Huayu: From an ordinary person to a happy director

Chapter 73 Oscar Nomination

Shi Lei plans to shoot "Paranormal Activity", which is a film that relies on marketing. When the time comes, he will let Wan Zairen be the producer or screenwriter, and that will be his marketing.

In its previous life, "Paranormal Activity" cost 1.5 US dollars and grossed 1.93 million US dollars worldwide. It may not be that much in this life, but as long as it can make money, it's fine.

"Paranormal Activity" is about a young couple who move into a new home and use a DV camera to record their daily life. They soon discover that there are other things in the house.

In the same format as "The Blair Witch Project", its main shots all come from the protagonist's DV.

However, the quality is average, with a lot of pure bluffing scenes.

Although he could shoot with a good quality DV, no matter how good the DV is, it cannot compare to a professional movie camera.

In order for "Paranormal Activity" to make money, he had to keep the original flavor and it would be better to shoot it with DV so that it would have a realistic feel.

It is really too cheap to make such a movie. Even if the global box office exceeds 200 million, he does not plan to direct it, and he will not even be named as the editor or producer.

"The Blair Witch Project" is a successful marketing case.

Through a series of means such as newspapers, the illusion that the "witch" really existed was created, claiming that the real image of the witch had been circulated, and the audience was deceived into going to the cinema, but the result was naturally a lonely movie.

Paranormal Activity is much better than The Blair Witch Project.

"Paranormal Activity" has a script!

[The story of the movie is simple. Mick and his girlfriend Katie just moved recently. Mick got a camera and wanted to record every detail of their happy life.

Soon, they discovered something unusual: for example, the door would open or close inexplicably, the TV would turn on by itself in the middle of the night, there were often strange noises, etc. It seemed that there were other scary things in the house.

All of this was recorded by the camera. Katie wanted to move, but Mick was extremely excited and wanted to make it into a movie.

As the plot progresses, the camera records video footage night after night, and the horror level gradually escalates until the heroine is possessed by a ghost and turns into a demon, and finally a blurry "ghost" appears.

……

The movie has three endings: the original ending is that Katie stabs Mick to death and then commits suicide in front of the camera.

The second one is that after Katie killed Mick on the first floor, she went back upstairs and became crazy, and was finally shot dead by the police.

The third one is that Katie throws Mick from downstairs and he hits the camera, then seems to enter the camera and disappears from then on, leaving only the camera.

He knows why this movie became a hit as a low-budget horror film. First of all, the filming scene was set in the bedroom, which is close to daily life. The two protagonists acted naturally, which made it easy for the audience to feel involved. The poor quality DV camera and the plain long lens made people feel as if they were in the scene, and they felt more terrified.

There are no real "ghosts" in the movie, but as the saying goes, the unknown is the greatest horror.

Fear is hidden in the deepest part and is invisible to people. Through DV recording, Paranormal Activity gradually intensifies the audience's fear that "the unknown is terrifying".

】

This type of horror film has a professional term in the industry, called psychological horror film. Through a rigorous plot, it mobilizes the audience's psychology, creates a horror atmosphere, and makes you feel fear.

Compared to those horror movies that directly use bloody images and scary sound effects to stimulate people, this type of horror movie has a higher ceiling and higher box office.

"Saw" actually also falls into this category.

What attracts people to this kind of film is not the bloody scenes, but the plot.

A successful horror film should not only scare you, but also teach you to scare yourself.

There is no doubt that Paranormal Activity is a very successful horror film.

Of course, he is different from the poor director of the original film. He will increase the shooting cost to 20.

Find a female lead with a more amazing figure! A female lead with an amazing figure is a must-have for horror movies.

Shi Lei was typing in the office and writing the script of Paranormal Activity.

----

In the next month, under Hans's leadership, Shi Lei appeared at various banquets, met people from all walks of life in Hollywood, and tried to curry favor with the Oscar judges.

At the same time, participate in various pre-Oscar film festivals, win various awards, and add strength to the Oscars.

After more than a month of screening.

The total box office of "Million Dollar Baby" has climbed to 5500 million US dollars.

洛杉矶当地时间1月25日5:38分，第77届奥斯卡提名名单揭晓。

This year's Oscars will be held at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood on February 2th, local time in Los Angeles, North America.

"Million Dollar Baby" received multiple nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.

With so many nominations, it's certain that Million Dollar Baby will win an award.

But Hans and Shi Lei did not relax. Instead, they increased their stake by 500 million US dollars and continued to target the Oscar judges.

With so many nominations, the box office had a small boom. As of mid-February, the total box office reached 8530 million US dollars.

The box office was already weak, so Columbia began to reduce the number of screenings, eventually maintaining it at around 100 theaters.

This keeps the film alive in the eyes of the judges.

Hans and Shi Lei are just waiting for the Oscar awards night.

If it wins a major award, Columbia will use its strong distribution capabilities to immediately increase the number of screening venues and reap the Oscar dividends.

Then it's time to enter the TV and disc markets.

This is a win-win situation. Columbia can get more distribution and production revenue, while Shi Lei gains both fame and fortune.

Moreover, the benefits do not only come from the global box office, but also from the disc market. The publicity effect of an art film with a North American box office of over 100 million is terrifying. People may not be willing to go to the cinema to watch art films, but they are still happy to buy discs.

They would be very curious about movies that won Oscars and had a good box office, and would want to watch them.

Time quickly arrived at the award ceremony night, and Shi Lei was extremely excited.

Although his philosophy for making movies is "make money, make money, and make money!", he still couldn't help but get excited when he was nominated for an Oscar.

At least I've been shortlisted.

Although the possibility of winning the Best Director award is slim.

But in case
Of course, just in case!
What happened to those old white men who let me win the Oscar for Best Director?
Wouldn't that mean I would be the first mainlander to win this award?
It is no exaggeration to say that I am filled with honor at that moment.

Shi Lei walked the red carpet with excitement and greeted everyone he met.

These people may have just been familiar with Shi Lei before, and talked to Shi Lei for the sake of Columbia's face, but now it is different. With so many nominations for Million Dollar Baby, they also value Shi Lei's existence.

They also have to pay attention to the fact that being able to make an art film that wins awards and has box office success is worthy of their attention, no matter what the considerations are!

(End of this chapter)