Losing Money to Become a Tycoon: Starting with Games
Chapter 380: Advertisements in the Movie
On the set of A Better Tomorrow.
"Cut!"
"Alright, this take is good."
"Great work, everyone. Take a break, later, we'll officially start shooting the commercials."
As soon as Zhu Xiaoce finished speaking, the set erupted in applause and cheers. Many people looked visibly relieved.
By this point, all the main scenes of the movie had been filmed.
There had been a few small problems early in the shoot, but with guidance from President Pei and the collective effort of everyone on set, those issues were quickly resolved.
In particular, several lead actors like Lu Zhiyao had grown more and more in sync with each other, and their scenes together kept getting better. At the beginning, retakes were frequent, but later on, most scenes were approved within two or three takes, and all of those takes were so good that even Zhu Xiaoce found it hard to choose between them.
If it's hard to choose, don't choose yet—leave it for post-production editing.
So, the regular filming work was completely finished.
Many of the crew members breathed a sigh of relief, because all that remained was shooting the commercials.
And commercials, frankly speaking, were just background elements in the movie. Most people instinctively felt that they didn't need to be taken as seriously as the main scenes, just do them casually and be done with it.
But Zhu Xiaoce clearly didn't see it that way.
He was holding a thick stack of advertising plans and was carefully explaining them to the actors responsible for shooting the ads.
This batch of actors for the commercials had all been newly cast.
Originally, how the ads would be shot hadn't been finalized. Zhu Xiaoce had even considered letting major brands place product placements and provide their own commercials.
However, that idea was vetoed by President Pei, so the final decision was: they would shoot the ads themselves, and they could not involve any real-world companies, trademarks, or products.
After that was settled, Zhu Xiaoce arranged for people to scout for actors everywhere.
Since these ads would appear as background content in the movie, the main cast who had already appeared on screen couldn't take part in them again.
Many of the characters in the film were poor people, and within the story's setting, they wouldn't even qualify to appear in such commercials.
The only exceptions were: the judge played by Zhang Zuting, the male lead played by Lu Zhiyao (after he becomes famous), who could appear in a few commercials; and the young woman who is later pushed by the judge to replace the male lead, who could also shoot a few ads.
Aside from these special cases, all the other commercials had to use newly selected actors, faces that had never appeared in the movie before.
In planning the commercials, Zhu Xiaoce put in a great deal of effort, which was why he ended up with such a thick stack of advertising proposals.
"First, I want to emphasize this: even though we're shooting commercials and they'll only appear as background in the film, don't take them lightly. They're just as important as the movie itself, if not even more important in some ways."
"First, the commercials serve as hints and connective elements."
"The movie will use commercials to link together parts of the storyline."
"For example, before the male and female leads take part in the talent show, when the male lead is watching TV programs, he often sees the judge's endorsements and ads. This lets the audience see the judge in advance and implies that he's a very wealthy and influential successful person."
"After the male lead becomes famous, some commercials he shot will be played—and they can be for many different kinds of products—to suggest how he became an overnight sensation."
"And after the male lead's downfall, when he's lying in bed, the TV will be playing commercials featuring the girl who replaced him. This also implies that after he was set up, the judge immediately pushed a new person into the spotlight, starting a new cycle."
"Second, commercials can be used to allude to issues people care about nowadays, like big data and privacy leaks."
"We'll shoot commercials for many different categories of products, and these ads will be directly related to the male lead's experiences."
"For example, right after the male lead drinks a can of beer, the screen will push fried chicken ads to him, or wine ads."
"After the male lead just lost a large sum of money watching a TV program, the ads will push loan services to him."
"And when the male lead makes a huge amount of money, the ads pushed to him will be for various financial products, insurance, luxury goods, and so on."
"We'll scatter these categories throughout the entire movie. As the male lead's life keeps changing, the ads he sees will keep changing too."
"On one hand, this helps build the atmosphere; on the other hand, it serves as an implicit metaphor and satire of big data and privacy leaks."
"Finally, the ads can strengthen the sci-fi elements, they're a kind of speculation about cultural life in the future."
"Just like President Pei said, we need to shoot the ads in a sufficiently abstract, mind-bending, and cool way, adding in some futuristic elements so that the audience feels confused by what they're seeing. That way, we can constantly hint to the viewers that this is a future world."
"These ads will help the audience strongly sense the characteristics of a future society and immerse themselves more deeply in this world."
Zhu Xiaoce looked around at everyone, then turned to one of the actors:
"Alright, it seems everyone understands. The next commercial is for food delivery. The content is very simple: a drone carrying takeout food flies across the city."
"But this drone is actually on fire, flying across the night sky like a blazing fireball. Then you open the door, reach out, take the delivery, open the beautifully packaged meal box, and find a perfectly plated steak inside, as if it's just been grilled, still steaming…"
"Then the next one is a joint ad between food delivery and a smartphone."
