Text | Zhang Ying
"What a fairy field! Liu Haoran was sitting in the same row as me watching a movie!"
On December 1, the premiere of "The Gathering at Southern Station" was held at Beijing King Studios, and it was the post-screening communication session. , An audience member was surprised to find that his idol Liu Haoran was sitting not far from him; on the day of the event, the male lead actor Hu Ge spotted Wu Jing, who was also "hidden" in the audience, and brought him to the stage to chat. ; And well-known actors such as Jing Boran, Zhang Luyi and Wang Jingchun also appeared in the audience, and when they were discovered by the audience, they caused a lot of commotion in the venue. The gathering of stars in
also turned the premiere of "The Gathering at Southern Station" into a large-scale "fan meeting." On the day of the event, a propagandist of the film revealed to Poison Eyes that many fans heard the idols after they heard that the idols will be there. There are scalpers everywhere in the studio, and a movie ticket for admission was fired up to 1,000 yuan; The price of some premiere tickets on Weibo is mostly 700-800 yuan. A netizen who transfers the ticket told Dumou: “You can shoot Hu Ge in the first row, and it’s normal to be more expensive.”
The experience of watching movies among a lot of stars is actually nothing new. In the early years, most of the film premiere activities only invited the main creative team to the scene to communicate and interact with everyone to promote the film; today, facing an increasingly fierce competitive environment, in order to be able to provide the film before the screening Fully build momentum, many popular film premieres will invite friends in the creators’ circle to watch the film and give the film platform. In addition to the growing star lineup,
has more and more patterns in the movie premiere. "Evil does not suppress the truth" selected in Gubei Water Town, "Mission Impossible 6" premiere in Beijing Taimiao, "China Machine "Long" moved the venue to the air. In order to stand out, many marketing campaigns can be described as racking their brains and "doing everything." How much does
have so much time and effort to hold the premiere? How much does it contribute to the film’s box office?
premiere has become a "prescribed action"?
The "wind of premiere" of mainland movies can be traced back to the beginning of this century when commercial blockbusters emerged.
In 2002, Zhang Yimou's first commercial blockbuster "Hero" came out. A week or so before its release, this topical film held a grand premiere in the Great Hall of the People. According to media reports, the premiere at that time carried out an unprecedented one-person-one-certificate and real-name verification approach. Even both Chinese and foreign media required suits and ties, and arrived one hour in advance. There were so many "rules" for the premiere. At that time, it caused a lot of doubts and discussions in the industry.
arrived at the event site. Hundreds of armored soldiers raised their arms and shouted "gale, gale". The scene was spectacular, and several main creators were all present. The appearance of big-name actors such as Jet Li, Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung made the premiere starlight. shine. 1905 Film Network once stated in a report that "this seems to herald the arrival of a new era of domestic commercial blockbusters." Gao Jun, the director of the Beijing New Film and Television Association, also said in an interview with 1905 Film Network that the reason for the large-scale gala-style premiere is because the Chinese blockbuster has really come.
The premiere of "Hero"
The premiere of "Hero" has created enough topics and attention for it, and fully mobilized the audience's curiosity. Once the film was released, everyone went to the cinema to watch the movie. Pushed this film to become a box office legend for domestic commercial films. A survey from CCTV showed that 80% of the audience of "Hero" had not entered a movie theater for many years, and the overwhelming publicity was an important driving force for them to enter the theater. Since then, domestic blockbuster films represented by Zhang Yimou's films will be carefully prepared for their grand premiere ceremonies every time they are released.
In July 2004, there was a rare rainstorm in Beijing, but the Workers Stadium was still full of seats waiting for the start of the premiere of "Ambush on Ten Sides". The scenes in the movie were reproduced and the performances of more than ten singers were all made to work. The writer still feels passionate when he recalls: “Andy Lau sang "I Love You For Ten Thousand Years" at the time. The audience sang along and Zhang Yimou stood up and prayed for the film. The scene was particularly spectacular, and it made people feel very moving." For blockbuster films such as "Hero" and "Ambush on Ten Sides", more films will not choose to make the premiere a grand and grand performance. Xingxing Tianxia C, who was responsible for the marketing and promotion of "Aquaman" and "Resident Evil" in ChinaEO An Yugang told Poison Eye: "The previous premiere process was basically the media watching and interviewing the day before, and the development conference in the afternoon the next day. In the evening, I went to a movie studio for screenings, and the creators exchanged after the screening. , Relatively simple."
"Ambush on Ten Sides" premiere scene
Regarding the many film marketing methods represented by the premiere, Zhang Yimou once used such a metaphor to evaluate: the director is "planting carrots", and the marketing is "Selling radishes" is more important than selling. When there are more and more radishes on the market, and the people who sell radishes are becoming more and more picky, yelling becomes more and more important. As the output increases, the importance of yelling becomes more and more prominent. The influence of media screening alone is getting smaller and smaller, so many people start to find new ways to play in the premiere ceremony to achieve surprising results. .
