Chapter 67
After that day, Julia seemed to have put her feelings for Eric behind, and began to completely devote herself to the filming. Whether in front of people, or privately, she would only address him as 'Director Williams'.
Of course, Eric had no time to worry about this since as the shooting went on, he took it upon himself to simultaneously do the post-editing. He and the editor were busy until late at night every day, sometimes they wouldn't even have time to go home and directly slept in the office.
Jeffrey was really worried about Eric doing things that way. Usually, you would finish filming before starting the editing, that's why it was called 'post-editing' in the first place! Although Home Alone's shooting had been short, Eric had still followed procedure then, but now he had messed the order up completely.
However, after seeing the end result for himself, Jeffrey calmed down, although he made sure to tell Eric to pay attention to his health and sleeping time. He had also asked the youth many times why he would work so hard with his current achievements. After all, with the capital Home Alone had provided him, he could live prodigally for the next ten years at least.
Eric smiled without explaining, and simply kept working hard. How could Jeffrey possibly understand the kind of ambition he had ? His journey to the top had started the day he had auditioned for the Fox - that was when a seed had been planted. Only hard work and perseverance would let that same seed grow into a strong and healthy towering tree, and Eric wanted to see, exactly how tall and majestic that tree would be.
After three days of shooting, the Pretty Woman crew started accelerating things up. They moved to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, where they began shooting some of the most important scenes.
"Cut !" Eric stuck his head out from behind the monitor, the scene was the one when Edward and Vivian are having breakfast after their first night together.
"The one who's in charge of Julia's lipstick…. the color needs to be changed to a slightly lighter one."
It was a small matter, so Julia didn't need to leave the set. The makeup artist stepped forward and changed it. After a while, she turned towards Eric and asked: "Is this okay, director ?"
Eric looked at Julia, and shook his head: "The color is fine, but make it a little thicker."
The makeup artist modified it again, and Eric nodded, satisfied. He turned around towards Alan Fishman, the 2nd camera assistant, and said: "Alan, write this down for me, will you ? Vivian's lipstick color changes overtime, from bright red to faded red, from faded red to pink, and after Philip Stuckey nearly rapes her, she starts barely wearing any."
Although Alan Fishman was puzzled, he still hastily wrote down Eric's words on a notepad.
Eric didn't bother explaining to the crowd, this was a personal change he had decided to make. He wanted to use this method to highlight Vivian's slow but decisive transformation. It would contrast with her friend, Kit De Luca, who sported a kitsch red lipstick from beginning to end.
…..
At noon, Jeffrey came to see him in a hurry.
"Eric, I talked with Carter Hunt this morning, the Fox wouldn't agree to broadcast Pretty Woman's trailer during the Super Bowl."
Eric put down his lunch, wiped his hands with a paper towel, and asked: "Did they say why ?"
"To broadcast a 60 second trailer at the Super Bowl would cost 1.2 million $, and the Fox thinks of that as a waste, they believe that, in your case, advertising two weeks before the movie is enough." Jeffrey replied, "They still don't have any confidence your new movie will do well, we both know the only reason they agreed to sign three distribution contracts with you was so they could get Home Alone's sequel."
Eric crumpled his napkin and thought for a moment, before saying: "Keep trying to convince the Fox, we at the very least need to get them to air the trailer on NBC. If they don't relent about the Super Bowl, I'll pay from my own pockets."
"Eric, we have a 7 million $ budget, if you really want to have the trailer aired at the Super Bowl, I think a 30 second one is enough."
Eric patiently explained: "Jeffrey, if this was a Star Wars movie with lots of special effects, then yeah, 30 seconds would be enough. But not for Pretty Woman, we need to give the people a taste of it, and I also intend to have the studio's logo inserted in, so 30 seconds will definitely not be enough."
"Well, if you say so…" Jeffrey didn't dawdle too much, it seemed like Eric had made up his mind and nothing would change it. However, the youth had also proven that he was in the right more often than not, so Jeffrey chose to trust him on this, yet again.
Currently, the marketing of Hollywood movies was still relatively conservative, and airing a trailer at the Super Bowl was something that would only be introduced years from now, not to mention it was reserved to the 'Big Six'.
The Super Bowl was THE American show, and it had been since its beginning, with a viewership of over 100 million people. Each year one of the major TV station aired it, and this year was NBC's turn.
A few days ago, Eric had watched Jenny's TV show's first episode, and happened onto a Super Bowl commercial on NBC. That's when he decided to have Pretty Woman's trailer aired there.
The concept of airing a trailer at the Super Bowl was something that had started only a few years before his rebirth, so in this time and day, Eric's idea could be considered avant-garde. Under normal circumstances, even if movies were deemed sure blockbusters, they only aired a trailer on TV one month before the release.
In the first place, Easter was one month after the end of the Super Bowl, however many movie companies chose to release their movies during either summer, or the Christmas period, so not many had even thought of using that method of advertisement.
Another thing was the cost; Super Bowl's ads were very expensive. Eric had checked, and this year the prices had reached a time high of 670,000 $ for a 30 seconds segment. And although that was a lot, it should be noted that the ad would be played for two continuous weeks, at the stadium, and on prime-time television.
So Eric adamantly decided on a 60 seconds trailer for Pretty Woman, this was the second film he directed, and the box office was crucial to him.
While he was confident the movie would do great, he was still concerned deep down about the butterfly effect his presence might generate, so he would definitely not pass on that kind of promotional opportunity. According to his information, and if things went well, Pretty Woman would be the first ever movie to have its trailer aired at the Super Bowl.
With more than 100 million people bearing witness, this would become a hot topic of conversation, and paying 1.2 million $ for that kind of publicity was nothing.
Eric also reckoned that it would be enough to keep the media satisfied until the release date.
"Jeffrey, how's the creation of our logo going ?" After having established Firefly Studios, Eric had discussed with Jeffrey about it, and the two of them had settled on an animated one.
Once they had started shooting Pretty Woman, Eric had asked Jeffrey to accelerate things up.
"I urged Pixar several times about it, they said they'll have it this week and that it won't delay the making of your trailer, so don't worry about it."
Eric nodded, before suddenly asking: "Did you say…. Pixar ?"
Jeffrey was puzzled at his friend's reaction, he asked: "Yeah, why, is there a problem ?"
"You asked Steve Jobs of Pixar to make it ?"
Jeffrey nodded: "Yeah, that guy precisely."
Jeffrey's mouth revealed a hint of a smile as he added: "To be honest, Steve Jobs has been really unlucky in recent years. First he was kicked out of Apple, then he rashly bought Pixar and intended to specialize in computer graphic with their "Image Computer" project, however that didn't work well, and they're now reduced to picking up animated ads requests to keep the company afloat. It's a shame though, their technology is quite good, I've watched Luxo Jr.[1], and that's how I decided to contact them for our logo."
_ _ _ _
[1] 1986 computer animated short-film, more here.
«