"The drone comes to pick up the order, but the display on the drone says the distance is too far and the battery is too low to complete the delivery. Then there's a quick close-up of a map: this delivery has to cross a desert and pass over the ocean to reach another city."
"At that point, the restaurant owner casually takes out his phone and plugs it into the drone with a cable to power it. The drone then flies off."
"Next comes a sequence of the drone crossing the desert and the ocean, experiencing massive sandstorms, violent rainstorms, and all kinds of harsh weather along the way."
"Finally, you open the door again. The drone starts its return trip. After it flies back, the restaurant owner unplugs his phone and sees that it still has 30% battery left…"
Zhu Xiaoce went on explaining the ad concepts to the actors.
When it came to coming up with these ad ideas, he had burned through quite a few brain cells.
Some of the abstract, stream-of-consciousness-style ads were easy enough to handle—just have the actors wear futuristic outfits, strike a few poses, shoot some inexplicable shots, and add some special effects.
But relying only on abstract ads wasn't enough.
No matter how much the future world develops, advertising will probably still retain a certain diversity.
So Zhu Xiaoce also came up with a few ads in other styles to serve as variety and balance.
At the same time, deciding exactly what products to advertise gave Zhu Xiaoce a real headache.
After all, each ad needed a logo and a slogan, right?
If the logos weren't designed with enough care, audiences would easily complain that they looked cheap and broke immersion. And if that happened, wouldn't the whole point of shooting the ads be lost?
So the logos had to be good enough, they needed to be on par with real commercial ads.
But with so many ads, how could Zhu Xiaoce come up with everything on his own? Even working himself to death wouldn't be enough.
Designing all those logos from scratch was just too difficult.
So after discussing it with Huang Sibo, Zhu Xiaoce decided to ask other departments for help.
They had Moyu Delivery come up with a takeout logo by "remixing" their own Moyu Delivery logo, and had OTTO Technology provide an unused phone logo—just as long as it didn't give viewers a sense of déjà vu.
In short, with the collective effort of many departments, these logos finally started to look like the real deal.
Even though they were all modified versions of existing brands, Zhu Xiaoce still reminded each department to "claim" the brands they had modified and register them in advance.
It wasn't that he expected the movie to generate any promotional effect—mainly, he wanted to prevent someone else from registering those trademarks first and then coming to cause trouble.
Registering them early would save a lot of hassle later.
Zhu Xiaoce estimated that although there were quite a lot of commercials, most of them were very short. With about two more weeks of work, they should be able to finish shooting them.
Only then would the movie truly have its soul injected into it.
…
…
Tengda Group, Game Department.
Ruan Guangjian let out a long breath. "Alright, then, the concept designs and key art for the first batch of heroes are all done."
Li Yada clapped her hands. "Amazing work, boss!"
During this period, Ruan Guangjian had been creating various concept designs and original artwork for GOG's heroes, often traveling back and forth between Jingzhou and Shanghai.
However, game development and key art design were two parallel workflows and didn't interfere with each other.
Ruan Guangjian's job was to rework the IP characters that Tengda Group's game department had acquired, or to create some uniquely styled original characters, such as "Guardian of Justice: Zadkiel."
Overall, this wasn't an especially heavy workload, since not everything was created from scratch. Most of it involved modifying existing designs.
As long as he fully understood a character's traits and made adjustments on the basis of their classic image, it was much easier than creating everything entirely from zero.
So the key art design work was actually progressing much faster than the game's development schedule. The game was still a long way from official release or even public testing, but the artwork was already finished.
Li Yada asked, "So what are your plans next, boss? Want to let President Pei know and celebrate the completion of the artwork?"
Ruan Guangjian quickly shook his head. "No, no, no—there's no need. President Pei is very busy; it's better not to bother him with such a small matter.
"Besides, I've already played through the amusement park in Jingzhou, and there's nothing else particularly exciting left.
"I'm planning to take a short break these next few days, look around Jingzhou a bit, maybe find something new to do."
Li Yada thought for a moment and said, "Oh right, Tengda Group also has another game department called Shangyang Games, the one working on Blood War Anthem: Enhanced Edition. You know about that project, right?"
Ruan Guangjian nodded. "I know, but I'm not really into the art style of Blood War Anthem: Enhanced Edition."
Li Yada said, "That's exactly why we need you to go help raise that studio's art standards! Don't worry, we're all under President Pei. Money isn't an issue."
Ruan Guangjian hesitated a bit. "Two projects at once might be a bit much for me…"
Li Yada waved her hand. "It's fine. They already have quite a lot of art assets done. You can just go take a look and give them some pointers. It's mainly guidance, you won't need to get hands-on yourself."
Ruan Guangjian thought it over, then nodded. "Alright, I can go take a look and offer some suggestions."
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