In 2014, An Yugang and his team packaged the pre-screening press conference of "Beijing Love Story" into a "wedding": on the day of the event, the banquet hall of Wanda Hotel was arranged into a warm and sweet atmosphere that fits the film's love theme , At the same time, design the scenes for lovers' warm dialogue and expression of love, which will be displayed emotionally by actors such as Tong Liya, Chen Sicheng, Liu Haoran and Ouyang Nana. After this love movie was released, it did spark a lot of discussions about love and marriage. In 2014, it achieved a box office record of 400 million yuan and became the dark horse of love movies at that time.
"Beijing Love Story"
In recent years, just doing a "creative wedding" may not be enough to attract the audience's attention. In order to stand out in the complex and diverse premiere, the marketers took pains to turn the premiere into a "big show" of creativity and lineup-
In 2018, Jiang Wen's new film "The Evil Is Not Overpowering" "The premiere was selected in Gubei Water Town. Participants need to climb the mountain and walk into the open-air Great Wall Theater to watch the film. For filmmakers living in first-tier cities, the open-air theater on the mountain and the stars can be seen in the night. The movie-watching experience is very fresh, which also brought a certain heat to the film before the screening; in order to be more grounded, some imported films also tried their best to achieve resonance with Chinese culture, such as "Mission Impossible 6" last year. The premiere ceremony was held in Taimiao, Beijing. When director Christopher McCauley and starring foreign filmmakers such as Tomoko stood at the foot of the Forbidden City, they brought the audience a wonderful chemical reaction of Chinese and foreign cultural integration, and also brought the film to the film. There has been a lot of discussion;
and in this year’s National Day file, the premiere of the film "Captain of China" was selected at an altitude of nearly 10,000 meters, and the Sichuan Airlines plane from Beijing to Chongqing was cleverly selected. It is close to the prototype of the story, and allows the creators and invited media and practitioners to truly communicate in the air, and use this unique form to promote the film;
"Captain China" premiered at a height of 10,000 meters
last year "Sea King" Although the Chinese premiere ceremony was set in Beijing's 798 Art District, the circular venue was arranged as an underwater world, and the creators walked the "blue carpet" on the gorgeous and fantastic "undersea". In addition, some films will combine ocean elements and hold the premiere ceremony at sea. “As soon as you enter the cruise ship, you can clearly feel the good intentions of the film party.” A media who once participated in the sea premiere ceremony People said to Poison Eye, “It costs a lot of money at first glance.” Therefore, the more massive and optimistic about the box office market, the easier it is to choose to spend a lot of time at the premiere.
But this does not mean that the premiere ceremony is exclusive to commercial blockbusters. Nowadays, many small and medium cost films also pay special attention to the premiere ceremony.
In August this year, the fifth-generation female director Liu Miaomiao’s long-awaited new film "Red Flowers and Green Leaves" held its premiere in Beijing. All the creators came to the stage to communicate with the audience after the screening, while Huo Siyan and Wang Xuebing sat in the audience. Other well-known actors and directors such as Wang Xiaoshuai and Huo Jianqi, as well as many screenwriters, musicians and artists.
Director Liu Miaomiao (second from left) and Wang Xiaoshuai (third from left) of "Red Flowers and Green Leaves" took a group photo during the communication session. Thank you for everyone’s support-the film premiere at this time is no longer just a prescribed action for film marketing, but a tribute to the film and the filmmakers. The sense of ritual of respecting and loving the film was taken at the premiere. Infinite zoom.
"I often think that the premiere is like a wedding. The creatorsAfter working so long and giving so much love and effort, there should be such a ceremony to explain to the creators. "An Yugang said.
spent a lot of time to make the premiere. How effective is it?
To this day, the premiere activity during the film promotion period seems to have become a "prescribed action" for many film marketing. At the premiere, Poison Eye has seen the female stars who have to run for more than 20 screens and exchange after the screening, and are tired enough to change high heels to flat shoes. New directors who are not good at words but have to answer all kinds of strange questions, and Some foreign filmmakers who have been asked to participate in various interactions but are "lost" due to language barriers. While
is excited about the film's final release, more often than not, the fatigue of the creators runs through from the premiere. The entire promotion period. "The stars are tired, so are we, and everyone is'tossing' together. "A film propaganda practitioner said to Poison Mouth, "But the premiere must be done, or else I always feel that something is missing and incomplete. "
Therefore, even if the premiere event is described by some practitioners as a "big test" and a "burden", whether it is for marketing or for ceremonial considerations, major film parties are paying more and more attention to the premiere event. It has become an undeniable consensus. At the same time, they spend more and more money on the premiere: under normal circumstances, the cost of a premiere varies from hundreds of thousands to several million. The imported Hollywood blockbuster will even cost millions of dollars.
But what is the effect of spending so much time on the premiere?
Many times, the grand premiere ceremony can indeed accumulate a lot of pre-screening heat for the film. "Gathering at the Station" as an example, on the day of the premiere, a number of topics around the film and the starring were posted on Weibo hot searches, and the topic of "Gathering at Southern Station" exceeded 380 million views; the real-time popularity of Weibo showed that its reading The trend was 2.9 million on November 30 before the premiere, and after the premiere on December 1, this number more than doubled; the Beacon Pro version showed that the number of people who "want to see" tickets was also the first After the screening, it has risen from more than 300,000 to the current 450,000. The premiere of "The Gathering at Southern Station" is on the hot search
. "Film with stars tends to create hot spots and topics at the premiere. Driven by fans, it is easy to get on the hot search. "A practitioner who has been engaged in the marketing of many films told Drug Mouth that using celebrity traffic to gain greater exposure for the film is an important reason for many film marketers to bother at the premiere.
