Chapter 927 Antitrust Issues

Eric left the apartment of Quskoff and Kristana Loken early in the morning, returned to the residence on Sixth Avenue, and was about to fly to the UK with his two female assistants, but it was estimated that it was last night. Because he promised to go back but released two more girls pigeons, Eric found that Caroline and Melanie had a cold war with him. Although he didn't ignore him on purpose, he was businesslike when he talked to him. looks like.

Melanie is fine. Caroline is really showing this state for the first time. Seeing that little face is deliberately stretched but always has a little guilty conscience, it makes Eric feel a little bit. Novelty, so I also cooperated with the two girls and brought out the air of the boss.

The private plane still took off from MacArthur Airport in the middle of Long Island, the plane entered the clouds and began a long journey of more than ten hours.

Carelessly, Melanie and Melanie were flipping through the documents in the lounge in the middle of the plane. After lunch, Caroline finally couldn't help but look in the direction of the front cabin, where the luxury suite on the plane was.

"May, you said, shouldn't we ignore Eric, he, he is our boss after all."

Melanie shook a script in her hand, but it was "Iron Man": "Carly, how do I feel, you are just like the little pepper beside Tony Stark, always beside the boss, watching him All kinds of nonsense, and then clean up the mess for him."

Caroline has naturally read the script of "Iron Man", and she occasionally helps Eric with the lines these days. She actually felt in her heart that Eric was very similar to the guy in the script, um, could it be that the female assistant he wanted should look like the little pepper in the script, but the woman who helped him get rid of the ons, This kind of thing is so embarrassing.

Melanie looked at Caroline's flickering eyes, and reluctantly rolled up the thick script in her hand and knocked on her forehead, saying, "Okay, go to the front cabin to see your boss, I'm really taking you no solution anymore."

Seeing Melanie's extremely disappointed look, Caroline shook her head subconsciously: "Well, then I won't go."

"Go, go," Melanie waved again, and then simply stood up: "Let's go, I'll accompany you."

"But," Caroline hesitated again, "what reason do we use to go?"

"I've saved a lot of things in the past few days, where do I need a reason."

Having said that, Melanie took Caroline to the presidential suite in the front cabin.

Although the space of the cabin presidential suite is not large, the layout is very complete. After some searching, Melanie and Caroline found Eric in the study who was concentrating on drawing something on an octavo sheet of paper.

Without disturbing him immediately, the two women carefully sat down on the sofa next to them, and found that there were already several drawings on the coffee table in front of them, so they naturally moved up curiously.

At first glance, this should be the concept map of the movie, but the style is extremely fine, whether it is the space station or the astronauts, it looks fine. Even, a few thin cables on the screen connect the two astronauts to the space station fragilely, making the two women involuntarily worry about the two astronauts who are obviously in danger in the picture.

After carefully savoring the painting in front of her, Melanie raised her head and glanced at Eric. She really wanted to lift the top painting to see what the next ones were about. However, she I was worried that the sound of paper flipping would disturb Eric.

Caroline then raised her head, but happened to meet Eric's turned eyes,

Can not help but dodge away.

"I said why did I smell the girl's scent, it turned out to be the two of you."

Listening to Eric's joke, Melanie couldn't help rolling her eyes, thinking that she just admired you a little bit, and her true nature was revealed in a blink of an eye.

Caroline blushed and lowered her head, pinching the corners of her clothes, wondering if she should use Melanie's perfume as well. She's not really used to perfume.

Seeing that the two women didn't speak, Eric put down the pencil in his hand, turned the swivel chair to face this side, and said, "Okay, I apologize first. I shouldn't have promised to go back last night, but I let your pigeons go."

Caroline shook her head subconsciously and said nothing. Melanie said, "Eric, you really should apologize. Carly prepared dinner for you last night."

Melanie didn't say too much, but Eric could imagine Caroline's disappointment, so looking at the girl, Eric said sincerely again: "I'm sorry, Carly, I promise not to be like this in the future, um , I'll prepare dinner today as compensation for last night."

"No, it doesn't matter, Eric." Caroline shook her head again, and the wisp of brows that had started last night disappeared without a trace.

Melanie next to her looked a little weird. Due to some preconceived notions, she felt that the scene in front of her was like an unassuming dad coaxing his innocent daughter: Hey, Dad never smokes anymore Now, Dad doesn't drink anymore, Dad doesn't hang out anymore.

Melanie didn't think it was her imagination at all, because her own father used to say these similar things to her before, and of course, it basically never came true.

Eric and Caroline were talking, noticing the strangeness on Melanie's face, and asked curiously, "May, what's wrong with you?"

"It's nothing," Melanie quickly put away her thoughts, shook her head, and then pointed to a few paintings on the coffee table in front of her: "Eric, are these the scenes in "Gravity"?"

Eric nodded, took the one he just finished on the desk, sat down on the sofa opposite the two women, and said, "How do you guys feel?"

Melanie looked at the picture that Eric had just put down. This was a picture of a woman curled up in a space capsule like a baby. Melanie could even feel the extreme loneliness and despair of the woman in the picture.

"It's great," Melanie said, no longer scruples, and together with Caroline, they admired several concept drawings drawn by Eric, and then praised again: "Eric, you If I draw some more, it is estimated that the exhibition will be opened.”

"Oh, thanks," Eric responded with a smile.

