After the end of the annual meeting, the end of the year will come. Zhang Ran doesn't plan to celebrate the New Year in China this year, there are too many people who come to visit the New Year in China, relatives, Zhang Ran's students, and even local officials, there are too many entertainments. Now that Zhang Ran has a child, he doesn't want to be so tired, so he flew to Lanai Island with his family to hide and relax.

Zhang Ran was influenced by Bergman and also built a private movie theater on Lanai. During the Chinese New Year, Zhang Ran's private cinema is open to residents across the island, showing three movies a day, one in the morning, one in the evening. In addition to screening the latest American movies, it also screens "Exquisite Ancient City", which is currently being screened in China, and "Havoc in Heaven".

Zhang Ran's family is full of praise for "Exquisite Ancient City", and thinks that the movie is completely Hollywood level, and it is very good in all aspects; The residents of Lanai haven't watched "Journey to the West" and don't know about Monkey King, so they are quite happy to watch.

In this week, 11 new films were released in China, including the magical masterpiece "Exquisite Ancient City" and "Havoc in Heaven", as well as the comedy "Macau Fengyun", the parent-child theme "Where Are You Going, Dad", and the animated film "Pleasant Goat", etc., which can be said to be a very competitive schedule.

In the previous life, "Havoc in Heaven" achieved a box office of more than 1 billion, "Macau Vice" achieved a box office of 520 million, and "Where Are You Going, Dad" became a big dark horse, achieving a box office of 700 million, and sparked a discussion about whether variety movies are movies. But the reputation of these movies is worse than the other, so much so that some viewers say that the Spring Festival stalls are simply a concentration camp for bad movies.

This time, however, the situation has changed dramatically. "Exquisite Ancient City" crushes many bad movies with its wonderful story, excellent special effects, and excellent production. In the seven days of the Spring Festival, "Exquisite Ancient City" topped the crowd with a box office of 840 million yuan; "Havoc in Heaven" ranked second with a box office of 320 million; "Where Are You Going, Dad" was a big dark horse during the Spring Festival, with a box office of 180 million, and although "Macau Fengyun" had the support of Wanda Cinemas, it only won a box office of 140 million yuan, ranking fourth.

Zhang Ran was not surprised by this result and knew that this would be the case. It is often said that Chinese audiences like to watch bad movies, and even some people in the film industry say so, not that we are not afraid of good movies, but that the audience loves to watch bad movies. Zhang Ran felt that this statement was particularly brain-dead, and the person who said these words simply didn't know anything about the film market. In recent years, with the development of the economy, more and more Chinese audiences are willing to enter the cinema, so movies have become a rigid demand in popular schedules. Especially during the Spring Festival, everyone is willing to go into the cinema. It's just that Hollywood blockbusters are excluded, and the movie theaters are basically domestic bad movies, and the audience has no other choice. Of course, demanding audiences may choose not to watch a suspected bad movie when they see it, but for the vast majority of people, watching movies, which is acceptable to men, women and children, and the cost is not high, is the best choice, and they can only choose one from the bad movie. Therefore, the audience does not love to watch bad movies, let alone like bad movies, but there is no better choice.

If it is an ordinary person who scolds the audience for watching bad movies, it is just ridiculous that even many filmmakers follow suit, which is simply shameless. You have to cancel the domestic protection month and put Hollywood movies in, and you see how many viewers go to your bad movies. To tell the truth, if the state really cancels the protection policy, the domestic gang of unenterprising goods will not even have to eat the dregs of rice, only starve to death.

In the period when bad movies are rampant, if a high-quality domestic commercial blockbuster appears, it will definitely be crushing. Under the backdrop of bad movies, the reputation of high-quality domestic blockbusters will explode, and they will even be hailed as masterpieces, such as Jiang Wen's "Let the Bullets Fly". "Exquisite Ancient City" is quite excellent in all aspects, and it is also a first-class level in Hollywood, so it is not surprising to crush a lot of domestic bad movies.

Everyone knows that "Exquisite Ancient City" will be very good at the box office and is the biggest favorite of the box office champion, but no one expected that the performance of "Exquisite Ancient City" would be so strong that one of the box office topped the other 11.

Many people think that Yang Qing's "Exotic" vs. Feng Xiaogang's "Private Custom" is also the result of the Lunar New Year, "Exotic" achieved a box office of 2.2 billion, while Feng Xiaogang's "Private Custom" only won a box office of 350 million. As a result, everyone sighed that if there were one or two excellent commercial blockbusters in each schedule, the good days of bad domestic movies would come to an end!

After the Spring Festival, Zhang Ran did not rush to return to China, but set up a film studio on Lanai, with the goal of combining VR technology with film and exploring the language of VR film. The studio is led by creative director Ashka, who spent six years at Pixar Studios, where he directed the short film "Blue Umbrella Love". In addition, the studio includes technical directors Max Planck, Edward Thatch, and other well-known names in the film industry.

After the studio was established, Zhang Ran invited graduates of Asian films, including Lin Yibin, Neil Blomkamp, Ning Hao, and Yang Qing, to visit Lanai and announced his plans to them. Zhang Ran told Lin that in the next two years, the studio will invest $100 million to shoot 10 to 20 VR movies, and show the VR glasses, a variety of VR cameras, and various VR shooting equipment developed by Century Peak.

