Amidst the exciting background music, the wind chasers began to encounter a series of severe weather conditions. Lightning, heavy rain, and hail appeared one after another, mixed with the shadow of a few tornadoes from time to time.
"It's nothing special," Virginia sighed just now in the Angle Manor.
The next moment, the screen cuts to an asphalt road under heavy rain, and a violent tornado in the distance pulls up a series of electric poles on the side of the road. Amidst the sparks and lightning and the exclamation of the protagonist, a home speedboat rolled up by the tornado roars Coming towards the camera, the close-up shot of the speedboat became bigger and bigger, and finally stretched out the black edge of the trailer. At that moment, everyone who saw this shot had a feeling that the speedboat was about to fly out of the screen and hit them. illusion.
"Wow," both Virginia and Joanna screamed and leaned back. Even Eric, who was already prepared, couldn't help but make such a leaning back.
At the same time, countless families in North America who are watching the live broadcast of the Super Bowl made sounds of surprise or admiration in the action of leaning back.
But the audience who saw this scene didn't even have time to think about what was going on. The next tornado shot "rushing out" of the TV screen with countless debris had already caught their eyes firmly. Forty seconds, the visual bombardment brought by the compact but not overwhelming thrilling images has completely attracted everyone. A large number of "undecided" audiences have a strong desire to watch movies.
The title of the movie and the release date were frozen for two seconds. When everyone thought the trailer was over, the TV screen suddenly went dark. The screen flickers. A farm tractor thrown out by a tornado rolled 'running' off the screen.
"boom-"
Amid the sound of cracking glass. The TV sets of thousands of households have been smashed with countless shocking 'cracks'.
The last shot was carefully produced by top special effects artists in the digital field, and it was completely fake. Although I knew it was impossible in my heart, the first reaction in the mind of any audience who saw this scene was almost all their own. The TV at home was 'smashed'.
"How did you make this kind of footage?" "I don't know, it would be great if I could play it again." "I was scared to death, I thought the TV was really smashed." "It's so fucking That's cool. I'm going to be the first to see this movie." "It's awesome, but it won't be released in four months, oh my god, it's going to be a long wait." "Don't know when it will be held Maybe we can get a few tickets for a sneak peek."
Just after the trailer was broadcast, there were all kinds of discussions in countless living rooms, and even many people lost interest in the next Super Bowl game, and under the influence of this ingenious trailer, the following Several movie trailers have been swept to the level of dullness.
"Eric, how are these made?" After the trailer was played, Virginia, who was leaning next to Eric, asked this question for many people for the first time.
"The screen ratio of the TV is 4:3. However, the standard screen ratio of the cinema is 16:9. When the trailer is played on the TV, two black borders are added to the upper and lower sides of the screen in order to maintain the ratio of the movie lens. Otherwise, Otherwise, the content of the screen will be distorted. The trailer just now made reasonable use of the two black borders, and through computer cg modification, yachts, tractors and other things can go beyond the black border limit, and increase the depth of field of different objects in the screen, creating Create an illusion of flying off the screen."
Virginia nodded knowingly: "It sounds very simple, I thought it was so powerful."
"The principle of many things is very simple. The plane only flies through the air lift during the acceleration process. Can you make it?" Eric stretched out his hand and pinched Virginia's delicate face and teased. Although the principle of the trailer just now can be seen by many professionals at a glance, at present, except for the digital field, it is basically impossible for other special effects companies to produce the same effect in a short period of time. Still in the mainstream of film and television special effects, no special effects company will receive hundreds of millions of dollars of funds dedicated to research and development of computer special effects technology.
In the office building of Universal Pictures, the Super Bowl final has long been forgotten by everyone, and the trailer of "Tornado" has been played on the projection screen in the conference room for the fifth time in a row.
"Kane, can your special effects department make similar shots?" After playing it again, Michael Eisner turned to ask the person in charge of Universal's special effects department.
Kane Pittman hesitated for a moment, then shook his head reluctantly and said: "Mr. Eisner, we can do the stunt part in the shot, but the scene involving the tornado, although we can barely do it, we absolutely can't do it." To the level of verisimilitude in this trailer."
Michael Eisner's face remained unchanged, and he asked gently: "What is the specific difficulty, let me briefly explain it."
Kane Pittman smiled wryly, and said: "Mr. Eisner, computer special effects are actually not complicated. Many principles have been proposed by relevant scientists decades ago. The key is all kinds of software, hardware and research and development investment. For example, the most important work of computer cg special effects is the material rendering after the model is completed, which is related to the degree of fidelity of the picture. I have a friend who happens to be in the digital field. He told me that the digital field is now used for The computing power of the post-processing rendering farm has even been ranked among the top 50 supercomputers in the world, and this alone is beyond our reach with only a few graphics workstations."
"If I give you enough funds to update the required hardware facilities, and also poach some people from the digital field, how long do you think it will take to catch up with the technical level of the digital field?"
"It's hard." Kane Pittman didn't hesitate any more this time: "Mr. Eisner, the scene of the field barn being destroyed in the trailer, according to my experience, was not shot in real scene, but was completely used. cg images, which involve complex dynamic calculations, and require professional software tools for processing. At present, a complete set of mature tool software has been developed in the digital field. If we do it from scratch, it will take one to two years , and it is unlikely to catch up with the digital field, after all, they have been conducting new technology research and development."
