novellhall Chapter 50: Reverse Marketing
Chapter 50: Reverse Marketing
The day after receiving authorization from Han Sanping.
Wei Yi called Li Hua to the editing room of Beijing Film Academy.
The monitor was playing a loop of over thirty minutes of rough cut footage taken in one continuous shot.
Baoqiang squatted next to the "corpse" and poked his fingers. Mu Tingting, dressed as a female ghost, tripped over her own skirt. Half of Mu Deyuan's forehead could be seen at the edge of the shot.
After reading this material, Li Hua's expression turned sour.
"Junior brother, is this film... really okay?"
Wei Yi didn't answer, but instead asked, "Senior brother, do you think this movie is bad or not?"
Li Hua rubbed his hands together awkwardly: "You want me to tell the truth?"
"explain."
"It's terrible. It's really terrible. The actors' performances are awkward, the camera is shaky, and there are continuity errors everywhere. I wanted to turn it off after watching for ten minutes."
After Li Hua finished speaking, he quickly added, "But isn't this what you called... a play within a play? That deliberately poorly filmed layer?"
"right."
Wei Yi stood up, walked to the monitor, and patted the screen. "I'm now going to put this half-hour 'bad movie' online."
Li Hua was stunned.
"You...you're going to leak the film? Are you crazy? The movie hasn't even been released yet!"
"It's not a leaked film," Wei Yi shook his head, "it's showing 'bad movies'."
He pulled up a chair, sat down, and explained his thoughts.
He plans to pick out four or five of the worst-looking clips from the thirty-plus minutes of footage.
What happened? Baoqiang got flour smeared on his face, Mu Tingting tripped and fell over her skirt, Fan Binbin got stuck and looked down at the script, shaky camera work and hilarious moments.
And so on.
Then it's posted online, accompanied by several reports of "industry insiders questioning it".
"I want to mislead everyone as much as possible, to make everyone think that this movie was a flop."
Li Hua stared at him as if he were a madman: "You're making fun of yourself? What kind of crazy move is this? Other directors, once they've finished filming, they'd rather keep it a secret than praise it to the skies. But you, you're actively leaking it out, trying to make a fool of yourself?"
Wei Yi smiled but didn't explain much.
To use the words from their management department's textbooks, which will be updated later.
This is called reverse expectation management.
It first makes people think it's a terrible movie, then it turns around and wins back its reputation by improving its quality.
The power of this psychological gap to spread information is often something that money can't buy.
Of course.
The prerequisite is that your film must have a certain quality.
Otherwise, it wouldn't be a classic case of overcoming adversity with a rise, but rather a joke of self-destruction.
It was still 2006. Domestic film marketing was generally still at the stage of "newspaper hype, television hype, and press conference hype".
This gameplay has never existed before.
This is precisely why Wei Yi took it out.
"Senior brother," Wei Yi patted Li Hua on the shoulder, "I'm assigning you a task today."
"What mission?"
"Post on Tianya and our school's forum, or other larger forums. Use an alternate account, pretending you're in the industry and just finished working on my film set."
Li Hua opened his mouth, but after a long pause, he managed to stammer out, "...You want me to play the role of a villain?"
"right."
"Junior brother, this is ruining your own reputation, are you sure?"
"Sure."
Wei Yi picked up a piece of paper from the table, on which several key points were written down. "Senior brother, remember, the revelations can't be too fake. Nine parts truth and one part falsehood is the most believable. You are Zhang Yimou's assistant director, you are indeed a person in the industry, and you are indeed still working for the 'Curse of the Golden Flower' crew."
"All of this is true. You just need to 'casually' mention in the post that you also helped out with Wei Yi's film for a few days, then sigh and let the readers of the post figure out the rest."
Li Hua took the paper, glanced at it, and his expression changed from hesitation to skepticism.
"You've even thought of a title for the post?"
"The title isn't important, the tone is," Wei Yi said. "The worst thing about writing a post is going too far. You can't just start by cursing, 'What kind of garbage did Wei Yi film?' That's too fake. You have to use that tacit understanding that's unique to people in the industry."
"Simply put, it's about saying half the story and leaving the other half unsaid, then adding at the end, 'But maybe their selling point isn't the content at all.' This kind of tone is what netizens love most these days."
Li Hua folded the note and stuffed it into his pocket, then took out a cigarette, put it in his mouth, but didn't light it.
"Are you really going to do that?"
"Let's do it this way," Wei Yi said. "And I'll create some alternate accounts to help you get the post trending. Don't worry, senior brother, you're not fighting this battle alone."
"Okay. Don't blame me if it doesn't work."
"No way~"
That night.
Li Hua sat in front of his desktop computer and created a new Tianya account.
His online name is "Making a living in the industry".
He stared at the piece of paper Wei Yi had given him for a while before starting to type.
Title: Insider News: The directorial debut of Beijing Film Academy's top-scoring student might flop...
The main text begins following Wei Yi's line of thought.
"...Dude, I'm in the industry, just came from that film crew. To be honest, the cast was truly star-studded: Chow Yun-fat, Gong Li, Fan Binbin, Huang Xiaoming—each one a big name. The director, Wei Yi, is the guy who got a perfect score on the college entrance exam; everyone in the country knows that. The Beijing Film Academy and China Film Group gave him full support, and the filming location was right at the China Film Group's base."
Jiuzhen.
[But to be honest, everyone was pretty confused during my week there. Director Wei is too young; sometimes he'd explain the scenes for ages and the actors still wouldn't understand. I watched a few clips of the footage, and well… it was just okay. Not that it was necessarily bad, but… you can judge for yourselves.]
One is fake.
However, on the other hand, the selling point of this film might not be its content at all. Think about it, a top scorer in the college entrance exam—he's a topic of discussion in himself, and he might make money purely from the buzz. In this day and age, who can say for sure?
The ending is a tacit understanding.
After typing the last word, Li Hua clicked send.
The post has floated up, but no one has replied yet.
He went to the Beijing Film Academy's internal forum, registered a new account called "A Slacker in the Directing Department," and posted a second thread.
Title: Has anyone seen the rough cut of the film I directed, directed by Wei Yi? Let's discuss it?
The content is very short, just two sentences:
I sneaked into the server room the day before yesterday because the door wasn't closed, and... emmm, pictures are downstairs.
The post included two blurry pictures, clearly taken with a mobile phone.
One photo shows Bao Qiang's expression breaking down, and the other shows Mu Tingting tripping over her skirt.
Wei Yi filmed all of these shots with his phone in the editing room while looking at the monitor. The blurriness was just right, and the composition was just right so that you could clearly see who it was.
After sending these two messages, Li Hua leaned back in his chair, staring blankly at the screen.
His wife brought over a cup of tea, glanced at his screen, and frowned, saying, "Did you fall out with your junior brother? Why are you up so late at night, bashing him online?"
Li Hua picked up his teacup, took a sip, and said softly, "You don't understand. This is love."