Of course, this form of performance also has many disadvantages. The first is the parade troupe system just mentioned. Since the troupe parades between different places, the performance cycle is very long. If the audience wants to enjoy a performance, they often need a lot of luck, including the right time, place and people.
Moreover, due to the high cost of facilities and labor, the price of a stage play performance is at least five silver coins, which is equivalent to the price of five or six days' meal expenses for an ordinary person, making it almost impossible for the lower-class civilians to enjoy this kind of entertainment.
In addition, the threshold for appreciating stage plays is actually a problem. After all, most uneducated people can hardly understand the singing and dancing in stage plays. Apart from applauding, they actually cannot understand what the play is about.
Therefore, when Du Lin decided to shoot "KonoSuba: God's Blessing for a Better World", he had already made up his mind to release the film in a brand new form - a movie!
Unlike stage plays, movie performances do not require a lot of manpower and material resources. All it needs is a small imaging crystal and a magician who can inject magic power into it.
Therefore, not only do movies not require a long production cycle, but they can also greatly reduce costs. According to Du Lin's personal calculations, the cost of the hundreds of imaging crystals he had on hand was less than ten gold coins, and the cost of filming was almost zero, which is almost disproportionate to stage plays, whose costs are at least in the three digits.
And precisely because of this, the Adventurer's Guild of the Southern Territory, after listening to Durin's advice, let go of its courage and directly set the price at five copper coins per performance, a tenfold drop compared to the price of a drama!
What does this mean? It means that you only need to drink one less glass of beer to have a visual experience of up to one and a half hours in the cinema. In this way, not only ordinary people, but also relatively poor people can watch it easily. Even if they sacrifice a little viewing experience, the imaging crystal can even be sent to those remote villages for open-air broadcasting at night!
In this way, "KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World" or the movie will have the potential to achieve quite terrifying entertainment popularity. Not to mention setting the entire South on fire, setting the entire Empire on fire would not be a difficult task!
Of course, the decision to release "KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World" as a movie was made after a long discussion between Durin and the president of the Adventurer's Guild in the South, because it was a big gamble and an opportunity that could almost change the times!
It is called a gamble because this destructive behavior that completely disregards industry rules will cause countless interest groups in the Southern Territory and even the entire empire to be implicated in a devastating manner. No practitioner in the art industry will not be affected. The possible retaliation at that time may not be borne by Durin, not even the Southern Territory Adventurer's Guild!
But at the same time, with such great risks, the opportunities are almost unimaginable. After all, if this new form of entertainment art becomes popular in this world, it will bring unimaginable huge benefits to the Southern Adventurer's Guild and Durin. In other words, they will become the creators of the era!
Once the form of film becomes really popular, not to mention the entire southern territory, even the entertainment industry of the empire will be shaken up, because it will directly lead to entertainment no longer being exclusive to the rich. Even poor people with little spare money will be eligible to enjoy entertainment and experience happiness!
And this is exactly the original intention of Du Lin to shoot. Although it includes his selfish desires, at the same time, he made such a decision and wanted to make such a change in order to satisfy the selfish desires of countless people!
Rather than pursuing the true meaning of magic, Durin, who comes from another era with a higher level of civilization, hopes to change this boring world!
Although that sounded a bit childish, he still wanted to say that he, Du Lin, wanted to be the person who changed the world!
... ... ..
That afternoon, after hearing that the Adventurer's Guild had discussed many matters regarding the premiere with the person in charge of the Northrick Grand Theater, Du Lin took Wen Li to the Northrick Grand Theater in person.
Just as the Guild Master of the Adventurer's Guild had told him before, this theater was indeed a grand theater with a long history in Northrick. The gorgeous decoration and design elements visible to the naked eye surprised Durin. He also soon met the manager of the theater, a young man who looked quite elegant.
The other party was said to be a viscount who had some interactions with Edward's family in the past. The Northrick Theatre was his family business. This time, after hearing about this new product, movies, he watched it as soon as possible. Naturally, he was deeply impressed by movies and agreed to the screening of the film at the Northrick Theatre immediately.
