This director needs to apologize

Chapter 153 Road Show Violence
The so-called road show is actually making news.

If you want to increase the box office, you must first let the audience know that you are there, secondly, let the audience buy tickets, and finally, let the audience be willing to express their opinions.

This corresponds to the three key aspects of movie promotion and distribution, namely widespread advertising, theater arrangement, and word-of-mouth communication.

The first step is to advertise widely, as the name suggests, it is large-scale advertising, including online advertising and offline advertising.

In 2010, the film industry didn't pay much attention to online advertising. The reason was that there was no real sense of spending money and the effect was difficult to evaluate. Therefore, they only tried to try something new and superficial.

The promotion method that distribution and theater managers are more interested in is traditional TV + local promotion.

Shopping mall billboards, bus stop signs, landmark ads, TV or radio ads, push information to every resident in the city as much as possible. Whether they can get them into the cinema depends on fate.

Anyway, based on Chen Yiming’s experience in the advertising industry before he became a street director, the message arrival rate of offline advertising generally hovers between 1-3%, and the probability of positive feedback is multiplied by another 10%.

In other words, the probability that passers-by who see TV or offline advertisements will eventually be moved and walk into the theater is only two or three per 1000 people.

Therefore, there is a saying in the film industry that they can carry the box office. Big directors or big-name actors are the first choice of investors and the focus of publicity.

Because of its popularity, it can significantly reduce the cost of publicity and greatly increase the chance of attracting passers-by into the theater.

At the same time, as long as a popular newcomer emerges in the circle, resources will quickly be concentrated on him, and the drought will die and the flood will die.

It stands to reason that capital is risk-averse and should not be so desperate. However, there is no way. The top-down propaganda method determines that there must be an anchor coordinate. Without this coordinate, the so-called publicity is equivalent to air-to-air cannon fire. mosquito.

After spending money, time and effort to get it widely advertised, the next step of arranging films in theaters is another big pitfall.

Under the laws of the market, if the attendance rate is high, the box office of a single show will be high, and the film schedule will increase accordingly. If the attendance rate is low, the box office of a single show will be low, and the film schedule will decrease. It is as simple as that.

However, in the film industry, market laws are never so pure.

Because high film schedules, high box office and high profits are not necessarily equivalent and progressive, in a multi-party game between film studios, distributors, theaters, and cinemas, there is a lot of room for the interests of these parties to be blended with each other.

With the listing of a large number of Chinese film industry companies, this gaming network has also added huge benefits brought by stock price fluctuations, so the film studio has divided into different positions among investors, producers, directors and even actors.

The series of flashes of swords and swords behind it are reflected in the film schedule, which is that the big fish eats the small fish, and the small fish eats the shrimp. The movies released at the same time show extreme polarization.

The "big brother" who has power and background can occupy the film schedule even if there is no show, while the "little brat" can only pick up some leftovers from the morning show and midnight show no matter how good he is.

However, whether it is the "big brother" or the "little bad boy", they will eventually be tested by the audience, because they are the final contributors to the box office and the only force that maintains the film industry chain.

This is the third link of publicity, word-of-mouth communication.

Movies are like stars. Good reputation or bad reputation is better than no reputation. Praising or criticizing is better than being rejected after watching it.

A good movie can turn the audience into tap water, and a bad movie can turn the audience into a natural black. Both can have a positive impact on the box office.

The difference is that the former has a promising future, while the latter has no choice but to stop losses.

Looking at most of the hit movies in the past, they basically achieved counterattacks in the word-of-mouth communication.

"Wolf Warrior 2" has "The Founding of the Army" at the same time, and "The Wandering Earth" has "Crazy Aliens" at the same time. They were both considered "little losers" at first, and their film schedules obviously will not dominate.

However, the audience's choice and spontaneous dissemination allowed them to rise to prominence, and eventually achieved two insurmountable peaks among domestic genre films.

The same example is "The Return of the Great Sage" and "The Return of the Devil", which pioneered the category of domestic animated blockbusters.

In fact, this trend has already begun in 2012 with "囧囧".

This low-cost comedy beat Guoshi's "The Thirteen Hairpins" and Tsui Hark's "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate" and became the first domestic film to cross the 10 billion box office mark. It is certainly not because of the popularity of Bald Xu and Wang Baoqiang.

In this time and space, Chen Yiming's "Holiday in the Magic City" is a movie that industry experts say they can't understand.

It has been a year since the film was released, and the professional discussions it triggered are still in full swing. Experts have repeatedly examined it from various angles such as script, casting, publicity, etc. It is recognized that the most reliable conclusion is only an "expanded version of the trial screening."

There is no shortage of followers in this circle. Since then, during the Lunar New Year period at the end of the year and the Spring Festival period at the beginning of the year, many small-budget films have bravely followed suit.

