Two Hundred and Sixty-Seven - Missing Person Notice

The filming of the film is full of shaking, but it gives people a strange sense of reality. The edited scene is not long and ends after five or six minutes.

On the sofa in the office rest area, Harvey Weinstein nodded with satisfaction, but he was not in a hurry. What was to be broadcast later was the top priority.

"Hello, viewers, my name is Rebecca Leslie. I'm very happy that you are watching this episode of "Late Night Exploration"..."

After the video ended in just a few minutes, a beautiful blonde host appeared on the outskirts of a forest, holding a microphone and making introductions.

"The videotape just now was picked up from here by a farmer." Rebecca Leslie pointed to the forest behind her, turned around and walked to a stone monument on the path. "Pay attention here. This is an ancient stone monument. It is estimated to have existed for at least a hundred years. It has some warnings carved on it."

As soon as she finished speaking, the camera zoomed in sharply, and the carvings on the ancient stone tablet were faintly visible. "Stay out of the forest! Watch out for witches!"

Rebecca Leslie reached out and patted the stone monument, turned to the camera and said: "No one knows when this stone monument was erected or who erected it. But in local legends, these things first appeared The time can be traced back to the Great Migration of North America.

According to legend, those witches who were hunted down by the church in Europe followed the early immigrants to this continent and hid in the large forests of eastern North America. Even now, legends about witches are still circulating in places like Delaware, Maryland, and Massachusetts!

Many information and historical stories about witches are still one of the most terrifying local legends, and the Blair mentioned in that video tape is one of the most widely circulated witches in our local area in the past few decades..."

Witches have always been widespread in North America, and the stories accompanying these groups have always appeared alongside horror legends.

Especially on the east coast of North America, there are many witch legends with a long history, and there are also a lot of interested people. Otherwise, there would not always be such stories about witches.

And in many traditional American horror films, there are shadows of witches. The story of a witch falling in love with a young man, then revealing her identity, passing a curse before being burned to death, and killing an entire town at once, is always in the story. There are endless performances.

"The local legend about the Blair Witch has been accompanying the disappearance of the townspeople."

On the TV, the host Rebecca Leslie was still making introductions. "The videotape just played at the beginning of the program was given to us by a farmer after seeing it. In addition to the destroyed videotape, there are also personal belongings and some relics of the three college students who disappeared.

According to the interviews we conducted with the townspeople before we came here, we learned that the three young people had been looking for traces of the witch and wanted to find out the secret of the Blair Witch. However, due to the serious damage to the videotape, it is still under emergency repair..."

With a "pop" sound, Harvey Weinstein reached out and turned off the TV without continuing to watch it.

Through the program report just now, he believed that there would definitely be many people interested in this matter. After all, this kind of exploration program usually shows documentaries about the Bermuda Triangle and the pyramids of ancient Egypt.

Today's pseudo-documentary should create an illusion for many viewers, making those in front of the TV believe that all this is really happening.

"In order to have Blair Witch appear on this late-night show, we have invested more than 2 million US dollars. We hope to achieve better results."

Bob Weinstein squinted his eyes, looked at his brother and said softly: "But this is the only program for the United States. The remaining twenty or so late-night TV stations are all local, and the audience is definitely not as large as ABC. .”

"That's enough!"

The big fat man had a smile on his face. If this wave of bombarding publicity continues, there will definitely be a lot of interested people. Coupled with the follow-up publicity and guidance, people who are curious about witches will become more and more like a virus. The more contagious it is.

"There is still half a month until the film is released. Every step of the promotion plan is very important. Bob, you have to keep an eye on it personally to make sure there are no mistakes!"

"I understand." Bob Weinstein nodded, knowing the importance of this matter.

For the promotion of this film, the two brothers invested all their working capital. They are not like Wayne Greenberg, who has a terrifying net worth.

Miramax is not owned by their brothers. The majority shareholder is Walt Disney, and they only hold a small stake in it.

Harvey Weinstein's net worth is very inconsistent with his status in the industry. Miramax started out by operating small-budget movies on a budget, and the profits it earned were not much.

That's why this fat man is envious of those high-box office movies, which easily earn 100 million or 200 million in North American box office. It is almost impossible for Miramax to show up in Miramax, and it is impossible for this company to invest in such big productions.

