NABC Chapter 23, Appearing on Happy Camp
Chapter 23, Appearing on Happy Camp
Zeng Hao stood at the door, read the message, and replied: "Don't change the film locking time. Let them work overtime to process it. I'll pay their overtime. If they can't lock the film within the time limit, the post-production director will have half of the final payment deducted."
Peng Bing quickly replied: Okay, I'll pass it on.
Zeng Hao put his phone in his pocket, pushed open the door, and walked out.
The lights in the hallway are motion-activated. When he walked over, the lights turned on briefly, then turned off again when he walked away.
Zeng Hao did not attend the roadshow.
In his office in Qianhu City, he watched the roadshow progress through real-time photos sent by Xu Wen.
In the photo, Peng Bing and Yang Shanshan are sitting on the stage, with 1,200 audience members below. The atmosphere is quite good, and some people are raising their hands to ask questions.
Xu Wen sent a message: The director and lead actors are both in good condition. An audience member asked how the theme song was chosen, and Yang Shanshan answered as you said before, saying that it was chosen by the producer and that it was a very accurate choice.
Zeng Hao replied with a single word: Okay.
He didn't ask any more questions. Going to a roadshow is just a formality; what's truly valuable is the audience's feedback, which will be directly reflected in the box office data.
The next day, the box office figures for the Jiangcheng screening came out: 280 million yuan for the day, an increase of 40 yuan from the previous day.
The roadshow was successful.
Zeng Hao had also made up his mind.
A roadshow is different from a formal release.
They can only hold advance screenings in a few cities that they have arranged.
In my previous life, this was the data from the movie's promotional tour.
It seems the outcome in this life is pretty much the same.
Zeng Hao didn't go to the next five cities, leaving them all to Peng Bing and Yang Shanshan. Xu Wen would send photos and a brief report from the scene every day, and Zeng Hao would reply with just one word after reading them: "Received."
The fourth stop of the roadshow was Xicheng, where a little incident occurred.
During the Q&A session, an audience member said that the film hadn't been promoted enough. He said he only went to see it because someone recommended it on his WeChat Moments, and suggested that the production company do more promotion to let more people know about it.
Yang Shanshan was stunned for a moment, unsure how to answer.
Peng Bing chimed in, saying, "Actually, our publicity strategy is to not do too much promotion. We hope that audiences will go to see the film because it's good, not because they're bombarded with negative reviews. The word-of-mouth for this film will spread from audience members one by one, which is more valuable than any publicity."
This conversation was recorded by the audience and posted on Weibo, where it was forwarded more than 5,000 times.
Someone in the comments section said:
"This director is right. Nowadays, many movies are heavily promoted, but the movie itself is terrible. You feel cheated after watching it."
"The movie 'Back to 20' really gained popularity through word of mouth. Several of my friends recommended it to me after watching it."
"I hope there will be more films like this that focus on creating solid content in the future."
Xu Wen sent Zeng Hao a screenshot of the Weibo post, adding the comment: "This publicity effect is better than buying ten trending searches."
Zeng Hao finished reading the screenshot without replying, saved it, and continued looking at the financial statements in his hand.
The roadshow concluded at the end of September, covering six cities and attracting approximately 7,000 attendees. The cost was less than 100,000 yuan, but the resulting buzz and publicity far exceeded that figure.
After the roadshow, Xu Wen called Zeng Hao to report on the overall situation.
"During the roadshow, the amount of discussion about this movie on Weibo tripled, and the number of people rating it on Douban also increased from 30,000 to 50,000. It is now stable at 8.2 and is trending toward 8.3."
"Has anything gone wrong with the production company?" Zeng Hao asked.
"No, Director Peng and Yang Shanshan worked together very well, and there were no negative incidents on set."
"Okay," Zeng Hao said, "The roadshow is over. Now we just have to wait for the box office to take off on its own. You keep an eye on the data and let me know if there are any abnormalities."
"receive."
After hanging up the phone, Zeng Hao crossed out the roadshow from his memo, turned to the next page, and continued writing down the next arrangements.
