Ronald came to the PBS television station's New York office again and met with Helen's father, Gerald Slater.
Gerald saw the storyboards that Ronald drew for Helen, and asked his secretary Stella to inform him that he should come to the office to "discuss" the details of the advertisement with him.
"Mr. Slater." Ronald was introduced into the office by Stella and greeted Gerald.
Gerald Slater motioned him to sit down with his hand, while still talking on the phone:
"Yes, our PBS is an alliance of education stations from all over the country. Of course, our control over the sub-stations is not as powerful as NBC, ABC, and CBS. So when we were filming TV series, we were not active enough in ordering sub-stations, and we did not have the budget for filming.
They are so tall.
Yes, this means that there is no way to invest in large-scale production. If we produce our own TV series, the budget will be insufficient, and the ratings may not be too high, unless you find the next George Lucas.
...So I suggest introducing TV dramas from continental Europe, especially Britain, as they have more advantages in language.
We also need to increase investment in documentaries. Yes, this is our advantage. There are many documentary enthusiasts in the local education stations under the alliance, mainly middle-aged men with good spending power. Advertisers will like it..."
Ten minutes later, Gerald finally finished talking on the phone with other senior executives and thought of Ronald who was sitting doing nothing.
"I've seen your shooting script and storyboards. Your skills are pretty good."
"Thank you for the compliment, Mr. Slater..."
Gerard Slater raised his hand and stopped Ronald from continuing, "However, your script did not reflect Helen's advantages at all. What's going on? I thought you would know her quite well."
Ronald was stunned, "Mr. Slater, that was the first time I met Helen. I didn't know much about her advantages..."
"Pia told me the details later. You are not his date." Gerald raised his hand again to stop Ronald's defense. "But it has been so many days and you haven't deepened our relationship."
Does she understand?"
"I have been busy filming the first version of the chewing gum advertisement in the past few days..." Ronald saw Gerald raising his hand again and said quickly, "I will learn more about her specialties. I spent the first two months
She has been filming a movie based on an acting college, and she is familiar with her high school teacher."
Gerald put down his half-raised hand and nodded with satisfaction, "I divorced Helen's mother, which hurt her a lot. It's not pleasant for her to live with her mother, a lawyer who specializes in promoting anti-nuclear and equal rights. I can only
Try to create conditions for her to do what she likes.
Letting her transfer from Great Neck High School to the Performing Arts Academy in Manhattan was something I did for her because I knew Helen loved acting and music."
Ronald nodded. Gerald's social status was higher than Elizabeth Su's father, but he was very willing to spend time on his daughter's affairs and was a good father.
"To give you a hint, Helen has received jazz training since she was a child. She is a good piano player and can also sing well."
Ronald took a pencil from Gerald's desk, drew a new storyboard sketch on the back of the storyboard, and then handed it to Gerald.
"The way I thought about it, Helen could play a young jazz singer. After playing and singing a line, she picked up chewing gum from the piano and said the advertising slogan."
Gerald finally looked at it and somewhat appreciated Ronald's impatience.
"In this way, if she sits in front of the piano and aims at the camera at a 45-degree angle, she can express her temperament. I don't know if her face is more photogenic. I can arrange the position of the piano at that time."
"Both sides are fine, but the left side is better." Gerard had already tested his daughter's talent in acting.
After getting down to business, Gerald pressed the intercom and asked his secretary to bring in two cups of freshly brewed coffee, "Try the Brazilian products my friend gave me."
Ronald picked up a cup. It was indeed extraordinary. It had no sour taste like cheap coffee. It had a rich aroma and a very good taste.
"I heard you encountered some trouble at CBS?" Gerald suddenly asked while Ronald was tasting coffee.
"Yes, Darcy Maguire, the creative director of bbdo who hired me, is a woman who wears pants. I seem to be involved in a power struggle within their company."
"Stressed? You can handle it, right?" Gerald took a sip of coffee, put down the cup, then spread his hands and pressed his fingers against the fingers of the other hand. He stared at Ronald with bright eyes.
.
"It's not a problem," Ronald said easily. "The more small moves the other party makes, it means that someone within the competitor has discovered the excellence of my version of the advertisement. This is not a gap that can be made up by the level of shooting."
"They used a lot of unscrupulous tricks. I still have to find an absolutely reliable place to do editing and post-dubbing. I don't know Mr. Slater..."
"You go find Stella, she will arrange it." Gerald picked up the coffee again, picked up the top file of the pile of documents on the table and read it with his other hand.
Ronald knew it was time to leave.
