On the first day of shooting, the film crews were all very excited, relaxed and treating it as a holiday tour.
On the second day of shooting, the film crews were beginning to feel a little tired.
On the third day of shooting, the first casualties started appearing, with some staff from all three film crews falling sick at the same time. Some either caught a cold or couldn't acclimatize, with one suffering from altitude sickness, but was recovering well after being given an oxygen mask at a local hospital.
On the fourth day of shooting, the film crews were all complaining incessantly.
"We still have to fly today?"
"We're going to Guizhou this time?"
"Fuck me! I can't take this anymore!"
"Director Zhang, can we request for a day off to rest?"
"Yeah, Director Zhang, everyone's almost at their limits. We have been hiking in the mountains and crossing streams every day, coupled with rushing to our flights and making our way into the villages on ox carts. We're all used to sitting in the office at work, so doing all these activities has suddenly taken a real toll on our health. We really can't take it anymore!"
"Director Zhang hasn't even complained yet. Who are we to say anything?"
"Right, let's endure a little more. We can catch some z's on the plane."
"We can do it. Back in the days of preparing for The Voice, how many of us really got any rest in the two months leading up to the broadcast? Didn't we also work every day for more than ten hours? We could even survive those difficult times, so what is this hardship now? It's not easy for Director Zhang either, so let's not complain anymore."
There were some who complained, but also others who encouraged.
When Zhang Ye heard this, he could only try to cheer them on by saying, "We can't afford to rest in the next few days. There are still two more locations that we have to complete shoots at, so why don't we wait for the day after tomorrow instead? By then, we can get a day or two of rest, so please try to endure a little more."
Today, Zhang Ye was following the second film crew around on their film schedule. This crew were all made up of the staff who were previously from The Voice. He knew the reason why everyone could not take this anymore. Other than the mountain hikes which took a lot of their energy, there was one other reason. It was the lack of something to look forward to. When they were recording for The Voice back then, everyone was successively clocking overtime to finish their tasks because Zhang Ye had pulled in an astronomical title sponsorship fee. On top of that, he also pulled in big shot celebrities like Zhang Yuanqi, Chen Guang, and Fan Wenli to join the program. With the public's eye on them and the media reporting about their program almost every day, everyone surely had the motivation to work harder.
However, this time?
This time they were shooting a documentary program which seemingly had no future to them!
It was only reported by a few scattered and small media outlets before quickly dying down. They did not even seem to be interested in the title of the documentary, much less give it any further attention. Knowing that the documentary they were shooting would not be seen by too many people, everyone's motivation naturally dropped by quite a bit.
Zhang Ye told them, "Just endure a little bit more. Perhaps when everyone looks back on this in the future, you all might discover that this hardship was very well worth it. Who knows, this documentary just might bring us a great surprise!"
Everyone broke into a sweat.
Surprise?
Surprise my ass!
What surprises could a documentary possibly have!? They would be more than satisfied if the viewership ratings did not get too frighteningly low. No one was hoping for a miracle and felt that this was just Director Zhang painting pies in the sky to raise their morale.
AD Zhang Zuo led everyone by saying, "Director Zhang, don't worry. Since you can hold up, we'll be fine as well! There definitely won't be someone who holds us back!"
At this moment, a call from Beijing came in.
It was Department 14's Director Yan Tianfei.
Yan Tianfei asked: "Teacher Zhang, how's the progress of your shoot going?"
Zhang Ye immediately answered: "It's been very smooth up until now. We're stepping it up to try to get more footage recorded."
Yan Tianfei coughed: "You don't have to rush. It's not like we must definitely broadcast in December anyway. I've heard that some of your crew members have fallen ill since yesterday? There was even someone who suffered from altitude sickness? Please take it easy and watch out for everyone's safety. That is of the utmost importance. It doesn't matter if it affects the show, but our people must definitely not have anything happen to them. I know that you have very strict requirements when it comes to the arts. You always want to achieve perfection and excellence, but a documentary is different from other programs, so there's no need to push it so hard, am I right? Just do OK and it'll be fine."
Zhang Ye laughed: "Director, rest assured. I have a sense of propriety. I'll certainly bring back everyone in the same condition as when I brought them out here."
"Alrighty then, as long as you know what you're doing." Yan Tianfei had wanted to say a bit more, but after hearing Zhang Ye reassure him in that way, he couldn't really interfere anymore. Since the film crews were already assigned to Zhang Ye, with him as their boss, it wouldn't be too good if Yan Tianfei had to stick his nose in. He only called because he got worried after hearing that some people had fallen ill and hoped to persuade Zhang Ye not to push the teams too hard. However, he guessed that Zhang Ye probably did not really take his words to heart. Hai, it was good that he was responsible in his work and sought perfection in what he did, but there was no need to be like this. Does Little Zhang really intend to make something fancy out of this show called A Bite of China?
How could that be!?
Yan Tianfei had read through the program proposal repeatedly, but he did not find anything unusual about it.
Recording cuisine, recording ingredients, recording people and cultures, it was a very standard template that you could find in eight out of ten documentaries. Their department had also done similar documentaries like this before, where they would visit forested mountain regions to document the untouched way of life. Wasn't this how all documentaries were filmed? The only difference was that they had never used HD video cameras in the past, so rather than just saying that the staff on Zhang Ye's filming crew did not anticipate the documentary much, or that the media and audience of the entire country also did not anticipate it much, even an experienced director of a documentary channel like Yan Tianfei also did not anticipate it much.
Well, whatever. As long as the entire 10 million was spent, everything else was not an issue! He wasn't going to be bothered by anything else anymore and just left Teacher Little Zhang alone to handle this matter. He could do it however he liked, and no matter how poor the viewership ratings ended up, Department 14 wouldn't care about it. In any case, they were already at the bottom rung of the entire Central TV structure, so no matter how badly they did, they couldn't do any worse than they were already doing!
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