BXBX NOVEL Chapter 240 - 224 Saving Unhappiness_1
Shen Qing is reliable.
He managed to secure cooperation deals with Penguin Video and Catmill. As we are not relying on exclusivity or selling the production rights to these platforms, the profit-sharing agreement won’t be that sizeable.
The profits aren’t just limited to those earned from video streaming but from advertising as well.
Let’s use Catmill as an example.
The full name of Catmill is Kitty Cat Movies, but the audience prefers to call it Catmill.
In the Catmill platform, if an online feature film is watched for more than six minutes, it’s counted as a successful view.
Why six minutes? Because the first five minutes is a free preview. If you make it to the sixth minute, it means you’ve paid to watch.
For each successful view, the profit share is approximately 1.5 yuan if it’s not exclusively broadcasted. If it’s exclusive, the share is around 2 yuan, while the platform prices the film at 5 yuan.
Advertising costs are calculated separately.
Lin Yuan has reviewed the contract in detail.
He didn’t concern himself with the complex calculations, all he knew was that for each 5-yuan payment made by a viewer to watch “Flirting Scholar”, he would earn 1.8 yuan. Including advertising revenue, the total would amount to more than 2 yuan.
Though the platform takes a bulk of the earnings, their profit-siphoning abilities are lesser compared to movie theaters, which is within the threshold that Lin Yuan is willing to accept.
After signing the contract,
The film’s release date is also settled.
The official streaming begins on 1st July, during the summer holidays on the two websites.
This is a typical advantage of a web-based feature film, Lin Yuan wouldn’t have to wait for a slot like regular films or TV shows. If he wanted to, he could even stream it today.
However, that’s not good.
Even web-based feature films need publicity. The video streaming sites serve as the major platforms for this.
Penguin Video and Catmill have each drawn up several documents. Almost overnight, they hastily kickstarted the publicity campaign.
The publicity for web-based feature films is typically not very grand.
Catmill’s proposed publicity document read: [Investment of tens of millions in the biggest online movie, “Flirting Scholar”, screening from July 1st, click to reserve and kickstart your summer holiday!]
Penguin Video’s was similar.
Their promotion was placed at a rather noticeable location: [Web-based feature film also has a summer release. “Flirting Scholar”, out on July 1st, all your happiness, I promise, here to save your unhappiness!]
That’s it.
Anyway, the audience interested in web-based feature films would surely take notice, however it seems that the movie still lacks a ‘wow factor’. The number of reservations made by the audience is not very high after the publicity.
“This is not good.”
Being behind the web-based feature film contract, Shen Qing naturally hopes for it to attract more audience.
He contacted Lin Yuan: “Mr. Lin, would you mind if we use your name, Admirable Fish, for publicity? Most of the time, our movie publicity needs some controversial topics for the outside world to discuss. The entry of a gold record composer into scriptwriting would make a great topic.”
Using “Admirable Fish” for publicity?
Lin Yuan hesitated a bit, then agreed with Shen Qing.
Because at Starlight everyone knows that “Flirting Scholar” is made by Admirable Fish, there’s no usefulness to hide it. Even if he uses a pseudonym, his identity would be revealed in minutes, so it’s better to let Admirable Fish take full ownership of the scriptwriting.
The day after Lin Yuan agreed,
New promotional texts for the web-based feature film were introduced.
This time the texts from the two websites were similar, it’s not clear who copied who:
[The golden record composer and sensation of the music industry, Teacher Admirable Fish, makes his scripting debut with “Flirting Scholar”, releasing on July 1st!]
The text was sneaky.
The words “Admirable Fish” in the publicity text were enlarged and bolded, to make sure they’re not missed by the viewers.
There are also some small letters underneath the text, listing all the famous songs Admirable Fish had previously composed, attempting to use the popularity of those songs to boost the film.
Apart from this, the movie’s poster was also changed.
The original poster was a group photo of the male and female leads along with some supporting characters, nothing eye-catching.
Now it has changed to pictures of the lead actors, one on each side.
No need to focus on the leading male character, he looked like he was in a play.
The lead actress was different. A fiery figure, pretty facial features, with a sneak peek of her long white legs.
Anyhow, very enticing, leaving plenty to the imagination
It’s got hardly anything to do with the movie’s content.
The actress is Yu Xilu, the only one of any fame in “Flirting Scholar”.
Even though she’s a typical vase in the entertainment industry, at least she’s got some fame.
This poster uses her beauty and figure as bait, giving off a “we know what’s up” vibe.
The photographer should consider adding more chicken legs.
It can be seen that the website indeed has given the movie a bit more attention.
Initially, the two video websites weren’t very enthusiastic about “Flirting Scholar”.
Because at the beginning, Shen Qing did not mention that Admirable Fish was the scriptwriter.
The situation is pretty ironic.
