Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 778 Chapter 4 Videotapes Can Sell Eight Times More

Mimi Rogers can't help it, she can't get in the way of Confucius' teachings.

American society always likes to throw some nonsense words to Confucius.In fact, the words of this oriental wise man were collected by his disciples and published together.Those who are interested will find out that he did not say many things.

The reason why American people like to use "Confucius said" to make jokes is because his English translation name "Confucius" sounds like "Confused".Many specious "famous sayings" have been put on the head of Confucius.

However, the words quoted by Ronald sound very old-fashioned. They are in a language similar to the words in the "Bible", simple and full of rhythm.Mimi Rogers didn't dare to make a mistake, so she had to change the subject, stop talking about Eastern philosophy, and refer to the teachings of Scientology to avoid embarrassment.

On the contrary, Tom Cruise was a little interested in Confucius. He took a chance and asked Ronald alone:
"Is there any way to increase my ability to read and understand other people's words from the teachings of Confucius?"

"this?"

Ronald was at a loss for words for a while, and he just found a few ancient classics translated by Gu Hongming, and flipped through them casually.Many people in Hollywood advocate philosophy, like to say some seemingly profound words, and recite a few words by themselves, and put them out when it suits them.

I never thought about being a life mentor?

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

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

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

With peace of mind, only in this way can he have peace and tranquility of soul.

Possessing peace and tranquility of soul, only then can he devote himself to deep, serious thought and reflection.

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

"It makes sense..." Tom Cruise clasped his hands together in admiration, "When I signed Paula, I made a list of all the most famous Hollywood directors on it.

I really set a standard of excellence, and then I have a direction no matter what I do in filming.

It seems that for dyslexia, I also have to set a goal. "

"Um..." Ronald thought, this is okay?

"Sorry, Tom, I don't know enough about dyslexia to give you more guidance. Why don't you talk to some other experts besides Scientology?"

"Hmm..." Tom Cruise nodded immediately.

But Mimi Rogers quickly leaned over, and Tom and Tom began chatting again.This woman is very smart, trying to occupy more of Cruise's time by herself, so that other people's influence on him will be compressed to a minimum.

"Ronald... Shall we go to the back room and talk?"

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

"Okay, I'll come as soon as I go, you can play here." Ronald explained to Diane, and Bruckheimer and Simpson walked to a small room on the second floor of the room for a secret conversation.

"Here's the Top Gun videotape, newly recorded."

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

A knock-off "Top Gun" ad appeared on TV.

A fighter pilot named "Mustang" had a Pepsi Diet Coke pinned to a cup holder in the cockpit.

In order to get a Coke, he made an inverted flight similar to Tom Cruise's Lone Ranger in the opening scene of "Top Gun" scaring away MiG pilots.In this way, Coke is smoothly poured into the cup under the action of gravity.

"Hehehe, this is an advertisement shot by Catherine Bigelow for Pepsi. She is very skillful with the mirroring."

Ronald recognized that it was Daydream Company, which used the ground cockpit stunt model that Cameron made during the filming of Top Gun, and hired Catherine Bigelow to shoot the Pepsi commercial.

"Did they really put the advertisement at the front of the video tape?" Ronald looked at the Casio electronic watch, and he didn't even play the title of Paramount, it was just a one-minute advertisement.

"Yes, Paramount agreed. I'll talk to you about this later. Let's watch the video first." Don Simpson signaled Ronald to continue watching.

"Pepsi, the choice of the new generation!"

After the commercial ended, a text appeared on the TV, warning that it should not be broadcast on profit-making occasions without permission, and the background was specially made pink, green, blue, constantly flashing and changing.

"This is an anti-theft measure, which works with the automatic anti-theft chip of the video recorder, so that consumers can't transcribe a copy by themselves and show it to friends." Bruckheimer explained the technical details.

Ronald nodded to show that he understands that, except for the one he bought, the VCRs produced before the Supreme Court's Sony v. Universal case, and now the VCRs in America, cannot be ripped, otherwise it will be like this warning, and the background will flicker and cannot be viewed .

"Boom thump... thump thump..."

The familiar opening bell rang, and Top Gun's opening credits, narrating the origin of Top Gun's flight school, appeared on television screens.Then Tom Cruise, Ronald, the names of the two producers, and finally in the dim sunrise, the F-14 Tomcat appeared on the deck of the USS Enterprise.

