Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Mimi Rogers couldn't help it, she couldn't get in on the teachings of Confucius at all.

American society always likes to pass some messy words to Confucius. In fact, the speeches of this wise man in the East were collected by his disciples and published. Anyone with a heart will find out that many of the words were not from him.

The reason why the American people like to use "Confucius said" as a joke is because his English translation is "ucius", which sounds like "confused used". Many specious "famous words" have been put on the head of Confucius.

However, what Ronald quoted sounds very old-fashioned. It is similar to the words in the "Bible", and the language is simple and full of rhythm. Mimi Rogers didn't dare to make a mistake, so he changed the subject, stopped talking about oriental philosophy, and led to the teachings of Scientology, so as to avoid embarrassment.

On the other hand, Tom Cruise was a little interested in Confucius, so he took a chance and asked Ronald alone:

"Is there any way to increase my ability to read and understand other people's words by the teachings of Confucius?"

"this?"

Ronald was at a loss for words, and he just found a few ancient classics translated by Gu Hongming and flipped through them casually. Many people in Hollywood are philosophical, and they like to say some seemingly profound things.

I didn't even think about being a life coach.

After thinking for a while, Ronald found a passage that seemed to meet Tom Cruise's requirements.

"When a man has a standard of excellence before him, only then will he have a fixed and definite purpose.

With a fixed and definite purpose, only then will he have peace and tranquility of mind.

With peace of mind, only then can he have peace and tranquility of soul.

With the peace and tranquility of the soul, only then can he devote himself to deep, serious thinking and reflection.

And only through deep, serious thinking and reflection can one gain true understanding. "

"That makes sense..." Tom Cruise snapped and clasped his hands together in admiration, "When I signed Paula, I wrote a list of all the most famous directors in Hollywood. .

Really set a standard of excellence, and then I have a direction in whatever I do in filming.

It seems that I have to set a target for dyslexia. "

"Uh..." Ronald thought to himself, is that okay?

"Sorry, Tom, I know too little about dyslexia to give you more guidance. Would you like to talk to some other experts besides Scientology?"

"Umm..." Tom Cruise nodded immediately.

But Mimi Rogers quickly leaned over and started chatting with Tom again. This woman is smart and tries to make herself as much of Cruise's time as possible, so that the influence of other people on him will be compressed to a minimum.

"Ronald... let's go inside and talk?"

Jerry Bruckheimer came over, he and Don Simpson came to Ronald, not just to celebrate.

"Okay, I'll come when I go, you're here to play." Ronald explained to Diane, and with Bruckheimer and Simpson, went to a small house on the second floor of the room to talk secretly.

"This is the videotape of Top Gun, the latest recording."

When Don Simpson pressed the remote, a 21-inch color TV in the room was turned on, and he put an unlabeled tape into the VCR below.

An advertisement for a copycat version of the "Top Gun" plot appeared on TV.

A fighter pilot named "Mustang Mustang", the Pepsi Diet Coke in the cockpit was fixed to the cup holder.

In order to drink Coke, he did the same backward flight as the lone ranger played by Tom Cruise in the opening scene of "Top Gun" to scare away the MiG pilot. In this way, the cola was poured into the cup smoothly under the action of gravity.

"Hehehe,

This is Katherine Bigelow's commercial for Pepsi, and it's still very skillful to move the mirror. "

Ronald recognized that it was Daydream, who hired Katherine Bigelow to shoot the Pepsi commercial using the ground cockpit stunt model that Cameron had made during the filming of Top Gun.

"Did they really put the ad at the top of the videotape?" Ronald looked at the Casio digital watch, and he didn't even put the Paramount title, just a minute-long ad.

"Yes, Paramount agreed. I will talk to you about this later. Watch the video first." Don Simpson motioned for Ronald to continue watching.

"Pepsi, the choice of the new generation!"

After the advertisement was over, a text appeared on the TV, warning that it should not be broadcast on for-profit occasions without permission, and the background was specially made of pink, green, and blue, and kept flashing and changing.

