China Entertainment King of Science Fiction

Chapter 468 Cuteness is justice

"It's too exaggerated..."

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

The DreamWorks headquarters is a square building with only 7 floors, extending horizontally to an extremely large plane of 185x185m. It does not seek high altitude to accommodate as much labor as possible. It is enough to accommodate thousands of people, and the space is also very comfortable and spacious.

Moreover, all offices have floor-to-ceiling windows for lighting. The windows of the peripheral offices are adjacent to the street view. The internal offices are also arranged around the central green courtyard. Outside the windows is the patio courtyard in the center of the building. The courtyard is only visible at the highest altitude.

The glass blocks wind and rain, so it can provide good lighting and green plants for the office surrounding the hollow courtyard.

Chen Jingxing and several directors and project team leaders from the animation department were chatting in such a spacious office.

Chen Jingxing was sitting on a rotating chair, facing the vast patio courtyard outside the floor-to-ceiling window. There were even magpies and other birds flying above the trees and green plants.

The floor-to-ceiling windows in the DreamWorks office are made of dimmable glass, which is transparent when the power is on. When the power is off, the liquid crystal film sandwiched between two layers of tempered glass will naturally appear in a foggy state. You can't see the inside from the outside, and you can't see the outside from the inside.

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

Chen Jingxing took a comfortable sip of coffee and said with a smile: "I have said before that humans have no resistance to cute things."

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

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

Chen Jingxing also wants to monopolize the schedule and get the maximum profit, and he doesn't want to fight head-on with a strong opponent. The key is that as long as the quality of comedy blockbusters like "The Count 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".

Looking at the scale of the domestic film market growing year by year, "The Count of Wulong Mountain" is also the fourth film this year to hit the 3 billion club in the minds of the media and netizens - the first three are "Operation Red Sea", "

"The Matrix II" and "I'm Not the God of Medicine".

"Wall-E" does not have the blessing of a big IP, it is not a national treasure, and it has nothing to do with any myths and legends. This disadvantage cannot be made up for by having the title of DreamWorks.

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

In addition, in the past two years, DreamWorks has been feasting on its early animation layout. Other film and television giants and animation companies have waited for two or three years and finally bore their own fruits this year. A large number of 3D animated movies have

It will be released next year.

And judging from the trailers of some animated movies that have been released, although the technology is still not comparable to that of DreamWorks, it is no longer something that fooled people in the past, and it can really be used.

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

Of course, in the end, the big bosses' attempt to "force the palace" ended in failure.

Because "Inception" is so star-studded, it is naturally less difficult to promote and release, so Chen Jingxing shifted his energy to "WALL-E", which will be released during the Spring Festival next year and wants to continue the box office miracle tradition of DreamWorks Animation.

On the body.

Not only within DreamWorks, but also the media and many netizens are surprised by the popularity of WALL-E, an unfamiliar robot image.

However, the effect of this round of short film's cuteness marketing has exceeded DreamWorks' internal expectations, so the prepared products, especially the puppets, were quickly sold out. After all, the movie has not been released yet, and the manufacturer will not produce and stock up on too many goods.

Will bring high risks.

Happy Twist has always had good popularity with the audience, and it has also captured the wealth code of Han Tengliang, so "The Count of Wulong Mountain" has long been the number one seed in the National Day season.

With competitors appearing during the Spring Festival next year, the promotion of "WALL-E" will be even more intensive.

Just because the lineup of summer movies is too strong, and of course it is actually even stronger due to the emergence of the dark horse "The God of Medicine", Happy Twist and co-producer Fang Jianghe Culture changed this movie to the National Day schedule.

Therefore, after the cumulative box office results of 51.9 billion in the third quarter were released, domestic and American media paid a lot of attention. One was cheering that it was expected to surpass the North American market this year, and the other was a somewhat sour report that the Chinese film market might be surpassed this year.

Hollywood.

There are even many people buying dolls, puppets, models and even other derivative products bearing his image.

For a movie like "Inception", which is so star-studded, if you still have to worry about the trailer, wouldn't it be in vain to hire these stars? Aren't the sky-high remunerations to be paid in vain?

Although DreamWorks, especially Chen Jingxing's films, have a strong bargaining power over actors' remuneration, actors usually lower their remuneration when accepting roles in Chen Jingxing's films.

Try your best to be cute!

There will also be interactions with characters from previous animated works of DreamWorks such as "Kung Fu Panda" and "The Return of the Monkey King".

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

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

So not all works are based on trailers.

There are actually many examples of animated characters without works becoming popular or even popular, such as Kumamon or Rascal Rabbit. Of course, Disney is the best at this.

