Qin Lu, a homebody with not particularly strong willpower, had never anticipated that Jiang Miaomiao's determination would reach such extremes. Thus, he was half-pulled, half-dragged along as Jiang Miaomiao went to find Shao Yichen.
By the time he was pulled to the entrance of the women's restroom—well, what happened after that is now known to everyone.
Even after emerging from the women's restroom, Qin Lu remained somewhat dazed, unable to comprehend exactly what had just occurred, why he had been dragged into the women's restroom, and why he had now been forced onto this precarious ship of film editing.
While he couldn't make sense of it, Shao Yichen and Jiang Miaomiao both seemed quite pleased. The three of them returned to the restaurant table, where Shao Yichen and Jiang Miaomiao even clinked glasses—two bottles of pretty-colored sparkling water gently colliding, creating quite an atmosphere.
Qin Lu watched this scene from the side, deeply suspecting that carbon dioxide might have effects similar to alcohol, and perhaps even more potent.
Otherwise, how could these two people, who had only consumed two glasses of sparkling water, act as if they were intoxicated, daring to do anything!
Just at that moment, Nan Rongzhou and Nan Rongyu returned from their performance on stage. The two brothers had their arms around each other's shoulders, clearly feeling their performance had been successful and in high spirits.
At the table, the others, led by Li Xingyu, had just endured the torture of their singing and looked somewhat pale upon seeing them, automatically clearing a royal path for the two brothers.
Completely oblivious, Nan Rongyu and Nan Rongzhou glanced around the table, noticed some space next to Qin Lu, and very naturally sat down.
As soon as they sat down, they noticed their fellow crew member's apparently unhappy expression and concernedly asked, "What's wrong? Why the long face?"
Qin Lu had been troubled for quite some time, just waiting for someone to ask this question. He thought to himself, although these two weren't directors, they were at least the main actors, and he'd heard the director's script was tailored for them, so they must have some influence with the director. He might as well complain to them and let them realize the director's unreliability so they could talk some sense into her.
He cleared his throat, putting on an even more troubled expression, and began, "Well, Director Shao Yichen has decided to entrust the editing task to Jiang Miaomiao and me, two complete novices—"
He had expected the two lead actors to show at least some reluctance upon hearing that the director was being so careless with their film by handing the editing to two novices. To his surprise, the brothers, upon hearing this, slapped their thighs and didn't seem displeased at all.
Nan Rongzhou immediately stood up, looking very honored as he shook hands with Jiang Miaomiao.
Meanwhile, Nan Rongyu put his arm around Qin Lu's shoulders, addressing him with immediate familiarity: "Nice to meet you—no, I should say congratulations. So the editing is being done by Brother Qin! That means we'll definitely be working together for some time!"
Qin Lu: ?
You have no objections whatsoever to us two novice editors?
Nan Rongyu continued: "Actually, we two brothers have already agreed with the director that for this film tailored to us, we'll be composing the music ourselves! So during post-production, the editing team and our music composition will have even more opportunities to collaborate! I'm sure we'll be working together more!"
Qin Lu, thinking of the noise produced by these brothers' band, felt his heart sink even further.
It should be noted that half the reason he had succumbed to Jiang Miaomiao's dragging him into the women's restroom was because of the eerie music from these two that had echoed throughout the restaurant.
Now they were telling him they would also be composing the film's soundtrack?
What would this film turn into?!
After a month of filming, Qin Lu finally discovered that among the five main creative team members besides himself, four were actually this unreliable.
With a pleading gaze, he looked towards the only sensible person in his eyes: "Li Xingyu—Xiao Li—Great Actor Li—aren't you going to say something—"
You're my last hope! Qin Lu inwardly cried out.
However, Li Xingyu completely ignored his call, silently sipping his own glass of sparkling water.
Looking closer, Qin Lu noticed that Li Xingyu had stuffed each of his ears with cotton balls made from rolled-up tissues.
No wonder this person had maintained a completely composed expression during the twins' performance, as if a mountain could crumble before him without affecting his demeanor. Qin Lu had thought it was just his temperament, but it turned out he had anticipated the danger and escaped the clutches of the noise with this method!
But he still had these two things stuffed in his ears—didn't that mean he couldn't hear anything now?
Qin Lu immediately felt a wave of despair.
It was over. The only normal person among the creative team was now out of service area...
He accepted reality, his eyes vacant.
Beside him, Nan Rongyu continued talking: "I believe! We can definitely use our post-production and music composition! To make this film more perfect! To create a true work of art!"
