Chapter 498 - 315: Zog’s Traffic-Generating Demon Shadow Festival (Part 2)

Chapter 498: Chapter 315: Zog’s Traffic-Generating Demon Shadow Festival (Part 2)

Perfect.

And so, Zog decided to create a Demon Shadow Festival!

The very first on the Feilin Continent—an annual Demon Shadow Festival that would combine awards with new film releases.

He chose Shadows of Evil because the number produced each year was now sufficient for an awards ceremony.

The total number of new Shadows of Evil released last year had already surpassed 100. While not a huge number, it was at least enough to justify an awards ceremony.

If there were only eight or ten films a year, there would be no real need for an awards selection.

Moreover, ever since the birth of the Shadow of Evil, the number of new films had been increasing every year at a rapid pace.

Its growth rate was much faster than that of games, which had appeared around the same time.

The barrier to entry for game development was still a bit high. At the current level of widespread education, it was difficult to find enough magical ’programmers.’ Even those who couldn’t perform Casting and were only responsible for using the game engine still needed a substantial foundation in Inscriptions.

So far, no more than twenty professionally released games came out in a single year.

There were plenty of crude, low-quality mini-games, mostly student projects. At best, they could support an independent game festival. But for a large-scale awards event, the substance was severely lacking.

If they really held one, Zog would be sweeping the awards from start to finish.

There wouldn’t be a "Big Three"; it would just be his "Big One."

The situation with Shadows of Evil was much better by comparison. After all, anyone with a camera could shoot one.

Acting, directing, and screenwriting were all fields that gave outsiders the illusion, ’Hey, I could do that too.’

The funny thing was, many outsiders who tried really *could* do it, sometimes even better than those with formal training...

Feilin had seen the birth of many production studios, some even backed by the Royal Family and filming with public funds.

And they did indeed produce quite a few decent Shadows of Evil.

In other words, it gave the fans something to fight over.

As for how the awards would be judged...

Setting aside the basic awards like Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay...

The more important question was: who would be the judges?

In Feilin, the common model for awards in other fields was for industry insiders to handle the selection process.

The general public had nothing to do with it.

The selection committees weren’t open to the public; it was more of an internal affair for the industry’s own amusement.

As a result, many of the industry’s most prestigious awards were unknown to the general public.

People had grown accustomed to this model.

When ordinary people learned that something had won an award, they would just remark, "Oh, impressive."

They never bothered to question whether the recipient of the award was a reasonable choice.

This was partly because the things being awarded in the past—be it in literature, art, or the even more specialized field of Magic—were far removed from the lives of commoners.

It was common for people to have never even heard of the nominees, so naturally, there was no public discussion.

Shadows of Evil, however, didn’t have this problem. Nowadays, any reasonably good Shadow of Evil was a household name; even those who hadn’t seen it would have heard of it.

With this as a foundation, the choices made by industry judges would naturally come under the scrutiny of countless viewers.

And that’s where the fun would begin.

’What? The one I liked won? This award is the most prestigious one ever!’

’How is that possible? The one I hate won? What a garbage award!’

The judges would exist in a quantum superposition of "most prestigious" and "total garbage."

Therefore, Zog planned to retain a selection by professionals as the main category of awards.

The judges would be provided by the Drama Guild. Most Shadow of Evil practitioners were still members of the Drama Guild, as the film and stage industries hadn’t fully separated yet. The two fields naturally shared a lot of common ground.

All guild members would submit a list of nominations for each award, and the final nominees would be determined by tallying the results.

Then, a smaller jury would select the final winner from among the nominees.

This would constitute the professional awards.

In addition to this, there would, of course, have to be some less-than-professional awards.

For example, the Media Awards.

As a component of the entertainment industry, the field of Shadow of Evil criticism had emerged shortly after the birth of the Shadows of Evil themselves.

There was even a dedicated newspaper, the *Feilin Magic Shadow Report*, which focused on publishing reviews of new releases, analyses of classic films, and the latest industry news.

Its circulation was quite good, and it was very influential among Shadow of Evil enthusiasts.