, The premiere ceremony is the "preparation" for the pre-screening reputation of the film. Nowadays, the pre-screening reputation often determines the box office of the film in the first week of its release. Therefore, the premiere ceremony is the first time a film meets with the outside world. , The opportunity to accept the test is very important, and it is necessary to strictly ensure the spread of good reputation. During the premiere, some film parties will contract all the theaters of the entire movie theater, and cooperate with major domestic movie groups to book the venue. Movie-watching activities, and the audience of these movie-watching groups are mostly senior movie fans and loyal fans of the starring role, and their word-of-mouth and evaluation are generally more “controllable.” A person in charge of the movie-watching group told Poison Eye that because of the premiere ceremony To watch the film in advance, the audience must be reminded to "refrain" from publicly expressing their dissatisfaction with the film after the screening: "It is basically the industry consensus to encourage the audience of the film group to write praise and promote the film. "
members of the movie watching group posted a message on Douban
. In addition, a film critic told Dumo: "The people who can participate in the premiere are generally related practitioners in the film industry. Some of them have'relationships' and emotions, and they are reasonable. Generally, bad reviews will not be released publicly after the premiere. "Therefore, many film studios have a lot of creativity and experience in the premiere, and they hope to leave a memorable and good impression on the guests present through a special viewing experience.
is just such a kind of "relationship" for word of mouth. The situation, in today's more frequent information exchange, it does not always work. As soon as the premiere of "Shanghai Fortress" is over, many practitioners can see "It's too touching, I cry", "A good movie is worth watching" and many other stars, and Yang Mi, Liu Ruoying and many other stars also publicly expressed their appreciation and support for the film. However, after the film was officially released, Douban scored only 4.2 points, and then dropped to 2.9 points all the way. In some films of poor quality, the premiere event is no longer a panacea. In many cases, the premiere ceremony of "
" does not explain much, and even many good films, such as "Youth"You" are temporarily set and do not have enough time to prepare for the premiere. As long as the film itself is of good quality, it can sell well. "An Yugang said to Poison Eye that whether the money for the premiere is worth the money and what effect can it play in the promotion of the film is a key issue that marketing should consider, especially when the budget is limited. On the contrary, the development of the Internet has provided new "exposure methods" for some films. Before the release of "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter" in 2017, the film crew and An Yugang considered inviting starring Milla Jovovich to come. China participated in the premiere ceremony to create momentum for the film’s publicity, but after learning that the China tour created by a foreign country would cost about two million yuan, An Yugang gave up this idea and chose the cosplay method for "Resident Evil: Final Chapter" Do the premiere and invite many “two-dimensional biochemical fans” to participate on the red carpet.
“In the current environment, inviting a star to do the premiere is no longer a “standard” for the promotion of a movie. Cost-effectiveness is the most important consideration. . If the main creative of a movie is of great interest and topicality, and the dissemination effect that can be achieved by hosting a premiere is greater than the preparation cost, then it can be done. "An Yugang said, "On the contrary, if it is only for the purpose of doing business, it would be better to save the budget and use it for more effective online communication and cooperation, which can also achieve good communication effects. "
Although no foreign film creators were present, the premiere of the second element "breaking the wall" formed a high degree of popularity in the cosplay circle at the time, and it was also an effective marketing aimed at the target audience for the film. The action helped the film not be widely favored by the industry before the screening, and the box office was predicted to be only 200 million 300 million, achieving a box office breakthrough of over 1.1 billion and becoming one of the most popular films. An Yugang believes that, Nowadays, there are many fragmented entertainment methods. Asking a celebrity to hold an event can gather public attention and discussion is not as good as before. Under the bombardment of information from various social media and short video apps, audiences can receive through many channels. The dynamics of celebrities and various premieres are also in an endless stream, and the freshness for the audience is indeed not as good as before.
"Why do you find it more and more difficult to publish in the past two years? That's because the channels and business models used by everyone are basically the same. "A senior distributor once said to Drug Mouth that in recent years, distribution and marketing have become more and more homogenized. Everyone is emphasizing "prescribed actions", but in fact, some marketing models are not suitable for all movies, and if they are used indiscriminately, they will lose out. Because of this, the film and television industry has differentiated two kinds of pre-screening marketing ideas. For the highly anticipated and highly competitive movies like "Captain of China" and "The Evil does not suppress Zheng", everyone is still thinking of ways. To create more eye-catching topics and enthusiasm; while other films need to find a different way, do not invest too much money in the premiere, but spend the cost on the polishing and release of the trailer, choose this kind of coverage A more extensive way for users to show the core of the movie to the audience more specifically, thereby generating box office attraction for them.
"After all, a movie always ranks first in the story, followed by stars and topics. "An Yugang said.
