Dominating Hollywood: Starting with Scarlett

Chapter 255 Advertising Creativity
Although it is called a famous scene, it is not actually Scarlett’s performance that is so brilliant.

It is because this picture looks very different when combined with special effects. Just imagine how shocking it would be when your eyes can see the codes of the whole world and everyone’s life data.

However, this scene was very simple to shoot. The staff used a green screen to block the car window and Scarlett Johansson's hands kept making movements.

Then remove the green screen and film Scarlett's reaction again.

Sometimes filming is so simple and boring. Compared to the finished film that the audience sees, all the staff see are various lights and props.

The street scenes were also filmed quickly.

Then came the truly difficult scenes to shoot.

The villain confrontation between Lucy and Mr. Zhang is an original creation of Tang De and the screenwriter because it is not included in later movies.

In order to shoot this scene, they first turned to the military, hoping that the military could provide aircraft and armored vehicles.

Because Mr. Zhang, played by Choi Min-sik, becomes the drug dealer boss of a multinational corporation in the setting, and in the cyberpunk setting, big corporations are in charge of everything.

So there is no problem for him to have a group of troops under his command.

In the plot, after the villain was killed, Mr. Zhang realized that Lucy was out of control and turned into a super-powered person.

He also learned about Lucy's abilities through various means. In order to obtain this power, he directly sent out his special forces and aircraft to eliminate Lucy.

The planes bombed the school, but Lucy was unharmed.

At this time, her brain development has reached 90%.

She possesses various superpowers such as invisibility, time travel, mind control, remote control, etc. It is not an exaggeration to say that she is a superman.

Seeing that various weapons could not do anything to her, Mr. Zhang asked his super-powered people to strangle her.

Of course, the final result is that these super-powered people are no match for Lucy. When Lucy reaches 100% brain development, she is completely integrated into the world.

In order to shoot this scene well, Tang De mobilized the largest scene in history.

There are as many as five hundred extras and one hundred soldiers, as well as planes in the sky and armored vehicles on the ground.

And each soldier is equipped with various cyber prostheses. When they came to the set, everyone couldn't help but hold their breath, feeling that this was the real future war.

"So cool, so cool!" Quentin repeated several times, and then said to Tang De: "Can I take one of the prosthetics away when the time comes! This guy is so cool, I really want to collect one."

Tang De nodded: "Of course, but you have to pay."

"No problem! No problem at all!" Quentin pinched his thumb and index finger together and said in a clear and melodious accent: "Awesome!"

In fact, other employees had similar ideas. Only when these cybernetic bodies appeared in large numbers could everyone feel the charm of the machinery.

Even some men who don't look that good-looking look a lot more handsome after putting on cybernetic bodies.

Therefore, Tang De specifically instructed the assistant director to ensure that every cyber prosthesis was intact after the filming was completed and not to be taken away by anyone.

After all, in America, the custom of "accidentally taking away" some souvenirs has a long history.

Because American families often have a curiosity cabinet or treasure cabinet, which is something they often show off to neighbors when they come to visit, and it is filled with treasures that are not usually seen.

During wartime, these people would often take rare trophies from the battlefield and add them to their collections.

They would even tear a piece of loot into several pieces and take them separately with their companions.

There are similar customs in Europe and the United States, which are also the customs left over from the Age of Navigation.

When the White House was being built in the United States, many people would take the construction waste home to collect. Upon seeing this, President Lincoln simply had people make the construction waste into walking sticks and sell them, which could be considered a different kind of peripheral.

Not only ordinary people, but also those who appear to be upper class people have this habit.

Take Oscar winner Meryl Streep, for example.

When she met the president at the White House, she "accidentally" put the towel with the president's seal on it into her pocket.

This can also be considered a kind of trophy.

So Tang De never has too many moral expectations of Americans.

His worries became a reality after the filming of this scene was completed.

When the cyber prostheses were returned, the assistant director discovered that seven were missing. He then began to investigate one by one and found out five from the actors, who had stuffed the prostheses into their clothes in an attempt to get away with it.

The remaining two pieces were found among the staff themselves, and one was even torn into pieces and stuffed into underwear.

This scene is really hilarious. I wonder if this employee's butt hurts when he walks.

Of course Tang De could not tolerate such a situation, so he fired the employee directly and asked him to get out of the filming location immediately.
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It is now October and the filming of "Lucy" has been completed. Compared with "Inception", its shooting speed is still very fast.

Because it involves more special effects scenes rather than the real-life shooting of "Inception".

There is no need to build many physical scenes like in Inception.

After the filming of the movie was completed, publicity news began to appear in the eyes of the public.

"Let's see... Lucy will be released in the summer of June 2010." Mirren was sitting at his workstation, holding a newspaper and a phone, muttering to himself.

After graduating last year, he entered Supreme Creative for an internship because his major is outdoor advertising designer.

Judy joined a consulting firm as a clerk.

Mirren was reading the newspaper while talking on the phone to Judy: "Do you want to go see this movie then?"

"Of course, don't you want to watch Tang's movie?" There was some noise around Judy on the other end of the phone.

"It's not that I don't want to watch it." Mirren frowned, "It's just that I'm worried that this movie may not reach the heights of Inception."

"Why?" Judy was a little confused. "Because there are a lot of news on the Internet about Tang De exploiting employees and ignoring creativity. I think he has stopped caring about the audience after winning the Best Director award."

This kind of thing is not uncommon in Hollywood. Some people, after achieving great success, start making bad movies to make money, squandering all their talents.