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

"Yes, this is the standard recently explored by Hollywood. When the telecine is transferred, the staff cut it by hand." Don Simpson nodded, affirming 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 cleared up his doubts a little.

In the earliest days, movies were the same as TV sets, with an aspect ratio of 4:3.

In the 50s, after more than half of Hollywood's business was robbed by TV stations, Hollywood companies found a wide-screen solution to fight against TV.

Old movies are all in 1.33:1 format, which is just right for TV.In order to persuade everyone to go to the cinema, Hollywood invented 1.85:1, 2.35:1, etc., different widescreen formats.This kind of widescreen has a large format that cannot be seen on TV, and attracts audiences to the cinema to see truly wonderful pictures.

But since the 80s, with the popularization of video tapes and cable TV, many people have begun to watch widescreen movies at home on TV.

There are generally two ways to deal with the 1:85 letterbox widescreen on the TV, or distort the aspect ratio and force it into the 4:3 TV.Either leave a black border at the top and bottom, so as to maintain the original aspect ratio.

However, "Top Gun" uses a 2:35:1 Panavision camera, and the anamorphic widescreen is shot with a particularly large aspect ratio, which is almost equivalent to two 4:3 narrow-frame images superimposed in parallel.

If the transformation method is used, the characters will become ridiculously thin.Not to mention that the audience looks strange, a star like Tom Cruise will never allow himself to become so ugly.

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

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

Leave a wide black border up and down, and the character will become very small, and the expression cannot be seen clearly at all.

So, with this Top Gun video, Paramount appears to be taking a new approach to widescreen conversions.

When converting the film to a magnetically recorded videotape, the staff seemed to use a 4:3 frame on the screen to buckle a section of the screen on the original widescreen, so that the actors appeared on the TV without deformation.

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 to talk and have a blank space have been cancelled.

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

"In this way, at most, some wide-screen visual impact will be lost, and the plot and actors' performances will be preserved intact."

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

As for the missing shock of watching in the cinema, who made them not go to the cinema?

Ronald continued to watch. He seemed to see how the technicians would deal with the footage of the Lone Ranger returning to the deck and another pilot waiting outside the door of the aircraft carrier commander for an interview.

Here, the lone ranger, the two gooses, and another pilot, the jaguar, have a conversation outside the door.The three people talk side by side, and there is still a blank space to show the internal environment of the aircraft carrier.

As a result, when it was transcribed into a videotape, the technicians did a second editing process. When everyone was talking, they cut to the front face of the actor.Then when another actor answered, cut to it again.

They cut a wide-screen frontal medium shot of Ronald into three frontal close-ups.

"Hahaha, so that's what you guys did, French Open-style editing." Ronald leaned back with a smile. In this way, the originally vast artistic conception became a big head facing the actors in TV dramas. According to the dialogue Clip style for close-ups of people.

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

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

"It's pretty good, and I think it's relatively the best way." Ronald nodded in agreement with their choice.

"Very good," Don Simpson pressed the pause button.The three of them have watched this movie no less than a hundred times, and they almost vomited after watching it.Seeing that Ronald agreed to do so, he stopped the screening.

"There is another thing. Pepsi is very satisfied with your daydream advertisements, and they proposed to jointly promote the sales of video tapes with Paramount, so...we promised you a 1% share, and we have to change it."

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

"That's right, Ronald. Pepsi has a proposal. They will spend another $800 million to promote the ad on TV, and then add a video sale announcement at the end of the ad. Paramount has agreed to sell the video again. Drop six dollars, so..."

"Do you want to lower it?" Ronald was a little unhappy.I was paid according to the sales of the video tapes, and for every dollar I lowered the price, I lost a penny.

"It's like this. Pepsi has invested a lot of money this time, and Paramount also wants to try a new pricing strategy. We came to you to see how we can make up for your losses." Bruckheimer said next to him One sentence.

Anyway, "Top Gun" was a hit, and Ronald Lee was making money for himself and his partner Don Simpson.On the tape there was no need to withhold his modest sum of money.

Originally, in the market, the price of the videotapes of such blockbuster movies was generally between 80-100 US dollars.There are also some directors who are not willing to release the videotape version at all, for fear of piracy. For example, Spielberg is not willing to make his movies into videotapes for sale.

Before it was released, Paramount didn't know that "Top Gun" would go all the way and win the box office champion in [-].

