Millennium director

Chapter 131 "Your Name" is scheduled to be released, a novel way of publicity!

During the Spring Festival of 2004, Wu Yuan was not happy.

To be precise, he is never happy every Spring Festival.

Friends have their own homes to return to and relatives to reunite with, but Wu Yuan can only guard the courtyard by himself, eat reunion dinner and watch the Spring Festival Gala alone.

Even this year’s Spring Festival Gala was not as good as in previous years.

Uncle Benshan's classic sketches such as "Water Delivery Man" and "Selling Kidnappers" are still a bit less interesting.

On the other hand, Guo Da and Guo Donglin's "Good People Don't Discount" was quite funny and made Wu Yuan laugh for a while.

It's just that this lively Spring Festival has nothing to do with him after all.

On the second day of the Lunar New Year, after friends visited relatives one after another and paid New Year's greetings, Wu Yuan boarded a flight to the United States, leaving China in the midst of the festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival.

After five months of long post-production, the special effects of "Your Name" were finally completed.

The reason why it was done so slowly was not because it was difficult, but because Industrial Light \u0026 Magic didn't have enough manpower.

After all, Wu Yuan jumped in the queue. Even if he only did a little more than a minute of special effects and one or two hundred special effects shots, Industrial Light and Magic only assigned him a few special effects artists and not many rendering computers.

So it took five months of procrastination to complete.

Wu Yuan came back to the United States to inspect the finished products.

The effect is not bad.

As one of the top special effects companies in Hollywood, Industrial Light and Magic's level is still very good, and Weta Digital can stand shoulder to shoulder with it.

For a team that can make a large-scale science fiction movie like "Independence Day", it is definitely not a problem to make scenes like meteorites and meteor showers.

After watching the entire film, Wu Yuan paid the final payment with satisfaction and returned to China with the original tape of the film.

The first thing I did when I returned to China was to find China Film.

Although it is still the Spring Festival holiday, with Director Han's status and status, there is no holiday to speak of.

On the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, Wu Yuan made an appointment to meet with him at the China Film Office.

It’s still the same as before, first watch the finished film in the viewing room inside China Film.

It's just that compared to Wu Yuan's previous "science fiction movie" "The Night the Comet Came", his "Your Name" this time has a different sense of shock.

"Director Wu, you are awesome." After watching the 106-minute movie, Director Han held it in for a long time before uttering this sentence.

He said with some excitement: "This should be regarded as the first special effects blockbuster in China, right?"

Yes, although the total special effects scenes in this movie only last for less than two minutes, meteorites fall from the sky and destroy villages. How can this be considered a "special effects blockbuster"?

Chinese special effects movies started late, and it can even be said that they have not even started yet. Naturally, the standards cannot be the same as those of Hollywood.

But Wu Yuan did not agree with Han Dong's statement, "This is not a special effects blockbuster. "Pirates of the Caribbean" didn't even dare to call itself a special effects blockbuster."

"My movie "Your Name" is a youth love movie. When China Film Group announces it, we can't sell it like a sheep's head!"

Although Wu Yuan planned to make these few special effects scenes into a trailer and release it on the Internet, he did not dare to use the gimmick of a "special effects blockbuster" when promoting it.

The banner of "youth love movie" must be clearly displayed, and all publicity should be centered around this point.

"High school student, romance film?" Han Dong murmured hesitantly, "This radio and television is not acceptable, right?"

"Why not?" Wu Yuan smiled slightly: "When I submitted the script for review before, the General Administration approved it without any guidance.

"Director Han, although the male and female protagonists of this movie are high school students, they did not fall in love. They just swapped bodies in their dreams."

"At the end of the movie, when they finally met again in the capital, it was already three years later. And I left the ending open, but I didn't say that they fell in love after they met."

"Well, when we promote it, we can use it as a "youth campus movie" and not talk about love."

As we all know, in China, many "bottom lines" are flexible.

If you are an ordinary director and want to make a campus romance movie, it will definitely not work. The General Administration will not be able to give you a review.

But if you are Zhang Yimou or Wu Yuan, then the bottom line has to be discussed.

Wu Yuan did not clearly tell the audience in "Your Name" that the male and female protagonists are lovers or lovers.

The core attraction of this movie is a rescue that spans time and space.

In fact, in the original movie, the male and female protagonists did not break the window paper to confirm their relationship. They could only say that they liked each other.

Is this considered promoting puppy love?

If it was shot by another director, then forget it.

It was taken by Wu Yuan, so it doesn't count.

Anyway, when Wu Yuan submitted the script to the General Administration, it was smooth and he was given the green light all the way without changing a word.

A leader from the General Administration also praised him for the good ending. The hero and heroine met again three years later, leaving a space for the audience's imagination.

As a member of the system, Director Han is naturally very knowledgeable.

"Yes, since the General Administration has no objection, then I don't have to worry about it."

"When is it planned to be released? Will the promotion work start now?"

Wu Yuan nodded: "The sooner the better. I want to release it as soon as possible before this winter is over, and while high school students and college students have received red envelopes during the Spring Festival and have some spare money."