Qin Lu: "Hahaha, good luck."
What else could he do? Just accept reality.
From the moment he had submitted his resume to the wrong place, he had already started down this path of no return...
❀⋆｡°✿☆❀✿°｡⋆❀
The wrap party ended in this harmonious atmosphere. Even though the twins' performance had given everyone a scare, everyone except Qin Lu was still very happy.
The next morning, Shao Yichen, on her first day after stopping filming, resumed her lazy routine, returning to that idle person who considered morning to start at noon and wouldn't get up before ten-thirty.
During this period, she had been forced to get up early to accommodate the crew's eight-hour work schedule, and her slothful biological clock had been greatly affected.
Now, she could finally be herself again!
And so, yawning, Shao Yichen finally got out of bed at eleven o'clock.
She stretched lazily as she sat down at the table and began calculating her remaining system funds.
Originally, before filming began, nearly half of the funds had been spent on various equipment and key personnel.
The costs during filming included wages for several stage workers, internship salaries for student extras who came to gain experience, and meals for crew members. In addition, the crew had rented a studio for two days to complete some scenes outside the campus, such as the deceased's home and the alley where the police performed their heroic act.
The post-production costs would include paying Jiang Miaomiao and Qin Lu for editing, at least matching their current wages.
Calculating all this, she had spent nearly another 200,000 yuan.
After this calculation, Shao Yichen discovered that after completing the filming, she still had about 300,000 yuan of funds left in her hands.
This was somewhat unexpected.
After all, she had aimed to spend exactly one million yuan, leaving nothing for promotion. But due to her limited experience in filmmaking, she had accidentally left 300,000 yuan for promotion.
Shao Yichen thought about it and realized that dealing with this 300,000 yuan would be quite troublesome.
Her previous experience with hiring internet commenters had taught her that sometimes the degree of promotion was very difficult to control. Even if she spent all the money on internet trolls to criticize herself, it might still generate attention for the film due to the reverse hype effect, ultimately leading to her plan's failure.
However, not spending this 300,000 yuan on promotion was also problematic.
On one hand, if she didn't spend this 300,000 yuan, she would only start losing money from -700,000 yuan, which invisibly increased the difficulty of her goal to lose money. Only by spending all of this 300,000 yuan could she start losing from a full -1,000,000 yuan.
On the other hand, even if she wanted to spend this 300,000 yuan on something completely unrelated to the film, the system's rules wouldn't allow her to do so. Only if she spent this money on something genuinely related to "The Web" would the system permit her to use these funds.
After much consideration, Shao Yichen still felt that she could only squander this 300,000 yuan on promotion.
Since she had decided to promote, she naturally couldn't create the same mess as before.
After the previous failure, Shao Yichen had deeply understood the truth that negative publicity is still publicity. So this time, she wouldn't spend money on buying negative reviews, as negative reviews also generate attention.
She needed to ensure that this 300,000 yuan was spent quickly, transparently, silently, and without making any splash.
But achieving this was actually quite difficult.
The reason was simple—the system's rules were too well-established.
Although the Director System allowed Shao Yichen to choose goods and services priced slightly higher than the normal level when making purchases, it couldn't be excessively high.
For example, if she wanted to give 300,000 yuan directly to an advertising company just to make a single billboard for her, such behavior would certainly be blocked by the system.
At most, she could only use the excuse of "increasing the price to improve service quality" to slightly raise the price to 300,000 yuan for promotion that would normally cost 100,000 or 150,000 yuan.
Therefore, trying to simply squander this 300,000 yuan wouldn't work under the system's rules.
After much thought, Shao Yichen decided to focus on the conversion rate of advertising!
The conversion rate of advertising, as the name suggests, is the ability to convert the placed advertisements into customers. A good advertisement could achieve a conversion rate of fifteen percent, meaning that out of every 100 people who see the advertisement, 15 would become customers of the product recommended in the ad. If the effect of the advertisement was poor, conversion rates as low as 0.1% were not uncommon.
What Shao Yichen pursued was naturally that garbage advertisement with a conversion rate of 0.1%, which was almost equivalent to useless.
But even if she wanted to achieve this effect, making the conversion rate this poor was actually not easy. Generally, as long as the advertisement wasn't too outlandish, the conversion rate would be about three percent. Applied to Shao Yichen's situation, this meant that out of every 100 people who saw the advertisement, about three would curiously click on it.
