February 5th was Wang Yang’s nineteenth birthday. He could throw either a grand birthday party or a relatively simple birthday party. Wang Yang was rich enough to engage some company specialized in organizing birthday parties to arrange everything for him, from planning, carrying out, to inviting famous people or beautiful women who were enthusiastic about parties to revel for the whole night. However, that was not what Wang Yang was expecting. Although he had never tried that, he almost could imagine what it would be like. It would be messy and noisy enough to give him a headache. In this way, the true meaning of celebrating a birthday would be lost.
As a result, Wang Yang only wanted to celebrate it with some good friends. It would be good enough for him. However, his apartment was apparently too small to hold all of his friends, so he found a villa for short-term rental to throw the party. He invited all his friends over, including Jessica, Rachel, Zachary, and other leading actors and actresses in High School Musical, as well as Michael Pitt, Harry George, Joshua, and some other friends.
Wang Yang received many birthday presents at the birthday party, which had been considered to be a good party. Apparently, his friends had put quite an effort into picking gifts for him. Those were all well-thought-out gifts, like books and limited-edition collectible souvenirs of movies.
Nevertheless, not the whole world was celebrating at the party. Cole had never stopped following Wang Yang. He took pictures of the guests of the party outside of the villa but did not manage to capture any valuable photos in which Wang Yang was kissing or hugging some girl. His plan for a new car turned out to be a fond dream, but Cole did not give up. He was still following Wang Yang every day, believing he would capture such a photo sooner or later, unless this youngest-ever director was an asexual.
There were many holidays during that period. Soon, the Chinese New Year came, but Wang Yang did not go back to San Francisco to celebrate it with his family. He only wished his parents, relatives, and friends a happy New Year through the phone because he had been too busy lately to find time to go back. In order to guarantee the smooth advancement of the post-production of the film, he would spend the whole day in the editing room every day. At the same time, he was also keeping an eye on the promotion, offering ideas to the team to guarantee the promotion would get a good effect. He would also call Jessica every night, though this was the most relaxing item on his agenda.
Being on the go all the time made time seem to pass faster. After the numerous disputations between Wang Yang and Margaret, the editing of High School Musical was finally done in the middle of March. The final version to be shown in the cinema was 100 minutes long. Compared to the original television film, despite the similar structure, their shots, rhythms, and styles were totally different.
The post-production did not seem to really start until the editing had been completed. They engaged a special-effects studio to make the firework effect at the beginning of the film. David Lawrence set about doing the original soundtrack of the film. The leading actors and actresses finally got to sing in the recording studio, after a long time spent training, to record the songs for the film. Wang Yang “divorced” Margaret and “remarried” Wally Pfister. They worked together to apply some manual adjustments to the color of the film so that it would turn out to be warmer, more aesthetic, and more solid overall.
When all this had been done, Flames Films sent the versioned High School Musical to the MPAA for the movie rating as soon as possible. There was not even one kissing scene in the 100-minute-long movie. Neither were there any unsettling scenes that involved violence, drugs, or horror. It was 100% positive and healthy. Rated G by MPAA as they had expected, the movie was suitable for audiences of all ages, and no company of parents was required.
A movie trailer was released on the official website of High School Musical, too. Wang Yang and Margaret, surprisingly, agreed with each other on how to edit the two-minute-long trailer. The content of the trailer was quite simple. They only outlined the general plot by quoting some roles’ lines. Most of the trailer was composed of images of the beautiful protagonists, such as Tom Welling’s dribbling, Jessica’s pretty smiling face, and Rachel coming up with an evil idea. Some great singing and dancing shots were certainly also included.
The entire trailer presented a youthful, warm, and positive image, full of great energy. This seemed to be a brand-new type of teen movie. As a young person yourself, when you were watching those extremely bright images, in which students were dancing with enthusiasm in the beautiful and clean pantry, listening to the Wildcats’ song at the same time, your interest would be inevitably piqued, and even your spirits might be raised.
The wonderful trailer made the fans of High School Musical expect more. It helped to drive more traffic to the official website. Some media seemed to have changed their attitude. At least the trailer did not seem bad.
That being said, generally, the media was still not very keen on High School Musical. Their focus was put on The Matrix, which was on the big screen at that moment. This unprecedented sci-fi movie was driving the whole country crazy. As to upcoming movies, they were paying attention to blockbusters such as The Mummy, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, and things like whether Natalie Portman would miss the premiere of Star Wars because she had to prepare for the final exam of her senior year in high school.
