Chapter 524: Microsoft asks Ronald to shoot commercials
"So, why, why, Ronald, why is this happening? I asked Kevin many times why these people in Hollywood would do this to me, and he couldn't tell me any reason, so I have to ask you..."
After Whitney Houston returned from Britain, she officially began to organize her "Bodyguard" global concert. Both the film and the album were widely recognized around the world, which made her very surprised and happy. Taking advantage of her fame to reach its peak,
Directly started the money-making mode.
But at this time, a piece of news made her so angry that she flew directly to Los Angeles to confront her friends in Hollywood.
Before and after the Oscar nominations were announced, the annual Golden Raspberry Awards also released the nomination list. "The Bodyguard" was nominated for seven nominations, of which Whitney Houston received three nominations. They were for Worst Actress,
Worst New Star, Worst Original Song Award.
"Whitney, you have to know that no one in Hollywood really takes this nomination seriously..."
To be honest, Ronald understands Whitney Houston's anger very well. Anyone who makes a movie for the first time and has a big success, but fails to be nominated for an Oscar, but gets a lot of Golden Raspberries, must feel that someone is behind it.
Target her deliberately.
"That's right, Whitney, you see, I was also nominated for Worst Actor, and Ronald..." Kevin Costner felt that Ronald's words were more convincing than his own, so he quickly continued.
"I was also nominated for Worst Picture. And two of your songs won the Best Original Song Award. I think it speaks volumes. An episode in a movie also won the Oscar for Best Original Song and the Golden Lacquer.
The Golden Raspberry Worst Original Song. Anyone who has read it will understand that the Golden Raspberry Award is an award with no credibility..."
"But I still feel that they are targeting me. I have seen that many stars have been nominated for Golden Raspberries before. Is it related to this that they did not give me an Oscar nomination?" Whitney Houston continued, she seemed a little bit
Overreaction.
"Whitney, have you ever seen a gorilla in the zoo?" Ronald could only use an analogy.
"What do you mean?" Whitney Houston suddenly woke up when she heard about the gorilla. What do you mean?
"Gorillas sometimes make friendly gestures to tourists and do some very disgusting actions, such as picking up their own... um... excrement and throwing it at tourists. But tourists don't do the same thing, right? Gold acid
The Berry Awards is a vulgar and disgusting white film critic, John J.B. Wilson, and this is how some people use him to disgust celebrities..."
"Oh, it turned out to be a white man... forget it..."
After Ronald said a few words, Whitney Houston was able to look at this matter from an objective perspective. The Oscar for acting was not awarded to her as a guest singer, and she was not a Jewish Barba.
La Streisand being nominated for two Best Original Songs is a huge boost to her career.
"Thank you, your words are more trustworthy..." Kevin Costner breathed a sigh of relief, otherwise Houston wouldn't be able to bear calling him every day.
"What are you doing?"
"Pandas, I plan to push the San Diego Zoo to rent a pair of pandas..."
"This is a good thing. My children will be very happy." Kevin Costner also happily signed his name on the open letter. This is a famous act with no risk. Who doesn't want to be a Hollywood star in the eyes of his children?
Have you been labeled as a "great and good person" since you were a child?
"What kind of animal is this? It's so cute, Panda. Do you want to bring in a pair? No Shxt? I'll sign too..." Whitney Houston went to chat with Diane for a while and discovered the cuteness of this black and white fur color.
The animals are also very happy.
"Mr. Counselor, please let me do this. I have collected the signatures of more than thirty Hollywood stars, hoping to rent giant pandas for artificial breeding research."
"I've already reported it, just wait for the good news..."
…
"Commander William delivered his first policy speech at the joint meeting of the House of Representatives and the Senate. His topic was the economic stimulus plan..."
In the evening, Ronald saw the commander-in-chief's face with a little baby fat again on TV. Everyone expected that the theme of his first speech to Congress would be related to the issues promoted by several major "investment" groups in him rumored in Washington.
At that time, he insisted on the main focus of his campaign, economic issues.
"The stimulus package is designed to reduce the federal budget deficit, which will be accomplished primarily by increasing taxes and cutting government spending. I propose increasing income taxes on high earners while cutting funding for certain government programs.
Increase taxes on the wealthy and large corporations, including increasing rates on households earning more than $250,000, and reform the Social Security tax.
Encourage business investment and innovation. For example, encourage businesses to engage in capital investment and research and development through tax incentives and exemptions.
Improve the skills and competitiveness of the workforce through vocational training and education programs. These measures are designed to help displaced workers re-enter the job market and respond to changing economic needs
…”
"This sounds pretty good... but David Geffen will be angry after reading it..." After Ronald read it, he had a pretty good impression of the new commander.