"Hello, hello, Baron Edward, in Lower Banil, is the Viscount who inherited this Northrick Grand Theater."
This Viscount Banil seemed to be a very talkative person. He started bombarding Du Lin with questions as soon as he met him. He asked Du Lin how the story of "KonoSuba: God's Blessing for a Better World" would develop next, and whether he could participate in the filming next. Finally, he told Du Lin that he had directly severed cooperation with several theater troupes before after watching "KonoSuba: God's Blessing for a Better World".
Although Du Lin was very happy that the theater manager was someone who could accept new things and not follow the rules, the other party's annoyingness still made him say helplessly: "I am here to discuss the premiere this time. Can we talk about other issues later, Viscount Barnil?"
Hearing his words, Vanir, knowing that the other party was getting impatient, immediately smiled knowingly and replied as he turned around, "Of course, of course. Then I will show the great magician around our theater first."
Chapter 34: The First Cinema in Another World
Chapter 34
After entering the Northrick Grand Theater and taking a tour, Du Lin generally accepted this as the only theater in Northrick.
Viscount Banir, who had been following him closely, always appeared to be very respectful. After all, although he was a viscount and Durin was only a baron, don't forget that Durin was still a great magician in the true sense. Although he had been expelled from the Mage's Tower in name, his own strength would not be diminished. At most, he would just lose the connections of the Mage's Tower.
"Baron Edward, do you have any problem with our theater?"
In response to Baniel's question, Du Lin simply replied, "The auditorium is too large. Although it is not a problem to watch a stage play with such a large auditorium, if you want to watch a movie, such a large auditorium will only make the audience in the back row have a bad viewing experience. You can't let every audience member have eagle eyes."
Yes, since the Northrick Theatre was originally an opera house, its interior design is a three-story structure, so that in addition to the front row of seats, the audience on the second and third floors can also see the scenes inside with the help of the height. But if the object becomes a movie, this approach is too limiting. After all, even if the myopia rate in this world is not that high, the height difference alone is enough to cause a devastating blow to the viewing of a movie.
"And the problem with the auditorium is not just this. In the best case, the auditorium of the cinema should have a certain inclination. The completely flat seats will block the people in the back from the front row. The internal light shielding should be strictly implemented. If conditions permit, I also hope that the audience can bring their own food into the theater. No, the food they bring is messy and can easily cause problems in watching the movie. It is better for the theater to distribute it uniformly, and it is best to have small snacks that do not make any noise when eaten and are easy to clean..."
Durin spoke of a lot of changes to the theater in one breath, which made Baniel look a little overwhelmed. He quickly wrote down Durin's words with a pen and paper, just like a studious student. He replied as soon as Durin finished speaking: "As expected of a great magician, Baron Edward, your ideas are all very good and beyond the times. However, if we change it now, I'm afraid it will be too late..."
"Of course, I'm just giving you some advice. I'm not asking you to change it right away. What you need to do most now is to quickly transform the stage used for drama performances into a place suitable for showing movies."
Du Lin pointed to the red curtain at the front of the theater and the few decorations placed there to ensure that the stage did not seem too empty.
Soon, after Baniel cleared the stage according to Dulin's request, the theater finally looked a bit like a movie theater. Dulin roughly estimated the size of the wall and said, "If I want you to paint that wall white now, how long will it take you?"
"If the workers prepare quickly enough, it can probably be done in half an afternoon."
"Very good, then let's get it done as soon as possible. If we can catch up, we can premiere it tonight."
Dulin's words declared that he was satisfied with showing movies in such a theater, and Baniel, who roughly understood Dulin's idea, quickly followed his advice and renovated the theater passed down in his family.
To be honest, if Banier was not a young man who had just inherited the family business, any stubborn old man would probably not agree with Durin's nonsense. After all, old people with inflexible thinking and difficulty in adapting often particularly advocate old traditions and are unwilling to accept new things.
