Chapter 561: White Night

"White Night." Guan Fei chewed over the name of this web drama.

"What does White Night mean?" he thought to himself.

Is it a natural phenomenon, or is it day and night?

Or could it be... that it holds some other metaphor?

Guan Fei checked the time; it was eight o'clock in the evening.

"Still quite early," he thought.

"Then I'll watch it now. Once I hit ten o'clock, I'll wash up and go to bed," Guan Fei vowed.

On days when he wasn't working, he would always adjust his biological clock.

After all, he didn't have much hair left growing naturally, and hair transplants were truly expensive; burdened with debt as he was, he didn't dare spend money so recklessly.

And then...

The next day, Luo Mo woke up early and saw a WeChat message Guan Fei had sent him at 5:49 AM.

"This show is an Ox!"

………

………

Looking at the content and plot structure, White Night and Forensic Qin Ming follow different paths.

This was one point where Guan Fei exceptionally admired Luo Mo; this young man seemed like he would never rest on his laurels.

He could always come up with new tricks and always play with new formulas.

As a director, this made one more motivated; otherwise, one would feel filming fatigue.

Well, pulling an all-nighter to read a script was but a tiny price to pay.

"It's just that the actors for this show are a bit hard to find," Guan Fei thought.

The requirements for acting skills were higher than average.

According to the drama, because of some special reasons, the older brother and younger brother can only share one identity to appear in the public eye and investigate cases.

This was also why Luo Mo said this show required one person to play four roles.

And what's more, in Luo Mo's script, several close-up shots were explicitly written.

"To capture the effect of light and shadow on a single face, where one half of the face gives the feeling of the older brother, and the other half gives the feeling of the younger brother"—Guan Fei wanted to curse just reading it.

You just write in Hell Mode and then act like a hands-off boss, leaving me to film it!

"In terms of casting, Zhou Tong is actually a pretty good choice," Guan Fei thought.

But everything would only be known after auditions.

Although this drama had very high requirements for acting, Guan Fei wasn't too worried about the casting.

After all, with the support of the National Theatre of China, there were so many good actors there; it shouldn't be impossible to find suitable ones.

Regarding White Night, Guan Fei was full of confidence.

He felt that this would be another classic work!

With Luo Mo's Mist Theater backing it, Penguin Video was afraid to be soaring to the skies today and dominating the whole year!

After thinking it over, Guan Fei asked Luo Mo one question.

"This show clearly has a second season, so, is the second season filming next year? And then airing in next year's Mist Theater?"

In the end, the reply he received was:

"Guess."

………

………

Time moved forward, and half a month passed in a flash.

The final box office for the new films of Wang Rong and the others could already be estimated quite accurately.

In these past few days, two more directors from the Hundred Billion Box Office Plan had their new films officially released.

These two films were also okay, but neither showed signs of a major box office explosion.

This meant that only four directors' new films remained to be released in theaters.

Among these four directors, Li Dongliang's film would be released the latest, set for mid-August.

The other three were either late July or early August.

In reality, Li Dongliang also wanted to release it a few days earlier.

After all, if it released in mid-August, it meant that in two more weeks, the Shuji Dang would be declared over.

However, his film ran into some problems midway; a supporting actor was exposed for a scandal of an Evil nature, so he had to use AI face-swapping and re-editing in post-production.

Honestly, these days, one is truly afraid of a single rat dropping ruining a whole pot of porridge.

This forced Director Li Dongliang's new film, Record of the Ten Thousand Demon Kingdom, to postpone its release.

Li Dongliang held extremely high expectations for this new film.

What he was aiming for was not just the domestic market, but the entire Asia market.

Because this film also featured many well-known foreign actors, and it would be released in multiple countries at the time.

This kind of operation had been relatively popular in recent years.

Many directors also liked to use foreign box office numbers to prove their own abilities.

But the vast majority of such films often failed to please either side, with neither box office being too high, and word-of-mouth mostly being terrible.

Of course, if it were truly filmed well, with excellent content, and could please both sides, then naturally one could make a fortune.

Li Dongliang was very confident about this; after all, this film involved many Myth stories of Huaxia, and these stories had a profound influence in many countries across Asia.

After all, our cultural Output during the ancient period was very powerful.

On the other side, Luo Mo was having the staff at Luo Mo Studio begin contacting the major cinema chains in the country.

He was not doing this to engage in a trade of interests in exchange for a larger share of screenings on the First Day.

He was doing it because he wanted to schedule some 【Previews】 for *Dying to Survive*.

So-called 【Previews】 are when a film is screened in a few test locations before its nationwide release.

Usually, this means scheduling a few screenings, or perhaps a few dozen.

This kind of behavior is, in fact, just testing the waters.

These audience members are like lab mice.