Michael Eisner frowned slightly. Starting from the amazing liquid metal robot in "Terminator 2" last year, Michael Eisner was acutely aware that special effects movies will become the mainstream of Hollywood movies in the future. Films such as "Tornado", "Jurassic Park" and "Clash of Heaven and Earth" that Firefly has successively produced or are about to put into production all herald this trend. The trailer is so taken seriously.
But now it seems that even if they understand the crux of the matter, they seem a little powerless, because they have fallen far behind the digital field in time.
Although the digital domain does not reject the special effects projects of other film companies, everyone knows that, as a special effects company controlled by Firefly, under any circumstances, the digital domain will give the highest priority to Firefly's film projects. Only the free human and material resources will be used on other companies' films, and. The digital domain is likely to become an important tool for Firefly to win over or suppress other film companies.
Michael Eisner's condensed face made everyone in the meeting room cautious, and the atmosphere of silence lasted for nearly a minute before Kane Pittman, who had just been asked, said softly, "Mr. Eisner? "
"Um?"
Kane Pittman also knew something about the entanglement between Michael Eisner and Eric. After hearing his response, he said: "Actually, although Industrial Light and Magic's technical level in cg special effects is not as good as that in the digital field, but he After all, it has a strong technical accumulation, and I think it is the only special effects company in Hollywood that can compete with the digital field.”
Michael Eisner nodded slightly, thinking quickly in his heart, he and George Lucas have no friendship at all, but it is well known that George Lucas and Spielberg are good friends, and now , Spielberg still owes Universal seven film contracts. If he can pull this pair of partners to Universal, it will definitely greatly strengthen his position in Universal.
Although Spielberg and him once had disagreements because of their cooperation with Disney, Michael Eisner had already made up his mind to ease the conflict with Spielberg before taking office, and this clause was even given the same attention. Spielberg's Matsushita was written into a side deal.
If you want to reconcile with a person, blindly pleasing them often won't do much, the most important thing is to do what they like.
In the conference room, after Michael Eisner proposed a psychological idea, an executive quickly thought of one thing.
Before Michael Eisner took office, Spielberg had already contacted Universal for the right to adapt a biography called "Schindler's Ark".
"Schindler's Ark", which tells the story of Schindler saving a large number of Jews in concentration camps during World War II, was bought by Universal as early as the early 1980s, and Sid Schinberg has always hoped that Spielberg He was able to direct it himself, but due to various concerns, Spielberg delayed this plan until now.
But recently, Warner CEO Steve Ross, who has a very close relationship with Spielberg, is getting sicker and may die at any time. Spielberg has always felt that Steve Ross fits the image of Schindler in his heart, So I planned to shoot "Schindler's Ark" and dedicate it to the elder.
After everyone pieced together the cause and effect of the incident, Michael Eisner quickly decided to reconcile with Spielberg through this incident, and then contact George Lucas through Spielberg.
"Paul, give me a copy of the book "Schindler's Ark" as soon as possible. I will read it tomorrow morning. In addition, find out which restaurant is Mr. Spielberg's favorite. Tomorrow Book one of the best seats for the evening."
Watching the assistant record his instructions in the memo, Michael Eisner gently rubbed his temples, then stood up and said to everyone: "Okay, let's stop here today, everyone can go back and rest."
…
“I’ve long felt that it’s not a good idea to put Prequel on June 12th, with Tornado in front and Batman in back,” said a luxury villa in Beverly Hills, Columbia. After seeing the trailer of "Tornado", Jon Peters, the president of the company, said with some hindsight.
Compared to Michael Eisner's detailed discussion of the "Tornado" trailer at Universal Headquarters, Peter Cooper and Jon Peters in the villa are laymen at all. It is not an exaggeration to say that when Spielberg produced "The Purple", although Peter Cooper was the producer, Spielberg, who was extremely disgusted with Peter Cooper, who was an amateur and an expert, made a special note in the relevant contract , to prohibit Peter Cooper from stepping into the set of "The Purple".
Compared to Peter Cooper, who still had a university degree, Jon Peters was even more unbearable. This man was once just a hairstylist for a Hollywood star, with a rude and grumpy personality, and he didn't even know a few words. It has to be said that two people can climb to the helm of one of the top seven, which has to be said to be one of the "spectacles" in Hollywood in recent years.
Peter Guber shook the red wine in his hand lightly, and said, "The schedule has been announced, so it must be too late to adjust the schedule now."
"Tom Cruise's investment in this film has been increased to 86 million. Including the announcement and release, at least 150 million in North America and 300 million in the world can ensure that all costs can be recovered. We must find a way, and we can't go on like this."
"What can we think of? We can't ask Firefly or Warner to move the schedule of "Tornado" and "Batman", right?"
Jon Peters thought hard for a while, then suddenly slapped his thigh and said, "Hey, have you heard about the recent Woody Allen scandal?"
Peter Guber said: "Of course, it's so lively, how could I not have heard of it."
"How about we do the same for Eric Williams?"
Peter Guber's hand shaking the red wine paused for a moment, and quickly shook his head: "No, this trick is not very useful for the current Eric Williams, he is now the owner of Firefly, Even if he doesn’t make movies, he can still be his own billionaire safely, but if he knows what we do, hehe, think about what will happen to Michael Eisner.” (To be continued.. )