Global Film Emperor

Chapter 355 Days Towards the Future

"This is... a real ghost!"

After a long silence, someone finally spoke up, muttering something, raising an enormous one-liter beer mug, downing the full drink, and letting out a long burp. This woke up the other still bewildered people, making the bar noisy again as they discussed the movie plot with their old friends at the same table.

The old ceiling fan, though weak, was still working. One of the LCD TVs on the wall was leaking liquid, with the entire screen cracked from the center—damaged when Depp threw a wine glass in a fit of anger.

This is a film that can materialize people's inner anger. With calm shots, it suppresses the protagonist's gradually out-of-control and morbid emotions on the screen, while also suppressing the audience's emotions, gradually freezing them and plunging them into a deep freeze.

Elena looked at her father and saw him sitting at the bar, smoking silently, his hands still trembling with anger. Feeling both angry and heartbroken, she went to the bar and hugged her father, comforting him constantly. It was clear that the scene of her being hit had really angered Depp. It was also in that scene that one of the six brothers on TV died tragically.

"I know... I know it's fake, I understand, but I just can't control myself. If the TV is broken, we'll just get a new one, it's okay. I need to take some blood pressure medication, can you go and get it for me?"

Elena, after all, possessed talent worthy of Lu Ze's approval, and her rapid progress was evident in the film. The scene at the market, although filmed at the very end, gave her ample time to prepare and was shot over two days, requiring nearly forty takes before Mickey was satisfied.

But to be able to act to this level is already extremely difficult for a novice actor. If it were another novice actor, let alone forty scenes, even four hundred scenes, they might not be able to handle it.

This is inseparable from Elena's talent and hard work. It can be said that if the movie is well received and Elena is prepared to become an actress, then her hard work over the past two months and the role of Catherine have paved a bright future for her.

Whether an actor can stand out or not is actually a matter of one role. Audiences may not remember your face or your name, but if they can immediately recall the story of the female lead in "The Effect," that's enough for Elena. Her next project will be much easier.

After taking his medicine, Depp sighed deeply. He was getting old. Although he was more muscular now than when he was young, it was all fat. At 320 pounds and 2.08 meters tall, he was already under a lot of strain. In addition, smoking, drinking, and staying up late had taken a toll on his health. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high blood sugar had also come his way with age.

He was still a little scared. He really couldn't bear to see Elena being beaten, not even in a movie. The scene just now made his blood pressure rise, and he felt like his blood vessels were about to burst. If they had actually burst, he would probably be dead by now.

He had little to say about the film. In his youth, he had relied on his body and was ignorant, so he didn't know what words to use to describe this movie that had left him breathless. But he did have something to say about Elena.

"Elena, you acted wonderfully, and the movie was great, but you can't make any more of that bastard Mickey's movies anymore. He almost got me killed..."

"Dad, what are you saying! You're so annoying. At first, you complained that Mickey's movies were made with so little money and wouldn't be any good. Now you're complaining that they're too good and making yourself depressed. Why are you so hard to please? Instead of blaming Mickey's movies for being good, why don't you take some time to exercise and get in shape for the next one?"

Yes, initially Depp didn't think Mickey Mouse would make any good movies, at least not with an investment of £250,000. People's perceptions limit their thinking. In Depp's eyes, which movie doesn't start at least a million? What can you do with £250,000? Make a sitcom?

The reason he agreed to let Elena join the film crew was simply because he felt sorry for his daughter who spent all her time in bars and could only watch football matches live on TV in bars in recent years. She hadn't set foot in Anfield for several years, let alone go shopping or other activities that girls love. So he decided to find something interesting for her to do to fill the void in her youth.

She completely lost her social circle, confined to bars, and spent her days dealing with a bunch of old drunks. This is not something a girl in the prime of her life should be doing. Even if the movie with a budget of 250,000 is a complete disaster, when Elena's youth fades, Depp still hopes to have something to give his daughter a memory of her youth from a certain year and month.

However, it now seems that this film, which was originally intended only to fill in the gaps in her memory and for which she did not have high expectations, has given Elena another way out.

The disc slowly ejected from the CD drive. Depp, who hadn't paid much attention before, now carefully opened the box, meticulously installed it back, closed the lid, and handed it to Elena.

"You really need to take good care of it."

"Of course, Dad."

Elena took the CD case and held it in her arms, much more steadily and securely than when she was holding the tray. Because of the different things she was holding, her demeanor seemed to change as well. She smiled, leaving a group of sullen drinkers in the bar stunned.

……

"Five hours! Twenty thousand copies sold out! You can't find a single original, unopened CD in all of Britain! Saul! This is my answer sheet! Have you regretted it even a little bit? Damn it! I told you not to underestimate Lu Ze's abilities! Don't cry, or I might burst out laughing. I'm a little hungry, how about you perform a hanging? Let me come to your house for a meal?"

