On the last day of 215, Wang Ke founded the "Noon Sunshine Universe Support Club" on the Weibo.

She works as a researcher in a university in Beijing and used to be a fan of American TV. But in the past two years, she has been fascinated by the domestic TV series No War in Peiping, Pretender, nirvana in fire, and even the production company behind it, Noon Sunshine.

This film and television production company, founded in 211, took the initiative to come to the stage this year. In addition to its signed actors Wang Kai and Jin Dong, the names of producer Hou Hongliang, directors Kong Sheng and Li Xue have also become catchy.

On December 28th, when the TV series "Flying Award" was awarded, Wang Ke and several like-minded friends made 2 bracelets for this team. The bracelet finally got good luck. The three TV series No War in Peiping, nirvana in fire and Parents' Love produced by Noon Sunshine won all awards including drama series, screenwriter, director and actors and actresses.

In the past, few film and television production companies in China became brands that audiences were keen to talk about. But now, Wang Ke obviously thinks that the TV series produced by the noon team is just like the cartoons produced by Pixar, and it is impossible not to look good. In the past year, this fan group has grown stronger and stronger. The bracelet was sent from Beijing to Chengdu. Wang Ke also rented a large venue with 282 seats for the Beijing Coal Mine Cultural and Art Troupe, and planned to hold an unofficial "Noon Annual Meeting" for drama fans on February 27th.

Wang Ke was quite excited. She said that the date she accidentally picked was actually the birthday of the producer Hou Hongliang, the core figure of the team.

Producer Hou Hongliang

Director Kong Sheng

In a sense, producer Hou Hongliang, who has nearly 22, fans in Weibo, is the spokesperson of midday sunshine. Directors Kong Sheng, Li Xue and Sun Molong originally established this company. In order to enjoy local tax incentives, the company was registered in Dongyang. But before Hou Hongliang left Shandong Film and Television Media Group (hereinafter referred to as "Shanying"), the company only undertook post-production and special effects production.

Hou Hongliang was busy promoting the market-oriented operation of this state-owned enterprise during his last period in Shanying. He gradually established the structure of a listed company and introduced new businesses such as artist brokerage. After leaving his post in September 214 to join Noon Sunshine as the chairman, Hou Hongliang only needs to flatten the structure of planning, production, distribution, artist brokerage, business cooperation and publicity. After all, this new company has only a dozen full-time employees.

the new company has brought some new freedoms. Shanying has plans to open studios and theme parks, but Hou Hongliang is not very interested. He wants to be a "craftsman" professionally, and he also wants to give the "craftsman" more power, for example, to make Kong Sheng and Betty, team members who used to cooperate frequently in Shanying, become shareholders. In an interview last October, he made an analogy: "For example, in the United States, the six major content companies must also have independent production companies that they want to seek cooperation with. We don't want to be the six major companies, I want to be independent production companies."

Noon Sunshine, an independent production company, received the A-round investment from the Chinese Cultural Fund last year, but it still maintained a stable cooperative relationship with Shanying. This is quite similar to Hollywood. In Hollywood, independent studios often sign long-term distribution contracts with the six major studios, so that production funds have no worries. Shanying also participated in investing in all the TV dramas currently produced by Noon Sunshine.

The production cost of these TV plays is not small. The total investment of nirvana in fire is about 11 million yuan. In order to make the picture quality look more exquisite, the crew used cameras from ARRI ALEXA, RED EPIC and SONY PMW, and rebuilt Su Zhai, the residence of the hero Mei Changsu. These practices continued from No War in Peiping, when Hou Hongliang changed the budget from 7 million yuan to more than 1 million yuan, and rebuilt the main location of the story: Fang's residence.

nirvana in fire

No War in Peiping

Ke Liming is the general manager of Ruyi Xinxin Film, and Ruyi Xinxin jointly produced Hou Hongliang's No War in Peiping and nirvana in fire. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek/Chinese Edition last year, Ke Liming commented on this team and said, "They have a small industrial system", so they control the cost and process very well.

Of course, this is not the whole reason why the Noon Sunshine team "opened a plug-in" in the past year. Otherwise, they should have been popular earlier, as early as 28 and 29, when "Going to the East" and "The Line of Life and Death" were released. Until the release of nirvana in fire in September last year, Baidu's search index reached 2.4 million at its peak, and the number of hits on the video site iQiyi reached 1.93 billion at the end of the premiere, and it continued to increase to nearly 3 billion.

Hou Hongliang heard that the reason why he was so angry was that he "triggered the nerve of the Internet". He was very happy. The team had planned to make some changes in nirvana in fire, so as to lay a foundation for people's understanding of the team's business. Considering that "this industry is becoming younger (developing)", this kind of effort can also be expressed as: Hou Hongliang's team who is good at "drama" wants more young people to think that their TV series is beautiful and interesting.

As a producer, Hou Hongliang has to constantly choose good scripts. In the past four or five years, he has been very interested in online novels. In April 211, Shanying bought the copyright of nirvana in fire, and later, she bought the copyright of several suspense love novels from Ding Mo, the author of Jinjiang Literature Network. Producers also have to choose actors. It has been found that in recent younger TV dramas, besides the occasional "old bones", idol actors have become more common.

The Pretender

But the market for young people is obviously not something this team can understand at once. When "The Pretender" was released, the audience always talked about "CP". Hou Hongliang said that he was not used to it and went to popularize knowledge. Director Li Xue was particularly angry when asked such questions at the beginning. When dealing with the negative rumors of signing artists, the team's public relations ability seems a little immature, and it doesn't have enough experience to mediate with fans on the Internet.

do you want to tie up with young people? Hou Hongliang finally persuaded directors Kong Sheng and Li Xue to accept nirvana in fire and The Pretender, but when Hunan Satellite TV took the initiative to find Hou Hongliang and hoped to premiere The Pretender, he hesitated. This drama is not as solemn as the war spy drama in the past when the sun shines at noon, but Hou Hongliang is still worried that Hunan Satellite TV's young and entertaining temperament doesn't quite match it.

Hunan Satellite TV hopes to dispel the concerns of Hou Hongliang's team. They explain that although Hunan Satellite TV is targeted at young people, young people are growing up and "need to show these young people something fresher and more quality".

if there is no fresher and better quality content, the domestic TV drama market is really worrying. Production companies spend a lot of money on big-name actors, and they almost understand "big production" in this way. After watching American TV dramas and Japanese and Korean TV dramas, the audience is losing patience with domestic TV dramas.

Hou Hongliang hopes to bring these viewers back to the TV series. "Those who left are our most valuable audience, the audience with the strongest spending power and the audience with the strongest thinking ability. In the end, our entire TV drama industry will go to the low end, which is wrong." Hou Hongliang said that past successful experience told him, "We should be like pyramids." Through repeated copyright sales, the production and distribution companies get much more benefits from the TV series at the top of these pyramids than those who "just make a TV series commodity".

On the other hand, Hou Hongliang said that the team's successful experience has also brought some troubles. As a producer, he used to be confident about the focus and rhythm of his creation, but now he is a little insecure. He even has some regrets. When dealing with the beginning of nirvana in fire, if we follow the idea of the original author and screenwriter Hai Yan, "that would be better".

there are many things that Hou Hongliang didn't expect. For example, the audience is actually interested in the slow-paced scenes of daily life in the house. When reading the script, Hou Hongliang always worried that the audience would get bored. But afterwards, it became the most popular part, and Hou Hongliang concluded, "You should have fun". Li Xue, the director of the team, is good at creating interest in daily life, and the atmosphere of two houses in The Pretender and nirvana in fire is partly attributed to him.