The King of Huayu Science Fiction

Chapter 468

"It's too exaggerated..."

In DreamWorks' new seven-story headquarters building, in a spacious office, Mo's computer animation department director Xiang Xuan sighed in surprise and joy: "The animation hasn't been released yet."

DreamWorks headquarters is a square building with only 7 floors, extending horizontally to a super-large plane of 185x185m. It does not seek high altitude to accommodate as many labors as possible. It is enough to accommodate thousands of people, and the space is very comfortable and spacious.

Moreover, all offices have floor-to-ceiling windows for daylighting. The windows of the peripheral offices are adjacent to the street view, and the internal offices are also arranged around the central green courtyard. Outside the windows is the patio courtyard in the center of the building. Only the highest space in the courtyard has The glass protects against wind and rain, so it can provide good lighting and green plants for the offices around the hollow courtyard.

Chen Jingxing chatted with several directors and project team leaders of the animation department in such a spacious office.

Chen Jingxing sat on a revolving chair, facing the vast courtyard outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. There were even magpies and other birds flying around on the trees and green plants.

The floor-to-ceiling windows of the DreamWorks office are all dimming glass, which is transparent when the power is on, and the liquid crystal film sandwiched between two layers of tempered glass will naturally appear foggy when the power is off, so that the outside cannot see the inside, and the inside cannot see the outside .

Of course, the sound insulation is also very good, the sound of birds in the courtyard will not disturb the people in the office.

Chen Jingxing took a sip of coffee and said with a smile, "I said earlier that human beings have no resistance to cute things."

DreamWorks is good at marketing, including trailer marketing, which is almost recognized by the outside world about DreamWorks.

However, all the work on the trailer is also to create greater popularity. In the final analysis, it is to increase pre-sales, improve film scheduling, and have a good box office.

So not all works are fully live on the trailer.

Like "Inception", there are a lot of stars. If you have to work hard on the trailer, aren't these stars hired for nothing?Isn't the sky-high salary paid for nothing?
Although DreamWorks, especially Chen Jingxing's films, have strong bargaining power over actors' remuneration, actors usually lower their remuneration when they take on Chen Jingxing's works.

It's just that "Inception" does have a lot of stars, no matter how hard it is, the total salary is quite considerable, it can be called the movie with the highest salary of Chen Jingxing, a little higher than "Matrix III".

Therefore, in terms of the marketing of "Inception", the trailer has not been organized, it is quite satisfactory, and even the duration of the trailer is quite short, basically no useful information is revealed.

This layer of information related to dreams has not been a secret since the movie was confirmed to be called "Inception".

But even so, the stingy trailer and mediocre marketing made the popularity of "Inception" climb to a high point overnight, and even countered the comedy movie "Oolong" that was promoted half a month earlier than "Inception". Earl of the Hill" half head.

If DreamWorks is the watchman of domestic sci-fi movies, then Happy Twist is undoubtedly the leader of domestic comedy movies in recent years.

Every year, one or two comedies are released that become box office bombs.

The work launched by Happy Twist this year is still the film "The Earl of Wulong Mountain" adapted from its classic drama.

It's just because the lineup of the summer film is too strong. Of course, it is actually stronger because of the appearance of the dark horse "The God of Medicine". Happy Twist and co-producer Fang Jianghe Culture changed this film to the National Day file.

Happy Twist's audience popularity has always been good, and it has also grasped the wealth code of Hantengquan, so "The Earl of Wulong Mountain" has long been the number one seed player in the National Day file.

After all, comedy is now a popular theme in China that can compete with war and sci-fi. Although Happy Twist has never made a movie with a box office of more than 30 billion in the past, there are also works with a box office of 20 billion.

Looking at the scale of the domestic film market getting higher and higher every year, "The Earl of Wulong Mountain" is also the fourth seed player to hit the 30 billion club this year in the hearts of the media and netizens - the first three are "Operation Red Sea", " Matrix II" and "I'm Not the God of Medicine".

Of course, all this came to an abrupt end after "Inception" was announced to be released on National Day.

The capacity of the National Day film is not as good as that of the Spring Festival and summer film. No matter how optimistic you are about the development of the domestic film market, the possibility of breaking through 30 billion will become very slim at this stage when two popular blockbusters with champions are competing against each other.

This is also the reason why when DreamWorks' new headquarters was officially unveiled, other company bosses complained to Chen Jingxing "can you leave us a way to survive?"

Of course, in the end, the "forced palace" of the bosses ended in failure.

The main reason is that this is not only Chen Jingxing's will, but also the will of the competent department.

Chen Jingxing also wanted to have exclusive access to the schedule and get the most profit, and he didn't want to go head-to-head with a strong opponent. The key is that as long as the quality of a blockbuster comedy like "The Earl of Wulong Mountain" is above the standard, the box office will not be bad, and it will definitely be squeezed The box office space of "Inception".

Moreover, "Inception" was only completed at the end of April, and the post-production, post-production completed film submission for review, and then the initial review, final review, and file announcement generally take a long time. If you want to release it on the National Day file in terms of time, and There should also be enough time for the announcement, and the time is indeed a bit cramped.

But this is a normal situation. If the film bureau gives the green light all the way, it will be very fast to get the digital film technology license with Longbiao, and you don't even need to complete post-production.

The culprit was Chen Jingxing's butterfly wings, which led to the opportunity for Huaguo's film box office to challenge the North American market this year ahead of schedule.