The roadshow was just a starting point, igniting word-of-mouth for the film in six major box office cities. The buzz would then build up on its own, without needing any further promotion from him.
What he needs to do is keep an eye on the next project.
On September 25, "Back to 20" was officially released.
Zeng Hao did not go to the movie theater.
He opened Maoyan's real-time box office page in his office, displayed the data in the upper left corner of the screen, occupying a quarter of the space, and continued processing the company's accounting details in the rest of the screen.
The first day's real-time box office reached 370 million by noon.
This figure is not particularly impressive compared to other films released at the same time, ranking third. The top two are an imported Hollywood action film and a new work by a well-known domestic director, each with a lead of 20 million and 8 million respectively.
Zeng Hao glanced at the number, made no reaction, and switched the window back to the accounting table.
Sister Liu poked her head in from the doorway. "Mr. Zeng, how's the box office?"
"They're running," Zeng Hao said without looking up. "Stop staring at them, get back to work."
This is nothing.
After all, fewer people go to the movies in the morning, and the day isn't even halfway over.
Sister Liu didn't ask any more questions and left.
At 3 PM, the real-time box office figure reached 6.8 million, the ranking remained unchanged, but the rate of increase was clearly accelerating. The Maoyan rating was already out, 8.1, with just over 30,000 ratings. Among the top comments, someone specifically posted a screenshot of Lu Han's theme song, adding the caption: "After watching the movie, I looked up the theme song and listened to it on repeat for two hours. Who understands?"
Zeng Hao read the comment once and then closed the page.
This is what he wants.
The theme song was released on September 11th, and it's been half a month since then. Lu Han's fans have pushed the song's play count to nearly eight million, but at the time, only a few people could connect the two events. Now that the movie is out, people who have seen the movie will naturally look for the theme song, and once they find it, they will share it. The two chains of communication converge at this point, forming a self-circulating diffusion structure.
This structure requires no maintenance.
As soon as the official statistics were released, Xu Wen sent a message: The box office figures for the first day are out, 1060 million.
Zeng Hao replied with a single word below the number: Okay.
He minimized the Maoyan page, picked up the black-covered memo on the table, flipped to Zhang Tianai's page, and wrote a line under her name: Box office exceeds 5000 million, Happy Camp will start, time to be determined.
Currently, it has 10.6 million, which is 40 million short of 50 million. Based on the growth pattern of low-budget word-of-mouth films in 2015, if the word-of-mouth spreads well in the first weekend, it is expected to reach the 50 million mark in the second weekend.
He drew a parenthesis next to the number and wrote inside: Expected within two weeks.
Not in a hurry.
Soon, the first week came to an end.
The box office of "Back to 20" has reached 3800 million.
This figure prompted a call from the theater chain. The scheduling manager spoke tactfully, essentially saying that the film's occupancy rate had exceeded expectations, and they planned to increase the screening share next week from 11%. They asked Zeng Hao if he needed any promotional cooperation.
Zeng Hao said no, thanked the other party, and hung up the phone.
The increase in screening ratio is because the movie's occupancy rate is rising. Theaters need to make money; this is the most basic logic, and they don't need to do anything.
On the same day, Xu Wen sent her a message saying that two entertainment media outlets were contacting her for interviews, wanting to do behind-the-scenes features on "Back to 20," and asking if Zeng Hao would accept the offer.
Zeng Hao thought for a moment and replied: "Yes, but not the producer's interview. Let Peng Bing do it, and let the lead actress Yang Shanshan do it too. Mention Lu Han in the theme song section. Don't overemphasize the investment costs. Internal figures are not for public release."
Xu Wen replied: I understand.
By the end of the second week, the cumulative box office figure had surpassed 100 million.
Specifically, at 2:47 PM on Sunday, when Maoyan's page was refreshed, the number jumped from 98.4 million to 1.03 million.
Zeng Hao stared at the number for three seconds, then picked up his phone and sent Xu Wen a message: Contact the Happy Camp production team and arrange for Zhang Tianai to appear on the next episode. Confirm if she can be on the show.