Chapter 42 Preview

"Thank you, thank you, everyone. First of all, I want to thank the Academy judges for awarding me the Oscar for Best Director.

I also want to thank my first boss, Mr. Roger Corman, who allowed me to be a director for the first time... I want to thank all the members of the crew... I want to thank my Aunt Karen...

Finally, I want to thank a fellow director of mine. I don't want to say his name, but I can get here because of his encouragement to me!"

Ronald finally stood on the Oscar podium and received his first Oscar for Best Director, full of vigor and vitality. Marla, wearing an evening gown, smiled at him in the audience, while Michael Cimino was dejected on the other side...

"Ring, ring, ring..." The alarm clock rang at 6:30 on time.

With big dreams in mind, the road must be walked. Early in the morning, Ronald still ran to New World Company to watch the preview of "Rock n Roll High School".

"Ronnie, you're here? Help me move the copies." Director Allan called Ronald, who was standing at the door of New World Studios.

"Wasn't the preview in the afternoon?" Ronald picked up a reel of film and moved it to the van.

"Yesterday, Roger changed the time temporarily to 10:30 this morning, saying that there are free preview audiences available." Allan showed a "you know" style bitter smile.

"Are there free preview audiences?"

"Yes, in fact, they are selling tickets." Joe Dante at the side said, "I heard that scalpers can get 5-10 dollars for each ticket."

"What? 10 dollars a ticket?" Ronald looked unconvinced. Usually the ticket price of a movie is only 2.5 yuan. How can someone pay 10 yuan for an exploitation film like "Rock n Roll High School"? "

"I said you can't fool him, Joe." Director Allan laughed, "Ronald's sensitivity to price is very similar to Roger."

Uh, this is a compliment to himself, right?

"So what's going on? Why are there free preview audiences available?" Ronald asked, "Why was it moved to the morning? "

"It's Francis Ford Coppola's new film, 'Apocalypse Now,' which was also screened this afternoon." Joe Dante explained.

Usually, before a movie is officially released, it will be screened with some audiences for one or two previews. Some feedback from the audience will be collected, and the final changes will be made before the release based on this feedback.

Generally speaking, the film company has to spend money to hold a preview, and they have to find some people whose age, gender, and income are as close as possible to the target audience to watch it. In this way, the feedback obtained is more real.

The general screening method is to call the members of the theater and ask them by phone whether they want to watch a certain type of movie. Before the preview, the audience does not know which movie they want to watch.

However, Francis Ford Coppola is famous enough. The two "Godfather" movies swept the world at the box office, and he also won the Oscar for Best Director with the second Godfather. When it was said that it was a Vietnam War-style movie released by United Artists, most of the audience guessed that it was his new film "Apocalypse Now".

The demand for the preview was very hot, and the feedback from the members who called the theater was very good. Some people even heard about the preview of "Apocalypse Now" and came to open a membership card to ask for tickets.

The 1,000 internal tickets for members were quickly distributed, and the theater put the remaining 1,000 tickets on public sale.

Roger Corman was also invited to watch the preview of "Apocalypse Now", and Coppola had another special screening for insiders in the film industry.

He heard about the popularity of the preview tickets and immediately had an idea. For those who queued up to buy tickets on the spot but failed to get them, they could just show "Rock n Roll High School" to them without spending money.

Isn't this killing two birds with one stone?

At 8 a.m., there were already people queuing at the entrance of the theater, waiting to buy tickets. The omnipresent scalpers learned about it and started to speculate on second-hand tickets.

Coppola decided to only have one public preview in Los Angeles, and then return to the San Francisco Zoetrope Company to continue to modify it, waiting to participate in the Cannes Film Festival.

The van drove to the theater where the preview was held. The line at the door was very long, almost circling the theater for more than a circle. Although it was stipulated that one person could only get one ticket, the 1,000 preview tickets for "Apocalypse Now" that were "sold on the spot" could not withstand the flow of people, and when Ronald and his friends arrived, they were announced to be sold out.

"Alas...! "

Everyone sighed softly, which gathered into a loud noise and swept the entire queue. The unwilling people made various movements, covering their faces and sighing, beating their chests and stamping their feet...

There was also a female fan who was probably just a few seats away from getting the film, and she had already started to wipe away her tears. Ronald was a little fascinated by it, this was the style of a great director.

"I heard that the President specially asked for a copy, and it was sent to the White House for screening yesterday." Joe Dante and Allan Arkush also had envious faces. In 1979, Coppola was like one of the Olympian gods of the movie, descending to earth and possessing a body, and the audience's admiration for him was beyond words.

The filming of this movie started in 1976, and newspapers followed up with reports one after another, but the lead actor was replaced, a hurricane blew down the studio, and a military conflict broke out in the Philippines where the filming took place. After various accidents, the release date was postponed again and again.

The industry no longer had any hope for this film, and the newspapers even changed the name of the film to Apocalypse in the title. When? To mock Coppola's delayed release.

