Chapter 799: Filming wraps for A Bite of China!

Translator: Legge Editor: Legge

After the call with Hu Fei ended.

They still could not board the plane yet. This time, Zhang Ye received a rather unexpected call—from Chen Guang's wife, the famous singer, Fan Wenli.

"Director Zhang, are you busy right now?" Fan Wenli asked.

Zhang Ye laughed: "I'm not busy at the moment, just waiting to board the plane. What's the matter, Sister Fan?"

Fan Wenli's tone sounded like she was somewhat embarrassed. "There's something that I think I should inform you about first. After discussing with Old Chen, he also said that I should let you know as well."

Zhang Ye was taken aback. "Huh? What's the matter?"

Fan Wenli said: "Rise to the Dance has invited me to join their show, and I've agreed to it."

This was something that Zhang Ye did not expect at all. Why would a dance show invite Fan Wenli? Wouldn't there be more suitable candidates? Even though Fan Wenli was considered a big sister of the music industry and a very popular singer who knew how to do simple dances, surely she didn't have much in relation to a dance show, right?

However, on second thought, Zhang Ye understood. Did it matter that she wasn't in the dance profession? How many of Rise to the Dance's future audience would really understand dance as an art as well? In the numerous dancing talent shows of Zhang Ye's previous world, not only were there singers who joined the judging panels of those dance shows, there were even crosstalk actors who did the same. The main qualifying criteria still boiled down to the celebrity's popularity and ability to present themselves onstage. Fan Wenli had good looks and could also dance a few moves. It didn't matter if her dance was not professional, it would still be able to attract attention. After all, she had already worked her way up as an artist involved in the performing arts industry, and had even been a teacher before as well. She did not lack the foundation in this area, so it was definitely acceptable that Rise to the Dance invited her to join the program. Besides, Fan Wenli was also a guest coach on the recently ended but successful Central TV Department 1 variety show The Voice. By inviting her, Xu Yipeng and Chen Ye were probably hoping that Fan Wenli would be able to help build Rise to the Dance's audience base by pulling in fans of The Voice, thereby letting them smoothly succeed the previous show.

Having considered it all, Old Fan was truly quite a good pick for the show.

Of course, that also meant that the program team of Rise to the Dance probably failed to invite Zhang Yuanqi on board, otherwise they wouldn't have gone for the next best choice, Old Fan.

Zhang Ye laughed and asked: "How much are they paying you? If it's too little, you should not go."

"It's about the same as The Voice," Fan Wenli said embarrassedly.

Zhang Ye nodded. "Then that's fine. Why would you need to inform me about this? The viewership ratings for Rise to the Dance shouldn't be too bad. Since they're promoting the show so aggressively, if you joined them, it will definitely help with increasing your popularity. Besides, the joining fee isn't a small sum either, so why would you not agree, right?"

Fan Wenli said: "Everyone knows that you don't get along with Chen Ye and the both of you even fought on Weibo before. Besides, if not for that incident, this program should have been helmed by you instead, so I—"

Zhang Ye interrupted: "Aiyo, Sister Fan, come on. You and I have already known each other for some time now. Am I really such a petty person in the eyes of Old Chen and you?"

Fan Wenli chuckled when she heard him say that. "Well, no."

"Then that settles it." Zhang Ye really did not think much of this and even joked: "Just do it knowing that I don't mind at all. However, I hope that you won't do your best for them and just do your job averagely. Most of the people in that group aren't good people and they will not appreciate you even if you try your best for them."

Fan Wenli was tickled at this. "I'm really relieved to hear you say that. If only you did not leave, because even if you offered me half of what you did before, I would still be willing to join your shows."

Zhang Ye suddenly stated, "Rest assured, Sister Fan. There will still be chances for us to work together in the future."

After hanging up, Zhang Ye shook his head. It was yet another assumption that he had left? He had already heard this being mentioned so many times in just a short period of time.

Leave?

Of course he didn't leave, but it was just that everyone thought that he had left. All of the media, his peers, as well as the audience believed that after he was dumped to the Central TV Documentary Channel, he would lose the ability to compete for viewership ratings against the other variety shows, so they automatically excluded Zhang Ye from there. But Zhang Ye never thought this way before. Whoever dictated that the prerequisite to getting first place in the nationwide viewership ratings was to have a variety type of entertainment program? Other than variety shows, did all the other genres not have the right to fight for the number 1 spot in the viewership ratings?

Hur hur.

Perhaps this might be the case in the past. But from now on, that was no longer necessarily true!

This time, Zhang Ye wanted to let everyone know. To come out top in the viewership ratings? Even a documentary would stand a chance! On the day that A Bite of China broadcasts, all of you better be prepared for a fright!

In front of him.

Zhang Zuo turned around, probably curious after hearing Zhang Ye's conversation on the phone. "Director Zhang, Teacher Fan Wenli has also joined Rise to the Dance?"

The others from the film crew also looked over.

Zhang Ye had no reason to hide this so just nodded and said, "It's confirmed. Teacher Fan has just called me to let me know about it."

"Sister Fan has really joined their show?"

"Damn, then their lineup will really be strong!"

"With Teacher Fan on board, their show will be supported by the momentum gained from The Voice!"

"Director Zhang, are we just going to look on like this?"

"Yeah, I really can't take this lying down! It's so infuriating!"

"What else can we do? We have already been reduced to making documentaries! There's no way for us to go and compete with them in the ring anymore! We won't even qualify for an entrance ticket!"

