Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Have you received my script?"

"Received it. I have made two copies and sent them to the producer Sternwood and the project manager responsible for this matter at Paramount."

Ronald was on a long-distance phone call with his agent, Richard. After intense writing, it took him only one month and ten days to complete the first draft of the script for "Son of Grease", and it took another two days to send it to the CAA office in Hollywood via FedEx.

"What did Mr. Sternwood say? Does he have any suggestions for revision?"

"Overall, I am quite satisfied. He wrote a handwritten revision opinion, which mainly focused on plots related to the Vietnam War. He hopes that you will lower the intensity of the plots related to the Vietnam War. I have faxed the opinions to my colleague in the New York office and he will send them to you. of."

Ronald knew about fax, a machine that can transmit paper content through telephone lines. It is a very convenient office equipment for screenwriters. When using it, you only need to pay the phone bill and you can transmit a piece of paper with your handwriting or scribblings to it as it is. on the other party's machine.

It's just that fax machines are too expensive, costing more than $10,000 each.

"Do you want to tone down the Vietnam War plot?" Ronald discussed this issue after he read the first draft with Spike Lee. In fact, he tried his best to minimize the presence of the Vietnam War. He did not mention which war it was, and placed the values ​​​​to be conveyed loomingly in the background.

"Okay, then I'll tone it down a little bit. In this way, young audiences who have never experienced it will almost not be aware of the existence of the Vietnam War. Only those who have experienced it will find some traces from the clues."

"Mr. Sterwood hopes you can revise it as soon as possible. He is already urging Paramount to get the project approved as soon as possible and start casting."

"Casting? Is the Screen Actors Guild still on strike? How can we start filming?" Ronald was a little surprised. "Isn't it said that only those movies and TV shows that have already started filming can apply for exemption from the union?"

"The union has relaxed its exemption application, and now Hollywood is saying that the strike will end soon and the two sides will reach a new agreement."

"This is great. It's good news for us. Otherwise, we don't know how long our work will be delayed." Ronald was also very happy to hear the good news. "But didn't the negotiation break down again two days ago? Why did it reverse immediately? Already?"

"The Commander-in-Chief has arranged a special envoy to intervene in the negotiations between the two parties. Because the new season of the TV series has not yet started, the audience is already very angry, and the finger of blame is vaguely pointed at the Commander-in-Chief. The Persian hostage crisis, rising oil prices, high inflation, and unemployment The rate is high, and now even my beloved movies and TV shows are gone...

Under pressure from the general election,

The commander-in-chief announced that he would resolve the matter. Special envoys were sent to observe the negotiations. It is said that the union negotiator, Ed Asner of the left wing of the Donkey Party, was also under great pressure and was forced to give up some terms. For example, the new agreement will require that the Screen Actors Guild shall not re-open within three years. strike. "

"So the strike will end soon?"

"Not yet. To end the strike, the two major actors' unions and the Producers Guild need to vote and approve it. It will take 3-4 weeks to go to the actors' unions in various places to convene members to vote. If the terms are rejected, then there will be another process, which is estimated to take another Lasts a month or two.

However, as long as it is a movie project from the eight major studios and a TV series from the three major TV stations, the Screen Actors Guild will give the green light to exemptions. I heard that many Broadway stage actors have also begun to resume rehearsals. "

"That's actually equivalent to the end of the strike. Large film crews are exempt, and small film crews, such as Kathryn Bigelow's low-cost movies, go to the countryside of Georgia, and the union can't control it. In short, for us, it's Good thing." Ronald said.

"Yeah, a lot of delayed projects are about to start." Richard also feels the same. In addition to screenwriting and directing, CAA's other agents are mainly TV actors. Recently, agents have also been wailing.

"By the way, the movie 'Endless Love' that Tom is participating in is about to start shooting in Long Island, New York, and Paula Wagner will accompany him. Tom hopes that you can go to the filming site and give him some guidance. He is very confident about himself He attaches great importance to his first big screen role, saying that you gave him the encouragement to continue his acting career, and I hope you can be there to witness his screen debut."

"That's no problem. I'll have some free time after revising the script."

"By the way, who will you choose as the heroine?"

"Who else, of course, the hot Brooke Shields. That jeans commercial you did for her is totally viral."

Hey, it's popular, but it doesn't have a good reputation.

In the past month, entertainment journalists have been chasing Brooke Shields mother and daughter all over the world.

The jeans ad was widely interpreted by viewers as showing Brooke Shields wearing nothing under skinny jeans. When the mother and daughter were on vacation in Europe, they were chased by people asking for their opinions on this interpretation. Some relatively low-profile tabloids directly asked Brooke Shields if she really was not wearing anything.

