Under the veil of night, the lights of Los Angeles still shone brightly and the city buzzed with life. Yet, some upscale neighborhoods remained quiet. By a standalone villa in Beverly Hills, the tall and long-legged Gal Gadot walked out from the yard. Behind her, the pregnant hostess saw her to the door.
"Nat, it's a bit chilly outside." Gal Gadot turned around and looked at the obviously pregnant hostess with concern. "You should head back in."
"It's fine…" Natalie Portman held onto the gate. "I'm really glad you came to keep me company."
As the two spoke, camera flashes began to go off nearby, capturing their figures. Gal Gadot instinctively moved in front of Natalie Portman, shielding her. Natalie didn't seem to mind at all. "It's going to be exposed sooner or later. Let them be."
"Mm." Gal Gadot nodded, a flash of mockery flickering through her eyes. "Go back now, I'm heading off."
She waved to Natalie Portman and left the gate, walking toward her car. She opened the door, got in, and started the engine, quickly driving away. But after turning two corners, she gradually slowed down, thinking about the recent interactions with Natalie Portman. She could only sigh at how skillful the woman was.
A woman who could even use her unborn child how sharp must her mind be? How deep her scheming?
Clearly, for next year's Best Actress Oscar, Natalie Portman was going all in. But would that be enough to win the little golden statue?
With a trace of ridicule flashing through her mind, Gal Gadot entered Rodeo Drive and stopped in front of a café. She checked her watch and waited in the car for a while. When a familiar figure entered the café, she finally got out of the car and headed in at a leisurely pace.
Her bright eyes quickly spotted her agent. Gal Gadot quickened her steps slightly and sat down opposite him.
"How did it go?" The agent put down his coffee cup and reminded her, "It's the critical moment now."
Gal Gadot opened her handbag and pulled out a voice recorder, placing it in front of him. "This is the content from the past few days. There's even a segment I secretly recorded Nat and Martin Miller's private conversation about the Oscars."
"Well done, Gal!" The agent's eyebrows almost flew into his hairline. "With your smarts, you'll definitely make it big!"
She shrugged, ready to leave. Before going, she asked again, "What about our agency switch?"
"Don't worry." The agent carefully stored the recorder. "Nancy Josephson will have everything sorted before the Oscar ceremony starts."
Hearing this, Gal Gadot felt reassured and strode out of the café. She knew her future path would only get broader.
She drove away from Beverly Hills and returned to her apartment in Burbank. But she didn't rest immediately. Instead, she held a glass of wine, standing on the balcony and gazing into the distance that was the direction of Warner Bros. Studios. Not far from her apartment, even though it was already late, the lights there still shone brightly, as if the place was still bustling.
And indeed, as had been the case for the past few months, Duke was still working overtime at Warner Bros. Studios, trying to wrap up the final touches of Gravity. After an internal screening, the film would have a limited release in North America between Christmas and New Year to qualify for Oscar consideration. Then, after the New Year holidays, it would be widely released across North America.
In the editing room, post-production was in its final stage. After overseeing the addition of the end credits, Duke said to Tina Fey beside him, "Get someone to deliver the completed version to Warner Bros. immediately and start mass-producing the DVD Screener version as fast as possible. Before the New Year, I want Gravity's DVD Screener on the desks of every voter."
"Mm…" Tina Fey waved over several security personnel who had been waiting nearby, received the encrypted storage device from Mike Dawson, and said to Duke, "Don't worry, I'll handle it myself."
Watching Tina Fey leave, Duke let out a breath of relief. After working hard for more than half a year, he had finally made the Oscars' last train.
But this wasn't the time to completely relax. After all, mass-producing DVD Screener versions and mailing them out was no easy task.
Every awards season, film studios looking to compete for the Oscars would mail DVD Screener versions of their films to members of Hollywood's various guilds and award voters such as members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Screen Actors Guild, etc. Including guild members and certain media outlets, a film might send out over 50,000 DVD copies…
And 50,000 is just a base number. Most films send out far more than that. For instance, past Oscar Best Picture nominees usually sent out more than 100,000 DVD Screeners.
