The famous and large-scale Johnson Space Center in the United States is located on the shores of Clear Lake, 35 kilometers southeast of Houston, Texas, and was built in 1962 and covers an area of 656 hectares. Thanks to this center, Houston, known as the "energy capital of the world", has gained the reputation of "space city".

Americans have a hobby of promoting themselves, and "Apollo XIII" was directed by the famous China Ming, and NASA decided to provide the crew with a control center in Houston as a scene. This was a very good hype gimmick, but Sun Ziming, under the advice of assistant director Douglas, still politely rejected NASA's kindness, and copied the control center at the studio of the light and shadow company at a ratio of 1:1, and only shot some outdoor exterior scenes in the space center.

After shooting a panoramic shot of the space center, Douglas in the distance trotted over and whispered, "Boss, Miss Claudia said she would come to you in half an hour." ”

'Oh', Sun Ziming didn't raise his head and agreed casually, and continued to look at his shooting plan.

Half an hour later, when Sun Ziming was squirting with Tom Hanks, Claudia arrived with her boyfriend and her boyfriend's friend. In the past two years, she can be described as proud, earning hundreds of millions of dollars in commissions by helping Sun Ziming acquire shares of potential companies, and also harvesting sweet love in business negotiations.

Her boyfriend's name is David Ferro, and most people may not know who he is, but they certainly know the company he and his partner founded - Yahoo! When Yahoo approached venture capital funds last year, Claudia's AngelVcfirm, a company that overtook all competitors, including Sequoia Capital, for $10 million to acquire a 49 percent stake in Yahoo, which had risen to $250 million by the time the company went public on Wall Street on April 12. Of course, these are just some of Claudia's many achievements, and she came to Houston today for a few photos.

Usually on the set, even if Claudia has something, she will wait until the crew breaks to report to Sun Ziming, but today it was unusual, as soon as she arrived on the set, she interrupted his dispute with Tom Hanks, took out a few photos from Wen Jiàn's folder and handed them over.

"Shit! if you don't have something important", Sun Ziming's angry roar was choked in his throat, snatched the photo from Claudia's hand, and looked at her carefully for a long time before looking at her with a gloomy face, and asked, "Where did you get it from?" ”

Claudia pointed to her boyfriend and his friend in the distance, and whispered, "From them." ”

Tom Hanks, who was angry, came over to take a look, and the castle, the sea, and the boats in the photo on a moonlit night were as beautiful as oil paintings, and he stayed for a while before asking, "Claudia, where is this?" ”

Before Claudia's text folder could be closed, Tom Hanks's sharp eyes saw a sketch inside at a glance, and then looked at the photo in Sun Ziming's hand, looked at her in horror, and stuttered: "This is the exterior of your construction?" God, how much does it cost? Are you crazy? ”

Sun Ziming pushed Tom Hanks away, dragged Claudia to a corner where no one was, and said dissatisfied: "Don't you know that this is a trade secret?" ”

Claudia waved at her boyfriend and a scruffy, excited young man, and whispered, "These pictures were made by David's subordinate Gellert, and I don't know any of them, let him explain them to you." ”

Gellert Collins, an engineer at Yahoo, an avid fan of Sun Ziming's films, and a J.K. Rowling book fan, stumbled upon the drawings and thought this was what he thought of as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and tried Photoshop3. 0 software de-synthesis. There is no doubt that Photoshop3. 0 software was not up to the task, he pulled a few friends to modify the software, and it took half a year to finally make the perfect Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on the computer. And what this Gellert Collins did was exactly what Tim had just done, and the special effects for "Independence Day" were a large-scale application of these photographs.

"Claudia?"

Sun Ziming took a photo after signing Gellert Collins, and as soon as he opened his mouth, Claudia knew what he wanted to ask, and whispered: "Gellert's improvement is based on Photoshop 3." 0 software and Photoshop 3. 0 is an upgraded version of Photoshop, and Benjamin is already in talks with the copyright owners Thomas Knoll and John Knoll brothers. ”

"We don't need copyrights, we just buy their software! These things, Tim, they've worked out. ”

As soon as the words came out, Sun Ziming understood Claudia's subtext, Gellette Collins's composite photo, and John Knoll's VFX supervisor of Industrial Light & Magic would also think of it sooner or later. If you want to hold this technology in your hands and stay one step ahead of ILM, John Knoll and his team are the key! Only by taking a salary from the bottom of the kettle and digging out the computer masters under Lucas can he be one step behind in PS technology and win the lead again.