For conservative old people, throwing away ancient traditions at will is simply a betrayal of their teachers and ancestors, and is an extremely disrespectful act towards tradition. Although such an idea may sound reasonable on the surface, it is actually a huge obstacle to the progress of civilization.
If "KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World" is to continue to be promoted as a film, these stubborn conservatives will be a difficult obstacle. The old theaters and forces controlled by these people will probably do their best to obstruct the development of the film. However, Du Lin is not without a solution. After all, he had planned to show the film in an open-air square from the beginning.
... ...
Seeing that Barnil quickly began to transform according to his requirements, Du Lin nodded silently and said quickly: "When the movie starts, please make sure the environment is pitch black. Those glowing magic stones must be removed immediately, or find a way to drain the magic power inside. Remember to prepare more seats. I just tried the second floor. It's barely okay for watching movies, but the third floor is definitely not okay. Before playing, remember to adjust the angle of the imaging crystal a little higher, so that people in the back row can also see the whole picture."
Dulin said a lot of things in one breath. Although Banier didn't have time to write them down, his assistant arrived at the scene early and wrote down Dulin's suggestions.
As the renovation of the theater was gradually completed, Dulin, who sat down in a random seat in the audience, looked at the white-painted walls with satisfaction. Baniel was indeed very dedicated to movies and almost perfectly met Dulin's needs, which also meant that this premiere would get a perfect result.
Although the actual experience was definitely not as good as the cinema Du Lin had visited in his previous life, at least compared to other environments in this world, this renovated theater had made Du Lin feel barely comfortable.
Thinking of this, Du Lin suddenly realized that he had planned to watch the second part of the Fate HF movie before traveling through time, but he traveled through time before he could see it. This was really a pity.
With these messy thoughts in mind, when Banier came again, the transformation of the theater into a cinema had been almost completed.
"I should have asked you to do some promotion before, how's it going? Although the premiere doesn't require too many people, it shouldn't be too few."
After hearing what Du Lin said, Barnil nodded and said, "Well, I have asked my people to change the sign at the door to your film. With the popularity of the Northrick Grand Theater, there will definitely be a lot of people attracted. When the reputation of the Northrick Grand Theater is spread, more and more people will come to watch it."
Although what Vanir said was good, Du Lin felt that there was something wrong with it, so he suddenly asked, "You said you rely on word of mouth? In other words, you haven't conducted any formal promotion or advertising?"
"Isn't publicity just shouting at the door? Our Northrick Grand Theater is the only one in the whole of Northrick. People who know about it will naturally come. So what is advertising?"
Du Lin's expression suddenly changed when he saw Vanir's matter-of-fact look.
Apparently, he had been going too smoothly and had unconsciously overlooked an important thing, that is, in this world where the papermaking industry is well developed, there is no means of obtaining instant information, and the people in this world do not understand the correct meaning of the word publicity!!!
Chapter 35 poster? Trailer
Chapter 35
After discussing with Banier for a while, Du Lin quickly confirmed that the other party really had no idea about a series of marketing methods such as publicity advertisements. Even the key theater promotion relied entirely on the so-called word of mouth, allowing the audience to spread the word by word of mouth. Although this world has a good papermaking industry, newspapers have not developed at all, so even if they want to advertise, there is no channel to use.
After all, since the people inside the cities of this world hardly interact with the outside world and the speed of internal information dissemination is not very slow, there is no need for deliberate publicity. Therefore, a monopoly industry like the Northrick Grand Theater will naturally not make any marketing preparations.
Although Du Lin felt that this situation was quite bad at first, he soon realized the untapped business opportunities in it.
Yes, since no one has done this in the past, wouldn’t it be good for Du Lin and his team to become the first explorers to open up this field? Even if they are imitated later, the profits they gain by then will be enough to consolidate their position in the industry.
So, after thinking about it, Du Lin decided to explain to the other party what the concept of so-called advertising is.
“Flyers? Posters? Put your brand name on the small items distributed during movie viewings?”