Although this stimulus plan includes plans to increase taxes on the wealthy, the subsequent new policy on corporate investment exemptions is actually more beneficial to Ronald.
Those who are really hurt by this tax increase plan are those high-income professionals and business executives. Rich people like Ronald can obtain various tax exemptions through their companies. And this time his investment tax preferential plan
, and also goes a step further, not only limited to previous investments in the capital market, but also including investments and mergers and acquisitions in private enterprises.
In this way, Ronald's investment in buying Voyager will be able to obtain greater tax deductions and rebates under the new tax plan.
"This is simply better than when old George was the commander-in-chief. I hope the Congress in March can pass this plan..."
Ronald found it very interesting, saying that he was the leader of a donkey party, but his economy was actually more open than George Sr., almost the same as when Sr. Ronald came up.
As for the lobbying groups that made a lot of noise in Washington in the early days, such as minority groups' expectations for equal rights within the military and equality for women, the commander-in-chief did not touch it. Instead, he directly gave a big cake to the civilians and the middle class.
They have expectations of enjoying the fruits of economic development.
The truly wealthy are also satisfied with this. They can obtain tax incentives through investment and strengthening R&D to encourage the development of high-tech enterprises and direct money to high-tech industries, which is more efficient than government-led R&D.
Should I also buy more stocks of high-tech companies? Or invest in some high-tech companies? Speaking of which high-tech stocks are there now, does the Microsoft I bought count? My own technical equipment manufacturing companies in the film industry also count.
Bar?
Ronald was lying on the bed, still thinking about these things, when Diane walked into the bedroom wearing silk pajamas, took off the hairpin from her hair, then shook her head a few times, and her hair fell down.
"Honey, you look like Veronica Lake (a famous female star in old Hollywood) today..." Ronald took advantage of the situation and hugged Diane on the bed. Having an actor wife has such advantages.
"My dear, I don't care, I'm just relying on you..." Diane imitated Veronica Lake's speaking tone while crossing her feet up and down rapidly, acting coquettishly.
"Beep, beep, beep..."
At the critical moment, the phone rang.
"Hello?" Ronald answered the phone angrily. Richard would only bother him with the most important things at night.
"Ronald, Mr. Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, wants to meet you..."
"I don't know him, why do I want to see him?"
"This is related to your advertising business. He came to you because of this matter and made the call himself."
"He is also a chairman. Why can't he let his subordinates take care of all the things he has to do? Wait, who are you talking about? Bill Gates? Oh, it's the chairman of Microsoft? Okay, you can help me arrange it.
Let's..." After saying that, he hung up the phone, hugged Diane and gave her a kiss.
"Hey, hey, Ronald, did you agree? That's how I replied..."
…
"He wants to advertise for Microsoft? Why do you want to interview me? Why do you want me to go to Seattle? Can't he come to Los Angeles?"
The next day, Ronald, who got on the special plane, was still confused as to why he agreed to meet Bill Gates last night. He didn't remember any of these details, but Richard swore that he had agreed to it himself.
Ronald couldn't help but go back on his promise, so he had to drink espresso and get on the plane early in the morning.
"He saw some of your Coke ads and felt that their company's new products need you to be at the helm to promote them. And because he is a very introverted person and does not want to deal with strangers, he hopes to receive you at home. This way he can
It’s convenient to discuss it slowly and in detail.”
"Okay, Ronald closes his eyes and sleeps as usual."
"This is Mr. Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft." When they arrived at Microsoft's headquarters, the CEO came to pick up Ronald in person.
"I like your products very much. Now I use your software on my computers at home and in the office..." Ronald expressed his friendliness.
"Oh, that's such an honor. Bill is waiting for you at the top..."
Taking the elevator dedicated to the chairman to the top floor, Ronald met this young emerging tycoon in the American IT industry.
"Welcome, Mr. Li, or should I call you Director Li?"
Gates, as the legend goes, can feel a little reserved when meeting people he meets for the first time.
"Call me Ronald. We look about the same age?" Ronald had met many such technical experts and chatted with him very relaxedly. These people would regain their confidence as soon as they talked about their strengths.
Already.
"Ha, then just call me Bill. I was born in 1955..."
"Then we are the last of the baby boomers. How did you come up with such a good idea as selling software?"
Sure enough, when he mentioned Microsoft, Bill Gates immediately relaxed. He talked endlessly about some things about starting Microsoft, and also asked Ronald some things about Hollywood. The two communicated very smoothly.
