Ori's words made Nanaya frown slightly. He didn't know what this accountant was here for.
As two of Hollywood's biggest projects, the filming funds for FZ and HF certainly do not only come from Washimine himself, but also a lot of funds raised from the society.
Therefore, as a traditional practice in Hollywood, the funds for filming are placed in a separate third-party account.
Every penny of filming funds must be confirmed by a third-party accounting firm before it can be officially used by the crew.
Hollywood generally has a love-hate relationship with these third-party accounting firms.
Of course, this attitude is divided into two groups of people.
The former are investors, because these third-party institutions ensure that their filming funds are not used for other purposes.
The latter are naturally the filming party, and they will be harassed by this group of people every time they need money.
Of course, the specific situation depends on how strong the crew members are.
Small directors and small crews will naturally face all kinds of difficulties, but it is different for large crews.
Everyone knows that James Cameron spends money like water, but who dares to hold back the money he spends on making movies?
The same goes for Nanaya.
As the core of the crew, and with Washimine's trust, Nanaya's power is naturally above all else.
As a representative of a third-party accounting firm, we have never encountered any problems with approval.
As long as Nanaya can guarantee that the funds will be used to make movies, they are happy to turn a deaf ear to it.
As far as Nanaya could remember, except for necessary meetings, the accounting representative would never appear on the crew.
So, when Nanaya heard Ori say that this invisible man actually came to find him, his first reaction was a bit surprised.
"Accounting representative? What is he doing here?"
In response to Nanaya's question, Ori shrugged: "I don't know. He said he wanted to talk to you about something."
Nanaya looked at Shiki Matsuno with a suspicious look: "Did you drink at the government expense?"
"Bullshit, I won't do such a thing!" Shiki replied, "Besides, even if I drink at public expense, how much can I drink?"
"That's right." Nanaya nodded. "It must have cost that guy at least a million dollars to come to me. That's definitely enough to give you alcohol poisoning."
"Hello!"
But Shiki Matsuno'cries were ignored.
"Let's go and ask him what he wants. I remember there's a reception room next to the studio, right?"
Nanaya thought about it carefully and was sure that he had not done anything out of the ordinary in terms of finance. In that case, he naturally did not need to be afraid of meeting the accountant.
Soon, Nanaya met the representative of the accounting firm.
This middle-aged man still has the familiar shrewdness, and looks like he is good at calculating.
"Director Kiryu."
The accounting representative sat opposite Nanaya. He sipped Ori's coffee slowly and said to Nanaya, "I'm sorry to bother you while you're filming."
Although Nanaya washed off the makeup on his face before coming here, he did not change his clothes.
The black windbreaker with a pistol holster on the waist is not something a normal person would wear.
"Nothing, you must have something urgent to ask me."
With his hands on the armrest of the sofa, Nanaya said, "So why did you come to me? Is there a deficit in the account of the Fate project?"
"No, no, no."
The other party waved his hands repeatedly, and he quickly said: "It has nothing to do with the deficit. The account funds are very normal. It's better to say that normal is a bit too normal..."
The accountant pursed his lips and spoke the second half of his sentence in a very low voice.
"What?"
"Nothing."
The accounting representative changed his tone and said, "Director Kiryu, I have good news and bad news for you."
Nanaya chuckled: "Then you want to ask me which one to listen to first?"
"Need not."
The accountant looked a little embarrassed. He put down his coffee and said quickly, "The good news is that according to our current estimates, after the FZ and HF projects are finished, there should be a surplus of about 9 million US dollars."
"So what about the bad news?" Nanaya's expression remained unchanged.
The accounting representative said helplessly: "The bad news is also the $9 million balance."
Nanaya opened his mouth and was about to say "Are you kidding me?" but then he thought again and realized that this was indeed a problem.
If it was when we were filming "Kara no Kyoukai" in the past, having a surplus would be a good thing.
After all, the only investor is Lin Bao's family, so any surplus from the filming budget can be directly returned to them.
But now there are dozens of investors and investment units involved in the Fate series, so the surplus of 9 million seems a bit useless.
If there is a surplus of tens of millions, it can be returned directly. At most, it will just require the accounting firm to do the statistics.
However, if the $9 million is distributed among each investor, the maximum amount would be several million, and the minimum would be tens of thousands of dollars. Even some individual investors would probably only get back a few thousand dollars.
And if this is really done, it may cause dissatisfaction among investors.
After all, the amount of investment affects their direct income.