However, the truth that High School Musical was getting more and more attention could not be denied. Although it was not mentioned a lot in mainstream media, it had been preparing, and by then, it was about to break out.
As early as the beginning of March, posters of the movie covered every wall in the pantry and the announcement boards of the University of Southern California. In the poster, six energetic, pretty youngsters were jumping and beaming. It was exactly the kind of poster a movie like High School Musical would have. The poster also promoted an event—”It’s time to show yourself! Show everyone your talent!”, and “Want to see singing and dancing masters in your school? Visit www.showyourself.com!” It was the official website, specially built for the event.
The same thing was going on in other schools and campuses across the United States, including first-class universities like New York University and Stanford. It seemed to have taken place overnight. All of a sudden, students in those schools could see information about High School Musical everywhere. Even their school channels were playing a five-minute small show called “Come to Dance” every morning, every afternoon and every evening, one new episode every day.
In the pantry of Syosset Senior High School, at lunchtime, the latest episode of the show “Come to Dance” was being played on TV. Seeing Tom Welling’s handsome face and attractive pose on the screen, the girls sitting at a few long tables cheered immediately. They stared at the screen excitedly. Someone even called, “Troy! Troy!” Certainly, there were girls who were not interested in him, too. They just ignored the show and kept focusing on their books.
On the screen, Tom Welling showed a charming smile. He said, “Hi, everyone, I’m Troy Bolton. Today I will teach you how to do moonwalks. Yes, just like Michael Jackson. Watch me.” Then, he demonstrated the moonwalk himself. It gave his girl fans in the pantry a real buzz.
Seeing Tom showing off, the boy students in the pantry were quite annoyed. A freckle-faced, white, teenage boy complained, “Oh, what the hell? Why isn’t that Gabriella?”
Another blond, teenage boy murmured, “I like Sharpay!”
The freckle-faced teenage boy suddenly pounded the table. He looked he had just made an important decision. He said, “Guys, I’m gonna ‘show my talent’. Maybe I will get the chance to travel to Los Angeles to attend the premiere of High School Musical, and I’ll see Gabriella with my own eyes from a close distance!”
Looking at him, the blonde, teenage boy said determinedly, “Sh*t, count me in! Showtime!”
At the same time, the show “Come to Dance” could also be seen on the official websites of ShowYourself and High School Musical. Flames Films bombed the forums of schools across the country through viral marketing. Almost no one had not heard about this event and this show.
Although the first batch of student participants were plants hired by the studio, it did not take long for them to get real participants. These real participants uploaded their videos onto the website. Then, there were more and more participants. The promotion map became more and more densely marked because of the increasing amount of schools involved. In the end, the event’s participants covered everywhere in North America. As more and more people took part in the event, the traffic to ShowYourself also soared, so much so that the studio had to lease a few more extra servers to make the website work normally.
The wonderful trailer, the soaring popularity of “Show Your Talent”, the hit show “Come to Dance”, accessible on the internet, together with the viral marketing involving online forums and posters in real life—all these contributed to the blowing up High School Musical. Numerous students were expecting and looking forward to the release of the movie. Many of them believed it would be a spectacular movie. “This will be the ‘Grease’ of our time!”
The curtain came down on Show Your Talent on April 20th. The first ten places voted by netizens also came out. They either had great dance skills or could sing like a professional singer, and of course, they were good-looking too, which was one of the important reasons they had gotten the votes. 100 lucky people were also picked out through random raffle drawing by some software. All of them could go to Los Angeles to attend the premiere.
When High School Musical was at the height of its promotion effect, April 28th came. It was the release date of the movie.
Wang Yang chose to hold the premiere at the “Vitascope” Cinema. He was kind of emotionally attached to this place. It was where Jessica and he had met each other again. He watched the first showing of Paranormal Activity on the big screen here, and he would watch the first showing of High School Musical on the big screen here as well on this night.
This cinema was also the only non-school cinema in the first round of the High School Musical showings. Flames Films and the cinema signed a contract with an agreed base price. The studio paid the cinema $50,000 so that High School Musical would be showed in projection booth #1 between 7:00 PM and midnight for one month, with two sessions every night. This was one of the measures that had been proposed by the promotion plan. If the movie could only be seen in specific school cinemas in the first two weeks, what would other students in Los Angeles who wanted to watch it do? They would certainly all swarm into this cinema, making this place jam-packed. This was, of course, providing that High School Musical could excite the student audience. Only in that case would the movie be known by word of mouth.