The directors present are all relatively young, and many of them are science fiction enthusiasts, and they are very receptive to the new thing such as VR movies. After seeing VR equipment and experiencing the ultra-high immersion brought by VR glasses, everyone said that they wanted to try VR movies.

In the following week, Lin Yibin and his team used VR equipment to test shoot, which is completely different from traditional films, and the traditional film language is basically ineffective in VR. In the process of test shooting, Lin Yibin and the others tried various film techniques, and everyone found that except for long shots and in-camera montage, other film languages could not be used. The most frustrating thing is that you can't edit, and once there is a cut, the audience will feel that the character is teleporting like The Flash.

However, this difficult situation did not discourage everyone's enthusiasm, but aroused everyone's fighting spirit. Many people think that today's VR is like when the film was first invented, when the film practitioners did not know "push, pull, pan and heel", and there was no lens language and no montage, it was through the efforts of several generations of filmmakers that modern film theory and lens language were only defined in the 6 and 70s of the world. Since filmmakers in the past could create a cinematic language, we can also create a cinematic language that belongs to VR!

A week later, Lin and the others left Lanai to conceive their own VR work, and Zhang Ran began to prepare his own VR movie. As far as Zhang Ran's current film language is concerned, VR can only shoot long shots. In this case, the VR movie should not be too long, and it is more appropriate to be less than 20 minutes. However, Zhang Ran wanted to try to make a VR feature film, which lasted 40 to 60 minutes, which was a huge challenge.

Just when Zhang Ran was taking care of his children and preparing for a VR movie, VR suddenly became popular all over the world.

On the morning of February 19, Sony showed off a VR headset called Oneiroi at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, which is specially designed for the PS4 console, unlike other companies' products, which require a top-of-the-line computer to work with it in order to play the effect of VR equipment.

At the Game Developers Conference, Sony said it was best positioned to make the virtual reality dream a reality. Shuhei Yoshida, head of Sony's video game software division, said: "Oneiroi's form is similar to Oculus' VR glasses, and it can be seamlessly integrated with the PlayStation's gamepad to create an immersive feeling. ”

A week later, internet giant Amazon announced that it had reached an agreement with VR technology company Oculus Inc. to acquire Oculus Inc. for $2 billion, including $400 million in cash and $1.6 billion in common stock.

Amazon's acquisition of Oculus has caused a huge stir in the industry and has also attracted the attention of countless people. You must know that Oculus has only been established for less than two years, and now it has been acquired by Amazon for $2 billion.

In an interview with the media, Brendan Eribi, CEO of Oculus, said: "VR is the ultimate platform, and in the future, all display terminals will be able to realize it with VR glasses. Let's say you hold out a hand and a phone screen appears on it, which can be operated, but the phone is actually displayed through glasses. It's like 20 years ago, you saw a person talking on the phone with Big Brother and talking to himself and thinking he was crazy, but now it seems normal, and technology will change that perception. ”

When talking about rivals Sony and Century Peak, Brendan Eriby, a 21-year-old young man, showed confidence and domineering that did not match his age: "I have never seen Sony Oneiroi as a competitor, Sony wants to be an early promoter of VR equipment and wants to be the first to integrate VR and game entertainment; Century Summit is very strong, Zhang Ran is my idol, but Oculus has the best VR technology and we are not afraid of any competitor." Of course, if they can do a good job, I am happy to see it, and if VR is to develop, more people need to join. ”

Sony did not respond to Brendan Ereby's wild words. But Hastings saw this as a good opportunity to hype up Motorola VR, so he stepped forward and fought back: "Oculus is a good technology, and it is eye-catching in the VR field. However, Motorola has been in the VR field since 2011 and has been developing VR glasses, and we have made breakthroughs in technology, and our technology is the most advanced. We will be showcasing our prototype at E3 in June this year, and we believe that after seeing our prototype, you will definitely understand what real VR technology is!"

Google has been following the trend of the peak of the century, and after Hastings announced that it would show the prototype at the E3 electronic entertainment exhibition, Google soon announced: "Google will show the VR prototype at the electronic entertainment exhibition, and this VR headset developed by Google can allow more people to experience the fun of VR!"

First, the peak of the century sold the Motorola mobile phone business and established a VR company; then Sony released a VR headset; and then then, Amazon acquired an inconspicuous VR company at a price of 2 billion; this was eye-catching enough, and now Google has also jumped out and said that it will release a VR prototype, so VR is completely popular. Even giants such as Oracle and Intel couldn't sit still, and they expressed their optimism about VR and announced their entry into the VR field.

Technology giants have deployed VR, making developers and investors believe that the VR industry has broad prospects and will become the next outlet of the Internet. Investors began to throw money into the VR industry like crazy, trying to find the next Oculus and get a tenfold or even hundredfold return on investment, and entrepreneurs who saw the wind began to frantically pour in.

In just one month, more than 40 new VR startups were added in North America, with 11 receiving angel or Series A investment, and 10 VR startups in China were added, with 5 receiving angel investment.

Just like big data a few years ago, the concept of VR is completely popular!