Now that the upper part of FZ has sold like hot cakes, are you returning the money to us and planning to swallow up our profits?
Don't think that this kind of thing is easy to explain. People always become irrational and impulsive when it comes to their own interests.
The accounting firm had anticipated the possibility of this happening, so they came to remind Nanaya.
But there are certain problems with simply asking the crew to absorb the money.
Accounting firms have to publish financial statements, and $9 million is not a small amount of money. It would be very troublesome if someone found out.
"In short, I hope Director Kiryu can find a way to resolve the $9 million balance as soon as possible."
Before leaving, the accountant said calmly, "Otherwise, when the film is finished, we will have to return the money to the investors according to the agreement."
Nanaya understood what the accountant meant. He hoped that Nanaya could spend the 9 million US dollars as soon as possible.
This is good for everyone.
After all, it is better to have less trouble than more, and he doesn't want to get into any trouble.
As for whether the 9 million was wasted, it was none of his business.
Anyway, it's not their accounting firm's own money. As long as Nanaya balances the accounts, he will naturally remain silent.
"I understand."
Nanaya smiled and sent the people out of the reception room, but then the smile on his face disappeared.
"Senior, is it difficult to handle?"
Looking at Nanaya's expression, Ori guessed what he was thinking.
Nanaya nodded: "Well... it's not easy. If I had known, I would have been more generous."
Because the two projects were being carried out simultaneously, Nanaya was very restrained in spending money in the early stages for fear of running out of budget.
But I didn't expect that I would have money worries now.
Now Nanaya feels like he needs to spend money suddenly at the end of the year, but this money is under supervision, so he has to be more thoughtful about how he spends it.
As for the idea of simply embezzling the money for accounting purposes, Nanaya had never thought about it.
Although he was not a professional accountant, he knew that the $9 million account could not be handled by accounting alone.
The best way is to find a way to spend the money, and in the name of filming.
After all, the agreement only mentions film production, and publicity and promotion costs are not included.
Of course, when calculating the profit and loss of a movie, the publicity and promotion costs will be taken into account.
Nanaya scratched his head in annoyance: "If I had known earlier, I would have included the publicity and promotion as well."
There are too many Hollywood movies that have achieved losses on paper due to their promotion and marketing.
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" and "Saving Private Ryan", which were once global hits, both made losses when the accounts were disclosed to the public.
So publicity and promotion can be a bottomless pit on paper, and anything can go on.
However, Nanaya and Shion thought that honesty was the most important thing, so they did not set a trap for those investors.
Now Nanaya had no choice but to step in on his own initiative.
"Ori, show me the shooting plans for the next two projects."
Nanaya asked Ori for a document and he carefully compared the contents.
"Senior, can't we add a special effects action scene?"
As Nanaya was looking through the shooting plan, Ori asked in confusion.
"Well...it's not impossible."
Nanaya smiled bitterly.
Special effects are indeed a bottomless pit of money. Not to mention millions of dollars, even tens of millions of dollars can be burned in a matter of minutes.
"But then wouldn't it all be a waste? We get nothing except a bunch of useless footage."
Nanaya replied: "If it was a few hundred thousand dollars, it would be fine, but this is nearly 10 million dollars, which is not a small amount. We can definitely do something more meaningful."
"Then take some shots." Ori replied as a matter of course.
"The problem is that there's nothing left to film." Nanaya rubbed his brows, "If I had known earlier, I wouldn't have been so anxious to finish filming Kiritsugu's personal spin-off. Now I have one less excuse to waste money."
In the past, when the FZ anime was relaxing, it inserted two episodes about Kiritsugu's experiences before he participated in the Holy Grail War.
Of course, Nanaya also filmed this part, and in order to make that crying and devilish expression, he even deliberately suffered pain in his anus————
Probably to avenge the previous incident with the massage tools, Lily and Ori kicked Nanaya hard on the butt respectively.
At that moment, Nanaya finally understood that sentence:
Sooner or later you will pay for your misdeeds.
Although it cost a huge price, when Nanaya was planning the film editing, he felt that this part was a bit redundant, so he deleted it.
Of course, Nanaya had no plans to destroy this 40-minute plot. He planned to put it on a DVD for promotion later.
The DVD special features are naturally a major selling point, as evidenced by the endless stream of deleted scenes and short films that appeared in the previous life.
"So, Senior."
Looking at Nanaya who was still struggling, Ori sighed.
He said with a bit of amusement: "Why don't we just shoot a separate extra video?"