Admirable Fish’s foray into filmmaking is ridiculous in the company’s eyes, yet this absurdity fits perfectly into the key to movie promotion: the importance of controversial topics.
No wonder some movies choose to attract attention with distasteful, boundary-pushing rumors and controversial promotions.
In this day and age, whether it’s praise or criticism, any attention is better than being obscure.
Apart from that…
After Admirable Fish’s name came out, the reservation numbers for “Flirting Scholar” did increase quite a lot, proving that Admirable Fish indeed has some fame.
Of course, the cover girl Yu Xilu, who looks stunning after the photoshopping, also deserves some credit.
Lin Yuan has also logged into his Admirable Fish account to support them, by posting a picture from “Flirting Scholar”.
Nine squares, nine pictures.
People with OCD will definitely be satisfied.
The text attached was: [The movie “Flirting Scholar”, for which I have written the script, will be officially released on July 1st. Please support it.]
Next, Lin Yuan shared the post using Chu Kuang’s account, with two simple words attached:
[Support]
Shadow’s account was handed over to Luo Wei to manage, and Lin Yuan didn’t bother with it since it didn’t have many followers.
As a result, the commentary got lively.
This time, people didn’t joke about the “good buddies” gag, they were more interested in the fact that Xian Yu was making a movie:
“Is Xian Yu the screenwriter?”
“I’ve heard of singers turning into actors and directors, but never a music composer turning into a screenwriter…”
“Huh?
“Can’t Xian Yu just focus on writing songs…”
“Friendly reminder, Teacher Admirable Fish, making a movie is not for everyone.”
“I will definitely support you, however, I hope you focus on composing.”
“A music composer making a movie feels like you’re not focusing on your job. But since you’re Xian Yu, I’ll support you this once.”
“Teacher Admirable Fish is full of talent, he can even write scripts, I must support his movie!”
Xian Yu’s lyrics are always full of stories, so I am quite interested in the script he wrote.”
“I like Xian Yu too, but I don’t support blind encouragement.”
II
II
Professional practice has specialties.
Even though Xian Yu has a great reputation in the music composition field, many fans still feel a sense of “this doesn’t seem right”.
They didn’t criticize, they just expressed their views.
There were also a small number of fans who were supportive, acknowledging their true love.
It didn’t cause a major stir.
In essence, this is nothing more than a composer moving across boundaries to write a movie script.
Under the amalgamation of Qin and Qi, someone made a rough count:
Every year, there are over five thousand online movies successfully launched.
What does this mean?
This means that even if these movies are allocated to each month, there are about four to five hundred online movies launched each month.
July is the beginning of the summer vacation.
The number of new online movies released by Qin and Qi in July might even exceed this number.
Among these numerous movies, “Flirting Scholar” is not very noticeable.
It’s just that the combination of Qin and Qi has a large audience, which gives these small-budget movies a chance to survive.
If it weren’t for Xian Yu’s fame, no one would even discuss this movie.
Therefore.
As time transitioned into July, the online movie market was still very calm.
On the other hand, in the theater.
The marketing wars among various big companies were so intense it was dog-eat-dog.
This made Lin Yuan somewhat relieved that “Flirting Scholar” did not choose to premiere in theaters.
And when July arrived.
Large scale movies began to premiere in theaters one after another. The war in the movie theater market had finally reached a climax!
The battle for box office began!
Compared to them, the premier of “Flirting Scholar” by Catmill and Penguin, seemed uneventful.
Of course.
No matter how uneventful, under the large population base of Qin and Qi, there will always be some onlookers who will open this movie.
They might have come across it for a variety of reasons-
Like Deng Chi.
Deng Chi was a bona fide rich second-generation.
Driving sports cars, living in luxury houses, changing girlfriends monthly, he lived a luxurious life that many envied.
But such a person, he had mild depression…
The reason was complicated.
Perhaps because his parents got divorced?
Even though his parents gave him more and more money each month in an apparent competition, he was still not happy.
Anyway, due to this depression, Deng Chi would often lock himself in the multi-storied mansion, watching movies alone.
He watched comedies a lot.
Because his psychologist said that watching comedies can help soothe his mood when he’s bored.
On the first of July, much like any other day, Deng Chi opened the video website and started looking for movies that interested him.
Then he noticed “Flirting Scholar”.
The tagline for this movie reads like this: “Saving the unhappy.
»
For some reason, Deng Chi suddenly felt somewhat irritated.
Because Deng Chi had watched many comedies, but he was still unhappy.
These comedies, branding themselves as hilarious, had fooled him again and again, he wouldn’t believe them anymore.
Even though his psychologist explained that:
He simply had a high threshold for humor.
People with depression, more or less, tend to be emotional.
Of course, Deng Chi had no intention of opening this movie.
But when he was about to scroll past, he accidentally hit the play button and the movie started playing….