Hollywood Hunter

In the new week, due to the fact that the TV series of the autumn season will not be broadcast until October, several reality shows of Daenerys Entertainment continue to dominate the ratings.

The three-weekly issue of "Who Will Be a Millionaire" is a completely G-rated reality show for all ages, from the elderly to the children.The highest number of viewers in the second installment of "Survivor" at 8 o'clock on Monday rushed to a high of 25.65 million, which has almost locked the ratings champion of this autumn. The only regret for this TV show is that it only has 13 installments.Due to the lack of competitors, "Big Brother" and "Beverly Wife" squeezed in Wednesday's schedule have seen a steady increase in ratings.

Finally, CBS had previously attempted to put aside the reality show that Da Ni Li Si Entertainment produced alone, and it was also broadcast this week, and received a good score of 13.6 million viewers in the first period.Although not great, it regrets the three other television networks that are generally conservative about reality TV shows.

Obviously, the major TV networks will definitely invest their energy in creating their own reality show in the next few years.Once there are explosions, Daenerys Entertainment will no longer be able to maintain its current initiative and huge profits.

However, Simon is not too worried about this.The reality show in memory has developed for more than 20 years, and there are only a few that really reach the phenomenon level. "Who will become a millionaire" and "Survivor" These two once-popular reality show ratings data "Big Brother" "And "Beverly Wife" are far away, it is enough to prove that it is definitely not so easy to create an explosive model.

After two days of weekends and careful consideration of changes on subsequent working days, Daenerys Entertainment resubmitted the revised version of "Scream" to the MPAA rating committee.

The time was already at the end of September. The company originally hoped that the movie would be released on Halloween on October 28, and had invested a lot of manpower and resources in the early publicity.However, due to the delay caused by the re-rating, Daenerys Entertainment has not yet been able to sign a formal screening contract with major theaters in North America. Seeing this, Simon secretly began to make other preparations.

Santa monica.

In a meeting room in the Daenerys special effects office building, the time is already September 28, Wednesday.

Simon stands in front of the demo board and is personally introducing the script overview of the two animated movies "Toy Story" and "The Lion King". At the conference table, in addition to several senior executives such as Mark Silves and other Daenerys special effects, there are also Two former Pixar executives who just joined the company, Ed Cartermoor and John Lasseter.

After the call with Jobs on the plane flying to Australia, this month, James Rebold and Amy Pascal have been cooperating to complete the integrated acquisition of Pixar, which is now completely finalized.

Daenerys Entertainment finally paid $20 million to buy all of Pixar’s hardware and software departments. Jobs and Pixar’s original employees all gave up their shares. Daenerys Entertainment acquired all ownership of software series such as Randerman. Completely make up for the shortcomings of Daenerys special effects in the technical rendering link.

To complete the acquisition, Simon's first request was to relocate Pixar to Los Angeles as a whole.

Most executives and employees such as Ed Carter Moore and John Lasseter agreed with this, but it was inevitable that some people refused. Another Pixar technical backbone, Alvi Ray Smith, Therefore, he withdrew from the company, and Simon let the other party leave after retaining nothing. The 3D animation movie is an important layout for Daenerys Entertainment in the next few years. In order to control it as directly as possible, he does not intend to be like the original time and space. That leaves Pixar in San Francisco.

Simon had originally planned to directly change Pixar to Daenerys Animation Company, but Ed Cartermoor, John Lasseter and others all hoped to retain Pixar's name. It didn't matter that Simon agreed.

The main purpose of this meeting is to discuss the details of porting Randerman and other Pixar software to Silicon Graphics' professional graphics workstation and plans for two 3D animated movies.

Pixar's original positioning is also a professional graphics workstation, but it is not technically comparable to silicon diagrams, but has the advantages of software such as Randerman.In order to integrate Pixar software and Daenerys special effects software as much as possible in order to improve efficiency, Simon intends to abandon the research and development of Pixar computers. Pixar can also focus on software and animation business.