One thing that couldn't be ignored was that a single person might receive multiple copies of the same film. That's because "a member of the Academy might also belong to the BAFTA or the Producers Guild. Some people might make the effort to avoid sending duplicates, but most don't bother."
This situation largely stemmed from the fact that many Oscar voters didn't actually watch the films. For a film, the more copies a voter received, the greater the chance they'd watch it thus increasing the likelihood of that film leading in the voting.
Such large-scale distribution of DVD Screeners inevitably brought a serious issue piracy!
For films released at the beginning of the year, during spring, or the summer blockbuster season, piracy from mailing DVD Screeners wasn't much of a concern. But most Oscar-contending films released in November and December opted for limited screenings to build word-of-mouth, then expanded widely after the New Year.
These were the films most threatened by piracy.
In fact, every year during Oscar season, DVD Screener versions of various contenders would leak to the public, despite studios implementing extensive preventive measures. The leaks couldn't be completely avoided.
If a film aimed for an Oscar run, it had to take that risk. Mailing out DVD Screener versions was a necessary step. Expecting every Academy member to heed the studio's call and go to a theater to watch the film was pure fantasy.
If even one-fifth of the Academy's 6,000 members went to a theater to watch a hot Oscar contender, that would already be astronomical.
Therefore, mailing DVD Screener versions became something filmmakers and distributors simply had to do for Oscar hopefuls.
Still, studios adopted a series of anti-piracy measures. For example, the mailed DVD Screener versions commonly referred to as DVD preview versions had much lower clarity than regular release DVDs. These copies would also contain constant warnings in both the packaging and the film itself, stating: "Copying or uploading this film is a violation of U.S. federal law."
Moreover, during the playback of the film, there are embedded watermark codes. If piracy is discovered online, the watermark code can be used to quickly trace the source of the leak.
However, this still cannot completely prevent piracy, especially online piracy.
This past Christmas Eve, the DVD.Screener version of The King's Speech, Weinstein Company's major Oscar hopeful, was uploaded to the internet, and within just twelve hours, it was downloaded more than 800,000 times infuriating Harvey Weinstein and Bob Weinstein. After all, The King's Speech was still in limited release in fewer than 200 theaters, so the impact of piracy was inevitable.
And it wasn't just the Weinstein Company. A group called Hive-CM8, which leaked the pirated version online, even announced that they had access to other Oscar contenders and would gradually release resources for another forty films...
Although Gravity was not among them due to the tight production schedule, Duke also voiced his support for the Weinstein Company and the other studios.
In this regard, the interests of Hollywood studios, producers, and directors are aligned.
Yes, the visual quality of DVD.Screener versions can only be described as terrible, but their destructive power when pirated should not be underestimated.
This is certainly not a good thing. Firstly, the box office of unreleased films will be severely impacted. Secondly, even if a film has already been released, there may still be future DVD release plans. Once a pirated version leaks out, many movie fans may have already downloaded and watched it.
The Weinstein Company has reported the incident to the FBI. The pirated version of The King's Speech circulating online had watermark codes that couldn't be easily removed. The watermarks on the pirated footage confirmed that the copy originated from the one sent by the Weinstein Company to Andrew Kosove, the co-CEO of Alcon Entertainment.
The FBI has subpoenaed Andrew Kosove. In response to the accusation, Kosove firmly stated that he had never watched or even touched that DVD. He also told the media that he would cooperate with the FBI and conduct an internal investigation of his own.
This investigation is currently at a stalemate, and the FBI is conducting an inquiry at Alcon Entertainment's headquarters in California.
However, people like Duke are well aware that Andrew Kosove's Alcon Entertainment has little competition with the Weinstein Company and is unlikely to do something that would be rejected by all of Hollywood.
Andrew Kosove is the co-CEO of Alcon Entertainment, a company that has participated in the production of films like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, 16 Blocks, and The Blind Side. He himself is also a well-known producer, and is likely a victim in this matter, not the culprit.
In a region like North America, where the copyright system is relatively well-developed, an incident like this may seem unbelievable but in Duke's eyes, it's not strange at all.