"Let's set it at the beginning of March. How about March 1st?"

Again, there is no schedule for mainland movies now except for the Lunar New Year period.

Summer vacation is still far away, so Wu Yuan can only choose to release it in March.

Of course, the advantage of not having a popular schedule is that there are not many movies released every month, so there is no need to compete with other directors to schedule films. Wu Yuan is not afraid of competing with other directors to schedule films.

"Director Han, have you finished the posters I asked you to prepare last time?" Wu Yuan asked again.

"It's all done. With just one order, it can be rolled out immediately at bus stations, subway stations, and large squares in first-tier cities across the country."

Speaking of this, Director Han also became excited.

The scale of the publicity that Wu Yuan wants to do this time is very large.

It's basically the same as the publicity campaign before the release of "Hero" (referring to the Mainland). Light and Shadow Times spent 10 million yuan on this!

Except for "Hero", no movie has ever spent so much money on promotion.

In order to cooperate with Wu Yuan's publicity plan, China Film helped contact the poster factory and help establish connections with the governments of first-tier cities.

After all, bus stations and large squares are basically built by the government now, and it is easier to contact China Film for advertising spaces in this area.

However, after this experience, if you want to do such publicity in the light and shadow era in the future, you can contact them yourself.

"Okay, as long as the poster is done. Wu Yuan nodded with satisfaction.

The promotion methods for mainland movies these days are really primitive, and they haven't even learned the three tricks of Hollywood.

99% of mainland movies just hang a poster in the cinema when they are released, which is considered promotion.

The remaining 1% will focus on publicity and do some online and offline marketing.

Why "Hero" is the first domestic blockbuster is not only because of the large scale of filming, but also because its publicity level is comparable to Hollywood blockbusters.

"Hero" is the first mainland film to have posters posted everywhere in major cities, trailers played in squares, and advertisements posted everywhere on the Internet.

Now Wu Yuan wanted to taste the second sip of soup.

Moreover, the promotional posters he prepared were different from the simple and crude propaganda methods nowadays.

After confirming the release date with Director Han, Wu Yuan returned to the company and summoned the company's publicity department to contact China Film to prepare for local promotion.

Several employees who were specially recruited by Wu Yuan from Zhongguancun to be responsible for online publicity work were also recalled to the company urgently.

During the Spring Festival, everyone was given triple overtime pay. No one complained at all and immediately got into work.

February 1st, the eleventh day of the first lunar month.

The festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival has gradually faded in big cities, and there are more and more pedestrians wearing red and green on the road.

Most industries have resumed work, but the vast majority of students are still enjoying their winter vacation.

Ye Xingmei is a sophomore at Beijing Normal University. Today she made an appointment with a few classmates and planned to take advantage of the holiday to go to a newly opened ice skating room in Xicheng.

Nowadays, skating is one of the most popular sports among high school students and college students. Every holiday, the skating room is full of young people skating.

Afraid that she would be late and run out of shoes, Ye Xingmei hurriedly left home at around ten o'clock in the morning and waited for the bus at the bus stop not far from her home.

After waiting for seven or eight minutes, the No. 12 bus she wanted to take did not come.

Ye Xingmei looked around boredly, and soon she noticed a poster she had never seen before on the bus plate.

Two young and beautiful men and women are lined up on both sides of the poster, with their backs to each other.

The man has a hairstyle with bangs, which is very fashionable at the moment, and the woman has shoulder-length hair hanging behind her shoulders.

Both of them were wearing school uniforms, but their backgrounds were different. The boy's background was in a big city, but the girl's was on a hillside.

Moreover, the school uniforms they wear are also different. The boys' uniforms look like the styles from the capital city, imitating Japanese school uniforms with shirts and trousers, while the girls wear shabby "face pocket" sports uniforms.

Although she could only see their backs facing each other, Ye Xingmei felt that both of them must be good-looking and have a good temperament.

But that wasn't what attracted her.

What really attracted her was the line of large characters in the middle of the poster that separated the two people.

"No matter where you are in the world, I will definitely go to see you again."

This line of text is arranged vertically and written in thin gold font, which just separates the two people in the poster to the left and right.

On the header of the poster, there is also a two-line horizontal title.

""your name""

"March 1st, let's watch it together."

At the bottom of the poster, there are also two lines of horizontal subtitles.

"Director Wu Yuan's latest work."

"Starring: Hu Ge, Liu Yifei."

Seeing these two lines of subtitles, Ye Xingmei immediately knew that this was a movie poster.

She knew director Wu Yuan. Last year, she and her classmates went to the cinema to watch "Pirates of the Caribbean"!

Wu Yuan is a director who can direct super blockbusters in Hollywood.

Ye Xingmei doesn't know much about film art or the three major European film festivals, so in her opinion, Wu Yuan is more powerful than the director of "Hero" Zhang Yimou.

Zhang Yimou's "blockbusters" are only Chinese-language movies, while Wu Yuan's blockbusters are released worldwide!

For such an arrogant director, a new movie was about to be released in China, and it seemed to be made by Chinese actors. Ye Xingmei was immediately moved.

