Seeing this title, some friends might be puzzled, what is the blogger up to, switching to the entertainment industry?

Of course not, I really don't understand the entertainment industry and have no interest in it, but I am very interested in the tricks behind their operations. After Shuangzi's 160 million yuan incident, I started writing this article, but I didn't expect that the hot topic has passed several times, and the article has not yet been written.

In fact, I am interested in all those "operational rules beneath the surface." When Shuangzi's 160 million yuan of remuneration came out, I wanted to share it with everyone, but I was troubled by the lack of comprehensive understanding. Recently, I had an in-depth conversation with someone who has been in the circle for many years, combined with my own understanding, and wrote this article, and then it was published.

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1. It's not all about money laundering.

Everyone remembers that extremely boring saying, right? If 1.4 billion people in the country give you one yuan each, then you are a billionaire. Only children would find this interesting, thinking they have found a new way to make money, but soon they found it unrealistic and unfeasible, and people will not give you money for no reason.

However, when you reach a certain age, you will find that in the real world, in addition to taxes, there really is this kind of thing.

It mainly exists in the following three areas:

The Internet;

Finance;

The entertainment industry;These three industries are all the kind that take a share of money from people's pockets across the country, and the beneficiaries are not many. The indirect effect is that hundreds of millions of people are giving money to a small number of people. Especially in recent years, finance has been combined with the other two, which is simply a printing press.

Like all "high-profit circles," this circle is often dirty and unbearable, with various unspoken rules. There are smaller circles within the circle, in short, the water is very deep, and ordinary people can't grasp it.

Before we start today's content, let's popularize a few common sense.

The core layer of the entertainment industry is the listed large film and television companies, which are basically a printing press that doesn't need electricity.

The way listed film and television companies make money is very diverse. First of all, going public can raise funds, which is very key, everyone must remember. The previous model of stars becoming popular, advertisers sponsoring, and finally the audience paying is weakening. The current main model is that listed companies raise funds from shareholders, and then they play around.

Stars have high prestige, and companies with stars are also favored by everyone, stock prices will rise, and everyone is eager to give money to the company. After listed companies raise money, there is a large space for operation. The entertainment industry is a light asset and large capital industry. The cost of a movie or TV program is often calculated in hundreds of millions, and there are too many places that can be operated through accounting.

Here, we first need to say a misunderstanding about investing in film and television money laundering: many people say that the money laundering process is to spend 10,000 yuan to make a movie or TV drama, and when reporting the account, it is reported as 100,000 yuan, and 90,000 yuan is transferred to the relevant company's account. As long as the invoice is provided to make the accounts even, the 90,000 yuan is laundered.

This statement is just reversed. Some friends who can't understand what they see think it's money laundering. In fact, money laundering is to make illegal money legal. If the money can be transferred out in a grand manner, it means that the money is already fine, so what else is there to wash? This article has made it clear, "The scale and tricks of money laundering, lending, illegal fundraising, and underground banks far exceed your imagination," which is attached at the end of the article. If you are interested after reading this article, you can take a look.

I have explained to you before about "stealing box office" or "ghost field", that is, some people made a movie, and when it was released, there were basically no people watching, but the cinema could make it seem like there were many people, putting the money of unknown origin into the box office, and these money is laundered, this is money laundering, which needs to use the box office to cover the dirty money of unknown origin.

When the fake box office was the most fierce in the country, the fake box office in the cinema was crazy, and the cinema almost never closed. After 11 o'clock, you can go in and watch it for free without buying a ticket. A ticket was not sold, but the ticketing system was all sold out, and even a film was only played for 40 minutes. The bold ones even set the ticket price to 100 yuan each.There are also instances where you buy a ticket for one movie, watch the same movie, but the ticket you receive is for a different movie, and the price is much higher than what you actually paid. This is the cinema chain stealing box office revenue, using this method to divert the box office to the movies they collaborate with, thereby increasing their box office income.

Many film production companies and cinema chains are already in a cooperative relationship or even part of the same company. The advantage is too great, and it is difficult for the state to crack down. However, as they went too far, they eventually attracted the crackdown of the regulatory authorities. Since then, the issue of fake box office has improved a lot.

The film and television industry sometimes does need to launder money, but most of the time, it is actually about transferring interests, that is, after making a lot of money or raising a lot of money from shareholders, some people want to transfer this money to their own accounts or want to pay less taxes, which requires a series of complex operations.

This is why there are some movies that are clearly destined to lose money, and they are not even released. It is obvious that they are not stealing box office revenue or laundering money. These are often stealing the company's money or hiding income.