After all, Shadow Demon Tickets weren’t cheap, so it was a common practice to read reviews before deciding whether to go to a Magic Cinema.

Since they were so keen on critiquing, Zog decided to give them an even grander platform to do so.

The Media Choice Awards!

There would be slightly fewer categories than in the professional awards, and all the currently well-known entertainment media outlets would be invited to vote.

As for the voting system, he would use a ranked-choice point system. All qualified media outlets would submit a ranked list for each award category.

First place would be worth five points, down to one point for fifth place. The total scores would then be tallied to determine the winner.

Compared to having each outlet pick just one winner, this method would prevent a film from winning that strongly appealed to a small subset of the media but wasn’t widely liked.

The final winner would be the work that best reflected the tastes of the majority of media outlets. It might not be number one on every list, but it would appear on the most lists.

Furthermore, to increase public discussion around the media awards and to prevent outlets from taking bribes...

Zog would publish the names of all qualified media outlets and the lists they submitted, showing with full transparency how each winner was chosen.

This way, any outlet that took a bribe would have to consider whether it was worth ruining their own reputation.

A media outlet that stood in opposition to the public would quickly lose all credibility and find itself unable to survive.

And even less professional than the Media Choice Awards were, of course, the People’s Choice Awards!

The selection criteria for these awards were simple and straightforward.

It was a contest of who had the most fans.

To help fans concentrate their firepower, the People’s Choice Awards would only have three categories: Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress.

Note, this was not Best *Lead* Actor and Actress. In other words, as long as you appeared on screen, you were eligible.

’He wondered if, in the future, someone with a few-second cameo might end up being voted Best Actor.’

However, the People’s Choice Awards weren’t entirely without a barrier to entry.

Zog had some standards, at least. Anyone who had purchased a Shadow Demon Ticket and watched the film in a Magic Cinema would get two votes.

Accounts that had streamed it on the online platform would get one vote.

Those who hadn’t seen it at all were not allowed to vote.

Currently, any Shadow of Evil on the online platform that had been released within the last year required either a subscription or a separate payment to view.

So even if fans wanted to stuff the ballot box, they’d have to spend a fortune to do it.

At least there wouldn’t be any zero-cost vote spamming.

And just like that, a complete proposal for the Deepwater City Demon Shadow Festival was hashed out by Little Zog.

The entire Demon Shadow Festival would last for ten days.

The first seven days would be the exhibition phase, which included: test screenings for new, undistributed films that hadn’t been officially released; revivals of classic films; fan meet-and-greets with production crews; and internal industry knowledge-sharing seminars...

The final three days, however, were the main event.

The winners would be announced sequentially, in order of the People’s Choice, Media Choice, and Professional awards.

Finally, it would all culminate in a grand awards ceremony.

In addition to invited guests, interested members of the public could also purchase tickets for admission.

It was guaranteed to attract a massive crowd to Deepwater City.

Once the plan was finalized, the promotional machine roared to life.

Soon, news of the Deepwater City Demon Shadow Festival was splashed across the headlines of major newspapers and the homepages of numerous websites.

Shadow of Evil enthusiasts were the first to take notice. Then, thanks to their spontaneous hype-building, the Demon Shadow Festival quickly became a household name.

People love a good spectacle.

And this festival sounded like quite the spectacle.

Even though it was just the preliminary phase, with more than a month to go before the festival’s official start date, train ticket sales to Deepwater City had already multiplied several times over.

Regardless of the festival’s final outcome, the goal of attracting people to Deepwater City had already been achieved.

To show how seriously he was taking this, Zog personally participated in the work of screening new films for the festival’s test-screening lineup.

Lately, he’d been watching films every day until he was bleary-eyed.

’Finished films were one thing, but why was he also getting rough cuts that weren’t even fully edited? There were even some that hadn’t been shot at all—just a script brought in to fish for investment.’

’Who would be so bold?’

Zog opened the investment-seeking script in his claw.

’He didn’t expect it to be from an acquaintance.’

It was a script from Lavin, titled *Old Clothes*.