At the moment, in projection booth #1 of the “Vitascope” Cinema, all of the 500 seats had been occupied. Among the audience, there were the movie’s producers, the crew, their families, the 110 students from all over the country selected from Show Your Talent, and some students from various schools in Los Angeles invited by the studio. Besides them, some movie critics and journalists also came. The Public Relations Department had sort of networked with the latter, so they were kind of friendly to Flames Films. If High School Musical was all right, they would certainly spare no effort in complimenting it. If it sucked, their criticism would be relatively “gentle”.
In a black suit, Wang Yang was walking down the aisle to the front row. He had just come back from where his parents were sitting. They were both pretty happy for him, and they told him to do what he needed to do.
Looking at Wang Yang, the audience sitting by the aisle all greeted him with a smile. “Director!””Yang!””Yang, I love you!” Some of them were from the crew, and others were students invited by the studio. For example, the one who’d shouted “I love you” to him was a high school girl.
“Hi.” Wang Yang waved at them with a smile to respond to their enthusiasm. Looking at the smiling audience sitting there, he felt quite emotional. At the premiere of Paranormal Activity, there had been fewer than 50 audience members. It’d felt quite desperate. By comparison, the current atmosphere was very lively.
He came to the front row—which was the closest to the big screen—while thinking about these things. The producers and the leading actors and actresses were all sitting in the front row. There was Wally Pfister, Anne Fletcher, David Lawrence, Margaret Goodspeed, as well as Tom Welling, Jessica, Rachel, Zachery, and so on. Everyone was wearing formal clothes—men in their suit and ties, and women in glamorous evening gowns, their makeup all done by professional makeup artists.
The interacting part of the premiere was over. The movie would be officially shown very soon. Wang Yang sat down in the middle seat of the first row. Tom Welling was sitting on his left side and Jessica was sitting on his right side. She was wearing a white, strapless, evening gown. Her wavy, brown hair fell over her shoulders. Her cheeks were tinged with rouge, which made her even more charming and beautiful. Looking at Wang Yang, she said, “Yang.”
“It will start very soon.” Leaning against the back of the theater chair and gazing at the big screen in front of him, he simply repeated emotionally, “It will start very soon.”
Half a year’s hard work, the whole team’s effort—all of this was condensed into those one hundred minutes of rapid images. High School Musical would break its own cocoon very soon. It would start to dance and show people what it had. Would it turn out to be a beautiful butterfly?
Wang Yang glimpsed at Jessica, who was sitting next to him. It was her eighteenth birthday this day and one of the most important days in her life. If High School Musical could make a hit, it would be the best gift he could find for her. But no matter what, everyone who had put effort into this movie would get his or her own gains this evening.
“This same time last year, I was sitting in your living room, and Miranda said…” Facing her, Wang Yang mimicked Miranda’s serious tone, “Yang, why don’t you be an actor?”
A smile pulled up the corners of Jessica’s lip. She said, “Then, she was surprised. Everyone was surprised.”
Shrugging his shoulders, Wang Yang said with a smile, “Time passes so fast. It has been a year. I still remember your grandma’s donuts. So sweet, so crispy. They were really delicious.”
Jessica said, kind of proud, “I got the recipe from my grandma. I’ll make you some someday!”
“Wow! I’m looking forward to that!” Smiling, Wang Yang fell silent. Besides those delicious donuts, he also remembered many other things. He remembered how tiring it had been to distribute leaflets on the street, and how he had been struggling in that McDonald’s. Then, he’d gotten a call from Rachel and had gone to the Lionsgate Films to sign the issuance contract. At the thought of all this, he could not help but look at Rachel, who was sitting a few seats away on his right side. He thought to himself, “Thank you a lot, Rachel.”
Rachel seemed to have sensed his look. She turned her head and met Wang Yang’s eyes. Smiling at him, she looked super relaxed. Wang Yang smiled back at her and then looked away.
The movie was about to start. The dark projection booth suddenly became very quiet. Everyone was gazing at the big screen in front of them. There was a fire burning in Wang Yang’s eyes. He said in a very low voice, “Here we go.” Next to him, Jessica, Tom Welling, Rachel, Zachery… they all held their breaths at the same time as if they had discussed it.
A few rows behind them, Michael Pitt, also in a suit and with two dark circles around his eyes, was staring at the big screen, unblinking. Next to him, George Harry murmured nervously, “Oh, Jesus! I don’t even know whether the scene I shot was kept or not.” In fact, he’d only pushed the dolly for that shot. The camera had been adjusted by others.
On the big screen, the intro for “Flames Films Studio” showed up.