One can understand a film's potential through their feedback after watching.

But Luo Mo had no intention of doing something so small-scale.

"What's the point of scheduling a few dozen screenings?"

"We don't need to test the waters at all."

On Blue Star, the phenomenon of 【Large-scale Preview】 had not yet appeared.

This kind of operation is actually quite bold.

Although it hasn't been officially released and the film cannot be watched everywhere in the country, there are a great many preview screenings, and they are being launched in a great many cities.

Good heavens, you call a film with over ten thousand screenings in a single day a "preview"?

Is your "point" over ten thousand points?

*Dying to Survive* was played exactly like this back on Earth.

At first, it only had two 【Preview】 screenings on June 25th.

On June 26th, there were 11.

Everything looked quite normal.

Then, once it hit June 30th, it surged to 14,000 screenings! It took in nearly 15 million in box office revenue.

By July 1st, it "previewed" a staggering 23,000 screenings, taking in 35 million in box office revenue!

The entire film was previewed on such a large scale for four full days before its official nationwide release.

A film that hadn't even been officially released yet had already reached a total box office of over 160 million!

As for the box office, that was actually secondary.

The incredibly high word-of-mouth was the most terrifying part!

The promotional effect this could achieve was extremely horrifying.

This would cause the box office to explode on the first day of the film's official release, and then continue to climb.

At the same time, this kind of operation would also lead major cinema chains to tilt resources toward it when arranging screenings for the first day.

"This film was so fierce during its 【Preview】, and the word-of-mouth is so good, why not hurry up and schedule more screenings for it?"

There was another hit film on Earth that also used this kind of bold operation.

That was *Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child*, which was released the following year.

It also went straight for a large-scale preview, and before its nationwide release, its cumulative box office was already very high, and the word-of-mouth had already fermented!

This is actually a rather alternative marketing and promotional method.

At this moment, the major cinema chains of Blue Star Huaxia were all dumbfounded after clearly understanding the intentions of Luo Mo Studio.

"How many?"

"How many preview screenings do you want to schedule!?"

For the departments responsible for scheduling, this was a request that refreshed their worldview.

It was the first time they had heard of anyone 【Previewing】 like this.

What on earth is Luo Mo thinking about?

And why does he think we would accompany him in such a reckless mess?

The heads of the major cinema chains knew very well where the significance of an operation like 【Preview】 lay.

If the feedback after a preview is good, then one can increase the intensity of promotion and increase investment in that area.

If the feedback after a preview is not good, then one can adjust the direction of publicity and marketing, or find other ways to promote it to avoid a gap in expectations during the audience's viewing process, thereby using it as a remedy.

Of course, there are also those who simply reduce promotional costs.

But what was Luo Mo thinking?

"Even if a young person has wild fantasies, there should be a limit."

"We aren't going to play along with you!"

Luo Mo quickly received feedback from the staff at the studio: most of the major cinema chains across the country were unwilling to play along with him like this.

Luo Mo was not surprised by this.

"Now is still the golden age of 【Roadshow】," Luo Mo thought to himself.

So-called 【Roadshow】 is when the film's creative team runs around to major cities, screening the film a few times in each city they visit.

This model invites some local audience members, as well as media or celebrity friends, to come and watch.

When everyone sees a group of film leads standing in front of a big screen on the internet on a daily basis, answering questions from various media outlets, they are basically 【Roadshowing】.

Like on Earth, back in 2015, the 20 creators of the film *Surprise* ran through 100 cities in 35 days, holding 500 roadshow screenings, becoming the "film roadshow record holders" at the time.

That same year, *Jian Bing Man* also ran roadshows frantically, hitting 31 cities and 188 cinemas, with a total mileage exceeding 2,000 kilometers.

Honestly, this is very exhausting and very time-consuming.

This model is also actually intended to build word-of-mouth effects and let cinema chains see the film's potential, thereby increasing the number of screenings.

It's just that the risks of a 【Roadshow】 are relatively low because there aren't many screenings, the media invited are all screened, and the creative team is on-site, so the effect is definitely different.

What a 【Preview】 faces, however, are all real audience members!

However, that is how the world is; there must always be new models emerging to replace the old ones.

"It's just that the first person to eat a crab always has a harder time with the operation," Luo Mo thought to himself.

Fortunately, after another half hour passed, he heard some good news.

An employee from the studio called him and said, "Boss, the Xindi Cinema Chain didn't directly refuse; they indicated they will hold a small meeting today to specifically discuss this matter and will give us an answer before five o'clock this afternoon!"

(PS: Second update, requesting monthly votes.

Also, recommending a new entertainment novel, "I Who Only Wanted to Lose Fans, Ended Up Becoming a Heavenly King," tsk, the title is so long.)

(End of this chapter)