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

Obviously, the cultural department and the competent departments are secretly trying to catch up with the North American market this year, so as to gain political achievements for themselves and the department this year. After all, there is uncertainty in the appointment of cadres, and some leaders may not be able to wait until next year.

At the end of the year, he may be transferred, and then it will be easier for others. If you can get political achievements, you can get them as early as possible.

The work released by Happy Mahua this year is still the movie "The Count of Wulong Mountain" adapted from its classic play.

Therefore, after a lot of scrambling, we quickly expanded production, trying not to let piracy take away too much of the cake.

Quite worth it.

Originally, Chen Jingxing had to judge whether "Inception" could be put on the National Day schedule based on the post-production progress and review speed. After all, if it was pushed back, the time needed for revision would be delayed by at least a month. If it was National Day this year,

It can't be released in time. According to the size of "Inception", it will definitely have to wait until next year's popular schedule to be released.

The image design of the three-headed body, the cute big eyes, the action design and body language that make people feel both pitiful and cute, plus he can't speak - being unable to speak is an absolute rule for cute animated animals.

Bonus points.

But even so, the stingy trailer and mediocre marketing made the popularity of "Inception" rise to a high point overnight, and even countered the comedy movie "Oolong" which was promoted half a month before "Inception"

"Earl of the Mountain" Half Head.

DreamWorks only released two short films and created a lot of popularity. The protagonist of an animated film that has not yet been released has captured the hearts of many people and has become a new virtual cute logistics.

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

The capacity of the National Day schedule is not as good as that of the Spring Festival and Summer schedules. No matter how optimistic you are about the development of the domestic film market, at this stage, two popular blockbusters with championship status are competing against each other, and the possibility of breaking through 3 billion will become very slim.

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

Moreover, "Inception" was only completed at the end of April. Post-production, the post-production completed film is submitted for review, and then the preliminary review, final review, finalization and release. These processes generally take a long time. If you want to release it on the National Day schedule, it is time-consuming, and

We still have to leave enough time for the announcement, which is indeed a bit tight in terms of time.

Every year one or two comedy works are released and become box office bombs.

Such as Stellar and Lina Belle.

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

It's just that Lina Belle relies on the wonderful acting skills of Disneyland staff and uses short videos shot by ordinary tourists to gain popularity, while WALL-E relies on the cuteness of short videos once a week to gain popularity.

As the saying goes, "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.

This is also the reason why when the new headquarters of DreamWorks was officially unveiled, other company bosses complained about whether Chen Jingxing could leave us a way to survive.

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

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

This two- to three-minute weekly display of cute animals, paired with interactions with popular characters and even real actors in other DreamWorks works in familiar and classic scenes, is equivalent to borrowing the popularity and popularity of other classic DreamWorks works.

.

After all, comedy is now a popular theme in China that can compete with war and science fiction. Although Happy Twist has not had a movie with a box office of more than 3 billion in the past, there are also works with a box office of 2 billion.

This layer of information related to dreams had no secrets as early as when the movie was called "Inception".

Fortunately, DreamWorks already has experience after "Monkey King" and "Panda" and has fixed domestic partners, so genuine derivative products are ready in advance.

There will even be interactions with real people, such as characters from "The Matrix", Wu Yue, the heroine of "Gravity", characters from "The Martian", characters from "Spike II" and "Operation Red Sea", with scenes ranging from The Matrix to

Huaxu Kingdom, from the battlefield to space, from the city to Mars.

If DreamWorks is the watchdog of domestic science fiction movies, then Happy Twist is undoubtedly the leader of domestic comedy movies in recent years.

But he didn't expect that the head of the department in charge called him. After knowing that the post-production of "Inception" would definitely be completed before September, but the main reason was that the review time was not sure, he quickly opened a green channel and asked Chen Jingxing to cut a haircut.

The version with unfinished special effects passed the review quickly and received the Dragon Label.

WALL-E is definitely the cutest and most pitiful creature in all DreamWorks animated works to date.

The main culprit is Chen Jingxing's butterfly wings, which led to the opportunity for Chinese movies to challenge the North American market at the box office this year.

Therefore, in terms of the marketing of "Inception", the trailer was not well-organized and was quite satisfactory. Even the duration of the trailer was quite short and basically did not reveal any useful information.

Although the production has not yet been completed, a trailer has been produced.

With the attitude of the competent authorities, other companies have nothing to say.

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

As long as the image design and body language can touch the cuteness of many viewers, this is actually not too difficult.

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

But the most difficult point has been solved in advance through Chen Jingxing’s plug-in.

The robot WALL-E is a successful character that has gone through market tests in another world. What Chen Jingxing has come up with is a proven image design and behavior model.

(End of chapter)