The film and television industry has expressed its disdain for Makino Imaging's "new products". This mentality of letting out a sigh of relief and then unscrupulously criticizing the other party still comes from their fear of Makino Imaging.
No industry welcomes competitors, and the same applies to the film and television industry, especially competitors like Makino Imaging that have huge resources and capital behind them. Therefore, when Li Mu established Makino Imaging, the industry was particularly wary of it.
But at this moment, the film and television industry's wariness about Makino's images has basically disappeared.
I originally thought that Li Mu would come up with something new in this industry, but now it seems that this worry is completely unnecessary.
Moreover, when these film and television companies calmed down and analyzed the problem, they discovered that the current scale of Makino Imaging itself was not large, and there were no high-profile signings of artists and directors. routine, then he must spend money and make big moves in the film and television industry, but for now, it seems that Makino Image has no big moves.
Although Makino Pictures has produced two theatrical films this year, for first-tier film and television companies, this amount is simply pitiful and cannot be judged by them at all. Even for third-rate film and television companies, they only produce two films a year. This work is indeed a bit unsatisfactory.
From this, we can speculate that Li Mu may not really be interested in the film and television industry, but just come in to play. In this case, everyone can rest assured and don't have to pay too much attention to Li Mu and Makino's image.
Amid industry scorn, "Girls We Chased Together in Those Years" began its first wave of test screenings.
At ten o'clock in the morning, the screening halls of the five theaters were full. All of them were winning users of the two platforms YY and Taobao. They themselves paid a lot of attention to the movie. Some of them paid attention to Du Wei and Zhang Kexuan. For these two leading actors, some people are paying attention to the campus emotional story that seems to be more attractive from the trailer and introduction, and some people are simply here for the theme song. They listened to some clips in the trailer, but Didn't get a chance to hear it all.
Precisely because all winning audiences have different expectations for this movie, almost every show is full and no one is absent.
Li Mu was not in Yanjing, but Makino Image still arranged for several staff members, as well as director Teng Huatao and other creative staff to go to the scene to understand the audience's comments.
Although every scene of this movie was shot under the direction of Teng Huatao, Teng Huatao is still not confident about the commercial prospects of the movie. It’s not that he doesn’t like the story, but that he feels that it The user audience of stories is somewhat too young.
Teng Huatao has never experienced the era of youth dramas and the years when youth dramas are rampant, so he does not underestimate the commercial value of this movie. He feels that although the male and female protagonists in the entire movie have experienced high school and college And enter the society, but its largest space is still describing the emotional life of the male and female protagonists in high school. In other words, this movie is actually describing the love story of high school students.
Since it is a love story about high school students, will young people and middle-aged people aged 20 to 35 who are the main force at the box office still be interested in such a film
Not only Teng Huatao, but others in the production team are not very hopeful about the commercial value of the film. Even colleagues in the industry have not seen the film, but judging from the information they have learned, they There are also great doubts about the commercial effect of this movie. Although Makino Imaging has mobilized the promotion capabilities of Makino Technology and promoted this movie to everyone, in the end, the real decisive factor is whether there is How many people are willing to buy tickets for this movie
At the moment, the one who has the greatest hope for "The Girls We Chased Together" is Li Mu, because Li Mu knows very well that the reason why this movie was so successful at the time and achieved such high box office is largely due to Thanks to this movie, we have explored and deeply explored the deep needs of users.
Everyone thinks that what the audience likes to watch are blockbusters, big stars, big productions, Feng's comedies, Zhang's movies, nonsensical comedies, and artificial emotional stories in modern cities, so everyone is focusing on these. The key point of making movies is that this is the essence of commercial movies. No one is willing to use their brains to think about the deeper needs of the audience.
For a movie like "The Girls We Chased Together", the core audience is never high school students, but all those people who have high school experience but have already entered the society. They may be young people in their twenties or thirties who have just graduated from college. They may be young and middle-aged people in their twenties or eighties who have worked for several years, or they may be middle-aged people in their thirties who are getting married and having children. As long as they have high school experience, as long as they have The sentiment of premature love, as long as they still have nostalgia for their high school career, they will be the core audience of this movie.
It is precisely because "The Girls We Chased Together" accidentally tapped into the "nostalgia" sentiments of users that it achieved a huge explosion at the box office. This explosion included the production and distribution companies, including the creative team. No one there expected it.
Among the many subsequent works that followed the trend, "Charlotte Troubles" is also an absolute dark horse. His brilliance lies in not only delving into the level of users' nostalgia, but also stealing the reincarnation memes in the Internet literary circle to create A pseudo-rebirth, using the starting point of "do it all over again", leads everyone to relive high school life.