Pixar Computer has not launched a perfect product, let alone profit, otherwise it will not become a drag on Jobs.Therefore, Ed Catmoor and others did not object to Simon's proposal to cancel hardware research and development.

It’s just that after listening to Simon’s introduction to the “Toy Story” and “Lion King” scripts, Ed Cartermore said: “Simon, with our current technology, it’s not difficult to implement the “Toy Story” plan, but the “Lion King” "If you want to show the details of animal movements and hair very vividly, the current technology can not reach this level."

"It's your business," Simon looked at Ed Catmoor and glanced at the others in the conference room. "I don't know much about technology, but I know that the hardware technology is enough now. Supporting you to complete this, the hardware platform is like a paintbrush. All you have to do is to develop software that can achieve special effects. This is equivalent to a paintbrush. Finally, we don’t lack animators, so I just look forward to seeing what I want Desired result."

Mark Silvers also said at this time: "Simon, it will take a long time."

Simon turned to Mark and said, "Don't use the term'long time'. It's too general. How long do you need to tell me?"

Mark Silvers heard this, and whispered a few words with Ed Catmoor, and looked up again: "Want to develop the technology required for "The Lion King" and complete the effect test, according to Daenerys The size of the current R&D team of Special Effects and Pixar will take at least two years, and this is still under sufficient funding."

"No problem," Simon nodded happily. Two years later, it was far below his expectations: "You can hire some more staff appropriately, but pay attention to restraint. It is not a good thing for a company to be too large in its initial development stage. I You can guarantee your capital supply, and then, you give me the desired results." Simon finished, and turned to John Lasseter, said: "John, do you have any questions?"

The story script of "Toy Story" is the result of Simon's discussion with Lasseter through multiple telephone calls this month. Hearing Simon's problem, John Lasseter, who has become a master, said: "I need three years."

The long 3D animation production cycle is well-known. Pixar was able to launch an animation movie on average in two years. In fact, it was the result of several teams working at the same time.An animation movie generally takes three to four years or even longer from the script stage to the film. This cannot be promoted by increasing the number of animators. The scale of the animation movie crew is too large, which will definitely seriously affect the film. quality.

"In this case, today's meeting is here," Simon declared the meeting closed, and said to Mark Silvervis: "How is the Batman Cloak special effect done here, I will see the effect."

At the stage of drawing the concept picture of "Batman", Simon found that Batman's cloak in the film was a very troublesome problem. During the process of Bruce Wayne's eaves, if the real cloak is completely used, the effect will definitely be terrible. Simon then Considering the possibility of CG cloak, and leave it to Daenerys special effects to tackle the problem

Mark Silvers self-channel: "We just finished a CG shot of Batman's cloak when he fell from the sky. Although it only took 3 seconds, the effect is absolutely amazing. Today I planned to let you see it."

Everyone was talking and got up. They were going to see a sample of Marc Silvers. Simone’s female assistant Jennifer came over after receiving a call and whispered to him: "The call from Ms. Pascal, she Said that the R-level review of "Scream" was rejected again."

Simon stopped and motioned for Mark Silvervis and others to say, "Is the material ready?"

Jennifer nodded.

Simon said: "In this case, please help me with the appointment of MPAA Chairman Jack Valenti. Tonight or tomorrow noon, I will talk to him."

The American Film Association (MPAA) is generally a trade association organization, established in 1922, to represent major Hollywood film companies in lobbying for government film-related laws, promoting film and television copyright protection, and developing guidelines for film and television content.

For a long time, MPAA member companies are not static.

At the founding stage, MPAA members were composed of eight major Hollywood film companies.In the past few years, with the rapid rise of a number of second-line movie companies in Hollywood, several companies such as Orion Pictures and DeLaurentis Entertainment have also joined the MPAA. After several companies such as DeLarentis Entertainment went bankrupt, these two Withdrawing one after another, the main members of the MPAA are the traditional Seventh Congress and Orion.

