The next few days, Zhang Da gave Jiang Cheng time off, and Jiang Cheng began to hibernate in the studio, recreating the OST score for [Autumn's Concerto] from his memory.
Jiang Cheng was very fortunate that he had learned about soundtracks in Hollywood and played a few musical instruments in his previous life, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to understand how to write the score.
Counting the song [Family] he had handed to Zhang Da, there are a total of eight songs for the OST, such as [I Love Him], [Suddenly Want To Love You], and [Why Are You Lying]. But Jiang Cheng felt that this number was not enough, so he added a new addition and wrote up the song [Have To Love].
[Have To Love], the song was one of the classic duet love songs of the 2005's, it was a must-sing song for KTV karaoke couples. It had occupied the top three KTV hits for a long time, and the artistic conception of the lyrics was quite in line with [Autumn's Concerto]. For this kind of idol drama, it was a perfect fit so Jiang Cheng's addition of it wasn't too abrupt, instead it added luster to the soundtrack of the entire TV series.
After everything was done, Jiang Cheng sang and recorded the nine songs one by one, and recorded them onto a CD, and then took the CD to find Cai Yinong and Zhang Da.
When Jiang Cheng handed over these songs to Cai Yinong, he immediately received unanimous praise from all the music editors of Shanghai Tangren. Cai Yinong was both surprised and satisfied with Jiang Cheng's creativity. As for Zhang Da, he was over the moon, he felt like he could almost taste success whilst imagining how the show would turn out coupling the show with the songs!
"Acheng, I didn't expect you to be an all-rounder! Writing, screenwriting, acting, scoring, singing, everything is perfect! What else are you hiding up your sleeve? Just tell us, stop surprising us!" Cai Yinong, checking over the songs, smiled at Jiang Cheng.
Unexpectedly, Jiang Cheng spoke up and said: "I can also direct, shoot and edit. I'm also a relatively decent makeup-artist, nothing amazing but I do alright."
Cai Yinong said in amazement, "Are you kidding me?"
Jiang Cheng shrugged and smiled, causing Cai Yinong to think he was really joking. But what Cai Yinong didn't know was that Jiang Cheng meant every word!
After carefully listening over all nine pieces of music, Cai Yinong switched off the computer and said to Jiang Cheng: "Acheng, you've really done a great job this time. The soundtrack is definitely better than the original Zhou Lao composed. It's too much! We can't have you working for nothing, so let's sign another contract. Do you have any requirements?"
Jiang Cheng smiled and said, "I don't have any requirements, I'm sure Sister Cai won't treat me badly."
"Slippery little..!" Cai Yinong cursed with a smile, "Now you've said that, I really can't reward you lightly or else what would the people below think?"
Jiang Cheng smiled and stuck out his tongue.
After that, the two parties signed another contract. Tangren paid Jiang Cheng ¥500,000 yuan as the production fee for the full soundtrack to [Autumn's Concerto], and Jiang Cheng would also enjoy 10% royalties from [Autumn's Concerto] soundtrack album after publication.This was definitely a sky-high price for a newcomer soundtrack. The average person only got ¥300,000 in production fees and a profit share of 5% for an album. From this, it could be seen how importantly Shanghai Tangren viewed Jiang Cheng.
But in fact, the ¥500,000 wasn't brought out by Shanghai Tangren, but from the soundtracker Artist Zhou. Although he was pissed off by Jiang Cheng, it was indeed his breach of contract first, so he needed to pay Tangren liquidated damages of ¥500,000.
Originally, Artist Zhou had been waiting for Shanghai Tangren to come and call him back. At that time, he was thinking of demanding double his original fees; but he didn't think that Shanghai Tangren actually didn't come back to him, but instead his lawyer received a letter of intent from Shanghai Tangren demanding compensation for breach of contract.They demanded Zhou Lao to pay the penalty. Zhou Lao was naturally unwilling, and even clamored that Jiang Cheng needed to compensate him for medical expenses first, otherwise he would sue the crew of [Autumn's Concerto].
Tangren, without saying anything, directly dumped ¥100,000 yuan into his account for medical expenses, shutting his mouth. Then continued to demand compensation for breach of contract.
Knowing that he couldn't hide, Zhou Lao caved and obediently paid the penalty. According to the previous contract, he was to be paid ¥300,000 yuan for creating the soundtrack for [Autumn's Concerto], but he would be required to pay twice as much money in the case of breach of contract, which was ¥600,000 yuan. The ¥100,000 yuan hadn't even settled in his account when he had to pay it back, and another ¥500,000 yuan on top of that!
Zhou Lao refused to suffer a complete loss, and clammered to the media that he had been beaten by Jiang Cheng, hoping to discredit Jiang Cheng's reputation. But he seemed to forget that there were cameras in the studio and there was a full recording of the incident and Shanghai Tangren had already been on guard against him.
Their lawyers directly handed over the recording of the whole incident to the media, and also showed that Shanghai Tangren had already paid the so-called 'medical expenses'. It was clear who was in the right and who was in the wrong. It was Zhou Lao, who insulted others first and touched Jiang Cheng first, although Jiang Cheng's reaction was slightly over the top, he hadn't really done much other than pull his fingers back and push him away. Plus the young man's temper was understandable, after being insulted and continuously poked in the chest.
Jiang Cheng had also taken the initiative to publicly apologize after the incident and Zhou Lao had also already been compensated for medical expenses.
Overall it was Zhou Lao who intended to stain Jiang Cheng's name that found himself in a bind, everyone in the industry already knew about his bad temper but seeing him take a private dealing public to the press added him to the blacklist of several firms in the industry, the last thing they wanted was a liability that could turn around and bite them in the ass. Reputation was everything in their industry after all.