In the editing room of the TV station that Stella helped contact, Ronald was discussing the final edit with Spike Lee and cameraman Dixon.
"How about this voice-over narration, I specially asked the dialogue teacher in the department to help me with it. Why does the gymnast Jenny no longer eat the old carefree chewing gum, but started to eat the new version of Chewels chewing gum?" Isn't it a bad price?
?
"It's a great value for money." Ronald was very satisfied with Spike's connections among black people, so the black script teacher charged him a friendly price, and his accent was completely indistinguishable from that of a black person.
"He can imitate Shakespeare's accent, British poor Cockney accent, New York Brooklyn accent, no problem at all."
Ronald stood in front of the editing machine and practiced Walter Mersey's editing theory. The effect of standing editing was indeed better. He had pressed the button three times in a row and it all ended on the same frame.
The TV station's editing machine was different from the Moviola editing machine that Ronald used at New World Productions. Instead of physically cutting the film, he wrote down the time code of the video master tape, and then cut the different time codes.
The clips were re-recorded together.
Some movies also use this kind of editing machine, which first converts the film into tape mode, then edits it, and finally sends it to the lab with time code, so that the final negative editor can cut the real film.
The three of them produced the edited master tape, made a copy and placed it at Ronald's house, and sent the other copy to the creative director, Miss Maguire.
"These are two versions of advertisements with different lengths. This version is 15 seconds, with causes and consequences. This version is 5 seconds, with only two lines." Ronald played the advertisement on the video recorder in the office and gave it to Darcy Maguire.
I explain.
"I feel like your long version is similar to a short version advertisement, without much content." Darcy Maguire pointed at the TV screen and said.
"Yes, so I suggest that if you have 15 seconds, you might as well play the short version of the advertisement three times, so that the probability of being heard by the TV audience is higher." Ronald said with a smile.
"Okay, you can go to the meeting with me. The bosses have to review it in person before putting it out for testing." Darcy Maguire picked up the videotape and appeared in the company's largest conference room with Ronald.
"My dear Darcy, I heard that your editing had another accident? Why did you hire this kind of college student to shoot? When did bbdo not be able to afford a professional production company?" Competitor, another creative director Dan Heda
Xi said after shaking hands.
"Because some people within the company do not respect the interests of customers and want to sabotage advertising production to win." Darcy Maguire did not show weakness, and his words were sharp, "It is a pity that this is in vain. Ronald has cooperated with PBS.
We were able to get CEO Gerald Slater's daughter to appear."
"You..." Dan was hit by Darcy's accusation, and he stood up to refute.
"Hey, hey..." There was a voice clearing the throat from the top of the conference table, it was the partners speaking, "Don't worry, let's take a look at the advertising samples of both parties first."
Ronald also sat on the armchair, curiously looking at what the other party's advertisement looked like.
A burst of snowflakes flashed on the TV, and a large outdoor billboard appeared. A painter was painting a graphic advertisement for Chewels.
Ronald's lighting and art work looked very luxurious, and the cost was probably not low. Unfortunately, the effect cannot be seen on a TV. If it were shot with film and put on the screen, it would probably be quite shocking.
An old man walked past and asked the advertising artist, "Why did you forget the word sugar-free?" He then took out a chewels chewing gum and pointed it out to the artist. There were two words "sugar-free" on the package.
"Oh, because chewels taste so good, I forgot!"
The voiceover begins: "It's easy to forget that Chewels is sugar-free. It's the only sugar-free gum on the market with a delicious flavor."
Ronald laughed. This idea was quite interesting and had a sense of humor.
The other party's director was Hugh Hudson, a Briton from RSA. He saw Ronald smiling and nodded to him with a smile.
Ronald also nodded in greeting. What was playing on the TV was his own version.
Elizabeth Su climbed off the uneven bars and took out the old-fashioned Carefree sugar-free chewing gum. Ding bell! Suddenly, like magic, she replaced it with the new Chewels chewing gum.
The voiceover began to ask, "Why does gymnast Jenny stop eating the old Carefree gum and start eating the new Chewels gum?"
Elizabeth Sue faces the camera: "Because chewels taste better!"
The joyful emotion of the sports girl was very easy to convey to the audience, and Ronald was very satisfied. Although Hugh Hudson grasped the details of the shooting better, and the lighting and performance were indeed better than him.
"Everyone has seen that the advantages and disadvantages of these two versions of advertisements are very clear. Let's not waste time and just use Xie's version." Dan, the creative director of the other party, said with full malice, "There is no need to use your advertisement.