Five hours, one disc costs £23.90, 20,000 discs would be £478,000. Subtracting the 25% entertainment tax payable by British investors, and then Saul's share, only about £190,000 would be in his pocket. Five hours! Almost breaking even! While *The Effect* isn't the highest-returning film, it is at least so far! The current shortage of discs is the best advertisement; he expects the UK market to easily absorb another 30,000 discs—that's after deducting the portion bought through intermediaries!
Secondly, the film will be distributed throughout Europe, followed by its launch in the North American market. Even with the most conservative estimate, if the film's quality is good and it sells 300,000 copies without any problem, then Mickey Mouse will pocket nearly 2.8 million pounds! That's more than ten times the profit. Most importantly, they haven't even factored in the online market, which is where the real money is!
After all, CDs are highly mobile; if you don't want to keep them, you can lend them to relatives and friends, or even rent them out, and the publisher cannot hold you accountable.

However, the online market is different. Due to the privacy of accounts, few people will lend their accounts to others. At most, they will watch movies with people around them. This reduces the audience for a single movie. In short, it means low price but large volume!

As for piracy, forget about it. It's not that there's no piracy in Europe and America because they have a strong sense of copyright. As long as there are people who are willing to pay the price for legitimate movies, there will always be a market for cam copies.

The problem is that a long time ago, people inadvertently discovered that when they wanted to download songs to their memory cards and then transfer them to their car stereos, they couldn't play them. The reason was that major music players had each converted the music format from the original MP3 to their own proprietary encrypted format.

This ensures that even if the songs are downloaded to your local device, other players cannot play them, not even the most basic built-in computer player. In other words, you cannot listen to their songs without using their software.

Modern video websites and Blu-ray discs also utilize this technology. In particular, the encryption programs of disc copying companies not only prevent copying to local storage or make the disc unreadable after being moved to local storage, but also add the function of automatically pausing during screen recording or live streaming, thus minimizing the possibility of illegal distribution.

Unless you're using a phone to film a computer screen and create a pirated copy, no one can stop you from doing that, but the image quality can't be guaranteed. As a result, movie fans who care about image quality will have no choice but to choose the official version, even if it hurts their wallets.

As for the last type of moviegoers who don't care about picture or sound quality, but just want to hear a sound and understand the movie, and are willing to do anything as long as it doesn't cost money, film companies know that they can't squeeze money out of these people no matter what, so they have given up on this group. They won't make money from these people, nor do they have the ability to do so.

As for transcoding, one-click, foolproof transcoding software can't do it. Someone who really knows programming might try to crack it, but the encrypted data for each movie is different. Would you spend one or two months painstakingly converting the format of a movie just to create a pirate website? Are you out of your mind?

Therefore, the online market is now the real money-making channel. Even theatrical films attach great importance to this revenue stream and are determined to sign contracts with software with massive traffic. This is also why bad movies can still survive today.

If a movie features a sexy woman, along with some slightly explicit or suggestive scenes—like her wearing a low-cut dress, stockings, and high heels—and then an unattractive man swoons and gets a nosebleed upon seeing her, and you cut out the first half of that scene and upload it to a short video app, countless lonely, restless men will follow the clues to find the full version of the movie.

Whether the reviews are good or bad doesn't matter. Not only do the organizers not care, but the audience doesn't care either. They just skip around to see what happens in the second half of a scene. But expecting to see what you want to watch on a legitimate video website is really wishful thinking.

So countless enthusiastic young people came with high hopes, only to leave disappointed, giving the lowest score and calling it a stupid movie, but ultimately still contributing their traffic revenue. And the low scores you kindly gave to your fellow comrades who came with the same purpose were also changed by the backend. This is why all the video websites are full of movies with scores of seven or eight points.

Your good intentions didn't change anything; these scoundrels are still making a fortune. This is the reality of the internet age, right here in front of your phone...

Don't tell me you've never been caught in this trap.

Ignoring Thor's wailing and crying, because that's how capitalists are. They always blame their bad luck when it's their own poor judgment, as if all the money in the world should belong to them. Anyway, Mickey was very happy, not for the money, but for the thrill of this moment of triumph. It was so damn satisfying!
He hung up the phone, but it rang again the next second. He looked at the caller ID and saw Lawrence. Without thinking, he rejected the call. It rang again, so he turned off his phone and threw it on the table.

I lit a cigarette. On this sunny day, I drew the white floor-length curtains, propped my feet up on the desk, exhaled smoke, leaned back, and balanced on only the two back legs of the chair. I held the back of my head with my hands, gazing at the sunlight illuminating the patterns on the curtains, lost in thought. My mouth, with the cigarette butt dangling from my lips, opened and closed as I hummed the theme song from "A Better Tomorrow 2," "The Days Towards the Future"...

"It's pointless to ask me about the affairs of my life."

"Who wants to talk about lost memories?"

"Whether I am affectionate or heartless, don't ask me."

"Ignore it, don't regret it, don't explain its meaning..."

He was a brilliant and talented director, a fact he was absolutely certain of. So this comeback was nothing more than what he had expected, and it didn't excite him at all. He was just thinking about what he could do for Lu Ze.

"..."

I'm going to pick up a friend now. My train leaves at around 3 PM. Please don't come to Shenyang North Station to catch me, hahaha. I'll only post one update tonight. Sorry everyone. I remember the extra update requested by the great author, Tinglin Tianxia.



(End of this chapter)