In 1966, MPAA hired Jack Valenty, an assistant to former US President Lyndon Johnson, as the president of the association. The powerful politician stayed in this position for 22 years and will continue.Jack Valenti's biggest contribution since taking office was to abolish the infamous'Haise Code' and re-enact the'voluntary film rating system'.Of course, things have developed to the present, and those films that are rated "involuntarily" are basically difficult to enter the cinema and video market.

Simon met Jack Valenti, 67 years old, at Burbank in the valley at noon the next day.The MPAA headquarters is located near the junction of Highway 101 and Ventura Boulevard in Burbank, not far from the headquarters of several major studios.

The appointment time was 12 o'clock noon, Simon arrived fifteen minutes early, and Jack Valenti stepped on the timeline to enter the restaurant.

"Simon, I always look forward to seeing you. The miracles you have created in the past two years are simply amazing."

Simon shook hands with the serious but very talkative old man in front of his eyes, and politely invited each other to sit down and said, "Thank you, Jack, I also admire everything you have done for Hollywood over the years."

The two sat down and ordered two simple lunches.

Waiting for the waiter to leave, Jack Valenti noticed that there was an open folder in front of Simon. Although he knew the intention of the young man to invite himself, he couldn't help but wonder: "Simon, I was just watching what?"

"Reports on box office data in North America in recent weeks," Simon directly handed over the folder, saying: "From September 9, the summer file ends, from September 9 to September 15, the total weekly box office in North America will be It slipped to 29.88 million US dollars. From September 16 to September 22, the total box office in a single week was 25.67 million US dollars. Although the latest week's data will be released tomorrow, according to the previous weekend box office, September 23 to September 29 The total weekly box office of the day should also be only 27 million US dollars. Compared with last year, the total weekly box office in North America slipped below 30 million US dollars, only the 19th week."

Jack Valenti listened to Simon, glanced at the report on the folder, and sighed: "The impact of the strike on the industry is too great."

Simon nodded in agreement and said, "I have roughly checked the October release list. If Daenerys Entertainment's "Scream" can't be released on time on October 28, the entire October schedule will start painting. There are only 5 films with more than 500 screens, but this number was 9 in the same period last year, which is almost half."

Jack Valenti didn't expect Simon to directly turn the topic to "Scream", he considered it and said: "Simon, the rating committee is very strict and fair. Your movie should be really needed. Change it again."

"Really?" Simon asked back, pointing his finger at the document in front of Jack Valenti, saying: "Jack, there are two memos under the report, and one is the rating committee's amendment to "Instinct", precise To the extent that a certain shot needs to be shortened by 2 seconds, but the modification opinions obtained by "Scream" are very general, but only roughly request us to modify some even more than ten minutes of the film. This Is it fair?"

Jack Valenti just noticed that there were other documents under Simon’s box office report. At this time, he glanced at it and closed it again, with a bitter smile on his face, saying: "Simon, you need to understand, you It’s useless to find me. The control of this matter is not in my hands."

Since 1966, Jack Valenti has been chairman of the MPAA for 22 years. He does have high prestige in the industry, but in the final analysis, he is only an employee of a major Hollywood film company.If it were not for all his actions over the years that were entirely in the interest of Hollywood, Jack Valenti could not continue to stay in this position.

Therefore, it is obviously impossible for Jack Valenti to change the wishes of the traditional big film companies to suppress Daenerys Entertainment's latecomer.

"Of course I understand," Simon nodded. "Jack, I just need you to help me talk to some people."

Jack Valenti made a please gesture.

Simon once again glanced at the document in front of Jack Valenti and said: "The North American box office has fallen below $30 million for three consecutive weeks. I believe it will certainly be the same for a period of time in the future. The box office at the end of the year will shrink. This was caused by the previous Hollywood screenwriter strike, Jack, why do you think the screenwriter should strike?"