During the Spring Festival in 2004, Wu Yuan was not happy.

To be precise, he will not be happy during the Spring Festival every year.

Friends have their own homes to return to and their relatives to reunite, but Wu Yuan can only guard the courtyard alone, eat reunion dinner alone, and watch the Spring Festival Gala.

Even this year's Spring Festival Gala is not as good as in previous years.

Uncle Benshan's classic sketches such as "The Water Deliverer" and "Selling Abduction" are still a little less interesting.

However, Guo Da and Guo Donglin's "Good People Don't Discount" was quite funny, which made Wu Yuan happy for a while.

It's just that this lively Spring Festival still has nothing to do with him after all.

On the second day of the Lunar New Year, after his friends visited his relatives one after another, Wu Yuan stepped on a flight to the United States and left Huaxia, which was in the festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival.

After five months of long post-production, "Your Name" finally finished the special effects.

The reason why it is so slow is not that it is difficult, but that Industrial Light & Magic does not have enough manpower.

After all, Wu Yuan is in the queue, even if he only does a little more than a minute of special effects, one or two hundred special effects shots, but Industrial Light and Magic only dispatched a few special effects artists to him, and there are not many rendering computers.

So it took five months to complete.

When Wu Yuan returned to the United States, he inspected the finished product.

The effect is not bad.

As one of the top special effects companies in Hollywood, the level of industrial light and magic is still very good, and Weta Digital can stand shoulder to shoulder with it.

A team that can do a large-scale sci-fi movie like "Independence Day" is definitely not a problem to do some meteorites, meteor showers and other scenes.

After watching the whole film in its entirety, Wu Yuan paid the final payment satisfied, and returned to China with the original tape of the finished film.

The first thing I did when I returned to China was to find Zhongying.

Although it is still in the Spring Festival holiday, there is no holiday for Han Dong's identity and status.

On the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, Wu Yuan made an appointment with him to meet in the China Film office.

It's still the same, first watch the finished film in the viewing room inside China Film.

It's just that compared with Wu Yuan's previous "science fiction movie" "The Night the Comet Comed", this time he brought "Your Name", the shock is different.

"Director Wu, it's awesome." After watching the 106-minute movie, Han Dong held back such a sentence for a long time.

He said a little excitedly: "This should be the first special effects blockbuster in China, right?" ”

Yes, although the special effects scenes of this movie add up to less than two minutes, it is a meteorite falling from the sky and destroying a village, how can this be regarded as a "special effects blockbuster".

Huaxia special effects movies started late, and it can even be said that they haven't started yet, and the standards naturally can't be the same as Haolaiwu.

It's just that Wu Yuan didn't agree with Han Dong's statement, "This is not a special effects blockbuster, and "Pirates of the Caribbean" dare not say that it is a special effects blockbuster. ”

"My "Your Name" is a youth love movie, and when the time comes, you can't sell dog meat with a sheep's head when China Film is announced!"

Although Wu Yuan planned to make a trailer for these few special effects scenes and release them on the Internet, he didn't dare to hang the gimmick of "special effects blockbuster" when promoting.

It is necessary to clearly play the banner of "youth love movie", and all publicity revolves around this point.

"High school students, romance movies?" Han Dong muttered with some hesitation: "This radio and television is not very acceptable, right?" ”

"Why not?" Wu Yuan smiled slightly: "When I took the script and submitted it for review before, the General Administration passed it without any guidance. ”

"Han Dong, although the male and female protagonists of this movie are high school students, they didn't fall in love, they just exchanged bodies in a dream."

"And at the end of the movie, when they finally met again in the capital, it was already three years later, and I left an open ending, but I didn't say that the two fell in love after they met."

"In this way, when we promote, we can promote it under the banner of "Youth Campus Movie", and we won't talk about love. ”

As we all know, in Huaxia, many "bottom lines" are resilient.