Friends often see a movie or TV show that claims to have spent hundreds of millions, but it looks very poor, and the plot, actors, props, and special effects are all poor, as if they did not spend so much money.

The final box office is also very low, and it seems to be a complete loss. I used to not understand, wondering why someone would spend money to make this, and what's even stranger is that there are people who spend money to watch this. Are they all crazy? Are there so many mental patients lurking in the country?

Later, I found out that what can be broadcast on TV is already the cream of the cream. Every year, more than half of the things shot were never intended to be broadcast from the beginning. Many were not made to make money, or to evade taxes, or to transfer funds.

Of course, when promoting, you still have to say how much money has been invested. On the books, it may seem that a lot of money has been spent, but a lot of money has been returned to their own hands through related companies from other projects.

Don't understand? Let me give you an example.

Some people go on business trips and get a bunch of taxi tickets and hotel invoices to reimburse the company. They actually spent ten thousand, but they got thirty thousand in various invoices. The company thinks this is the actual expenditure, but in fact, these tickets were obtained from the ticket scalpers, and after they were reimbursed, they made a profit of twenty thousand.Making movies is no different; it could be that the company's management uses fake projects to defraud the company's money. It may appear that a lot has been spent, but in the end, most of it might have ended up in the management's own company.

Speaking of this, you might wonder, is this possible? Isn't the advantage of private enterprises over state-owned enterprises that the business is their own? Of course not. In modern listed companies, management rights and ownership rights are separated. The CEO of the company is a professional manager, and the owners are the shareholders. There will be conflicts of interest between them.

If a company loses money making films and television, don't casually assume that they will be upset; they might be secretly delighted.

There is another way to transfer funds, and that is through celebrities.

Film and television companies transfer funds from the books by making losses, especially listed companies. By transferring money from public accounts to the outside, they only need to maintain a small profit, thus avoiding the problem of being regulated by the listed company.

For example, in the recent case of Shuangzi, the contracting party, Bei something Culture, is a well-known "blockbuster engine." Many of the blockbusters that everyone is familiar with were made by their company. Strangely, after they make money, they seem to spend it recklessly as if they have a grudge against the money they earned. Looking closer, from the perspective of capital transfer, reckless spending is just a facade, and the purpose might be to transfer profits out of the listed company.

Here's an example for everyone to understand.

For instance, if I set up a listed company and create a hit product, I make money, and not only that, but I also raise a lot of money from the stock market. But this money belongs to the company. If the upper management of the company wants to transfer this to their own account, is there a way? For example, can I pay myself ten billion in salary?

It's almost impossible, it doesn't make sense, and profits are subject to taxes, and the money transferred to my own account is also subject to taxes.

Is there a way to solve this? There is a way, for example, I can make another bad movie, pay the lead actor 200 million, and he receives the money and finds a way to transfer it back to me. In this way, the company ends up with little profit, and taxes can be paid less. If anyone asks, just say it was spent on making a bad movie.The money paid to celebrities in the end could also make a round trip to my bowl.

Of course, the actual process requires many companies to be registered by the film and television company to cooperate, and the process is very complicated. But the purpose and means are roughly the same as above.

If it's a more regular production team, the things they shoot still need to be on the screen. The nominal budget for this is in the hundreds of millions, and the actual amount is in the tens of millions. All kinds of departments are very complete. One problem with this is the urgency, and the other is to deal with the boss who spends money.

Speaking of urgency, it's like chasing a thief when shooting a movie. A movie is shot in a month and a half, and a TV drama has an average of only 2-3 days per episode. Actors have to work 18 hours a day, and directors and assistant directors almost work in shifts.

So at that time, there was really a shortage of actors, too short. The price of those with some fame soared, and the schedule was full to the brim. This is also one of the reasons why the actors' remuneration increased rapidly in those years.

Some famous actors are particularly scarce. One is that shooting itself takes a lot of time and can't be done in a hurry. The second is that talk shows and reality shows have taken a lot of time slots at that time. The third is that many actors really can't act. There is a female actress who laughed more than ten times when shooting a crying scene, and the director was also crying.

At this point, the actors' tempers have risen, and some simply say they won't come if they don't come. At that time, the directors were particularly grandsons, and they had to be very polite to the leading actors.

I don't know which genius, when forced, used technical means, such as finding seven or eight stunt doubles, and the leading actors only used stunt doubles as long as they didn't show their faces, and all the outdoor scenes used green screens. But even so, it's not enough, so they have to use matte painting, but matte painting not only costs money, but also takes time. The matte painting company can't keep up, or in order to make more money, they take on several jobs at once, leaving most of the work to smaller companies, and these small companies' matte painting is a mess.