Naturally, the result was a loss beyond recognition. I could have made tens of millions by taking advantage of the non-refundable movie tickets, but after the trial screening, it became a direct trip to the theaters.

Critics believe that these latecomers are blindly confident and ignorant of numbers, but they ignore the underlying logic of Chen Yiming's courage to conduct test screenings.

The reason for the test screening was not the impeccable quality of "Holiday in the Magic City", but the millions of die-hard fans of Gu Yuehe.So in essence, what Chen Yiming is playing on "Holiday in the Magic City" is the "traffic + IP" model of later generations. The traffic is Guyuehe and the IP is Princess Margaret.

It's just that he, a time-traveler, got lucky and got the heat of the princess's death.

This can also be reflected in the final box office of the movie. It has not even touched the threshold of 2 million medium-sized hits in China, but it has collected more than 1 million nut coins overseas. It is true that the film is blooming within the wall and fragrant outside the wall.

The biggest benefit that "Holiday in the Magic City" brings to Chen Yiming is not profit, fame and status, but the verification of the effectiveness of past life memories in the current environment.

This is the biggest advantage of the time traveler. Compared with the pioneers who are crossing the river by feeling the stones in this time and space, Chen Yiming knows what is happening and why, and can use the first-mover advantage to maximize the underlying laws of the industrial chain operation.

Before going to Cannes, Chen Yiming specially did some Amway for several key members of Bo Jue.

"Before I explain my thoughts in detail, I need you to agree with a theory for the time being, that is, in China at this stage, film is not an industry yet.

This may sound weird, but it's true.

It does not mean that there is output, employment, upstream and downstream, which is considered an industry. In the context of industrial society, only those departments that can form their own circulation can be called an industry.

From this perspective, what are the problems existing in China’s current film industry?
First of all, there is currently no mature and stable consumer market, that is, an audience group large enough to support the development of the industry.

As a result, before a movie is released, it is impossible to make scientific revenue estimates based on historical data and industry rules, and genre films will naturally not be able to develop.

Secondly, employees still have a workshop mentality. The distribution of personnel is not based on industrial division of labor. Instead, they gather around big figures and are artificially divided into small circles.

The same goes for Platinum Jue in this regard, except that with the support of Demon Shadow, we have a relatively larger and freer range of manpower selection.

Thirdly, filmmaking is a one-time deal and is highly dependent on the creative status of individual elites. It is commonplace for movies to be made by gods and ghosts.

For an industry, the upper limit may not be high, but the lower limit must be maintained. The result of not being able to maintain it is that investment and audience will never be stable, and supply and demand will be difficult to continue to expand. "

Ma Yunteng immediately retorted, "Yi Ming, however, our country's movie box office has been growing, and the number of moviegoers is also expanding at a double-digit growth rate. Weren't you confident in the future before?"

Chen Yiming laughed and said, "This is not a contradiction. It is precisely because domestic films have been unable to reach the lower limit that they have to pinch their noses and let Hollywood come in.

Do you think the higher-ups don’t know that movies are a carrier of the implicit expansion of Western values?It’s just the lesser of two evils. "

Tang Xiaoniu was more practical, interjecting and asking, "Yi Ming, what does the violent theory you mentioned have to do with the promotion and release of "1951"?"

Chen Yiming explained, “The relationship is huge. Only by clearly understanding the current situation of workshops but no industry can we position ourselves and straighten out the relationship between all parties.

Whether it’s an overseas award or an overwhelming response at the test screening, it’s all just for external publicity, and we can’t let ourselves be fooled.

Just like that Hong Kong director who thought that by recruiting a few old Hong Kong stars and a few well-known mainland actors, he would be able to make a big hit at the box office, he was superficial and reckless.

We must realize that today’s film practitioners and audiences are distinct, and they are not actually in the same industry cycle.

The announcement of "1951" cannot copy past industry rules, but needs to be based on a new underlying logic. "

Chen Yiming drew two parallel lines on the whiteboard and three vertical arrows from the upper parallel line downwards. .

“This is a traditional film promotion, which pursues the three-piece package of loud volume, high-scheduled films, and media saturation impact.

Is it useful?It must work, because everyone has done it this way in the past.

But let me tell you, it was actually a mistake, and it was a waste of money and very low value for money.

Because this path only goes from top to bottom, not from bottom to top, it cannot be circulated. "

Then he drew three more concentric circles and drew a line from each to mark a few words.

"This is the announcement of "1951" as I envisioned it.

The innermost concentric circle is the trial screening venue. We used Weibo and discounted tickets to gain the first batch of seed users.

In fact, this is not the most ideal promotion structure. The core users of "1951" should be groups such as war movies, thrillers, and movie enthusiasts.

If you are in a country with a well-established film industry, such as Nuts, this is a simple matter that can be easily accomplished by setting up an official website and posting a few posters. Unfortunately, in China, it is not possible yet. "

(End of this chapter)