If you are an ordinary director, if you want to make any campus love movies, it is absolutely not possible, and it is impossible for the General Administration to pass the review for you.

But if you are Zhang Yimou and Wu Yuan, then this bottom line is something to talk about.

Wu Yuan did not clearly tell the audience in "Your Name" that the hero and heroine are a couple of lovers or lovers.

At the heart of this film is a rescue that transcends time and space.

In fact, in the original movie, the hero and heroine did not pierce the window paper to determine the relationship between lovers, but they could only say that they liked each other.

Is this propaganda of puppy love?

If it's made by another director, then forget it.

It was taken by Wu Yuan, so it doesn't count.

Anyway, when Wu Yuan applied the script to the General Administration, it was unimpeded, and he was given the green light all the way, and he didn't change a word.

A leader on the side of the General Administration also praised him for his good ending, and the hero and heroine met again three years later, leaving a space for the audience to reverie.

As a person in the system, Han Dong is naturally understandable.

"Also, since the General Administration has no opinions, then I don't have to worry about it."

"When is it going to be released, and is the publicity and distribution work going to start now?"

Wu Yuan nodded: "The sooner the better, I want to take advantage of the fact that this winter has not passed, and also take advantage of the Spring Festival that high school students and college students have received red envelopes, and they have a little spare money in their hands, and they will be released as soon as possible." ”

"It's set for the beginning of March, how about March 1st?"

is still the same sentence, the current mainland movies have no schedule except for the Chinese New Year.

The summer vacation is still far away, and Wu Yuan can only choose to release it in March.

Of course, the advantage of not having a popular schedule is that there are not many movies released every month now, and there is no need to compete for films, and Wu Yuan is not afraid of competing with other directors for films.

"Dong Han, have you all done the posters I asked you to prepare last time?" Wu Yuan asked again.

"It's all done, as long as an order is given, it can be rolled out in bus stations, subway stations, and large squares in first-tier cities across the country."

Speaking of this, Han Dong was also excited.

The scale of publicity and distribution that Wu Yuan wants to do this time is very large.

It's basically the same as the publicity momentum before the release of "Hero" (referring to the mainland), and the light and shadow era spent 10 million yuan for it!

Except for "Hero", there has never been a movie that has spent so much money on publicity.

In order to cooperate with Wu Yuan's publicity plan, China Film helped contact the poster factory and helped to connect with the governments of first-tier cities.

After all, bus stations and large squares are basically built by the government, and the advertising space in this area is easier to contact through China Film.

However, after this experience, if you want to do such propaganda in the future light and shadow era, you can contact yourself.

"Okay, just get the poster ready." Wu Yuan nodded with satisfaction.

In the mainland movies of this year, the publicity methods are really super primitive, and even the three-board axe of Haolaiwu has not been learned.

99% of mainland movies are just hung up in the cinema when they are released, which is considered publicity.

The remaining 1% will pay attention to publicity and do some online and offline marketing.

Why "Hero" is the first blockbuster in China is not only because of the large scale of filming, but also because its publicity level is also a good blockbuster.

"Hero" is the first mainland film to put posters everywhere in major cities, put trailers on squares, and advertise everywhere on the Internet.

And now for the second bite of soup, Wu Yuan wants to taste it first.

And the propaganda poster he prepared is different from the simple and crude propaganda method at present.

After confirming the release date with Han Dong, Wu Yuan returned to the company and convened the company's publicity department to connect with China Film and make preparations for local promotion.

Several employees who Wu Yuan specially recruited from Zhongguancun to be responsible for online propaganda work were also urgently recalled to the company.

During the Spring Festival, the overtime pay was tripled, and everyone did not complain and immediately put into work.

February 1st, the eleventh day of the first month.

The festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival has gradually faded in big cities, and there are more pedestrians wearing red and green on the road.

Most of the industries are back in business, and only the vast student body is still enjoying their winter break.