Ronald also felt that this guy was not the pure top technical talent he imagined, but also a top business genius. Many of his business ideas were beyond the reach of ordinary entrepreneurs.
"You really surprised me. I didn't expect a Hollywood director to have such a deep insight into business. Anyway, the main reason I came here this time is to ask you to do an advertisement. Now there is a new computer storage
In this way, a CD can only hold a dozen songs, but if it is used to store text, it can hold the entire Encyclopedia Britannica..."
Gates got back to business and talked about the original intention of finding Ronald this time. He originally wanted to promote CD, a new storage medium. A CD can hold 650 megabytes of content. Compared with those floppy disks and hard disks, this storage capacity is
Astonishing.
"In addition to text, CDs can also contain music, images, videos, etc. We call it..." Gates continued to introduce, and also put a CD into the CD-ROM memory of the computer to demonstrate to Rona
Morality.
"Multimedia CD?"
"Oh, it seems you know about this emerging media format..." Bill Gates was a little surprised, but he immediately came back to his senses. Hollywood is the pioneer in the use of this media storage medium.
"Actually, I have a company that produces this kind of multimedia CD. They are all educational content, including classical music, modern rock music, history, geography, rare animals, etc..." Ronald laughed, this is not
What a coincidence?
"Oh yeah? Give me some and I'll take a look. If it's good, Microsoft can be your sales channel..." Gates happens to be promoting this CD format, and it's really great to have content providers come uninvited.
.
Ronald immediately called back and asked them to fly over with a complete set of Navigator educational multimedia CDs, and he continued to chat with Gates.
"I would like to ask you to create an impressive advertisement for the CD format, just like your latest Pepsi advertisement..."
"Huh?" Ronald thought to himself. He didn't expect that the technological elites were similar to him and couldn't resist beautiful women.
"This kind of advertising actually doesn't require any creativity, because the product itself is a very good demonstration. A CD, a set of Encyclopedia Britannia..."
Ronald picked up a CD with one hand and gestured the length of the Encyclopedia Britannica with the other.
"According to my calculations, the text contained in a CD, if printed on letter-sized paper with normal fonts, would be more than seventeen meters stacked..."
Bill Gates did the math on his computer and immediately reported the answer.
"I really can't stand you smart people..." Ronald complained in his heart. When dealing with these smart people with extremely high IQs, he always feels a bit stupid.
"If that's the case, it's very simple. Let's really build this seventeen-meter-high paper tower, and then let your spokesperson hold a CD in one hand for comparison."
"This sounds quite simple. It seems like it doesn't require any acting skills..."
"Of course, even if you come here, Bill, you can still... No, it should be said that it will be more effective..."
When Ronald heard this, he felt a little proud. The film and television industry is also very attractive to ordinary smart people.
"That's it, it's settled. When the time comes, you will help me shoot such an advertisement..."
Gates was very happy and paid a sky-high price for Ronald to shoot an extremely simple advertisement. Then he personally drove Ronald to his home to play.
"cheers……"
When he arrived at his house, Ronald discovered a lot of interesting things. These highly intelligent people actually had a wide range of knowledge. Ronald also saw a periodic table of elements, and each grid on it was filled with real elements.
However, these people play more boringly. Maybe in Gates' eyes, partying means wearing plaid shirts with friends, sitting on the sofa and drinking beer...
"Ronald, we hit it off as soon as we met. I think we are already like friends..."
"Of course, Bill, we are friends. As Confucius said, friendship is not measured by the length of time, but by the depth of two people's thinking..." Ronald felt that Gates also had important things to ask himself, but
I can't speak a bit.
"Very good, I didn't expect Confucius to say this..." Gates came closer seriously, and then asked shyly, "How should a person like me date a female star in Hollywood?"
"Pfft, hahaha..." Ronald didn't expect Gates to ask this question, and couldn't help laughing for a moment. But when he saw the other person's face turning red, he knew that he had embarrassed Gates a little.
"You won't like those Hollywood stars. There is probably only one out of ten. You won't feel bored talking to her. Many of them just have good faces and figures."
"Oh?" Gates was a little annoyed.
"However, if you really want to date female celebrities, I can say that it is actually very simple. It's just that they spend most of their time dealing with producers and directors. This is their career..."
"Oh..." Gates said he understood, but felt a little regretful.
Ronald felt that some things about this guy were very similar to the way ordinary people think. "For a successful person like you, the easiest way may be to invest in a movie or an advertisement, so that the female star can
I have a career development reason to communicate with you. You can also take the opportunity to observe whether they really have brains..."