Entertainment: You're asked to make a graduation project, but you're asked to film Ultrama

Chapter 7: The Arrogance of the Celestial Master Qi'ao

Jinghai City, CBD Financial Center.

Top-floor conference room of the Qiaotianzun Building.

A company that owns an entire building as its office space in the prime CBD of Beijing is certainly not some unknown small company.

Conversely, as one of the leading companies in the domestic toy industry, Qiao Tianzun holds the agency rights for a series of domestic animation IPs, including Ultraman from the Showa era, a certain Kamen Rider series, and a series of domestic animation IPs.

However, in a timeline where there is no concept of tokusatsu (special effects), the promotional videos that this company made to sell toys were nothing more than second-rate CG-effect "long-form toy shows".

At this moment, the lights in the conference room were turned off.

On the huge projection screen was the webpage of Bilibili, which was playing the third episode of "Ultraman Tiga," titled "The Prophecy of the Devil."

In the scene, Tiga blasts the Kirieloids in the night sky with a Lampard Light Bomb, creating a visually stunning effect as ice shards and flames intertwine.

Even as the end credits rolled and the lights came back on, the conference room remained deathly silent.

Sitting at the head of the table was Zhao Rui, the content director of Qiao Tianzun, who spoke first.

On either side of him sat several key executives from the marketing, legal, and production departments.

"I've finished watching them all."

Zhao Rui tapped his fingers lightly on the mahogany tabletop. "Tell me, what do you think?"

After a brief silence, Zhang, the head of the production department, spoke first.

He's a seasoned veteran in the industry, having worked in it for over a decade, specializing in producing low-budget tokusatsu dramas.

"Mr. Zhao, to be honest..."

Old Zhang pushed up his glasses, his tone tinged with disbelief, "The production quality of this film is a bit strange."

"What's so strange about it?" Zhao Rui raised an eyebrow.

They used "light and shadow, suits, miniature models... these original methods are something I've never understood, why we never thought of them..."

"Although some of the hard metrics don't reach the level of the international film industry, as a TV personality, she is undoubtedly a supermodel."

Old Zhang pointed to the frozen image of Ultraman Tiga on the screen, "What's most terrifying is their filming technique. That kind of clever trickery that uses parallax to achieve maximum effect with minimal effort..."

"Let me be frank, Mr. Zhao... This is definitely not something a few college students could come up with. Laymen see the spectacle, but experts see the craft... This thing they've created has the potential to revolutionize the industry."

"You mean, they have a powerful backer?"

"Definitely."

Old Zhang said with certainty.

"Judging from this script alone, based on my 20 years of experience as a supervisor, I swear it's absolutely not something these young kids could have written. And look at the texture of the suits... I'm not talking about Ultraman Tiga, but those monsters. To be honest, those monsters, those muscle lines, there were definitely model design experts involved in the design. They're so realistically shaped like real biological curves."

"Mr. Zhao, even if it offends you today, I still have to say what Old Zhang has to say."

He took a deep breath and made up his mind.

"In this area of ​​special effects, we are a whole level behind them in terms of filming concepts and technology for this type of film and television drama."

Although it was harsh to hear, everyone present knew that Old Zhang was telling the truth.

The Ultraman Showa characters in the hands of Ultraman King, also known as the "Ultra Six Brothers", are mostly made from old molds obtained from Tsuburaya Productions more than ten years ago. As the old molds gradually wear out and age, some of the newly made suits even peel off as soon as they are finished.

Since the company's senior management has never had any competitors that can compete openly, and since the target audience is children, they hardly spend money on developing new suits and technologies. They figure that children don't understand anyway, as long as the suits can move, that's fine.

But the "Tiga" in front of us is so exquisite that it's like a work of art.

The marketing manager, who had been silent until now, sighed. "We thought that after Tsuburaya went bankrupt, we would be the only ones left in this industry, but we never expected that a dark horse would suddenly appear out of nowhere."

"What about the Ministry of Justice?"

Zhao Rui turned to his right and asked, "Have you investigated thoroughly? How exactly did they obtain the copyright? I might not be able to prevent them from commercializing it through copyright law, or file a complaint to have it removed."

The head of the legal department opened the folder, his expression somewhat strange.

"It's been confirmed, Mr. Zhao. The document that 'Chasing Light Studio' is holding is indeed a legitimate authorization letter from Tsuburaya Productions."

"and……"

The supervisor paused, seemingly organizing his thoughts, "This authorization letter is strange. It bypasses the 1976 agreement we hold. We have the exclusive agency rights for everything from the original Taro to Taro, but what they got is the rights to 'all remaining scrapped projects and future creations' from the Tsuburaya Productions."