Ye Xingmei is a sophomore at Beijing Normal University, and today she made an appointment with a few classmates, planning to take advantage of the holiday to go to a newly opened skating room in Xicheng to play.

Nowadays, ice skating is one of the favorite sports of high school students and college students, and every holiday, the skating room is full of young people skating.

Afraid that she would be late and run out of shoes, Ye Xingmei left home in a hurry at ten o'clock in the morning and waited at the bus stop not far from her home.

After just waiting for seven or eight minutes, the No. 12 bus she was going to take was delayed.

Ye Xingmei looked around a little bored, and soon, she noticed that a poster appeared on the bus sign that she hadn't usually seen.

Two young and beautiful men and women are lined up on either side of the poster, each with their backs to each other.

The man has a hairstyle with bangs, which is very fashionable at the moment, and the woman has shoulder-length hair behind her shoulders.

Both wore school uniforms, but the backgrounds were different, the boys were in a big city, and the girls were on a hillside.

And the school uniforms they wear are also different, the boys' school uniforms look like the style of the capital, imitating the shirt and trousers of the Japanese-style school uniform, and the girls are wearing shabby "face pocket" sports school uniforms.

Although she could only see their backs facing back, Ye Xingmei felt that the two of them must be very good-looking and have a good temperament.

But that's not the point that attracted her.

What really attracted her was the middle of the poster, which divided a line of big characters between the two.

"No matter where you are in the world, I will definitely see you again."

This line of writing is vertical, and it is written in thin gold font, which happens to separate the two people in the poster, one left and one right.

On the header of the poster, there are also two lines of horizontal titles.

"Your Name"

"March 1st, let's watch it together."

At the bottom of the poster, there are also two lines of horizontal subtitles.

"Director Wu Yuan's latest work."

"Starring: Hu Ge, Liu Yifei."

Seeing these two lines of subtitles, Ye Xingmei immediately knew that this was a movie poster.

Wu Yuan, the director, knows that she went to the cinema with her classmates last year to watch "Pirates of the Caribbean"!

Wu Yuan is a director who can direct a super blockbuster in Hollywood.

Ye Xingmei doesn't know any film art, nor does she know what the three major European film festivals are, so in her opinion, Wu Yuan is better than Zhang Yimou, the director of "Hero".

Zhang Yimou's "blockbuster" is just a Chinese movie, but Wu Yuan's blockbuster is released worldwide!

Such a bullish director, there is a new movie to be released in China, and it seems that it was still made by Chinese actors, Ye Xingmei was immediately moved.

Especially the sentence in the middle of the poster, when she read it silently in her heart, she really felt so romantic.

No matter where you are in the world, I will definitely see you again.

Ye Xingmei, who is in the prime of her youth, really has no resistance to this kind of romantic copywriting.

Bus number 12 arrived.

Finally, I took a deep look at the poster, remembered the sentence on the poster, and remembered the release date on March 1, Ye Xingmei got on the bus.

She plans to tell her classmates the news of the movie as soon as she gets to the skating room!

Magic capital, Xuhui.

As the country's leading economic city, the economic conditions of residents in Modu are generally much better than those of inland cities.

For example, computers that have not yet been popularized or even rare in inland areas are already a very common household product in the magic capital.

Chen Wei, who is a freshman this year, is a senior netizen.

During the Spring Festival, a day of national celebration, he didn't go out with his friends, but locked himself in his room and surfed the Internet with the big-ass desktop computer his parents bought for him.

At the beginning of 2004, the Internet ecology in the mainland was still relatively primitive.

Although the number of registered QQ users has risen to 200 million, most netizens have no other pastime than to chat in chat rooms, surf forums and play games.

The first mainland video platform will not be established until November, that is, LeTV.

However, if there is no professional video website, it does not mean that there are no videos published on the Internet.

Nowadays, many forums have been connected to the function of uploading videos, and users can upload and share some videos they have shot with DV to the forum.