Melanie said again: "However, Eric, do you think these pictures can really be perfectly presented on the big screen now, not to mention other things, just want to perfectly show the weightless scene, it is not so easy According to the idea in your memo, this film basically takes place in space, and it is impossible to rent NASA's weightlessness simulation plane to shoot like the "Apollo 13" two years ago. If you hang Wei Ya, I think these scenes in the picture are even more impossible to achieve, it is absolutely impossible for actors to move freely in Wei Ya state."

For ordinary audiences, after watching an excellent movie, they basically only judge the movie from the performance of the actors, the lines of the movie and the plot of the story, but for the director, they first consider the movie , Basically, how did such a great movie come out?

As a person who has always wanted to be a film director, Eric was no exception. When Eric watched "Gravity" when he was excited, the first thing he considered was how the film director completed those moves. The tricky long shot, and how to solve the problem of weightlessness that space movies can never avoid. Living in the Internet era of the information explosion in later generations, it is naturally easier to understand these issues.

Hearing Melanie's question, Eric explained confidently: "First of all, the feeling of weightlessness is roughly a feeling of floating that is completely unaffected by force, usually, because the photographer must be down-to-earth to shoot these The camera, so to achieve this sense of floating, you can only have actors hanging from Wea, or, like Apollo 13, spend a lot of money to create a real weightless environment.”

Melanie and Caroline were still a little dazed, obviously they didn't understand too much, so they had to wait for Eric to continue.

Eric also thought about it and said, "However, people's visual perception is actually very easy to deceive. If you want to achieve that kind of weightless floating feeling, you only need to adjust the relative displacement between the camera and the actor, giving people a completely The feeling of not being pulled by gravity, so you can simulate a realistic weightless environment."

Melanie and Caroline are both very smart, Melanie raised her hands to face each other and gestured slowly in front of her for a few times, then nodded and said, "That's true, but Eric, you Do you think there are photographers who can carry a 30+ pound camera and do whatever lens changes they want?"

Melanie said, raised her right hand, and moved around the left hand angle a few times.

Eric shook his head with a smile, and said, "Of course not, but I didn't say that this time the photographer should control the camera himself. By the way, have you seen the car equipment workshop?"

The two women shook their heads together.

Eric had no choice but to explain out of thin air: "You must have seen those sporadic news pictures or pictures. I am talking about those automatic robotic arms used in car assembly. As far as I know, some precise robotic arms are designed After the motion trajectory is determined, the final error will not even exceed 0.1 mm. Therefore, to achieve the relative displacement that simulates weightlessness, I only need to find two such precise robotic arms, and set the relative displacement trajectory. One operates the camera, the other holds the actors to perform, and then removes these robotic arms in the later stage, and cooperates with the CG scene, it is the perfect space shot."

Although there are still some unimaginable shooting methods, Caroline and Melanie have no doubts. After all, of the three people present, Eric is the most professional one.

However, Caroline still asked curiously: "Eric, in this case, this movie is almost all CG, right?"

Eric naturally knew why Caroline asked this, and nodded with a smile: "Yeah, but many CG pictures are large panoramas. In CG production, the more distant panorama, the lower the production cost, because they are not There is no need for very detailed modeling and rendering, so the cost of this film is not too high, as long as some of the technical difficulties are solved, the production cost can easily be controlled at about 100 million US dollars.”

100 million US dollars, although it was still a high-cost production in 1997, and Hollywood movies that cost more than 100 million US dollars a year are still very few, but for a top director like Eric who has made two consecutive 1 billion box office blockbusters For example, even if he is not the boss of Firefly Group, and now asks for a production budget of 200 million, there will still be film companies lining up to send the money up.

After staying in Hollywood for a long time, Caroline and Melanie can naturally think of many problems that need to be solved in the production of "Gravity". Rick was able to solve all these problems, so he stopped talking about the film and turned to other topics.

"Eric, Carly and I have watched all the materials of several major theater chains in North America these days. We feel that if it is just to promote 3D movies, Firefly is not suitable for entering the theater industry with great fanfare."

"Well, tell me what you think?" Eric nodded and asked with a smile.

Melanie looked at Caroline, who had bright eyes. In fact, many opinions were brought up by this girl first, but it was difficult for Caroline to get rid of this shy nympho in front of Eric. She had no choice but to say to herself: "If Firefly enters the cinema industry, small cinemas will definitely not be able to satisfy the company's appetite. The top three cinemas in North America now have a total of more than 14,000 screens, and they are basically popular. The high-end theaters in the area, so Firefly can only initiate acquisitions of these three. However, once Firefly does this, it will definitely cause a strong backlash from other Hollywood film companies, and they will never let Firefly control thousands of screens in popular locations. So, no matter if we launch an acquisition of any of the former three, with the joint opposition of other film companies, the possibility of passing the antitrust investigation is very slim.”

Eric thought for a while, then nodded: "Anything else?"

Melanie continued: "Also, it's still about promoting 3D movies. I don't think it's necessary for us to do this just to promote 3D movies. Most of the theaters under the top three theater chains have more than five yuan. Multiplex cinemas above the screen, we can't buy them and convert all the theaters to 3D screens, so I think, at least in the United States, we can take a cooperative approach and invest in these large theater chains. Money, get some shares, select a batch of screening halls in the best locations to transform into 3D theaters, as long as we have the 3D projection system and 3D conversion technology in our hands, we will not only be able to realize the plan to promote 3D for a long time in the future, but also It will not cause anti-monopoly problems, and at the same time, it can also form a situation of a realistic monopoly on the 3D film market."