During the actual shooting, Duke still gave the camera assistant a certain degree of autonomy. After all, people are not machines, and the other party only needs to follow his requirements in the general direction of shooting.

Moreover, the temporary stills operator was also a smart man. While shooting according to Duke's request, he never shot from the perspective of the main camera.

The stills can be different from the original movie scene, not necessarily the film director’s camera position, but the stills. This is not mandatory, or even must be different, because the movie is a dynamic shot to show the plot, and the stills are actually a frame. It explains the plot, and the stills can be modified and cropped after all.

Therefore, as long as the stills can show the plot, the medium and close shots are the best frame size, but they must be the same as the movie screens, that is, the emotions conveyed should be the same. What the movie wants to highlight, what the stills should highlight.If the movie is a small and fresh movie, the stills are shot, cold, hard, and bitter, how can it be?

There is also the green screen special effects shooting that Duke will use on a large scale. Some key scenes are shot against the green screen in the studio, and there is no background painting at all. What about the stills?

Such scenes are often key scenes, and it is impossible to have no promotional stills. There is only one solution, which is to capture still frames on a high-definition machine in the later stage, but the still frame images can basically meet the needs of news releases, but the quality is not good. Much worse.

In addition to stills, what other pictures can be used for movie promotion and marketing?The working photos behind the scenes of the crew are actually very interesting and popular, but they also need to be "designed". Not all the behind-the-scenes wear a coat, and the photos of the director in front of the monitor are so readable. The important thing is to have content.There is content worth spreading.

This shot ended and it was time to get off work, but Charlize Theron and Daisy Ridley did not leave the studio after taking off their makeup and changing into their daily clothes. Instead, they returned to the studio and stood with Duke. Together.Let the temporary stills artist take a lot of photos, that is, promotional work photos.

It is also used for publicity and marketing, but work photos and promotional stills are different. The promotional stills require actors to perform and conform to the characters in the play. If the actors do not perform, especially in modern dramas.It is no different from the promotional photos taken by this actor in any scene. If it is in the filming scene, the photos without the status of the characters are all work photos, because the still photos are "a faithful reflection and record of the movie."

And the job the crew has to do is to promote the movie.Not a propagandist.

At the end of the day's work, when Duke was packing up his workbench, Charlize Theron came over.

"Do you have time?" She stood opposite Duke, with a charming smile on her cold face. "have dinner together?"

"Sorry..." Duke shook his head lightly, looking at the door of the studio.Scarlett Johansson just walked in, "I promised Scarlett that we will go to inspect the theater she invested in tonight."

As if eyes had grown from the back of her head, Charlize Theron turned her head.Just in time to see Scarlett Johansson walking towards this side quickly, her bright eyes narrowed into two thin long lines, and she sighed softly.

As she grows older, Charlize Theron feels more and more that the original choice was too wrong, but now there is no chance to make up for this mistake.

She is very clear that some things are missed and missed, and they can't be retrieved at all.

Charlize Theron didn't want to see Scarlett Johansson, so before she came over, she said to Duke, "See you sometime."

Duke didn't say anything, just nodded lightly, his eyes gradually retracted, Charlize Theron and Scarlett Johansson who left passed by each other, and they didn't mean to say hello to each other, as if they didn't know each other at all.

Seemingly not seeing Charlize Theron, Scarlett Johansson walked up to Duke without mentioning her, took his arm, and walked out of the studio together.

"This is our first major theater chain to open in Los Angeles."

Walking on the narrow road of Warner Studios, Scarlett looked very happy, "Our investment can finally see a return."

"Honey," Duke corrected, "this is your investment."

According to the relevant laws of the United States, people like him cannot be involved in the theater industry.

Knowing this, Scarlett took the initiative to change the subject, "Have you heard that the North American Theater Alliance is preparing to start a new round of popcorn price increases."

Nowadays, popcorn is almost a symbol of movies and movie theaters. As the king of theater sales, the profit of popcorn is far beyond the imagination of outsiders. It is even unreal to say that little popcorn is the hero who saves movie theaters. Too much.

There are generally two types of popcorn in theaters.One is the "butterfly" popcorn, which has multiple irregularly shaped "wings" shells. This kind of popcorn tastes crisper and is more common in theaters; the other is the "mushroom" popcorn, which is More like a sphere or ellipsoid, with a cottonier taste and relatively uncommon.

