Zhang Yongchen and His A Team

2017-06-12

空中之家 2017年6期

Scriptwriter Zhang Yongchen realized the magic of teamwork when he fi rst started out as a writer. The anguish and bitterness of fi ghting alone taught him that only by working as a team can scriptwriters survive this period of uncertainty.

Text and Translation by Madeline Weng Photos by ZengJian Illustrations by Zhang Haolun

The symposium doesn't fi t the stereotype – that of a scriptwriter locked in his or her study and talking to no one until the play is fi nished. Pilot Media,

however, is apparently a lively place. Zhang's team of scriptwriters works late almost every night, and Zhang himself also participates in the discussions about the plot, before he returns home.

Zhang told Nihao:“ When I fi rst started writing as a young man, I craved for a place to meet other writers. It's a pity that I couldn't fi nd any like-minded people to discuss literature. All I could do was keep on reading.”

Seeming to make it up to himself, Zhang set up a company and gathered together a group of young writers. He encourages his scriptwriters to brainstorm and put their heads together for the same story they work on. Until now, Pilot has accumulated more than 100 ambitious young writers, and provides each one of them with unlimited coffee, a cozy working space, and a nice room with all its utility bills taken care of.

Pilot Media is more like a salon than a company, and the amiable businessman is more like a headmaster

When I fi rst saw Zhang Yongchen, he was sitting among a table of young scriptwriters, listening to their debate with a smile, and offering his opinions once in a while. of a medium-sized drama school.

Zhang Yongchen's persistence in helping the talents may have originated from his mother's longing for knowledge. Zhang's mother past away when he was just ten years old. At that time, Liangshui Bay was still a small fi shing village. A lot of children were unable to go to school. Thanks to their mother's strong belief in education, Zhang and his brother both went to college, regardless of how poor the family had been.

He recalled how he accidentally made a turn to the world of literature as a student of mechanical engineering at a university based in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang province, when his contribution to Northern Literature, a local literary magazine, was accepted.

At the end of his college years, Zhang was sent to work at an excavator plant based in Tianjin. Luckily, he, along with another two people, was given the valuable opportunity of becoming a signed writer with Tianjin Writers Association's Institute of Literature, shortly after he began his work in the plant. Even today, he still recalls the section of his life with much gratitude. “Without the strong support of the Heilongjiang Writers Association in referring me to its counterpart in Tianjin, I could very likely have ended up an excavator driver!” he said with a smile,“Those were really good old days when a writer' worth entirely depended on the value of his or her works.”

In 2008, Zhang set up a creative scholarship in his former university. Born and raised in a small town, this now successful man has never forgotten his past. Lately, he has set up another scholarship at Shanghai Theatre Academy, so as to fi nd and help potential talents. Zhang says he will start to send the best scriptwriters of Pilot Media to further study in America, which will in turn benef i t the future of the Chinese scriptwriting industry.