Especially the sentence in the middle of the poster, when she read it silently in her mind, she really felt it was so romantic.

No matter where you are in the world, I will definitely go and see you again.

Ye Xingmei, who is still in her youth, really has no resistance to this kind of romantic copywriting.

Bus No. 12 has arrived.

Finally, after taking a deep look at the poster, remembering the sentence on the poster and the release date of March 1st, Ye Xingmei stepped on the bus.

She planned to tell her classmates about the movie as soon as she got to the skating room!

Magic City, Xuhui.

As the country's leading economic city, the economic conditions of residents in Magic City are generally much better than those in inland cities.

Computers, which are not yet popular or even rare in inland areas, are already a common household product in Shanghai.

Chen Wei, who is a freshman this year, is a senior netizen.

During the Spring Festival, a nationally festive day, he did not go out to play with his friends. Instead, he locked himself in his room and surfed the Internet on the big-ass desktop computer his parents bought him.

In early 2004, the Internet ecosystem in mainland China was still relatively primitive.

Although the number of registered QQ users has risen to 200 million, most netizens have no other way to spend their time except chatting in chat rooms, browsing forums and playing games online.

The first mainland video platform will not be established until November, which is LeTV.

However, the absence of professional video websites does not mean that there are no videos released on the Internet.

Nowadays, many forums have access to the function of uploading videos. Users can upload and share some videos they shot with DV to the forum.

In recent days, a video has been spreading wildly in major domestic Internet forums and has been forwarded among QQ friends.

This video is the movie trailer for "Your Name".

Watching movie trailers on the Internet is definitely a novel experience for mainland netizens.

Not many movies even make movie trailers these days!

The last movie to have a movie trailer was "Hero", and the trailer for "Hero" was only shown on TV!

Watching movie trailers on the Internet is a very novel experience!

Chen Wei was attracted by this interesting thing.

It doesn’t matter whether the trailer itself is good or not. The main thing is that the act of watching the trailer on the Internet is really interesting.

Chen Wei clicked on a link sent by a QQ friend and entered a forum discussing movies.

When I clicked on a post pinned to the top of the forum, a flash playback page immediately popped up.

Because Chen Wei's computer had flash decoding software, the video started playing smoothly after the buffer icon rotated a few times.

The trailer opens with a scene that is at least as high as the stratosphere. A huge meteor streaks across the camera with a brilliant tail flame.

"That day, a once-in-a-thousand-year meteor shower came."

"Everything is like a dream."

As Hu Ge muttered, the camera followed the meteor falling to the ground.

From the beginning, it was such a cool picture that deeply attracted Chen Wei's attention.

Is this a scene that Chinese movies can have?

Chen Wei, who is well-informed and has watched many Hollywood movies (even though they are pirated discs), was shocked on the spot.

He stared at the screen.

The comet in the picture passes through the clouds and appears in the sky.

When the camera turned, a girl on the ground wearing a southwest minority costume raised her head and looked at the meteor shower across the sky, with a touching smile on her face.

"So beautiful!"

Chen Wei and the girl sighed at the same time.

But the girl in the trailer was sighing at the beautiful meteor shower, but Chen Wei was sighing at the girl's appearance.

"Isn't this Wang Yuyan!" Chen Wei was stunned for a moment before realizing that he knew this girl!

There was no time for him to think too much. The compact trailer screen quickly jumped to a small, somewhat dilapidated room.

Hu Ge, who was sleeping in his pajamas, suddenly woke up and sat up.

The background BGM also began to enter, and a prelude music full of pop rock flavor sounded.

"After class? Sorry, I have to work part-time."

"I've had enough of this small village. I will be reincarnated as a handsome boy in the capital in my next life!"

The scenes in the trailer keep jumping. One scene shows the male protagonist living and working in the capital, and the other scene shows the heroine cooking, going to school, and playing basketball in the countryside.

Chen Wei began to feel that something was wrong.

Especially when I saw Liu Yifei jumping up and shooting in the trailer, the male classmate sitting opposite me looked like a pig.

Just when he was wondering, the answer appeared.

Standing in front of the mirror with her ponytail tied, Liu Yifei murmured to herself: "Speaking of which, I have been having strange dreams recently."

"In the dream I seemed to have become another person."

The scene in the trailer began to jump rapidly again, and fragments of the two people exchanging lives appeared in fragments.

From confusion at the beginning, to disbelief gradually.

"Could it be?"

"We switched bodies in a dream?"

At this point, the trailer stopped abruptly and the screen went black.

Just when Chen Wei thought the trailer was over and picked up his mouse to close the video, the screen suddenly lit up again.

It's the comet from the beginning, but this time it's from a frontal perspective.

The comet, covered in flames and tail flames, came towards the camera blankly, getting bigger and bigger.

A sense of oppression and tension rose from the bottom of Chen Wei's heart.

This shot is so real. This comet, no, the meteorite looks completely real, as if a meteorite is really going to hit my face.

Just when the meteorite was really about to hit the camera, the screen went black again.

This time it's really gone.

A post-credits sequence lights up.

"Director Wu Yuan's work"

""your name""

"March 1st, let's watch it together."