As for making special effects, it often takes half a year, who can wait for you? So some big production teams can even make something like "fighting and turning into horses." Some worse production teams even hire non-professional students to make special effects, and the effect is really unspeakable.

At that time, a principle was to save and be fast in shooting, and to save on sets, props, and costumes. Shooting campus youth films, workplace dramas, and family ethics dramas, which have a lot of indoor scenes, all kinds of things are convenient and fast, and the things arranged for the account are also very convenient. Anti-Japanese dramas and ancient costume dramas are very popular because film and television cities like Hengdian have made a series of scenes, and the costumes and props were made in large quantities at high prices at the beginning. If rented, it is also very convenient and cheap.The main bulk of the accounting still depends on the actors. If you point to a pig and say I bought it for 800,000, you will be beaten to death. If you point to a person and say I gave 160 million to find someone to make a movie, even if you don't believe it and there is no evidence, what can you do to me? Can you prove that he is not worth this number?

In fact, the so-called hundreds of millions of film remuneration for celebrities, a lot of it has to be handed over and then go back. Of course, it is not so easy to give the money back smoothly, you can't just transfer it with a card, and this is also a technical job. It requires professional people to operate, we will not go into details, some people on the Internet say to buy an art, but it is too low-level, tomorrow Shuangzi goes to buy an art, everyone will see that there is a problem.

At that time, all kinds of people were squeezing into the entertainment circle, because there was too much money, but there were not enough people, and there were not enough people, there were not enough projects.

In 2018, the capital side could not stand it anymore, and began to actively create people: that year, "Create 102" and "Idol Practice X" started, and directly gained amazing attention and traffic, and a batch of idols began to be created. Anyway, after many years of tossing, the audience has long been indifferent to acting skills and singing skills, and the requirements are very low, as long as it is a living person.

Moreover, the routine of trainees should be learned from South Korea, which can solve some troubles faced by the capital side. The capital side in South Korea has always had a lot of troubles and has experience in solving these problems.

In the past, celebrities were often big guys themselves, and sometimes it was not easy to talk, and sometimes they were not very cooperative, which made the capital side very painful. The new idols that were born were locked by the capital side with long-term contracts, and they belonged to the "own people" of the capital side, which was more convenient to operate, and the money earned by the stars was also taken away by the capital side in the end. There is even a saying that fans and shareholders are leeks, and these traffic stars are also big leeks.

This can also explain why the update of traffic stars is particularly fast, and many old comrades in their thirties have just recognized a traffic star, and in a blink of an eye, that star has already passed. This principle is not complicated, if the traffic star is too popular for too long, the capital side is easy to lose control of this star, so it is necessary to continuously introduce new people. Just like many companies even continuously weaken their own backbone, the sales in various regions need to be rotated, in order to prevent customers from following the backbone, the capital side is also thinking like this, let the relationship between the star and the fan not last too long, otherwise the star is easy to take the fans to leave.

Since then, in order to maintain the high value and high exposure of idols, professional fan groups have appeared, and the purpose is to maintain the idols. Otherwise, you say that a certain traffic star has a value of hundreds of billions, but everyone has not heard of it, how embarrassing it should be? At this time, it is necessary for the people in the fan circle to continuously make momentum, and brush everywhere, no matter where you surf the Internet, there are people talking about traffic stars, giving people a feeling of "who in the world does not know you."

This kind of industrial star-making has made the originally spacious entertainment circle instantly crowded, it is difficult to attack and easy to defend, and a closed and semi-closed fan circle has appeared, and even now there is a trend of religion. All kinds of true and false fans are operating everywhere, and the operation of buying milk and pouring it away for voting in the past few days is also expected.

The reason why 2018 is called the first year of the fan circle is because the capital, brokerage companies, media, and fans finally stand together. The professional team with a complete system has stepped onto the stage, and everyone is in a horned position, making money together.I was too young before, and once thought that the value of celebrities was supported by a group of little fans. Later, I found that it was too superficial and lacked imagination. If it depended only on fans, the stars would have starved to death. I used to think that only a little swallow was a big shot in the capital circle, but now I find that everyone is a capital player.

At that time, there was a lack of content. For a period of time, the IP was snatched up, and the price soared. Many hit products were hyped to an incredible extent. Some authors who didn't make much money from writing books made a fortune when selling adaptation rights. However, it seems that the adaptations are not like the original works, and both fans and passers-by are cursing.