After hearing Durin's simple description, Barnil, who had never thought about this before, was so excited that he felt like he had opened the door to a new world. He immediately said, "Great! Baron Edward, your insights are beyond the times. I finally understand why you were able to invent movies right after creating the magic video recorder and imaging crystal. I admire your wisdom so much!"
Although Vanir seemed to be praising himself to the skies, Durin, who had experienced the prosperity of another world, was not interested at all.
Because these things that are very new to people in this world are just daily occurrences that people in another world encounter all the time.
In short, after getting the idea given by Dulin, Banier quickly began to prepare the so-called promotional advertisements, and the first step was naturally to distribute flyers. Although time was tight at the moment, tonight's premiere was not the last one. According to Dulin's idea, this film should be able to be broadcast for several months.
Therefore, even if the flyer is received a little later, as long as the flyer can be spread as far as possible, the audience who arrives during the film's release will become potential audiences of the film.
In this world with certain printing technology, it is indeed quite easy to make flyers. Of course, Du Lin still followed the advice on typesetting. After all, he had received so many surprise attacks from flyer distributors in his previous life, and there were definitely not a few small advertisements posted on street corners. Therefore, even if he just copied one from those flyers, the effect would look pretty good.
Although it was still a little crude in comparison, it was a novelty in a world that had never seen small ads.
"So are we going to send these flyers now?"
Hearing Baniel's excited words, Du Lin just shook his head and said, "Although we have made preparations quickly, distributing flyers still takes time. In order to ensure the premiere tonight, we must at least quickly make an advertisement with good results!"
“Fast speed and good results?”
In response to Barnil's confusion, Dulin just smiled and said, "Viscount Barnil, where is the place with the largest number of people gathering in the evening in Northrick?"
I didn't expect Du Lin to say such a thing. After thinking for a moment, Banil said quickly, "It's the Central Square. Although there is only a fountain and a medium-sized square, it has gradually become popular because street performers often perform there. Most people go there for a walk after dinner."
"What else?"
"In addition, the Northrick Grand Bazaar and the Street of Pleasure are both very popular places. The former is mostly populated by parents and children, while the latter is a gathering place for young people. You naturally understand the reason, Lord Edward."
In response to Baniel's implied expression, Du Lin just nodded and said, "Then let's temporarily choose these three places and put the movie posters there in the most eye-catching way!"
"A seal? A poster? What is this?"
Seeing that Vanir couldn't understand what he meant, Du Lin didn't explain too much, but just said silently: "Anyway, you should ask someone to investigate these three places later and make sure to find a white wall similar to this one where you can see it. Of course, it would be even better if you can get a cart and hang a huge square white cloth on it!"
"Well, I'll quickly order someone to prepare it."
Although he didn't know what Durin was going to do, Vanir, who already knew that the great magician in front of him had wisdom that he would never be able to catch up with in his lifetime, didn't say anything more and immediately went to prepare the poster that Durin mentioned.
On the other side, Du Lin, who stayed where he was, showed a subtle expression. The poster was the first thing he thought of, but when he was communicating with Barnil just now, he suddenly realized why he had to use the ideas of another world to design? Yes, although the other world is far more developed than this world in terms of civilization, this world also has something that the other world does not have, that is magic!
Although posters would be a good choice, if the element of magic is added, then there is actually a better choice in front of Durin.
"They jumped straight to the big screen ad before even having a poster. This can only be done in a world with magic. In this case, they have to make a trailer!"
Looking at the imaging crystal in his hand that he had copied and used as a sample, Du Lin patiently edited the content to a certain extent after taking it out.
After exploring the mechanism of this crystal more and more, Du Lin has mastered more ways to use the crystal, including this method of editing by sorting the magic power inside the mobile crystal.
Although the final editing result cannot be called good, it is at least acceptable, including the protagonist and the goddess being forced to go to another world, the addition of new partners, explosive magic, and the appearance of the headless knight.