Although Mirren did not want Tang De to make this mistake, public opinion on the Internet said that Tang De did not respect the screenwriter and acted on his own.

"And you see, Inception took so long to shoot, and Lucy had a bigger investment than that, but it was shot a few months less. I'm really worried about the quality of this movie."

Judy's voice was somewhat helpless: "So what? Mirren, don't you trust Tang De? We haven't missed any of his movies, so why don't we watch it this time?"

"I...I don't know." Mirren hesitated, then looked at the discussion on the forum on the computer and felt upset.

"Are you not having a good time at the company?" Judy asked puzzledly.

"No... no." Mirren shook his head: "The atmosphere here is good, and the benefits are good... Well, I am a little unhappy because my plan was rejected by the boss..."

"What happened? Tell me in detail?" Hearing her boyfriend's low tone, Judy listened patiently.

Mirren explained: "Some time ago, McDonald's came to our company to do billboard business. I participated and provided several design drafts. My boss liked them very much and thought that these design drafts should be able to impress customers. But today, he told me that my ideas were not approved and McDonald's adopted other people's ideas."

"Isn't this a normal thing?"

"Yes, but when I went to ask other people, I found that no one's idea was adopted. That means the leader lied to me... I don't understand. Did he secretly modify my idea and provide it to the client? There was no one else except him."

"Uh... this is indeed a bit problematic. How about you report it to your leader?"

"Forget it. I'll just wait until the billboard comes out to see what it looks like." Mirren closed the forum and couldn't help complaining, "I joined this company because of Tang, but now I think those people on the Internet are right. He doesn't respect creativity at all! This company doesn't respect creativity either. My stuff was plagiarized, but I didn't get any explanation!"

"Hmm... Hmm." Judy nodded, and then said, "Now you sound like a woman complaining about her husband."

"Am I wrong?"

"That may be true, but you have to see the results, right? What if your leader didn't plagiarize your idea?"

"Whose idea could it be? He said he could impress the client, but he also said my idea was rejected. The key is that no one else is involved in this project. They are all busy with other things."

"Okay, okay, I won't argue with you. I have things to do, that's it..."

Judy became much more capable after leaving school, and no longer had quarrels as often as she did in her previous relationship.

After Mirren hung up the phone, his boss suddenly came over and called him: "Mirren, come here."

"Okay, Mr. Charles." Mirren stood up, straightened his tie, and walked into the office.

As a result, I saw a scaled-down billboard being made in the office, and there were several advertising designers who were interns.

"What is this?" Mirren was a little confused.

His leader Charles sat down and said, "This is the creative billboard we gave to McDonald's. The boss asked you to learn from it. Come on, take a seat."

Miren sat down with his colleagues, feeling even more confused. He didn't understand what was so good about learning this, after all, they were using their own ideas.

Or has Charles changed his idea beyond recognition?

While Mirren was hesitating, Charles had already lifted the curtain on the billboard, and everyone immediately saw the content on the billboard.

A huge piece of red, a short message, and McDonald's classic M-shaped logo.

However, the M logo was enlarged on the billboard, and only the leftmost stroke of the M was captured, making it look like a road sign.

"Turn right..." Mirren read the slogan on the billboard and then was a little dazed.

Because this billboard is completely different from my own idea. My idea is to simulate the gate of the amusement park through the projection of the letter M, and then a family of three walks into the gate to create a family-friendly scene.

But the idea of ​​this billboard was completely different from his. Not only was it so concise that there were no extra words, but the meaning contained in it was also a little confusing for him to understand.

At this time, Charles said, "I know that you kids who have just graduated from school have a lot of wonderful ideas and a lot of great ideas. Many people have also complained to me about various problems with clients, saying that they don't respect creativity and don't understand what you mean."

“But have you ever thought that the direction of your thinking is opposite to what your customers want?”

Charles took out a few pieces of paper and showed them to everyone: "These are all the advertising ideas that everyone here has made recently. They are complicated, cumbersome, and dazzling. They look very creative, but there is only one thing missing..."

Everyone looked at Charles blankly, not understanding what he wanted to say.

"Demand, it's demand, guys." Charles explained: "The purpose of advertising is to create demand! This is the core of advertising creativity, not for you to tell customers what you should do... What you have to do is to tell customers what you need now..."

"For example, this idea is very simple. But it creates demand. When drivers see this billboard on the road, they immediately know that there is a McDonald's on the right."

"If he hadn't seen it, he might not realize that he needed to eat, but this billboard reminded them and told them in a way that was very close to their lives and their habits."

“This is advertising creativity, this is good advertising.”

Charles took out another piece of paper and said, "We recently did some statistics next to some McDonald's stores. After installing this billboard, the traffic to these stores doubled compared to before. Yes, it's an immediate effect."

Mirren and his colleagues looked at each other and saw surprise in each other's eyes.

"We are the most creative and we create the most exciting, interesting and demand-generating advertisements. I hope you can remember this sentence, otherwise no matter how hard you work, it will be in vain."

"Mr. Charles, can I ask who came up with this advertisement?" a colleague suddenly asked.

"Whose idea is this?" Charles smiled. "It's the boss's."

"Mr. Jimmy?"

"Hahaha, I have no comment to make. Stop asking and go back to your workstation!"

Mirren returned to his workstation thoughtfully, thought about it, and replied to the post discussing Tang De in the forum: "I don't think things are as Victor said. Maybe it was simply because of his own lack of ability that he was fired by Tang De. After all, Tang De also filmed many classics before he was gone. Let's wait until "Lucy" is released before we can talk about everything."

(End of this chapter)