Chapter 446 1998 NBA Draft 4
Usually, endorsement contracts were made at Adidas with a presentation by the company on the marketing proposals they had for the player they would sign, but David had already seen it all and it was Jake who had asked to sign the contract. In Los Angeles.
Jake would rather have signed with Nike because he knew the future, but he actually liked Adidas very much and wanted to do his best to help the company over the next 5 years that the contract between them would last.
In the meantime he would leave everything to Adidas and David Falk to take care of a tennis brand using his name and also the advertisements, Jake trusted David for this and knew that David was happy because he would receive 10 percent of those 52 million dollars. contract dollars.
"My name is Mike Morris, it is a pleasure to meet you, Jake Smith, I will be the representative of Adidas company to talk to you for years to come and if you have any questions you can call me and I will do everything I can to help."
"We at Adidas expect a lot from you in basketball and also in marathons, so if you need any help in the next marathons we can help and if you think about an advertising campaign we will also listen to you."
"Thanks, Mike, I also hope that we will work together for many years, I already left my coach taking care of the next competitions in the marathon for me, but he will let you know when I am going to compete and so you can prepare."
"Okay, how are you going to play here in Los Angeles so you will probably find a place to live here in the city when you do that we will send you some of our company's products for you to use whenever you want."
"Okay, I'll let you know."
After that the contract that had already been made by David and the Adidas company was handed over to Jake who signed it after reading it carefully, he was happy that David had already negotiated the contract with the sponsoring companies so that they could do things faster.
In the next few days, the other companies came so that Jake could sign the endorsement contract, in the end, no new company decided to sign with him after David increased the contract to $ 2 million a year.
So Jake signed with 4 other companies a 4 million dollar contract for 4 years, the companies were Gatorade, Gillette, Pepsi, and Chevrolet, so Jake managed an additional 16 million dollars in 4 years with these companies and would receive 4 corn of dollars a year.
David Falk was satisfied with these contracts that Jake had signed and knew that Jake did not intend to sign any new contracts that did not pay more than he had asked for before the NBA draft.
Jake knew well that the way to be successful in the NBA was not always to negotiate millionaire contracts with the teams but to negotiate millionaire contracts with the endorsement companies, Jake got Pepsi, Gatorade, and Gillette because of the old contracts sponsorship and because of David's help.
Jake was sure that in the coming years these companies would be happy if he really won 3 NBA titles and he would get new contracts and renew those contracts with much higher values.
Even after signing the contracts, Jake did not leave Los Angeles because there was still one day left before the NBA lockout that would be on July 1, Jake had to wait for the teams to release the players and so Jake would go to Australia.
With all the sponsorship contracts and the Los Angeles Lakers team signed, Jake didn't care about the NBA lockout, even though this season he knew the players would be paid less than he did.
Just as Jake expected in the next few days the NBA lockout actually happened and the Los Angeles Lakers team had to release the players, the same day Jake managed to schedule a flight to Australia and after saying goodbye to David he went to Sydney.
Jake was no longer suffering from the long 1-day trip on the plane and after resting for just one day he was much better and ready to re-shoot the scenes he missed in those weeks.
While Jake was away the actors did more fight scenes than Jake's character would not participate, Jake really wanted to see the footage of those scenes in person, but he couldn't ask the directors for it and had to settle for seeing the footage later.
Some more complicated scenes took days to shoot and some stuntmen were actually injured during the shoot, Jake suffered no injuries because he had a better physique than many stuntman's and also had faster reflexes.
Of course, Jake was lucky that his character didn't have to be thrown away in any scene, the scenes like when Neo was thrown into the phone booth the stuntman could get hurt, of course, part of that was the directors' consideration knowing that Jake was a professional basketball and did not have a stuntman.
While filming Jake can befriend Keanu Reeves and also Laurence Fishburne, Keanu and Laurence were not basketball fans, but they knew that Jake had been the first pick of the 1998 NBA draft and would play for the Los Angeles Lakers team and so they naturally they were more interested in him as a player because it was clear that if Jake did that he was a talented player.
Jake also couldn't help looking at the two of them as a normal fan would do, luckily he was a calm person and the two didn't bother with it, as the filming went on for weeks, Jake can calm down and treat them like friends himself.
Filming continued and Jake did all the fight scenes very well and also his performance was highly praised, so the Wachowskis brothers enjoyed working with Jake very much and intended to work with him again in the future if they were able to schedule the filming for the vacation of Jake in NBA.
Soon more time passed and the month of August had arrived, the filming was close to the end, but they would not end in August because Jake delayed the recording a little, but it was also because with the entry of his character in the film they had more scenes for the record.
Jake was fortunate enough to follow the scene where Neo and Trinity invade the agents' building to rescue Morpheus and they have one of the coolest shooting and fighting scenes that Jake had seen in which the two fight with dozens of policemen and win.
This scene took 10 days to be filmed because the visual effects were practical and not done by the computer, it was interesting for Jake to see how the scene was actually filmed and he was praised by the directors because his character was not in that scene and even then Jake was there every day to follow the recording.
Perhaps seeing the scene like this only the Wachowskis and Jake brothers could know what this scene would be like when going through post-production, Jake had brought one of Matthew's company digital cameras and whenever he could he took pictures of the actors and places of Australia that were close to where he was filming.
That was how after a little over 1 month the last scene was finally recorded and they had officially finished the recording period before the post-production started, a party was prepared to celebrate the end of filming.
At this party, they had farewells from the actors who would have different jobs and they weren't even sure if they would meet again, especially Jake that for everyone would go to the NBA games, only Jake knew it would still be a few months before the season really started.
"You did a great job, Jake, I confess I didn't expect you to be such a good actor, in the action and fight scenes you were also very good, I hope to work with you again."
"I have to thank you, Director Larry Wachowski, I appreciate this opportunity that you and your brother gave me and I also hope to work with you again, if you can organize the filming period for the season that does not have NBA games, I would certainly I will participate."
"Yes, I am confident that this film will be a success and so we will see each other in the recording of the sequence of this film, if there is an upcoming film I guarantee that you will have many more fight scenes to show your talent, Hahaha."
"I am also sure that this film will be a success, I hope to have time to watch the film premiere together with all of you."
After talking to Larry Wachowski, Jake went to talk to Keanu Reeves, just as before Keanu was surrounded by people because besides being a famous actor Keanu showed that he was very kind and charismatic in these months of recording and made friends with many of the film crew.
But this time Jake had an easier time approaching Keanu Reeves to talk to him because they became friends after filming, Jake thought that maybe they would have to shoot one more movie together at least if the sequel to The Matrix really happened.
"Keanu, it was a great pleasure to work with you these past few months, I am a big fan of yours before this film and seeing your dedication to the recordings I admire you even more."
"Hahaha, thank you, Jake, you also did an excellent job in this film, you were better than me in the fight scenes and in the action scenes, and for your first film without having an experience you did as well as the other actors in the scenes and did not make a mistake."
"This is nothing, I may have been better in the action scenes because you just had surgery, I'm sure in the future you will be one of the biggest names in cinema in action films like this."
"I hope we can work together again, and good luck to you at the NBA games."