Damn, no poison is not a husband, Sun Ziming's mind was turning, and he immediately whispered: "Let Benjamin dig up John Knoll's team at any cost!" ”

"Well, that's what I've come to you for, Benjamin has sent someone to talk to John Knoll, but he wants to meet with you. According to Benjamin's guess, either he wants to get the promise of dividends on his shares, or he wants to use you as a weight to negotiate with Lucas. Both Benjamin and Peng believe that the latter is more likely, because John Knoll has been working for ILM since '85, where he has been working for eleven years, and already has a deep affection for ILM. ”

After groaning for a while, Sun Ziming's heart flashed a trace of evil thoughts, if you want to use me, then you can't blame me for making the first move.

"Ok, I see. After the last two shoots, I went back to Los Angeles. ”

"Yes, sir", Claudia subconsciously became an assistant and turned to arrange the plane.

……

Indeed, as Jiang Peng and Benjamin guessed, John Knoll just wanted to use the conditions of light and shadow special effects to negotiate with Lucas and win the treatment of shareholding dividends for himself and his team.

During this time, there was news in Hollywood that the light and shadow film company would go public within three years, and employees would receive futures shares or stock options according to their contributions to the company. Immediately, this news was confirmed by George George, general manager of Light and Shadow Group, in the news of ESPN the day before yesterday. And their public relations manager, Miss Alexander, said in an interview that the special effects company will also implement the light and shadow model, but the specific situation will wait for the final decision of the group's chairman China Ming.

In Hollywood, except for the employees of several giants, who envy the employees of Light and Shadow for their good luck, meet a generous boss, and make a fortune, this news actually did not have much of a sensational effect. It's clear that Hollywood's systems are very perfect, and it's all the market's hand that allocates resources, and directors, screenwriters, actors, and behind-the-scenes staff are all making money from movies, not stocks and the like. Even if those employees can get future stocks, it may only be a small amount, and the ones who can really get huge benefits from it are China Ming himself and his generals, such as George, Jiang Peng, and Chris Columbus.

However, this news means a different thing to ILM. The birth of light and shadow special effects was because their boss Lucas refused China Ming's shares, so that the Chinese kid founded his own special effects company, and made the two rivals. Now, China Ming's subordinates have said that the light and shadow special effects company will adopt the employee stock ownership dividend model, what about the industrial light and magic where they are located?

Don't look at Dennis Mullen, John Knoll, Russell Earle, their teams have all won Oscars for visual effects, and they all have annual salaries of millions of dollars, but in fact, their annual income is not even comparable to that of a second-rate actor. In the past, everyone was very satisfied with the status quo, there was no ambition, they all worked hard, the honor belonged to the company, the profit also belonged to the company, and everyone lived with salaries and bonuses, but now it is different. The light and shadow special effects, which have only been established for six years, should also implement the shareholding dividend system?

Can the annual salary and bonus be compared with the dividends of the shares?

Only employees get salaries and bonuses, and it is shareholders who hold shares and dividends!

As soon as the news was confirmed, the dark tide began to surge in the industrial light and magic, and even veterans such as Dennis Mullen and John Knoll were not calm, and began to test the idea of their boss Lucas. Lucas did have a generation gap with his men, as Benjamin had estimated, and didn't understand what they were thinking, so his response was very simple: he called the heads of the departments together and asked the finance manager to publish the company's financials.

"Boys, do you get it? The company made a profit of $31 million last year, how much can your income increase if you take stock dividends? Do you also bear the shares when the company loses money in the future? I'm different from everyone else, in addition to being the boss of the company, I'm also a pretty good director. Over the years, I have relied on the money from making movies to support the operation and development of the company. ”

Lucas is right, he has been supporting the company all these years, and if he hadn't invested the revenue from the Star Wars series into the company, perhaps Industrial Light & Magic would have gone out of business a few years ago. However, Lucas also dodged the question that the company was his own, and everyone else worked for him. Industrial Light & Magic has developed to this day, with a market value of no less than two billion US dollars, and these are his alone, and no one else here has a share!

After a moment of silence, Russell Earle broke the silence, "Boss, what if we're willing to take risks?" ”

Looking at the hope in the eyes of everyone in the conference room, Lucas had a sense of anger that the company was founded by himself and run by himself, and even when the company lost money, he would rather go to the bank for a loan than pay them a high salary. I didn't expect people to use a little trick to let them get Longwangshu! Don't they know that that bastard kid and another bastard are just trying to mess with Industrial Light and Magic?

However, when the words came to his lips and turned around again, Lucas took a long breath and asked rhetorically: "Russell, do you think that if the shareholding dividend is implemented, can the annual salary and bonus given to you be reduced or cancelled?" Otherwise, since everyone wants to hold shares, then value the company first, and you pay cash to buy shares? ”

This is equivalent to not saying it, but Lucas also has his confidence. ILM has a lot of talent and technology, and even if all of them resign, he can find a replacement at any time. Doing special effects, not being a director or writing a script, this industry is not so demanding on individual talent, but more emphasis on teamwork and technology.