Chapter 386 DreamWorks Music

When the big boss made a dictatorial decision on BMW's future family design style, Schermer and the company's foreign design team drew up more than 100 vehicle design plans in half a year.

Although Fang Hexuan had clearly stated before that BMW's first batch of models would not be a full series, but would only include four models: compact sedan, mid-size sedan, mid-to-large sedan, and mid-size SUV.

But these more than 100 plans cover almost all car series and levels. It can only be said that BMW’s German CEO has been holding back for too long and finally decided to explode.

Since his subordinates are working so hard, Fang Hexuan, as the boss, cannot disappoint them.

Although many of the plans seemed either too avant-garde or too conservative to him, he actually went through all the design drafts one by one.

When Fang Hexuan discussed with Shemer before, he only briefly drew a unified family front face and did not talk about the specific model, so the other party was actually not sure what effect he wanted.

Given that the new generation of body sheet metal stamping technology has not yet been implemented, the current car appearance does feel a generation behind that of the 90s.

But Fang Hexuan was well prepared. He had already invested in several automotive equipment manufacturers in Germany, including stamping, sheet metal welding, etc.

After investors put forward their demands and the money was in place, these companies have indeed demonstrated their outstanding technical and scientific research capabilities. They have now trial-produced two sets of processing equipment, one of which will soon be shipped to Shenzhen for installation and debugging, followed by trial production.

Of course, Fang Hexuan would not be too radical. After all, no matter how advanced the aesthetics are, they still need to take into account the consumers' acceptance.

Therefore, the appearance design of BMW's models will not suddenly jump to the style of the 90s or even after 2000, but will adopt the principle of gradual evolution.

Fortunately, after Fang Hexuan discussed with Shemer and the designers present in the conference room for an afternoon, everyone's thinking gradually opened up.

BMW's design director Löw even drew a concept sketch of a mid-to-large sedan on the spot. When Fang Hexuan saw it, his eyes lit up.

The car model in this draft has a very obvious transitional design concept, which makes people know at a glance that it is not from the same era as the cars currently running on the road, but it does not make it look awkward or unfamiliar.

Fang Hexuan didn't mean to impose the classic designs of the three major luxury car brands in his mind, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi, on BMW's design team. As long as the design they came up with was feasible for him, a time traveler, then it could be finalized, and at most some minor revisions could be made later.

He approved the design director Löw's ideas on the spot and asked him to come up with the complete design drafts of the four models as soon as possible.

After inspecting the two factories, Fang Hexuan returned to Hong Kong that night.

The next day, I went to work as usual.

At around ten o'clock, DreamWorks Films General Manager Liu Tianci and DreamWorks Music General Manager Zheng Donghan knocked on the office door.

Fang Hexuan asked the two to find a seat and sit down, then asked his assistant to bring in two cups of coffee.

In October last year, Liu Tianci approached him and hoped that the group would set up a music company under DreamWorks Movies.

Fang Hexuan was not very enthusiastic at first, so his reaction was very cold, but he could not resist Lao Liu's soft and hard persuasion. In fact, in his opinion, making music really requires emotion, otherwise, this thing will not make much money, and it will be very troublesome.

To put it bluntly, even if a record company makes a singer famous, the profit is just the share of the record sales, and the copyright is not worth much at that time.

Fang Hexuan, as the richest man in the country, really doesn't care about that little share of the income. What's more, piracy is already on the rise and the music market will only shrink in the future.

However, Liu Tianci finally convinced him for two main reasons: first, the copyright of DreamWorks Movies' original music requires a professional music company to operate; second, discovering singers and launching pop music can indirectly enhance the influence of DreamWorks Movies and Alphabet Group.

Fang Hexuan didn't agree with the first reason, but the second one made some sense.

In this way, DreamWorks Music was finally officially established on November 1981, 11, but it was not under DreamWorks Movies, but became a subsidiary of Alphabet Group.

The reason for this arrangement was that Fang Hexuan planned to privatize the listed DreamWorks Entertainment in the second year, that is, in 1982, and completely release its DreamWorks movies and Pokémon.

He did just that. Just the day before yesterday, on October 1982, 10, DreamWorks Entertainment was delisted from the Hong Kong stock market, and several major private shareholders all took the money and left.

On the day of delisting, Fang Hexuan announced that DreamWorks Films and DreamWorks Music would be merged into DreamWorks Entertainment, abbreviated as DreamWorks.

When he founded DreamWorks Music last year, he went against all odds and appointed 23-year-old Zheng Donghan as general manager, which caused quite a stir at the time. Letting such a young person take charge of a music company can be said to be a first in the music industry.

As for why he had to choose this person, it was naturally due to Fang Hexuan's memories from his previous life.

Zheng Donghan was born in Hsinchu City, Taiwan in 1958. He was once a well-known guitarist in Hong Kong. The band he formed with Teddy Robin was very popular at the time.

In the original time and space, he was hired as the head of Hong Kong PolyGram Records at the age of 24 in 1982, and made superstars such as Teresa Teng, Sam Hui, Alan Tam, Jacky Cheung, Beyond, Faye Wong, Ange Tong, Leon Lai, and Andy Lau famous.

After Universal Music acquired PolyGram, Cheng Donghan was appointed Chairman of Universal's Pan-Asia Pacific region. Later, he was hired as a partner of EMI China and served as President of Asia. In just three years, he turned EMI China, which was originally ranked fifth, into the number one in market sales.

By the way, he also has a son named Zheng Zhongji, who has appeared in many Hong Kong comedy films.

It can be said that Zheng Donghan not only has musical talent himself, but also has strong abilities in cultivating singers and managing music companies.

As for why he was willing to accept Fang Hexuan's recruitment, that was pure nonsense.

DreamWorks Music is indeed a newcomer in terms of its deep roots in the music industry, but it is backed by DreamWorks Films and Alphabet Group, and has a super famous boss who is the richest man in the world. The resources it can access are incomparable to any other record company, not even Warner Music, EMI Records or EMI Records that have already expanded their business in Hong Kong.

After Zheng Donghan took office, Fang Hexuan gave him a list of people to recruit, including Leslie Cheung, Anita Mui, Roman Tam, Teresa Teng, George Lam, Alex To, Cheung Ming Man, Sally Yeh, Susan Kwan, Anna Lui, Sandy Lam, Su Rui and Beyond.

Among them, Anita Mui, Alex To, Zhang Mingmin, Sally Yeh and Beyond had not yet officially debuted in the music industry, so Zheng Donghan needed to spend a lot of effort to find them. As for the others, when he said the three words "DreamWorks", there was no need for him to say anything. These singers who had already released albums or had been famous for a long time all excitedly expressed their willingness to sign the contract. Of course, DreamWorks Music also needed to pay some liquidated damages.

(End of this chapter)