Since the invention of the first popcorn machine in 1885, due to the portability of the popcorn machine, popcorn has become the preferred snack for customers who participate in outdoor activities and visit circuses. production, while potato chips, another common snack, can’t do it, so it falls behind the competition.

However, there was one and only type of entertainment venue that did not have popcorn at the time-movie theaters.

At that time, movie theaters were very high-end and formal, and popcorn, a small snack, could not enter the eyes of movie audiences, and theater operators did not want to bring the mess and strong fragrance that accompanied popcorn into their tidy movie halls.At the same time, since the movies at that time were all silent movies, the noise of chewing popcorn would also seriously affect the viewing experience.

But technological and economic developments have changed everything.

The most important technological innovation in cinema was the addition of synchronized sound.

After 1927, people were able to hear characters in movies speak without having to read the subtitles all the time.This opened up the film market to a new audience—mostly the poorer illiterate and young children.

These audiences will not be attracted by the magnificent design of the theater, and for them, soiling the theater carpet with some interesting snacks does not seem to be a very troublesome thing.At the same time, as movies moved into the age of sound, the noise from the popcorn was less noticeable.

Soon, the Great Recession hit the U.S., many theaters were dying, and those that survived were not optimistic, and everyone in the movie-related industry was suffering—except for those who proved that popcorn was a buttered gold mine street vendor.

Popcorn became the cheapest luxury for people at that time, and it also became the first snack that was secretly brought into the movie theater hidden under the coat. In those dark days, people could sell popcorn on the street. Make ends meet and even make a fortune.

One East Coast theater chain tried it out—they sold popcorn in the smaller theaters in the chain, while the five high-end movie theaters they owned still didn't sell any snacks to keep the environment tidy.

As a result, the popcorn theaters were all profitable, while the five high-end theaters were in the red.

In the end, the managers of theater chains realized that popcorn is the key to the theater’s profitability, and popcorn has really saved the business of movie theaters, so much so that an entrepreneur in the Great Depression era gave such advice—find A suitable place to sell popcorn and build a movie theater next to it.

Today can be said to be an era where there is no movie without popcorn.

Today, decades later, for many people, a moviegoing experience is incomplete without popcorn, and for movie theaters, popcorn is as important as it was in the past.

Movie fans often complain that the price of the products sold in theaters is too high, but audiences often ignore the cost and pricing of popcorn in the products sold. The gross profit margin of most theaters exceeds 80.00%. The profits generally account for 50.00% of the total profits of the theater, far exceeding the revenue at the box office.

Since film producers and distributors have invested heavily in film production and distribution, they have reason to take more from the box office revenue, but the high rent of movie theaters, large-area air-conditioning costs, constantly updated surround sound and Seats and digital 3D systems, etc., each cost a huge amount.

In order to survive, theaters can raise ticket prices, but this will lose audiences, so for theaters, selling products is the only option to rely on. Although sales revenue only accounts for 20.00% of the total revenue of the theater, they occupy the theater 50.00% profit.

Moreover, all theaters will be sold in bundles. Popcorn has another feature, which is that it makes people thirsty, so if you buy the "standard" popcorn for watching movies, you will probably have to buy a drink.

Generally speaking, audiences are not weighing between not buying snacks and only buying a little snacks before watching a movie. Their way of thinking is: not buying snacks, or buying a bunch of snacks.

Therefore, there are two types of customers for cinema sales—those who are willing to buy a lot, and those who are very price sensitive.

When a movie theater sets the price of an item at a level acceptable to almost all customers who are willing to spend a lot, even if they continue to lower the price, it will not attract more customers to buy and sell the item, because for price-sensitive customers For example, only when the price of the product is even lower than the supermarket price, they will consider buying it. Obviously, it is not cost-effective to do their business.

Therefore, theaters only need to refer to the price accepted by those customers who are willing to spend more and more.

This is also an important reason why the North American Theater Alliance dared to propose a collective price increase for theater sales.

Anyone who invests in the cinema industry cannot ignore the role of selling products.

It is precisely because of the high profits of selling products that theaters can lower the price of movie tickets, make profits through selling products and services, realize differentiated pricing, and allow more audiences to enter the theater.

So it’s arguably this combination of air and starch that keeps movie theaters going, and without popcorn, there probably would be no movie theaters—at least not in the way they’re known today. (to be continued~^~)

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