Chapter 168: Da Mei Studios Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
Hangzhou had the t.i.tle of China"s anime capital. In the past ten years, when businesses across the country wanted to develop the anime industry and theme parks as an alternative to real estate operations, Hangzhou was already steadily growing its animation industry.
For the last ten years, there were virtually no animations produced from Zhejiang province, but now there were more than 300 animation and video game related enterprises. These companies formed an industrial group of one board of directors running each company, and one GEM listed company plus 10 new companies with third listing groups. Their annual revenue had exceeded 25 billion.
In Hangzhou, there were several creative theme parks, and each one had an animation related industry.
And Qin Jiao wanted to bring Meng Fan to the Xizi cultural park near the campus which was a creative theme park focused on animated video games.
Soon the car drove into the cultural park, turning left and then right before stopping at a house that looked like a factory.
"Is this all of it?"
Meng Fan looked around. There was a large courtyard surrounding the premises, and there was n.o.body in the house. There was no company or office listed.
Aside from the ma.s.sive courtyard, the house was at least a thousand square meters and had three levels… The area was way too big!
Seeing Qin Jiao nodding and walking in, Meng Fan followed her, swearing along the way. "I could tell that you are a rich woman! You were probably just pretending when you cry about being poor before!"
"I wasn"t crying about being poor. I"m really poor." Qin Jiao pushed the door open and entered before telling Meng Fan the whole story. "Because of the school, I have a position in this cultural park. This is mostly tacking onto the reputation of the school since they also support it. Hence, the cultural park gave me a reasonable price and coupled with policy support, it doesn"t cost me too much to rent this studio. Of course, even if it"s not a lot, I borrowed quite a large amount from your sister. It"s her fault for suggesting it, anyway!"
Meng Fan smiled. "Her money does nothing but gather interest in the bank, anyway. It"s good she"s taking it out to do some investment."
"Yeah, nevermind investments, I don"t have that ability to make money. If it weren"t for the low rent, I wouldn"t dare to rent it. I wasn"t planning to make money from it. I"ll be happy if it can just operate normally every year."
She opened a window to let some air in and made some calls to tell the cleaning staff to come here. Then she turned to Meng Fan. "I originally established this studio to give our graduates a choice or a transitional place for them. Even if they graduated from our school, there are many people who choose to work in other industries. Among them, there are many who give up due to external factors. In addition, although some are still engaged in the industry, they are not happy, primarily because they can"t make money. Hence, I don"t hope to profit from this studio, but I really hope that the students who join can make money and pursue what they want."
If someone else said that, Meng Fan, who had never experienced the real society, would definitely have thought it was a sugar-coated statement, but since it came from Qin Jiao, he chose to believe her.
Qin Jiao pulled out a prepared contract from her bag and handed it to Meng Fan. "Let"s sign."
"I think I"ll pa.s.s." Meng Fan waved his hands and smiled. "I"ve received a lot of work myself recently, so I don"t need to make money on the reputation of your studio. Besides, I was just trying to make some temporary pocket change."
"I know. That"s why I wanted you to sign first." Said Qin Jiao.
Meng Fan was puzzled. "When you said you wanted the students who joined to make money, did you not mean me?"
Qin Jiao nodded. "You understand me very well. You don"t need money, but you have the ability to make money, so I need you to make money to support the studio."
Meng Fan wanted to cry. "What did you learn from my mother? Nothing but ways on how to troll me!"
Qin Jiao saw this and laughed out loud. "Look at the contract again."
Meng Fan looked and was even more confused. It really wasn"t a contract binding the member to the studio, but a contract insinuating collaboration with the studio.
"Your sister said she doesn"t want the money back, so she"ll count it as an investment in the studio. Hence, you will possess the stocks. She doesn"t understand them, anyway. If it"s lost it"s lost, count it as a toy for you to play with. It"s best if you make money and share some to her if you want." Qin Jiao said. "Of course, the studio should try to make money. Only my dividends from my shares will be used to educate and train talents and replace the members. Since you hold 49% of the shares, you can figure out what to do with the money you make."
Meng Fan was stunned for a long time. He was not prepared to invest in an entire studio.
"Let me think about it for a moment."
Meng Fan thought about it for a long time as he sat on the side. The cleaning staff had come to clean when he finally asked Qin Jiao. "Do you have a large degree of freedom with your shares?"
"Hey kid, you"re looking into this too deeply!"
Qin Jiao smiled and said, "Although this studio was rented on behalf of the school, it"s just a facade. Since it"s purely face value, of course, what I say goes. Besides, who knows if my studio can make money or not. Of course, if I really can make a profit, as I said earlier, I will voluntarily fund the education and training programs."
"That"s fine. But I"ll say this now, even if I have shares, I won"t partic.i.p.ate in any of the administration."
"Sign the contract first. It"s not like I"ll make you do anything you don"t know how to do!"
After signing the contract, Qin Jiao happily collected it and took out some more copies of the contract from her bag. She smiled. "These are the members I"ve signed, most of whom are graduates of our department, and a few of them are currently students. These people are good at ill.u.s.trations and hand painting posters since our studio"s main projects in the near future consist of ill.u.s.trations and posters."
Meng Fan heard this and waved his hand. "This has nothing to do with me!"
Qin Jiao squinted at Meng Fan, and her voice went soft. "I know you"ve received a lot of ill.u.s.tration and poster work, but you"re the one who took them; it"s got nothing to do with the studio. I didn"t tell you, the boss, to earn money for this studio either. It"s just that you"re familiar with both parties, and you have the ability. If you have time, can you at least be a guide?"
Since his time was flexible, Meng Fan could only accept.
"I signed the contract. Can I leave now?"
"Don"t you think you have to do something before leaving? For example, help me move the stuff over there…"
"You really are my mom"s student. My sister"s best girl friend!"
He inexplicably became the owner of a studio and helped arrange stuff for over an hour. Meng Fan did not have the temperament to argue!
It made sense. The money came from his sister, and the administration process, business, and recruitment were all covered by Qin Jiao. Thinking about it carefully, he really was just sitting and enjoying the t.i.tle, so he had no right to be angry.
Moreover, although the studio didn"t have to make money right away, it could solve several of Meng Fan"s problems.
For example, the [Professional Manga Artist] task"s requirement of single-paged publications, or the progress for his own manga that Da Qiang couldn"t catch up with. He could throw some of those work to the studio.
As for the t.i.tle of the studio, Meng Fan was too tireless to trash talk and couldn"t trash talk either. Da Mei Studio. After all, Qin Jiao had taken out all three words from the national art academy!