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

Therefore, this time Paramount cut the price in half, initially pricing it at $38.

Pepsi, who heard the news, felt that this was a good opportunity, so they asked Ronald's company to shoot an advertisement that generally imitated the movie and reached an agreement.For every videotape sold, Pepsi subsidizes $6 to consumers 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 won last year's annual box office champion.

Pepsi's marketing department, before the release of the video tape, felt that it had to work harder. It was a great gimmick that the annual box office champion could be sold at a lower price.Don't waste this great opportunity.

After the approval of the headquarters, Pepsi added an additional fee, subsidizing another $6 per video tape, and the final price was set at $26.95 by the marketing staff of Paramount and Pepsi.

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

Don Simpson was very sincere.

The two of them are producer partners, and they have the production rights of "Top Gun".In other words, after the film is released, they can decide with one word whether to distribute more money to the main creators, and how much.

The theaters took part of the profits, and Paramount, as the distributor, also took part of the profits. The remaining money was not so much.

But Ronald's brilliant direction allowed the rest of the money to go well beyond what an average film would make.

After the two producers discussed, they still need to be kind to others, and distribute a little bit of the surplus to everyone. It is also beneficial to form a good relationship and cooperate in the future.

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

"That's 1.2%, 20% more than the original," Don Simpson was very straightforward. "Actually, according to the calculations of marketing experts, lowering prices can stimulate sales. You are not losing money."

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

It seems that the two producers earned so much that they didn't care about this small amount of money.

"According to the formula used by Paramount's marketing personnel, the price can be reduced from more than $80 to $26.95, which can increase sales eightfold."

"Eight times as much..." Ronald was about to say more, but then he thought again, "How much is the original sales volume?"

"At a price close to $100, only video rental stores will buy it. There are thousands of rental stores across the country. Even if each store buys ten video tapes for turnover, it will not exceed [-].

If their calculations are correct, they hope to sell 40 tapes this time. "

"Oh, that's good." Ronald did the math himself, so that he could still get more than [-] yuan in dividends.It just so happens that I am very poor recently, and all my money has been invested in the movie "Dirty Dancing". It is very good to have some money in my account.

"Then it's settled."

Don Simpson stood up and shook Ronald's hand, and the two sealed a new agreement.

"It's time for my lawyer to find your lawyer, Lindsay, right?" Bruckheimer remembered Ronald's personal female lawyer.

"Yes," Ronald nodded, "I'm still a little doubtful, how did they predict the eight times the sales? Is it based on experience or..."

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

Bruckheimer knows these details better.

"Well, anyway, I wish us success." Bruckheimer opened a bottle of red wine and poured it 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 duo.

He took a check and patted it into Ronald's hand.

"When I saw the Saab commercial you filmed, I knew that this time we found the right person! Sure enough, we are all rich, hahahaha..."

Don Simpson laughed wildly. He hadn't indulged himself in a long time recently because of the twelve-step method.

"Today's party is not very interesting, next time I ask you to come together, I will find more beauties."

Don Simpson finished one thing, was in a good mood, put his arm around Ronald's shoulder and went out.

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

"Did you know? Making movies can really make a lot of money, ahahaha..."

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

It seemed that they had already received the red envelope check from the producer, and he was the last one.

Ronald stayed for a while longer, declined the idea of ​​Mimi Rogers inviting him to the Scientology Star Center, and walked away with Diane.

Taking advantage of the gap between opening the door and letting Diane get into the car, Ronald quickly took out the check from 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. Now 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 to get in the car and looked at Diane's clothes, which he had seen her wear before.

"Let me take you to buy clothes," Ronald said to Diane.

"Okay, okay", Diane was very happy, grabbed Ronald's arm, and leaned his head on it.

"Bud, take us to Macy's." Ronald said to the little Bud sitting in front.

Little Bard has been running around with him during this period of time, and it is also very hard, and he has helped him deal with a lot of daily things, and as a driver, he is also a personal assistant.

This time he has made money, so he has to give him a check, and then give him a vacation to go back to New York to accompany his girlfriend.

Ronald still approves of Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer's style of distributing to the main creative staff after making a lot of money.

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

Ronald also laughed. This girl's family background was similar to his own when she was a child, and many habits are hard to change. For example, she can be happy even when she goes shopping for new clothes.

(End of this chapter)