Although the mixed editing of these shots makes it difficult to figure out what story this movie is about at first glance, it can make viewers feel that it is quite awesome at first glance and they are very much looking forward to it.
Finally, looking at the trailer version of the imaging crystal in his hand, Du Lin also personally dubbed the trailer for it. The general content is that "KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World" will be broadcast at the Northrick Grand Theater tonight. Those who are interested can go to the Northrick Grand Theater to inquire about the specific content.
After doing all this, Durin put away the imaging crystal and waited quietly for news from Vanir. The other party did not disappoint him and soon came to him again. From his happy look, it was obvious that he had completed the task set by Durin.
Chapter 36 premiere begins!
Chapter 36
In the evening, at the main square of Northrick.
Children who had just finished dinner were playing and frolicking in the empty square, couples were walking slowly on the road holding each other's arms, and artists who were ready to perform were taking down the performance props from the car bit by bit... ...
Although this is a world where magic exists, compared to the grand adventures in fantasy stories, such an ordinary life is everyone's daily life, or boring daily life.
Yes, compared to the other world that has developed into the Internet age and can enjoy all kinds of interesting entertainment without leaving home, ordinary people in this world can basically be said to have no access to any entertainment at all. Innocent and creative children can still play all kinds of simple games to kill time, but older adults really have nothing to do.
When the day's work is over, they have nothing to do in the evening and can only spend their time wandering around the square.
However, compared to the past, Northrick seems a little different today.
Suddenly, under the curious gaze of the young people in the square, a cart carrying a huge white cloth slowly moved over under the push of several staff members, followed closely by a blond boy who did not look very tall.
Faced with everyone's confusion, the young man, Du Lin, did not give too much introduction. He just slowly took out the imaging crystal he had prepared, and after finding a suitable angle, he slowly put it down and injected magic power.
"Aren't those people from the Northrick Grand Theatre? What are they doing here?"
Soon someone recognized the identity of the staff member, but even if they recognized them, they could not understand why something like the Northrick Theater, which had nothing to do with civilians, came to this square at this time.
So, after all kinds of curiosity and confusion gradually enveloped the entire square, Du Lin, who felt that it was almost dark, skillfully projected the image in the magic crystal.
In an instant, as the trailer edited by Du Lin was played in the square, everyone gathered in the square showed shocked expressions. The originally quiet square was suddenly completely ignited by all kinds of words and disbelief.
This situation was beyond Du Lin's imagination. After all, although he, as a modern man, had become accustomed to the form of movie commercials and trailers, and could even be said to be disgusted with this form, for people in this world who had never been exposed to such things, even an advertisement was something interesting that they had never seen before, and it could even be said to be too interesting!
"Mom! What is that?!!"
"Well, it seems very interesting..."
"Northrick Theatre? It must be very expensive..."
"But if I just want to learn more about it, it should be fine. After all, I have never seen such a moving picture in my life!"
“… … .”
When all kinds of discussions were spreading in the square at this moment, Durin, who had expected it, just greeted quietly behind him, and then the many adventurers who were on standby immediately mixed into the crowd.
The only thing these adventurers have to do at this moment is to act as a shill and use their previous experience of watching the preview at the Adventurer's Guild to brag to these audiences who have no experience in watching movies how good the movie is.
Although considering the quality and historicity of movies, even if Du Lin did not do this deliberately, it would sooner or later attract more and more people through word of mouth. However, since these adventurers volunteered to contribute, there was no need for him to refuse.
The reason why these adventurers are willing to help is actually because they have a lot of superiority that they have nowhere to vent. As the first audience to enjoy the movie, they really want to find those who have not seen it to express their inner excitement, or in other words, they just want to show off after having nothing to do.
In short, at this moment, in the whole of Northrick, there are a total of three places where similar things are happening. A group of ordinary people who have never seen a movie were attracted by the trailer of "KonoSuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World" at this moment. They immediately made up their minds that they must go to the Northrick Grand Theater to see what this so-called movie is.
... ... .