"This is an anti-theft measure, combined with the automatic anti-theft chip of the video recorder, so that consumers cannot transcribe a copy and show it to friends." Bruckheimer explained the technical details.

Ronald nodded to understand that, except for the one he bought, VCRs produced before the Supreme Court's Sony v. Universal case, and now America's VCRs, can't be ripped, otherwise, like this warning, the background flickering can't be ripped. watch.

"Dongdong... Dongdong..."

The familiar bell rang at the beginning, and the opening subtitle of Top Gun, telling the origin of the topgun flight school, appeared on the TV screen. Then there's Tom Cruise, Ronald, the names of the two producers, and finally, in the dim sunrise, 14 Tomcats appear on the deck of the USS Enterprise.

"This picture..." Ronald turned to Don Simpson.

"Yes, this is the standard that Hollywood recently explored. During telecine, it was cut by hand by the staff." Don Simpson nodded, confirming Ronald's guess.

"It turned out to be like this. I thought, how can a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen be displayed on a 4:3 TV screen."

Ronald was a little puzzled.

In the earliest days, movies, like televisions, had an aspect ratio of 4:3.

In the 1950s, after more than half of Hollywood's business was robbed by TV stations, Hollywood companies found a wide-screen solution to fight TV.

Older movies are in 1.33:1 format, which is just fine on TV. In order to persuade everyone to go to the cinema, Hollywood invented 1.85:1, 2.35:1, etc., different widescreen formats. This wide screen has a large format not seen on TV sets, attracting audiences to the cinema to see truly wonderful pictures.

But since the 1980s, with the popularity of video tapes and cable television, many people have begun to watch wide-screen blockbusters on their TV sets at home.

There are generally two ways to deal with the 1:85 boxer-type wide screen on the TV, or the aspect ratio is deformed and forced into the 4:3 TV. Either leave a black border at the top and bottom to keep the original aspect ratio.

But "Top Gun" uses a 2:35:1 Panavision camera to shoot an anamorphic widescreen with a particularly large aspect ratio, almost equivalent to two 4:3 narrow-format images superimposed in parallel.

If the transformation method is used, the characters will become ridiculously thin. Don't tell the audience to look weird, a star like Tom Cruise would never allow himself to be that ugly.

If the upper and lower edges are cut, then the upper and lower black edges of the entire TV will occupy almost half of the frame.

It is also intolerable. TVs are inherently small, and most of the new TVs at home are about 21 inches. In some central and southern regions, the old-fashioned 14-inch and 16-inch are still very common.

With wide black borders up and down, the characters become very small, and the expressions cannot be seen at all.

So, with this "Top Gun" video, Paramount appears to have taken a new approach to the widescreen conversion.

When converting the film to a magnetically recorded videotape, the crew seemed to use a 4:3 frame on the screen to snap a clip from the original widescreen, allowing the actors to appear undistorted on the TV.

The disadvantage of this is that the visual impact brought by the wide screen that the audience can enjoy, and the canvas that is enough to accommodate three people's dialogue and blank space have been cancelled.

In the opening shot of the 14 Tomcat taking off on the aircraft carrier, only the nose of the fighter was cut off. The aircraft carrier on the left and right sides of the original background, as well as the vast sea and sky, were all cut off.

"In this way, at most some of the visual impact of the wide screen is lost, and the plot and the performances of the actors are well preserved."

Don Simpson introduced to Ronald that this is his carefully selected technical route, and in combination, the audience can restore the plot to the greatest extent.

As for the missing impact of watching in the cinema, who kept them from going to the cinema?

Ronald continued to watch, much like he was watching the footage of the Lone Ranger returning to the deck, and another pilot, waiting for an interview outside the door of the carrier commander, what the technicians would do with it.

Here the lone ranger, with the duo goose, and another pilot, the jaguar, have a conversation outside the door. The three people are talking side by side, and there is a blank space to express the internal environment of the aircraft carrier.

