portal.
Gao Shu also felt very gloomy. Otaku gaming portal actually had not set foot in the movie and television industry. So when he saw the trailer, he was just like other ordinary audiences, enjoying the trailer. But he did not understand what was wrong with the people from the top of the company that day, they thought that it was a good time to diversify their business. So they directly pushed Gao Shu into this mess.
Oh well, two unlucky brothers finally met each other.
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