Chapter 98: Filming the Music Video

After Zhou Ran and Chen Wenhua each answered the other’s challenge, the feud instantly seized the top spot on the entire internet’s trending list.

A number of music interview programs soon began discussing the showdown between Zhou Ran and Chen Wenhua.

Those shows naturally chase whatever topic is hottest, since they too need traffic and ratings to make a living, so they began talking about which of the two would have the greater chance of winning once the new songs were released.

Although Zhou Ran’s previous achievements could be called top-tier and outstanding, almost unmatched among his contemporaries, he had never truly faced off head-to-head against veteran singers, so in that respect he was somewhat at a disadvantage.

Chen Wenhua, on the other hand, had been in countless battles since his debut. Whether against rising young talents or seasoned names, he had racked up many glorious victories, so it was hard to say who would prevail.

Some people online believed Zhou Ran could create another miracle and continue to dominate the song charts.

Others believed Chen Wenhua could return as a king and restore the honor of veteran singers, after all, experience counts for much.

Opinions on the outcome varied wildly, but no matter what, this was the hottest news of the moment.

Of course, there were also viewers online who analyzed the matter calmly and objectively. In the end, deciding who would win or lose still came down to the quality of the songs. If Zhou Ran could write something with the same quality as Sunny Day and A Song to the Vast Sea, then his chances of winning would still be very high. After all, Zhou Ran already had those earlier hits as a foundation; as long as he could produce an original song of high quality, he would naturally hold a strong advantage.

If Chen Wenhua could also create a song of equally high quality, then his chances of winning would be even greater.

That was because, compared with Zhou Ran, Chen Wenhua still had a much larger fan base. He had been famous for more than twenty years, and his fans spanned two generations, whereas Zhou Ran had only debuted half a year ago and simply could not compare in terms of fan numbers.

During this period, Zhou Ran had no time to pay attention to the chatter online. He was fully immersed in recording the song.

When Zhou Ran recorded Pride of Youth, he also made some changes to the song itself, making it better suited to the mood of this response.

And while Zhou Ran was busily preparing on his side, Chen Wenhua and the others were also responding with great care. This challenge could not be lost, because Chen Wenhua and his camp were carrying the hopes of far too many people.

In truth, Chen Wenhua had not wanted to be the one to take the lead. He held no real hostility toward Zhou Ran; in fact, he had listened to Zhou Ran’s work and felt that it was indeed worthy of the Best Male Singer award.

But there was simply no way to withstand a group of people coming to ask him to take the lead. No matter how unwilling Chen Wenhua might have felt inside, there was nothing he could do. The entertainment world is a society of favors and obligations, where people must face one another often, and repeated refusals would not have been appropriate. So after declining again and again, Chen Wenhua ultimately agreed.

Besides, the interests involved were enormous; this was not something Chen Wenhua could simply choose to do or not do at will. He had already been in the entertainment industry for twenty or thirty years, and the web of interests had long since become unimaginably complex. Even if Chen Wenhua had refused to step forward, a second Li Wenhua or Wang Wenhua would have risen in his place.

This matter had been under discussion for more than half a year. They had already been talking about it long before Zhou Ran debuted; Zhou Ran had only had the misfortune of being selected as the target.

The song Chen Wenhua was about to release had been chosen only after sifting through countless options. Otherwise, he would not have dared to claim he would take first place. Among all his songs from previous years, this one could still rank in the top ten.

What’s more, Chen Wenhua’s team had specially chosen a song well suited for a chart battle, because some songs are meant to be savored slowly, lingering in the mind for a long time, while others strike with immediate force the moment they are heard. Those are what people call chart-contending songs.

In the end, Chen Wenhua and his team had paid a considerable price for this battle over the charts. They had already prepared every aspect of the marketing work to follow the song’s release, waiting only for the day the song would drop.

On Zhou Ran’s side, although the song had already been recorded, there was still one task unfinished. Some songs need to be experienced together with a music video; if the song alone can carry eighty percent of the emotion, then paired with the video it can carry the full weight, even exceeding that limit.

The Pride of Youth that Zhou Ran had chosen belonged to exactly that kind of song. With a music video, the ceiling for the song would rise even higher.

So after finishing the recording, Zhou Ran threw himself fully into the creation of Pride of Youth’s music video.

By all rights, the song already had an existing video, but Zhou Ran could not use that original background footage, because the story behind it simply did not exist in this world. If he forced it in, the result would surely be terrible, so he needed to edit a new music video based on the feeling the song conveyed.

Fortunately, this song expresses emotion very directly, which made it much easier for Zhou Ran to write the story.

He only needed to turn the content of the lyrics into a story. In any case, the central purpose of the story had already been set. Zhou Ran simply had to write in a way that was stirring and inspiring.

The purpose of a music video is to help the audience pour their emotions into the story. If, in shooting the video, one obsessively pursues some supposed literary sophistication, it is almost a dead end, because no matter how well a music video is made, its final purpose is still to serve the song.

If it cannot bring out the feeling the song is meant to convey to the audience, then no matter how exquisitely it is produced, it is still a failure.

In this respect, it is much the same as film. Many film directors actually began by making music videos, and the most important thing in cinema is also narrative, not an unthinking pursuit of visual spectacle.

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Chapter 98: Music Video Filming. Free reading.