It was a pity for the gossip outlets though, just as they were about to dig in and quote some obscure 'insider', the whole incident was quickly brushed under the rug by Shanghai Tangren and quickly faded from public memory.
They originally planned to hold on to the "Jiang Cheng beating" incident and try to get a hot piece out of it, if the cause of the incident was unclear, but now everything was brought to the surface and Jiang Cheng had publicly apologized and taken the initiative to compensate for the 'medical expenses', no one could say that he was truly in the wrong, at most they could only complain about his bad temper. Them pushing the incident would instead easily offend people.
Regarding all this, Jiang Cheng ignored it. He didn't even write the apology statement personally, but he read it after the assistant had finished it. In his heart, he didn't want to apologize to Zhou Lao, but he knew now he had entered the entertainment circle, and he had to be careful about his image and what he did. Whilst he didn't really care much for himself, because of this incident, Shanghai Tangren and the crew of [Autumn's Concerto] were being dragged down.
Therefore, since this incident needed to be ended as soon as possible, Jiang Cheng didn't mind aggrieving himself and went through with the apology.
After finishing work on the soundtrack, Jiang Cheng discussed with Cai Yinong and Zhang Da about candidates for singing the songs.
After hearing the version of Jiang Cheng's singing, Cai Yinong and Zhang Da both wanted Jiang Cheng to take over the singing directly, but Jiang Cheng refused.
"Acheng, to be honest, your voice is very good. Although you haven't learned to sing systematically, being able to do what you did shows that you have potential to be tapped into. It's better if you do it yourself. If everything goes well and you develop your singing ability, you could grow a music career out of this" Cai Yinong suggested, and Zhang Da also helped out:
"Yeah, Jiang Cheng, you have such a good voice. If you don't make good use of it, it's wasted. And you're already an actor, it's just one more step to further expand your career, why not do it?"
Jiang Cheng smiled and shook his head: "Sister Cai, Director Zhang, I appreciate the kindness, but I really don't care for it. If I wasn't forced to step in this time, I wouldn't even have stepped up to make a soundtrack. A person's energy is limited. I want to spend more time on improving my acting skills. If it's one or two songs, that's okay, but now with so many songs, it would take too long. I don't want to get involved with singing."
Cai Yinong and Zhang Da looked at each other, and both sighed, feeling a little regretful in their hearts. However, they saw that Jiang Cheng was determined, so they stopped persuading.
"Then Acheng, do you have any good suggestions for candidates?" Cai Yinong asked.
Jiang Cheng thought for a while, pointed to the CD and said: "There are a total of nine songs on there: [I Love him], [Family], [Why Are You Lying], [Four-Leaf Clover], [Loved On] are female solo's.
[All For Love], [I Thought] are male solos and [Suddenly Want To Love You], [Have To Love] are duets, so naturally look for two singers, one man and one female."
"Got it, but since there are only two male solo songs, why don't you take one? "Cai Yinong asked again.
Jiang Cheng gave a wry smile, it seems that Cai Yinong still hadn't given up! He didn't want to make it too difficult for her so he said: "Solo songs are too much, but I can take on the male part on the duet for [Have To Love]. Would that be enough?"
Cai Yinong smiled and nodded: "I'm satisfied, but how do you want to decide on the candidates for the male singer?"
Zhang Da suddenly cut in: "How about Vic Chou? He is the lead actor afterall, and he still sings with F4, shouldn't he take the solo's?"
Unexpectedly, Jiang Cheng and Cai Yinong both shook their heads. Cai Yinong said: "His voice isn't great, at least not as good as Jerry Yan, Vanness Wu in F4. Besides, he is Taiwanese after all, and his popularity on the mainland is still limited. Our target audience is mainland, so a mainland singer would be better."
Jiang Cheng suddenly smiled: "Sister Cai, Director Zhang, in fact, you've both overlooked someone. Although he hasn't learned to sing systematically yet, his tone is pretty good. Most importantly, he is from our company!"
Cai Yinong's eyes lit up: "You mean Hu Ge!"
Jiang Cheng nodded and said, "Yes, it's Hu Ge. He's got the talent to be a singer, and it would be very good to train him. Besides, he is a member of our company, so the fruits of our labor won't flow elsewhere."
After thinking about Hu Ge's voice, Cai Yinong nodded with satisfaction: "Okay, we'll go with it. Hu Ge's voice is pretty good, plus he's a good seedling!"
"Then what about the female singer? It's better not to be Barbie Hsu or Dee Hsu. The reason is the same as Vic Chou's." Jiang Cheng said.
If it wasn't for the fact that Ady An hadn't made her impact yet, and so was hard to locate, Jiang Cheng wouldn't even have taken Barbie Hsu as the heroine. Jiang Cheng didn't have any good feelings towards the sisters, he always thought they were too public with everything they did. But unexpectedly, the casting director had not only invited Barbie Hsu, but also her younger sister. When he first heard the news, Jiang Cheng couldn't describe how disappointed he was! So now naturally he didn't want to see them singing the soundtrack.
Hearing this, Cai Yinong and Zhang Da both laughed. Cai Yinong smiled and said, "Don't worry, I've already notified HuaXiang Entertainment to send a female singer."
Jiang Cheng was pleased: "I didn't expect Sister Cai to be so prescient. A younger singer with more of an ethereal sound would be best."
"I took that into consideration when I listened to [Family], I've already mentioned it to HuaXiang Entertainment. By the way, they have already recommended a female singer to come over. She was just signed this year, one year older than you, and a native of Shanghai. She's said to have great potential. "Cai Yinong said.
"Oh? What's she called?"
"Heard her stage name's Kym but she's called Jin Sha. But I don't know the specifics, but she should be here this afternoon. You can meet in the studio."
"Jin Sha?!"
Suddenly hearing this name, Jiang Cheng's expression turned wonderful to behold.