"How annoying!"

Everyone had their share of opinions. Having their show taken away from them had already left them very unhappy, but what made it worse was that this bunch of people who took their show were still getting featured so regularly in the media that they couldn't avoid seeing them at all!

However, Zhang Ye spoke very calmly, "Alright, don't complain anymore. Just leave them be. We'll carry on doing our own things. There shouldn't be any point of conflicts in what we do. I was thinking of our schedule just now. Maybe we can add a visit to the Wuyi Mountains for a scenic shoot. It's not that urgent, so we can leave that location for last."

Zhang Zuo was taken aback. "Director Zhang, was our program proposal only a half completed one?"

Zhang Ye laughed and said, "We don't lack any money now anyway, so why not shoot a few more episodes?"

Zhang Zuo voiced with trepidation, "10 million is indeed not a small sum. But if we go on like this, I'm afraid that this 10 million would also be insufficient for us. It looks like we're making a large-scale documentary already?"

"The money should be enough. I'll keep it in mind," Zhang Ye replied.

Back then, the proposal that Zhang Ye had given a copy to Yan Tianfei and his team staff only touched on the first season of A Bite of China. But due to the Lucky Halo's effects which landed them a 10 million RMB windfall, Zhang Ye decided to make some changes to the proposal by adding the second season into the filming schedule as well. With the tasks and scenes doubled, he began to slowly add schedules bit by bit across all three film crews.

As for how he would fuse seasons one and two of A Bite of China together? Zhang Ye already made his plans. The simplest solution: cutting down on the scenes that touched on the stories of people and culture in season two of A Bite of China. There wasn't a great deal of difference between the first and second seasons, except that the second season featured a lot more stories about the people and culture surrounding the featured foods. Some netizens rated season two of A Bite of China to be lower than the first season because of all the scenes that it dedicated to talking about the people and culture, while there was less of a focus on the food itself. But regardless of whether that opinion was objective or not, since Zhang Ye wanted to edit the two seasons into one, then he needed to have the storytelling be consistent. With food as its central focus, Zhang Ye would definitely choose to cut out the irrelevant scenes of season two of A Bite of China. With this small change, it might even help push their viewership ratings even higher than he wanted them to be.

The Voice's viewership ratings had defied all sense and it achieved many records in this world as well. It also achieved the top spot in the nationwide viewership ratings, amazing everyone except Zhang Ye, who was not that impressed with the results. Although he knew that the two worlds could not be compared using the same standards, the viewership ratings of The Voice in this world was really quite terrible when compared to his previous world. This was due to the variety show environment, the viewing habits of the audience, as well as many other factors. But the details of this were not important at this time anymore. Zhang Ye had pinned all his expectations for a better viewership rating on A Bite of China!

There mustn't be any more "discounts"!

This time, with A Bite of China, there had to be no mistakes. Zhang Ye even hoped that A Bite of China would do exceedingly well in this world as he believed it had the potential and also the capability to do so!

In his previous world, season one of A Bite of China took a long time to become popular. At the beginning, the viewership ratings were extremely low until it started spreading by word of mouth about how good it was. By the time season two of A Bite of China aired, the viewership ratings began rapidly climbing until it reached a peak. What must be cleared up here is that in the previous world, A Bite of China was not promoted, and had no celebrity stars or much funding. It was even broadcast on television at a very bad time. Regarding this, Zhang Ye had no plans to replicate those conditions!

Promotions?

I will fucking promote it well!

No celebrities?

I will personally narrate A Bite of China!

Lack of funding?

I will throw money at every scene with the greater production funding than the original version, so that every image shown will be better perfect!

As for the broadcast schedule?

Whatever primetime slot that Rise to the Dance will be broadcast at, we will also broadcast it at that time!

I will give whatever you all want and I will make up for whatever you all don't have! Zhang Ye did not have any extravagant hopes other than for A Bite of China's viewership ratings to start off with a bang!

With this expectation and determination, the filming was also systematically carried out!

On their journey, all kinds of incidents kept occurring. Equipment failures, staff injuries, plane delays, the film crew getting trapped in the mountains due to weather, etc.

This was Zhang Ye's attitude towards the arts and also his purpose as an executive director of the show.

A documentary was unlike a variety show, with the latter for entertainment, while the former existed as a form of art. They were not the same at all!

...

Two months passed in no time.

As November came to an end.

Winter arrived as the weather turned cool. It also started snowing in many places.

The second film crew at Anhui were the first to have completed all their tasks at this moment. At about the same time, the third film crew at Jiangsu also completed all of their team's schedules!

On the same day.

Zhang Ye and the first film crew finished their final shoot at the Wuyi Mountains!

Along with Zhang Ye, they excitedly wrapped up their work and cheered!

"We're done shooting!"

"We're finally done!"

"My god! I'm exhausted!"

"We can finally go home! Hooray!"

"It's been two long months already! We can finally wrap!!"

Everyone in the film crews nearly burst out into tears. All those days really had not been easy for them!

Translator's Thoughts

Legge Legge

You can catch the shows here if you didn't watch it yet! :)

- Official CCTV English Dub http://english.cntv.cn/special/a_bite_of_china/homepage/index.shtml

- Official CCTV YouTube Chinese Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwXMmy5fUrVyGt6mtGEGf5_hv3gB1aSJG

- Unofficial A Bite of China English Subs