Although this seemed ordinary, Shao Yichen still felt it was a bit too high.
She needed to find a way to lower the conversion rate of the advertisement!
After much consideration, Shao Yichen picked up her pen and wrote several terms on a draft paper.
First was "advertisement readership."
While conversion rate was certainly important, if the number of people who saw the advertisement was too large, reaching the millions, then even with a conversion rate as low as 0.1%, it would still mean several hundred people would be fooled by the advertisement.
So from the beginning, she needed to keep the readership of the advertisement at a relatively low level.
Shao Yichen felt this problem was actually quite easy to solve—just place the advertisement on websites with low traffic from the start.
Next was "advertisement relevance."
Relevance referred to the relationship between the website where the advertisement was placed and the target audience of the advertisement.
For example, if advertisements for elderly-specific products were placed on websites used primarily by young people, the match between the advertisement placement site and the target audience would obviously be poor, and the advertisement would likely not sell many products.
Finally, there was "the advertisement itself."
This could be said to be the most fundamental content of the advertisement.
If an advertisement was very attractive at first glance and could capture the consumer's psychology, its conversion rate would certainly not be poor.
Conversely, if an advertisement's content was confusing and puzzling, to the point where one didn't know what product it was advertising, then regardless of its relevance to the website users or the website's traffic, it would likely have little effect.
Thinking of this, Shao Yichen looked at the three key influence principles she had written out, and after deep consideration, opened Li Xingyu's WeChat dialog box.
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At noon, Li Xingyu received a WeChat message from Shao Yichen.
[Lose All Million]: Yo, you there.jpg
[Lose All Million]: Xiao Li, I actually have a question I want to ask your young generation
[Morning Starlight]: ...
Young generation?
Director Shao Yichen, you're barely a few years older than me?
A huge question mark appeared above Li Xingyu's head.
[Lose All Million]: This question is related to the future and fate of our film.
[Lose All Million]: The organization has its eye on you, comrade.jpg
[Morning Starlight]: ...Director, if you have a question, just ask.
After Li Xingyu sent this reply, Shao Yichen, as if she had been waiting for this sentence, responded incredibly quickly.
[Lose All Million]: Actually, it's like this.
[Lose All Million]: Do you know of any advertising platforms with few users who are both broke and won't look at ads?
[Morning Starlight]: ...
Li Xingyu slowly typed out a question mark.
What a strange request!
Usually, questions about advertising would ask "where are there many users" or "which platform has wealthier users," right?
How had Director Shao Yichen come to take this opposite approach?
But upon further reflection, Li Xingyu realized that Director Shao Yichen's requests generally had their internal logic and would never be raised without reason.
This meant that these three seemingly illogical requirements must have some hidden meaning behind them.
Li Xingyu stared at Director Shao Yichen's requirements, falling into thought.
Thinking carefully, if a platform had "few users," it certainly wouldn't exist for very long.
In other words, Director Shao Yichen was implicitly suggesting that this was an emerging online platform.
The "broke" requirement, upon closer examination, also had its deeper meaning.
Director Shao Yichen's reference to being broke surely didn't mean a poor standard of living; if the standard of living wasn't low, but they still had no money, then the answer became obvious—the main customer base of this platform was predominantly young students!
Only economically dependent students could maintain a relatively high standard of living while still not having much disposable income.
The final requirement was that platform customers wouldn't look at advertisements.
This requirement probably didn't refer to the customers' habits themselves—after all, once someone goes online, they inevitably encounter advertisements; if they don't see them on one platform, they'll see them on another.
So "not looking at ads" most likely meant that the platform itself didn't actively push advertisements.
A new online platform, mainly used by students, generally not actively pushing advertisements...
At this point, Li Xingyu had the answer in his mind.
He picked up his phone again and began typing.
[Morning Starlight]: I can think of a platform that might fit your requirements perfectly.
[Morning Starlight]: The traditional online video platform "Dulu Dulu" has been expanding its business recently.
[Morning Starlight]: Based on their original video platform, they developed a livestreaming platform called "Dulu Dulu Live." This platform was just developed three months ago, doesn't have many users yet, and the users are mainly young people, predominantly students. The platform rarely actively places advertisements; generally, it's the streamers on this platform who accept ads, with prices varying greatly, but the highest price level is only in the tens of thousands.
[Morning Starlight]: What do you think?
Author's Note: Dulu dulu dulu—
Third update!
The draft box is really thin now, shedding tears of sympathy for the skinny draft box.