However, moviegoers didn't buy it. In their eyes, Coppola was still the amazing director who made the Godfather. Who else could make a better film on the Vietnam War?

Although the tickets were sold out, many fans were reluctant to leave. Some held cardboard with high-priced tickets written on them, hoping that someone would be willing to sell them.

The cinema quickly put away the sign "Vietnam War Movie Preview" and put up an advertisement "New Movie Preview - High School Girls, Rock Punk, Disco Dance, Must-see, Free Preview".

Many disappointed audiences came to the theater to watch 'Apocalypse Now'. If they couldn't see Apocalypse Now, it would be nice to see a youth film.

Ronald frowned. This didn't seem to be the target audience of "Rock High School".

The audience who came to see "Apocalypse Now" were either fans of Coppola or war movie enthusiasts, and a few were readers of the original novel "Heart of Darkness". Among these people, there were not many high school students.

"Allan, Joe, are these test audiences okay? Can such test audiences reflect real evaluations?" Ronald went over and said to the two directors.

"Don't worry, Roger is very experienced." Joe comforted Ronald with a serious face. Perhaps he was still comforting his good friend Alan Ekush.

"Roger will get the desired response from a small number of young audiences." Allan also said, "He will not look at the final questionnaire data, but directly look at the response of the target audience."

"Our theaters are mainly drive-in theaters, late-night theaters in cities, old theaters, and theaters in small towns. The audiences there are not picky." Joe also added.

The two looked a little worried and absent-minded. Ronald understood that this was the natural reaction of the creators. He had experienced it himself, so he did not persuade him. Whether he should be excited or anxious after the movie was shown was up to the audience to judge.

After helping to carry the copies into the projection room, Ronald found a seat near the side of the theater and sat down. There were still 10 minutes before the movie started, and the crowd was not full, with about a hundred people. Ronald counted the gender ratio, and there were still more men, with only about a quarter of women.

The lights dimmed, and the movie officially began. Ronald had watched this movie countless times in the editing room and had lost interest a long time ago. He only paid attention to the telephone booth scene where he appeared. He turned his head away most of the time, secretly observing the audience's reactions.

Some male audience members enjoyed it very much, shouting and whistling loudly during the beautiful girl's dance scene in the gym. The scene where the Ramones band entered the school and the students rebelled also won their applause.

However, the rock music part, which was highly anticipated, did not receive much applause. Perhaps they didn't listen to the Ramones' music very much.

After the movie was over, Ronald went to the bathroom. Several men in the room were still deliberately imitating the dance moves of the beautiful women in the movie. It seemed that they liked these scenes very much.

After washing and drying his hands, Ronald went to the hallway. The voices of some women came from another direction.

"I like Riff Randell very much. She is such an independent woman!"

"Yes, I wish I could be as brave as her."

"Alas, I am very afraid of my high school principal. Few people can face power and resist freely like her!"

"Yes, I am very afraid of my boss now. He is almost like Principal Togar. He is old-fashioned. He has to read the Bible to us in the office every day."

Ronald looked sideways and found that it was a few young women waiting for a seat outside the bathroom, while they were still chattering about the plot.

I didn't expect that what attracted female audiences the most when watching this movie was the rebellious and independent rock chick played by PJ Soles. It was not the handsome guy, not the rock punk, nor the dancer, but the independent spirit of the protagonist, Riff Randell.

The trend of female independence makes young women generally envy those independent professional women who can work and earn money by themselves, live without looking for men, and do not have to take care of children and handle housework at home. Riff Randell is exactly what those independent working women looked like in high school.

Ronald returned to the entrance of the screening room. Director Allan and several staff members were handing out questionnaires to the audience to collect their feedback on the film. He went over to take a few photos and saw that the ratings were not very high.

Ronald quietly pulled Director Allan over and told him what he had discovered in the bathroom. Allen was also a little surprised and immediately went to discuss it with Joe.

"Hey, Jim, why are you here too?"

Ronald saw a familiar figure flashing by. Cameron was also in the theater.

"I came here with Mr. Corman. He just officially promoted me to be the head of the stunt model and also responsible for the design of the stunt photography track."

Cameron smiled and had just been promoted by his boss, Roger Corman. He lowered his voice slightly:

"The method you mentioned last time was very useful. When Roger entered the workshop yesterday and saw the finished model display, he praised it highly. Today, he called me here and decided to let me be in charge of the entire model manufacturing department." "

"Congratulations, Jim. You know, Roger is very sensitive to costs." Ronald winked.

"Ronald, Jim, take this." The person who spoke was Roger Corman, who walked over and gave each of them an envelope. "Tonight, Coppola will show it to the theater for people in the industry. You should go and see it. It will be very helpful to improve your artistic level."

Ronald took it and saw that it was an invitation to the internal preview of United Artists, which would start at 5:30 in the evening.

Roger Corman then went to give tickets to other employees.

"Roger told me that Coppola used to be his assistant." Ronald quietly spread the gossip to Cameron.

"Oh, Roger really has a wide network of contacts..."