When the results were transcribed into video tapes, the technicians did a second editing process. When everyone spoke, they cut to the frontal face of the actor. Then when the other actor answers, cut to it.

They cut one of Ronald's wide-screen frontal medium shots alive into three frontal close-ups.

"Hahaha, so that's what you guys did, French-style editing." Ronald smiled and leaned back. With this, the originally vast artistic conception became the big head facing the actors in the TV series. According to the dialogue People close-up in clip style.

This editing method was first used in a TV series called "French Open". Every time a person spoke, he was given a close-up shot. It is easy for the audience to understand, but some of the carefully arranged pictures are cut off by the 4:3 frame.

"You agree? We think this is the best combination of the three methods." Jerry Bruckheimer happily helped.

"Very good, I also think it is the best way." Ronald nodded in agreement with their choice.

"Very good," Don Simpson pressed the pause button. All three of them have seen this movie no less than a hundred times, and they almost vomited. Seeing Ronald agreed to do this, the show stopped.

"Another thing, Pepsi is very satisfied with your daydream advertising work, and they also proposed to jointly promote the sales of video tapes with Paramount, so... We promised you that the 1% share will be changed."

"How did it change?" Ronald crossed his legs, thinking that this was the most important purpose for the two producers to come here today.

"That's right, Ronald. Pepsi has a proposal, they'll spend another eight million dollars to promote the ad on TV, and then add a video tape at the end of the ad. Paramount agreed to sell the video again. Six dollars off the price, so..."

"Is it even lower?" Ronald was a little unhappy. I pay dividends based on the sales of the videotape, and I lose a penny for every dollar I lower the price.

"That's right, Pepsi has invested a lot of money this time, and Paramount also wants to try a new pricing strategy. We came to you, just to see how to make up for your losses." Bruckheimer said beside one sentence.

Anyway, "Top Gun" has sold out, and Ronald Lee has made money for himself and his partner Don Simpson. There was no need to undercut his already small money on the videotape.

Originally on the market, the price of the videotape of this kind of hot blockbuster is generally between 80,100 US dollars. There are also some directors who are reluctant to release the videotape version at all, for fear of piracy. For example, Spielberg does not want his films to be made into videotapes and sold.

Before the release, Paramount didn't know "Top Gun", but it would sing along and win the box office championship in 1986.

Originally, Paramount was intending to use "Top Gun" as an experiment, using a relatively low price, to see if it could make the audience watching the video, instead of renting it from a video rental store for three dollars a night, but to buy one. Go home and see for yourself.

So, this time Paramount cut the price in half, starting at $38.

Pepsi, who heard the news, thought it was a good opportunity, so they asked Ronald's company to shoot commercials that usually imitate movies, and reached an agreement. For every videotape sold, PepsiCo subsidizes consumers $6 for the cost of watching that one-minute ad.

This brings the retail price down to $32.

Who knew that Top Gun sang all the way, and actually won the annual box office champion last year.

The marketing department of Pepsi, before the videotape went on sale, felt that it needed to be strengthened. The annual box office champion could sell it at a lower price, which was a very remarkable gimmick. Don't waste this great opportunity.

After approval from the headquarters, Pepsi added another fee, subsidizing another $6 per videotape, and the final price was set at $26.95 by the marketing staff of Paramount and PepsiCo.

"Your income is divided according to the proportion of the retail price, so this price has an impact on your income. I discussed it with Jerry and increased the share given to you by 1.1% as compensation. In addition. , the movie won the box office championship, and we have a bonus."

Don Simpson was sincere.

Their two producer partners have the production rights of "Top Gun". That is to say, after the movie is released, they can decide whether to give more money to the creators, and how much to share.

The theaters took part of the profits, and Paramount, as the publisher, took part, and the remaining money was not that much.

But Ronald's brilliant director makes the remaining money well above the average profitability of a movie.

After the two producers discussed it, they still have to be kind to people, take out a little bit from the rest and distribute it to everyone, form a good relationship, and cooperate in the future.

"It's down $6, the original price is 32, but I lost nearly 20% of my money." Ronald felt that it was still a bit of a loss.