"In other words, as long as it's not one of those old guys we have, they can film whatever they want."

"Uh... it's like there was a professional legal team that did a detailed study of the documents we signed back then. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for just a few students to come up with such a perfect agreement that could circumvent our copyright."

Zhao Rui frowned: "Which company is trying to sabotage us? That drunkard Kazuo Tsuburaya actually had this trick up his sleeve."

"We also had contact with Kazuo Tsuburaya back then."

The marketing manager interjected.

"We tried to sign a supplementary contract to avoid this risk," but the board of directors said at the time, "His asking price was too high, and Tsuburaya Productions has already declined. It's enough to have these few classic Showa IPs to support toy sales. There's no need to buy a bunch of scrapped projects that may not even be successful, and there's not much risk to avoid."

"Who would have thought..."

The manager gave a wry smile.

The man surnamed Zhao looked grim, and the marketing manager wisely kept quiet. The atmosphere in the meeting room was somewhat oppressive.

"Alright, alright, stop boosting their spirits."

Zhao Rui waved his hand, interrupting the discussion.

As a seasoned veteran of the business world, he did not show much panic.

"I don't want to hear about what we did wrong in the past; I want to hear about what we need to do now!"

"Besides, what good is good technology? In this industry, quality and technology have never been the only winning factors."

Zhao Rui stood up.

"We must now find out who the real company behind this project is, and who is targeting us!"

"Otherwise, their current popularity wouldn't have reached this level. Relying solely on the curiosity of young people on Bilibili, things like 'graduation projects,' 'hardcore,' or 'plot depth' wouldn't be enough to support this level of popularity. There must be a company behind them promoting and hyping them up."

"But no matter which company is behind them, Qiao Tianzun has the strength to fight back! We have counters in 2,000 shopping malls across the country, prime time slots on children's channels, and billions of yuan in cash flow."

"We can afford to fight this battle!"

Zhao Rui turned around, his eyes sharpening.

"But if it really was those guys who did it themselves... things would be much simpler... it's just that the chances of that are too low."

"Those guys do have some talent. At least the one who played Daigo did a pretty good job."

"It's time to use the tools of capital..."

"Mr. Zhao, so what you mean is..." the marketing manager asked tentatively, "A complete blackout?"

"A ban? Are you crazy?"

Zhao Rui shook his head, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

Do you think this is some kind of entertainment novel with such a stupid plot?

"A leading company in the industry is going after a few students? Are you afraid we'll gain the upper hand in the public opinion arena? Besides, they own the copyright, and a head-on confrontation will only give them more attention."

"If you make a big fuss, everyone outside the industry will know, and we'll only be in a completely passive position, which will do us no good whatsoever."

"That……"

"Let's test the waters first."

"Create dissenting voices within the industry, but remember not to go beyond that circle. Only generate public opinion within the industry to force the companies behind them to take action to control the comments. Contact our partners in the public relations industry and have them monitor which companies have placed orders and are flooding the comments section to find out who the competitors are."

Zhao Rui held up one finger. "Contact those MCNs and those independent KOLs who make a living off of us. Remember, don't be too direct in your stance, and don't start by criticizing. You need to learn how to 'praise to death' and 'incite conflict'."

"How do we induce it?"

"They say they drastically altered Ultraman's original setting, making it inconsistent with the world's lore and insulting the classic."

"The sentimentality of longtime Showa-era fans is very strong. As long as you stir up conflict between the original Ultraman fundamentalists and the current fans, the waters will become muddy."

"in addition……"

Zhao Rui looked at Lao Zhang from the production department, "Isn't our 'Cosmic Superheroes' coming out soon next season? Let's move up the release date and directly compete with them."

"Double the marketing budget and buy out all the search rankings for Ultraman-related keywords. Use our resources to suppress their popularity and try to prevent non-core audiences from knowing about this Ultraman-related thing called Tiga..."

The executives present exchanged glances and nodded in agreement.

This is the invisible hand of capital.

In their eyes, Gu Nan was just a spokesperson launched by another capital giant, plus a slightly talented but naive young man.

Perhaps Ultraman Tiga will be popular for a while, but in this era where distribution channels are king and traffic is paramount, it will be a fleeting phenomenon.

Without offline distribution capabilities, promotional resources, or television resources, it will ultimately be just a fleeting internet sensation.

Meeting adjourned.

Zhao Rui waved his hand.