In recent days, in the major forums of the domestic Internet, there is a video that is spreading wildly, forwarded among QQ friends.

This video is the movie trailer for Your Name.

Watching movie trailers on the Internet is definitely an extremely novel experience for mainland netizens.

Not many movies even now make movie trailers!

The last movie trailer was "Hero", and the trailer of "Hero" was only shown on TV!

Watching movie trailers on the internet is still a very novel experience!

Chen Wei was attracted by this interesting thing.

It doesn't matter if the trailer itself is good or not, the main thing is the act of watching the trailer on the Internet, which is really interesting.

Chen Wei clicked on the link sent by a QQ friend and entered a forum to discuss movies.

Click on a post at the top of the forum, and a flash playback page will pop up immediately.

Because Chen Wei's computer has flash decoding software, the video played smoothly after a few turns of the buffer icon.

As soon as the trailer opens, it is a picture of at least the stratosphere, with a huge meteor pulling a brilliant tail flame and streaking through the camera.

"On that day, a once-in-a-millennium meteor shower came."

"Everything is like a dream."

As Hu Ge reads, the camera follows the meteor and falls to the ground.

At the beginning, it was such a cool picture that deeply attracted Chen Wei's attention.

Is this the picture that can be seen in Chinese movies?

Chen Wei, who is well-informed and has watched a lot of Hollywood movies (although they are pirated discs), was shocked on the spot.

His eyes were glued to the screen.

The comet appears in the sky through the clouds.

As soon as the camera turned, a girl on the ground wearing the costumes of ethnic minorities in the southwest raised her head to look at the meteor shower streaked in the sky, with a touching smile on her face.

"It's so beautiful!"

Chen Wei sighed at the same time as the girl.

But the girl in the trailer sighed at the beautiful meteor shower, but Chen Wei sighed at the girl's face.

"Isn't this Wang Yuyan!" Chen Wei was stunned for a moment, and then he reacted, he knew this girl!

Nothing gave him time to think too much, and the tight trailer footage quickly jumped into a somewhat shabby small room.

Hu Ge, who was sleeping on the bed in his pajamas, suddenly woke up and sat up.

The background BGM also began to enter, and a prelude full of pop rock flavor sounded.

"After class? I'm sorry, I'm going to work part-time. ”

"I'm fed up with this kind of small village, I must be reincarnated as a handsome guy in the capital in my next life!"

The pictures on the trailer keep jumping, one will be the picture of the male protagonist living and working in the capital, and the other will be the picture of the female protagonist cooking, going to school, and playing basketball in the countryside.

Chen Wei began to feel that something was wrong.

Especially when I saw Liu Yifei jumping up and shooting in the trailer, it caused the male classmate sitting opposite to look like a pig.

Just when he was wondering, the answer appeared.

Liu Yifei, who was standing in front of the mirror with a ponytail tied, muttered to himself: "Speaking of which, I've been having strange dreams lately. ”

"In my dreams, I felt like I was a different person."

The trailer begins to jump again, and the fragments of life fragments of the two exchanging lives appear.

From the beginning of confusion, to gradually disbelief.

"Really?"

"We swapped bodies in a dream?"

At this point, the trailer comes to an abrupt end and the screen goes black.

Just when Chen Wei thought the trailer was over and picked up the mouse to close the video, the screen suddenly lit up again.

It's the same comet from the beginning, but this time it's a frontal view.

The comet, covered in flames and tail flames, came at the camera in a daze, getting bigger and bigger, bigger and bigger.

A sense of oppression and tension rose from the bottom of Chen Wei's heart.

This shot is too real, this comet, no, the meteorite looks exactly like it's real, as if a meteorite is really going to fall on its face.

Just when the meteorite was about to hit the camera, the picture went black again.

This time it's really gone.

An end credits light up.

"Wu Yuan's director's work"

"Your Name"

"March 1st, let's watch it together."

(End of chapter)