"That's 1.2%, up 20% on the original basis." Don Simpson was very happy. "Actually, according to the calculations of marketing experts, lowering the price can stimulate sales. You are not a loss."

"How much can it increase?" Ronald was satisfied when he heard it. If he did this, he could earn a little more.

It seems that the two producers are earning so much that they don't care about this small amount of money.

"According to Paramount's marketers, the formula can be used to reduce the price from more than $80 to $26.95, which can increase sales by eight times."

"Eight times as much..." Ronald just wanted to say more, but then he thought, "How many original sales were there?"

"At a price close to $100, only video rental shops will buy them. There are thousands of rental shops across the country. Even if each of them buys ten video tapes for turnover, it will not exceed 50,000.

If their calculations are correct, there is hope that 400,000 videotapes will be sold this time. "

"Oh, that's not bad." Ronald did the math himself, so that he could still get more than 100,000 dividends. It happened that I was very poor recently, and I invested all my money in the movie "Spicy Dance". It's good to have some money.

"Then it's settled."

Don Simpson stood up and shook hands with Ronald, and the two struck a new deal.

"Let my lawyer go to your lawyer when it's down, is it Lindsay?" Bruckheimer remembered Ronald's personal female lawyer.

"Yes," Ronald nodded. "I still have some questions, how did they predict eight times the sales? Is this based on experience or..."

"I heard that they have a set of scientific algorithms, using Pepsi's national sales data, and then a set of forecasting algorithms developed by Harvard University to calculate the results with computers. Don't worry, you won't make less money."

Bruckheimer knows these details well.

"Okay, anyway, I wish us success." Bruckheimer poured a bottle of red wine for everyone, Ronald picked it up, and clinked glasses with the two.

"Here's your bonus, Ronald." Don Simpson was the more passionate of the two.

He grabbed a check and slapped it into Ronald's hand.

"When I saw the Saab commercial you shot, I knew that this time we found the right person! Sure enough, we all made a fortune, hahahaha..."

Don Simpson laughed wildly, recently he hadn't indulged himself for a long time because of the Twelve Steps.

"Today's party is not interesting. Next time I ask you to come with me, I will find more beauties."

Don Simpson finished one thing, was in a good mood, and walked out with his arms around Ronald's shoulders.

Before Ronald could read the numbers on the check, he was hugged out of the room and came to the lobby on the second floor, when he heard Don Simpson shouting to the following:

"You know what? Making movies can really make a lot of money, ahahaha..."

Tom Cruise and others below also applauded, whistled, and shouted at Don Simpson, "Don, Jerry, I love you."

It seems that they have all received the red envelope check from the producer, and they are the last one.

Ronald stayed a while longer, turned down the idea of ​​Mimi Rogers inviting him to the Scientology Center for Stars, and left with Diane.

Taking advantage of the gap when the door opened for Diane to get into the car, Ronald quickly took a check out of his pocket and glanced at it.

The first number is followed by five 0s. Although it is not over a million, Ronald is very satisfied. This year's daily expenses are guaranteed, as long as he does not buy any big toys like Ferrari.

Ronald turned to the other side and got in the car, looking at Diane's clothes, which he had seen her wear before.

"I'll take you to buy clothes," Ronald said to Diane.

"Okay, okay," Diane said happily, grabbing Ronald's arm and leaning his head on it.

"Bud, take us to Macy's." Ronald said to Bud, who was sitting in front of him.

Little Bud has been running around with him during this period of time, and it is also very hard. He has helped himself deal with a lot of daily affairs. When he is a driver, he is also a personal assistant.

This time, I have to give him a check, and then give him a holiday to go back to New York to accompany his girlfriend.

Ronald still approves of Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer's style of sharing with the main creators after making a lot of money.

"Hee hee," Diane grabbed his arm, closed his eyes, and laughed.

Ronald also laughed. The girl's family background was similar to her own when she was a child, and many habits were difficult to change. For example, she could enjoy shopping for new clothes.