At that time, screenwriters were also in demand. Some famous screenwriters didn't write scripts at all, and they could earn 200,000 for a single episode just by putting their names on it. Of course, they could only get less than half of it, but they could put their names on several dramas. Because they were in a hurry, they assigned the scripts to three or four people to write separately. Regardless of the incoherent nonsense they wrote, the actual writers could still earn tens of thousands per episode.

At that time, TV dramas were particularly watery (and most of them are still watery now). The project was initiated with at least 60 episodes, and when it came to shooting, it might be turned into 80 episodes, and when it was broadcast, it was turned into 100 episodes. If you watch the entire film in several parts, it's a bad movie without any problem. If you watch it continuously, it's worse than the average bad movie, and the front and back are not connected at all. Because it was not written by one person, and they were in a hurry when writing, they didn't care about the story connection.

Once, I had dinner with someone in the circle, and he said something he had just seen. He said that a producer was scolding the screenwriter for being stupid, saying that he had been writing for a month and hadn't finished it. The screenwriter said that he had three people under him, two of whom were new, and the scripts for 80 episodes had been written for the beginning, middle, and end. But the characters in the written works were completely inconsistent, and the middle couldn't be connected, and they were in a dilemma.

The director listened for a while and said that when it comes to episode 30, the male protagonist should go abroad for half a year, meet a green tea on the plane and change his mind, and the female protagonist is stimulated. Or go out and get run over by a car, and then a twin sister who has never been seen comes out to avenge her. Or the female protagonist is hit and loses her memory and comes back for revenge. After a while, the green tea is exposed, and the male and female protagonists reconcile again. The scum man turns over a new leaf and becomes a good man, and the female protagonist returns to her original character. It's no problem to write 30 episodes like this, right? It can also be connected at both ends.

Everyone present raised their thumbs and toasted, and the director said, "You are too kind, everyone. I saw the new film of that person a few days ago, and it was filmed like this. We added a green tea character to the male protagonist, and this role should be more expensive. The last time the boss's mistress told me that she really wanted to play the green tea. The producer listened and said, "She played a fallen woman last time and could win an award. This time, she changed too fast, right?" The director said that she played a fallen woman as her true self, and there was no challenge. Now she needs to hone her acting skills.

When the film was finished, the publicity and distribution costs were a big head that could be manipulated. Every major city in the country had a round, with each city ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions, and the total amount was considerable. In fact, the actual situation is that many people just find a movie theater to distribute a round of free premiere tickets, pull up the posters, and make it look lively. In fact, very little is spent, but the photos show that there are many people. As for how much each person spent, it's just a random statement.

The routine in the program production is just like this. The entire film and television production chain, from the initiation of the script to the final ticket sales and playback, every link is full of accounting.

2. The Magic of the Capital MarketStarting from 2014, domestic policies began to encourage the development of the film and television industry, and then the entertainment circle started a series of dazzling maneuvers. Looking back now, the capital game in the entertainment market also started to play more and more excessively from that time.

Stars in the circle began to register shell companies, and listed film and television entertainment companies began to merge and acquire on a large scale. At that time, those with some fame in the country basically had a share, and these people's net worth was over 100 million yuan at that time, and the most was over 1 billion yuan. With the 2015 stock market boom, the film and television industry was so hot that it was hot, and every day there were various nine-digit figures.

Film and television companies raised funds from shareholders through listing or additional issuance, and then began to merge and acquire the studios of stars, and the star studios obtained a huge amount of resources. And the film and television companies, through mergers and acquisitions, gained heat, and the money spent actually raised the stock price and increased the company's market value.

On the books, the merger of star companies caused the company to increase in value, and the shareholders also saw a good stock market every day, almost a situation where everyone wins. At that time, it was really hard to find out who was damaged. The only thing that might be a bit strange was that the enthusiasm of the shareholders of the film and television companies to reduce their holdings did not decrease.

This is like a magic trick, creating a windfall out of thin air for everyone to benefit. But we know that there is no magic in the world, the essence of magic is the magician's trick of distraction and hand speed, everything is an illusion. And the money in the financial circle is also a layer of illusion.

Looking back now, what was said above is just the first step in a series of operations.

The second step is after the acquisition, the film and television company has spent the money, and what it has obtained on the books is just a shell of the star company. The shell company has no assets, which will lead to a decrease in the company's total assets. However, because the star has joined, the company's strength has become stronger, and there is a higher profit space in the market, that is to say, although the company spends money, it has bought the ability to make more money in the future.