Therefore, after the cumulative box office results of 519 billion in the third quarter were released, domestic and American media have paid attention to it. One is cheering and cheering that it is expected to surpass the North American market this year. Hollywood.

Although the domestic film authorities verbally say that they don't care whether they can surpass the North American market this year, anyway, this day will come sooner or later, but their attitude behind the scenes is another matter.

Originally, Chen Jingxing had to judge whether he could get on the National Day file based on the post-production progress and review speed of "Inception". According to the volume of "Inception", it will definitely not be released until next year's popular schedule.

But he didn't expect the leader of the competent department to call him. Knowing that the post-production of "Inception" will definitely be completed before September, but the main reason is that the review time cannot be determined, and he quickly opened the green channel and asked Chen Jingxing to cut it. The version with unfinished special effects quickly passed the review and got the dragon mark.

Apparently, the cultural department and the administrative department are secretly holding back their energy to catch up with the North American market this year, so as to make achievements for themselves and the department this year. After all, there are uncertainties in the appointment of cadres, and some leaders may not be able to wait until next year. At the end of the year, they may be transferred away, and at that time it will be cheaper for others, and political achievements can be obtained as early as possible.

With such an attitude from the competent authorities, other companies have nothing to say.

Because "Inception" is full of stars, the difficulty of publicity and distribution is naturally lower, so Chen Jingxing shifted the energy of the whole flower work to "Robot Wall-E" which will continue the box office miracle tradition of DreamWorks Animation in the Spring Festival next year. body.

"Wall-E" has no big IP blessing, nor is it a national treasure, and it has nothing to do with any myths and legends. This disadvantage cannot be made up for with the title of DreamWorks.

Coupled with the fact that DreamWorks has been relying on the early animation layout for the past two years to eat meat, other film and television giants and animation companies have waited for two or three years and finally bear their own fruits this year. A large number of 3D animation films are It will be released next year.

And judging from the trailers of some animated films that have been released, although the technology is still not comparable to that of DreamWorks, it is not something that fooled people in the past, and it can really be used.

Competitors will appear in the Spring Festival next year, and the announcement of "Wall-E" will be even more vigorous.

Although it is not yet finished, the trailer has already been produced.

But it's not an ordinary normal trailer, but a series of interesting short films.

Each short film lasts about two to three minutes, with weekly intervals, and a short film will be released every week until the release of "Wall-E" in the Spring Festival next year.

The content of the short film is just one sentence - the cuteness of the robot WALL-E.

Try every means to be cute!
During the period, there will be interactions with characters in previous DreamWorks animation works such as "Kung Fu Panda" and "The Return of the Great Sage".

Even two-dimensional animations such as "Your Name" and "Skyhawk Warrior" are not spared, and three-dimensional animated characters and two-dimensional animated characters can also interact.

There will even be interactions with real people, such as with the characters of "Matrix", Wu Yue, the heroine of "Gravity", characters of "The Martian", characters of "Spike II" and "Operation Red Sea", the scenes from Matrix to Huaxu Kingdom, from the battlefield to space, from the city to Mars.

As the saying goes, "Showing cuteness is the primary productive force", especially for animated characters, cuteness is justice.

And Wall-E's "cuteness" among all animated characters is definitely in the first echelon.

The image design of the three-headed body, cute big eyes, as well as the action design and body language that make people feel pitiful and cute, plus he can't speak - can't speak is absolute in the animation cute bonus.

Wall-E is definitely the cutest and most pitiful creature in all the animation works of DreamWorks so far.

This two-to-three-minute show of cute things every week, coupled with the interaction with popular characters and even live-action actors in other works of DreamWorks in familiar and classic scenes, is equivalent to borrowing the popularity and popularity of other classic works of DreamWorks .

Although these short films are time-consuming, labor-intensive and costly, and the animation department even took out a dedicated team to produce them, they are indeed worth it.

worth it.

DreamWorks has only released two short films to create a lot of enthusiasm. The protagonist of an animation film that has not yet been released has already captured the hearts of many people and has become a new virtual cute traffic.

Many people are even buying dolls, puppets, models and other derivative products with the image of Wall-E.

Fortunately, DreamWorks has already gained experience after passing through "The Great Sage" and "Panda", and has a fixed domestic cooperative manufacturer, so the original derivative products are ready in advance.

It’s just that the effect of this round of cute marketing for the short film still exceeded DreamWorks’ internal expectations, so the prepared products, especially the puppets, were quickly sold out. After all, the movie has not yet been released, and the manufacturers will not produce too many goods. would pose a high risk.

Therefore, after a lot of scrambling, production was quickly expanded, trying to prevent pirated versions from eating too much cake.

Not only inside DreamWorks, but even the media and many netizens are surprised by the popularity of this strange robot image, Wall-E.

However, Chen Jingxing was relatively prepared and could remain calm about this.

In fact, there are many examples of animation images without works becoming popular or even popular, such as Kumamon or Rogue Rabbit. Of course, Disney is the most proficient at this.

Such as Stella and Reina Belle.

It's just that Lina Bell relied on the wonderful acting skills of the Disneyland staff to market in the form of short videos shot by ordinary tourists, while Wally relied on one short film a week to sell cute.

As long as the image design and body language can poke the cuteness of many audiences, it is actually not too difficult.

The most difficult thing is the construction of image design, body language and behavior patterns.

But the most difficult point has been solved in advance through Chen Jingxing's cheating.

The robot Wall-E is a successful character that has gone through the test of the market in another world. What Chen Jingxing presented is the proven image design and behavior pattern.

(End of this chapter)