Early the next morning, while all the media and the public were talking a lot about "Batman Begins", the beginning of the summer season, a large number of people were also discussing the Blair Witch incident that was revealed in the show yesterday. After all, there were three living incidents. Human life disappeared in that forest.

Not only ABC's late-night program reported this incident, but more local small TV stations also reported this incident in detail, and all of them broadcast the video as a documentary.

In the first day or two, people just treated it as gossip and discussed it with friends and family in a small group. However, as it developed, it gradually changed.

When many people still didn't know what was going on, a missing person notice appeared in various second-tier media, whether it was newspapers, magazines, or radio stations, and even in Blockbuster video rental stores across the United States.

"College students studying film and television brought their photographic equipment to Bull Town, wanting to find and understand the secrets of the witches, and investigate and film the local legend about the Blair Witch. But not long after they found some clues, the three young people disappeared.

Their families searched for them everywhere, but there were no clues at all. It was not until a damaged video tape was picked up. Through the video tape and the relic notes picked up at the same time, it is now possible to confirm that these three young people encountered the legendary witch.

From the notes they left behind, we learned that these three young people not only encountered witches, but also a series of horrific things happened. "

When the publicity reached the second stage, the discussion about Blair Witch has gradually formed a trend, with various media fueling the trend, gradually increasing the mystery of the matter, and arousing a lot of curiosity among the North American public.

There are also many kind people who spontaneously began to publicize this missing person notice, hoping to find the three young people.

Although this trend is getting bigger and bigger, and more and more people gradually believe in this matter, they have not discovered that the media reporting on this matter are all second- and third-rate tabloids and magazines and radio stations, and there is no authoritative one. of big media.

To put it bluntly, the plan customized by Wayne is not complicated at all. It just uses various wide-coverage but cheap publicity channels to spread the matter in the form of news in a short time, creating an illusion for ordinary people that it is a real thing, and instigating These people spread the word to family and friends around them.

This kind of thing is actually not uncommon. Viral marketing is a business method that usually appears in other business fields. But it is definitely the first time that this thing is used in movies and spread on a large scale in the form of deception. Appear.

“The effect is even better than we imagined!”

The two Weinstein brothers have been watching the development of this matter, especially Bob Weinstein, who is the executor of the entire plan.

Harvey Weinstein nodded. "Okay, we will increase investment later and invest all the funds on Witch Studio's books. We must ensure that before the film is released, more people will look forward to the specific content of the video tape.

We must pay attention to confidentiality now. We will increase the investment of various TV stations to let them continue to broadcast the short film, and then purchase more advertising spaces and publish missing person notices. These are our bargaining chips to win more theaters. "

"Leave it to me," Bob Weinstein said.

The mystery of this matter still needs to be maintained for now, but as long as it lasts more than a week, it will not matter in the later stage of the propaganda work. This kind of little trick only deceives ordinary people, and it is impossible to hide it from the elites in society.

This is especially true for Hollywood insiders. It has only been promoted for a few days, and many people have already smelled a familiar smell. I've almost played it before with "Return of the Clown", and although it's not quite as extreme, the way it's executed is very similar.

Except for those who are very sober, even if ordinary people have doubts about this matter, through the lies fabricated by Blair Witch, coupled with TV propaganda and the spontaneous spread of the people around them, they will still be aroused curiosity and exploration want.

Time was advancing slowly. Outside the Warner Bros. Studio, Wayne and his team, who had been busy with post-production for a day, were about to get in the car when they suddenly noticed a volunteer walking towards them.

The girl walked up to them holding a large pile of information. "Sir, Madam, if you see the three people above, please call the number above. Their families will be going crazy, thank you!"

Handing them a missing person notice, the girl turned around and walked towards other passers-by, continuing to distribute the information.

"Boss, it seems Harvey Weinstein is making very fast progress." After the car started moving, Nina looked at the missing person notice curiously and said to him.

"Don't worry about this, it has nothing to do with us." Wayne didn't even raise his eyebrows. The plan was almost made by him. No one knows these things better than him. "We just wait to collect the money, don't worry about what the fat man does."

The Oscar was coming soon, and the post-production of the film was at a critical moment. He didn't have the time to worry about these bad things. After all, this was just a quick way to make money.