Others take the audience to miss high school together, but "Charlotte Troubles" takes everyone "back to high school". Obviously the latter has a deeper exploration of user needs, and after adding some YY elements, It’s the icing on the cake.
It is precisely because Li Mu understands the fundamental factors for the success of campus youth movies that he has full confidence in "The Girls We Chased Together", which was born nine years in advance.
However, Li Mu also knows very well that such a trick cannot be popular all over the world. Once he succeeds in "Girls We Chased Together in Those Years", he knows that there will be a large number of campus youth love movies. emerge.
After all, it is business competition, and everyone is here for money. The founder of a genre can never and cannot refuse the emergence of imitators and followers. Moreover, Li Mu's mind is by no means so narrow-minded. What he pursues is a set of skills that can surpass the entire industry. The big structure, or big rules, of the film and television industry, controlling the entire industry from offline theaters, online ticketing systems, and box office is his real pursuit.
Therefore, he will not reject "Girls We Chased Together in Those Years", which may be followed by "To Youth", "You at the Same Table", "Brother Sleeping on My Top Bunk" and "Charlotte Troubles". The emergence of movies, on the contrary, he hopes that more such movies will appear, because the future commercial lifeline of these movies will definitely be in the hands of Makino Cinemas and Muying Online Ticketing System.
More than a thousand viewers in five scenes followed the character played by Zhang Kexuan into the story. Zhang Kexuan put on his suit and tie in front of the mirror. His good brother suddenly appeared and said an introduction: "Move quickly, don't let the bride wait for you." !”
Zhang Kexuan left a handsome shot to the camera, and then the scene suddenly switched to 1992.
The opening chapter gives a scene of the protagonist preparing to go to a wedding, which also gives the audience the illusion that the movie is recalling the male protagonist’s successful love story. However, only in the end will the audience know that the male protagonist and the female protagonist have not really left. Come together.
From this moment on, the audience is immersed in the plot and scenes of the high school campus, and then is gradually attracted by the plot in the movie, just like boiling a frog in warm water, using seemingly ordinary techniques to tell an ordinary story, but in a gentle way. The water-like plot makes users sink into it and be unable to stop.
Li Mu did not make extensive adjustments to the characters and personalities in the play. He only made some modifications to the character dialogue and related plots to make it more in line with the high school life in the memories of mainland audiences, so as to add more sense of immersion. .
In addition, the male and female protagonists are overall better than the actors in the original work.
If Zhang Kexuan only looks at appearance, he is on par with Ke Zhendong, but because he plays in a band, Zhang Kexuan has a bit more cynical coolness than Ke Zhendong;
In terms of appearance, Du Wei can surpass Chen Yanxi by several blocks, and in terms of temperament, she is also far superior to her. Coupled with her excellent musical talent, she has created the role of the heroine much better than the original work, and even further Improved the overall level of the movie.
At a time when commercial movies are not mature enough, "The Girls We Chased Together in Those Years" can be called a very sincere commercial work. It does not have too esoteric themes or overly high-level style. It just uses the most realistic , the most down-to-earth way, presents everyone with a touching, sad, regretful and unforgettable emotional story.
In addition to the simple and direct theme positioning, the filming of the entire film is also very sophisticated. Whether it is the actors, framing, or the use of light and color, they are all extremely meticulous, giving the audience the feeling of full sincerity and care.
In addition, the two high-quality theme songs "Those Years" and "The First Day" also add a lot to this film, especially the lyrics of "Those Years" which completely fit the theme. Under Zhang Kexuan's interpretation, it is even more beautiful. It has become a tear-jerking song, and every lyric makes the audience feel the same and even cry.
The first test screening was a great success. Although in the end, all the audience sadly discovered that the male protagonist in the opening film was not going to marry the heroine, but to attend the heroine's wedding. But the more this kind of An imperfect plot can touch the tenderness in the audience's heart.
After the film ended, all the audience couldn't help but applaud this touching and nostalgic film. After the show, the staff conducted a survey and statistics on the audience who participated in the preview. A total of 100 people were interviewed, and the score was 10 out of 10. Under the rating criteria, these 100 viewers gave it an average score of 9.3, which is extremely high.
After two consecutive test screenings, the extremely high reputation of "The Girls We Chased Together" shocked colleagues in the film and television industry. Subsequently, major film and television companies sent film and television production professionals to Makino International The cinema has only one purpose: to collect tickets at a high price and purchase tickets for other preview screenings from live audiences to see how good this movie is!
(End of chapter)