In the market, having money in hand is not a bad thing, but having too much money in hand is not wise, and it should be invested to obtain higher returns. The funds on the books are just numbers and cannot become valuations. The company's price-to-earnings ratio will not increase because you hold a large amount of cash.

But it's different to invest, especially to invest in stars. At that time, although the film and television works were not as exaggerated as later, they were already in units of "hundred million". Especially after the merger, the stars used to have an employment relationship with the company, but now everyone is a shareholder, and the stars are definitely more hardworking than before, and the company's support for the stars is also more vigorous, and the unity is greater than the sum of one plus one.

In this way, the future income is definitely better than just keeping the money. 1 billion yuan on the books can only become a valuation of 3 billion yuan at most, but if it is changed to a big star, it may bring a valuation of tens of billions of yuan. The stock price will rise again.The third step comes after the acquisition, where the money has been spent and the star needs to sign a performance-based agreement. In simple terms, the company has acquired the star, and while it may sound like the star can now be treated as a money-printing machine, there are inevitably doubts about whether the star can generate enough profits for the company due to various reasons. If investors are skeptical, won't that affect the company's efforts to push up the stock price?

At this point, both parties sign an agreement to set a value for the profits in the coming years, and to guarantee an increase in profits by a certain percentage each year (for example, 15%). If they fail to achieve this, they must make up the difference themselves.

As a result, what ordinary people see is that if the star fails to complete the task, they will have to pay out of their own pocket. In the capital market, this is seen as an annual increase in revenue of 15%, which indicates what? It indicates that the profit expectations of this film and television company are very high, 15%, and in the capital market, a growth rate of 15% corresponds to a very high price-to-earnings ratio. Moreover, this also dispels everyone's concerns, eliminating the bearish factors is a bullish factor, and the stock price is about to rise again.

At that time, the price-to-earnings ratio of film and television companies was over a hundred, and the valuation was easily over ten billion. At that time, value investment was emphasized, and ordinary investors didn't know much else, but they knew a few stars, and the ability of stars to make money was obvious to all. Buying stocks of companies where stars are, in a way, is equivalent to asking the stars to make money for you. At that time, all kinds of algorithms were very convincing, and they all seemed to make sense.

However, although it made sense, the company's shareholders have never stopped reducing their holdings, cashing out at high prices, and after cashing out, they went to buy houses. So every time the stock price soared, the real estate market would go crazy, because some people did indeed make money, but it was difficult to be ordinary people.

During this period, in 2015, the stock market experienced a major upheaval, and the stock prices fell dramatically.

On the surface, the stock prices and market value of film and television companies plummeted, and the supervision became increasingly strict. That year, many mergers and acquisitions were initiated, but many were canceled.

In fact, the sharp decline actually relieved the burden on film and television companies. They took the opportunity to solve the problem of the price-to-earnings ratio of hundreds of times, and many accounts that could not be handled before were also dealt with. Because the valuation was reduced, the pressure on the company decreased a lot. This laid the foundation for the future rise. After all, how can it rise if it doesn't fall? Everyone falls together, you can't blame me, can you?

Anyway, over the years, those people have been operating blindly back and forth, making various sets of money, sometimes cheating investors' money, sometimes cheating other companies' money.

This year, the incident involving Shuangzi was both inevitable and accidental. If you want to improve, it must be that their circle becomes more and more transparent, but this process will not be smooth.3. Epilogue

A friend of mine works in finance. He moved from the United States to Hong Kong, China, and then from Hong Kong to mainland China. He said that the financial market in mainland China is similar to that in the United States a hundred years ago. It seems to be well-regulated, but overall, it is still in a state of disorder. The operations of the bigwigs in China's financial circle would lead to bankruptcy and imprisonment in the United States. On one hand, the supervision in China is too lax, and on the other hand, the punishment is too lenient, which has little deterrent effect.

After reading this article, everyone should have some feelings. The first impression is that there are thieves everywhere; but if you think carefully and deeply, you can find that everyone has made the most beneficial choice for themselves. The system itself is too kind to thieves, and there will always be people who will steal.

However, I do not agree with some people who always say they want to "completely ban" it, which is not very good. Everything has its dark side. If everything is banned, we will have nothing to play with in the end.

Moreover, as everyone can see, listed companies are more like "collective ownership" enterprises. Managers often have the motive to empty the company, which is why listed companies often offer high salaries to stars. There are no good solutions to these problems. Language education is definitely not enough. The best way is to strengthen legislation, at least to improve the initiative of regulatory bodies like the SEC in the United States, to protect the interests of shareholders.

The end of the article. If you like it, please give a thumbs up.