章 68: Announcement

CBS contacted the distributor at this time, and Levi was not surprised: it's almost May, and the TV show's contract should be renewed, and Leslie is also showing his favor—even Levi suspects that this guy has already done everything, and deliberately waited until now to say it. And being able to find a big company like Universal to distribute, Levi is also quite satisfied.

Levi has always wanted to find a larger distribution company because this film is a political film. The classification of political films is always difficult to define. Although such a movie does not have any violent, pornographic scenes, it is not suitable for children to watch, so how should it be graded? In theory, sex, drugs, and violence do not exist in the movie 'The Lives of Others.' There is not a single swear word in the whole film, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is G-rated, but the United States is also quite sensitive to some elements. A good distribution company may be able to get PG-13, but for a poor distribution company, an R rating is not impossible. In fact, the movie had an R rating in his previous life.

Although Levi doesn't care much about the box office, as a director, he certainly hopes that more people will watch his films. If an R rating is set, then the movie will only be released on a small scale, and the audience will become a small group of people. Of course, Levi couldn't accept it. Only by finding a big distribution company can your films have a better situation; Levi knows this very well.

"In addition, Universal said that the film's publicity and distribution fee is 5 million. This ratio is a bit low, but your movie is not aimed at the box office, so it is about the same." Generally, a movie's publicity and distribution fee is about half of the film production fee. Universal only paid 5 million for Levi's film's promotion, which is indeed a bit small.

However, Universal is quite well prepared.

"When you go to Germany for filming, a special film crew will follow you, shoot various tidbits, and interview you. At the same time, according to the script, they will release enough news that can arouse interest when necessary to provoke the audience's interest. Of course, you also need to edit some better clips for them in the early stage, and they will arrange professional magazines to monitor your movies, and the magazines will give you reviews. You know what this means, right?"

"Large audience." Levi shrugged. How could he not know this? That's what his family does.

"The five million publicity fee is for these purposes. Specialized reporters follow the filming, ready to break the news you need to break the news at any time, make publicity for your filming process, and contact the media at the same time. The monthly magazine has to contact five months in advance, weekly magazines have to be contacted six weeks in advance, and daily magazines have to be drafted ten days in advance - all of which are very expensive. And this is only part of it. Propaganda, arranging actors to appear on talk shows, arranging various activities, and after the film is released, you have to consider which film festival the film should participate in and which award is likely to win—all these things require considerable effort." Leslie said, "Universal has arranged the most thoughtful publicity system for your movie, which can definitely meet your needs." It should be possible, Levi nodded, and he also admired in his heart. Universal is worthy of being a big company, and it has done really well in this regard. Levi is not particularly good at how to promote a movie. He only knew about the celebrity promotion and the promotion part of the magazine, but he didn't know that there were so many hands and feet behind it. The publicity and release of a movie do not start after post-production. It begins with the publicity and distribution of the film from the beginning of filming-a movie with a large investment has a high box office because the publicity is completely different.

In fact, what Levi doesn't know is that this is still a small-scale filming of his own film. If the scale is larger and Levi's reputation is sufficient, then maybe there will be a launching ceremony, and a few people will be invited to join him. After the filming is over, some top directors will also be invited to watch, create public opinion, and promote the film. Publicity on multiple media, including the Internet media, coupled with the connection of derivative products after the movie is over, these are the work of publicity. However, this film was not shot by Universal's investment. Universal itself does not think there is anything worth advertising this film's derivative products, so they didn't pay much attention to this aspect.

Levi had seen too few of these means and measures in his previous life. He only made commercials but never made real movies. Moreover, the domestic publicity and distribution market is not doing well in the first place. After all, it is generally accepted that the publicity and distribution started after the 2000s. It has been developed for less than 20 years, and there is a huge gap in experience. Levi can only admire this meticulous and thoughtful arrangement.

Levi was already very satisfied with these. He nodded, then remembered something and asked, "Have you launched online publicity together?" "Online publicity? We also carry out on some websites with many views, but I hope you don't have too much hope for this. You still have to rely on print media and TV networks to attract audiences, and the network's publicity is much weaker."

Levi was stunned for a moment, then nodded. That's right, it's only 1997, there is no Facebook, no Google, no Rotten Tomatoes, not even MSN, and Yahoo is newly established. In this period of time, Internet marketing is indeed unrealistic. In contrast, print media has its own readers, and there are still people who are willing to buy tickets to watch movies based on some media reviews. Compared with Internet marketing, this traditional path is more dominant in this time period.

And mentioning this, Levi also thought of the review website that he and Bruce had talked about, and he didn't know why, and there was no movement until now. He is too busy with filming. He will have to go and talk to him after a while.

And now... Now that everything is ready, the only thing left is to start the machine.

The propaganda agency was launched at this time.

***

When May comes, the annual TV show season has already come to an end.

During this year, people's biggest harvest is naturally CSI. The professional crime-solving techniques of this TV series, the filming method with multiple clues going hand in hand, coupled with realistic props, and well-documented crime methods have attracted a lot of audience love, which makes this TV series become one of the most watched dramas of the year.

And the last episode of this TV series is undoubtedly very satisfying: Quentin, who has always been obsessed with heavy tastes, personally supervised the shooting of the last two episodes. Both episodes are of a very high level, and they both are very exciting. At the same time, it also makes people have more expectations for the new season.

However, at this time, a piece of news came out: CSI will be adjusted starting from the following season. The original TV series producer Nicholas Levi will leave CSI, and screenwriter Robert Richmond will replace the producer.

As soon as the news came out, it immediately caused an uproar.

"Why do you want to change the producer of a popular TV series? Isn't this a very strange thing?" There were soon some voices of discussion in the media—generally speaking, after a TV series becomes a hit series, the producer can make a lot of money by sitting still. As long as he is not stupid, there is no reason for anyone to give up this income. CSI has only been in production for one season, and the income is at its peak. What did the producer think of and suddenly quit?

Is the production company under pressure from CBS? Heard they are a small company, and it looks like a possibility!

The commotion between companies doesn't care about the audience. However, changing the producer often means that the overall idea of the TV series has changed. CSI has just started to change producers. Could it be that the taste of this TV series will change?

"No matter what the reason is, this decision is terrible."

The audience interviewed directly made such evaluations: Now that CSI is so popular, many TV companies are thinking about producing the same type of psychological crime analysis, bone analysis, micro-expression analysis, and other TV series. As the first TV series of this type, CSI suddenly announced a replacement, which is simply unacceptable. Fans of the drama continued to make phone calls, asking why this happened. All of a sudden, CBS became much more busy.

And at this time, new news came out.

"Mr. Levi is going to be filming a movie with Oscar winner Kevin Spacey." According to a CBS insider, the news spread quickly, "At the time Mr. Levi was filming CSI, he had already received appreciation and friendship from director Quentin, and he was also filming TV. As for the movie he conceived, this movie is so good that Spacey is willing to cut his salary to star in it. In order to make a better movie, in order to pursue art, Mr. Levi decided to quit his job as a producer at CSI."

This news surprised many people: Is this producer directing a movie? Also, can he get an Oscar winner to join his film with a salary cut? And he gave up the opportunity to make money in pursuit of art? What kind of movie can be so important? What's the name of this movie?

"The film is called 'The Lives of Others'—now, filming has begun."

*****

Thanks and kudos for my patreons Cherif Doghri, Abdishakur Hasan, Adam LV, Danny York, and haze2343.

You can read advanced chapters on my Patreon account: https://www.patreon.com/Sayonara816.