The mother and daughter just returned to New York a few days ago, and they were surrounded by a large number of reporters at the airport.

Brooke Shields, obviously prompted by a public relations expert, burst out laughing on the spot and asked the reporter, who would think of such a distorted association? On the surface, the crisis has been overcome.

But Ronald knew that Brooke Shields was actually very panicked and didn't know how to deal with this kind of thing. She secretly called Ronald and regretted not listening to Ronald's kind advice to change her lines on the set.

But her mother didn't care at all, and often bought a lot of newspapers and magazines home. Counting how many covers and front pages Brooke Shields was on because of this incident.

Presumably, because of this advertisement that made her daughter famous, Terry was able to offer a high price to the "Endless Love" crew.

However, this kind of actor who has a lot of news to join the crew as the heroine is willing to join PolyGram. The launch press conference is sure to be packed.

Regardless of the controversy surrounding the ad itself, CK jeans began to sell like crazy in big cities like New York. During this time, two of the five young girls on the streets of Manhattan were wearing tight jeans.

Designer Calvin Klein also became famous because of this. Last time he invited Ronald to a celebration party and said that he had found the product design code for young people. Since tight jeans are so popular in the teen market, he plans to simply use sexy and tight-fitting as ck's brand feature and turn to designing some clothing specifically for young people.

Ronald has also made a name for himself in the industry. Advertising agent Eddie has been receiving more and more shooting offers from advertising directors.

However, due to priority issues, Ronald was busy with movie scripts, and Eddie's business turned down most of them. We have only finalized an advertising shoot for Darcy Maguire, a regular customer of bbdo, for next month's cling film for kitchen and bathroom supplies.

A few days later, Ronald revised the script according to the producer's requirements and sent it to CAA again. This time Robert Sturwood was satisfied and submitted it directly to Paramount.

According to the news Richard received from Sternwood, casting work is also being stepped up, and the crew is expected to start shooting at the end of November or early December.

However, the real situation may not be so optimistic. Paramount has not yet secured director Jerry Zucker. The Zucker brothers are enjoying their great success and have little interest in taking over the sequel of a movie in the short term. To make a sequel is also to make a sequel to "Unprecedented and Unparalleled".

The actor in the previous film, John Travolta, had an ambiguous attitude towards guest starring in a supporting role, while the heroine, Olivia Newton-John, expressed her willingness to work with Travolta again. Her acting career really needs saving.

In short, the project is still progressing, and Ronald himself is happy to enjoy some free time, attend more classes, sign in with teachers, answer class quizzes, and accumulate some daily points.

The most interesting thing is the course on ancient Chinese poetry. The teacher in the class is called a Sinologist, but he doesn’t understand Chinese at all. Usually, he would take 300 Tang poems translated into English and lecture on the beauty of Tang poems in English, but Ronald could only understand half of them.

On this day, Ronald received a call from Paula Wagner, and Tom Cruise officially went to the set of "Endless Love" to film his only scene. Ronald came to the scene to cheer Tom on.

The film was mainly shot at Kaufman Astoria in Queens, New York. At the beginning of the century, this place was the center of America's film industry. In order to avoid Edison's film-related patent recourse lawsuits, the new studios gradually moved to Los Angeles and Hollywood in the west.

Kaufman Studios was once owned by Paramount, and the construction quality and equipment were top-notch at the time. After Paramount moved west, it was bought by independent investors and later sold to the Army for filming training movies. Now it is mainly used for filming TV series.

PBS's famous children's program "Sesame Street" was filmed here.

But today’s scene with Tom Cruise was shot on location, in a park near Kaufman Studios.

Tom Cruise was very happy to see Ronald coming. The two talked about what happened after parting, and Tom also took a cake from Paula and gave it to Ronald. He said that when he celebrated his birthday more than two months ago, Ronald didn't have time to come to Los Angeles to attend, so he brought a cake over to make up for it.

Ronald was also happy for Tom and asked Paula about Tom's role today.

"The role is only a cameo, but judging from the plot of the entire film, it is the source of the hero's thought of arson to arouse the gratitude of the heroine's family."

Tom Cruise plays a young classmate of the male protagonist who accidentally mentions that when he was eight years old, he lit a pile of wet newspapers on fire. The wet newspaper created a lot of smoke, and he went to fetch water to put out the fire. From then on, he was regarded as a little fire-fighting hero by the neighborhood.

He does not mean that. The male protagonist David also wants to follow suit, save the heroine's family, gain their gratitude, and no longer prohibit him from dating the heroine Jade.

"Ronald, it's you. I'm so glad you can come." The speaker was Italian director Franco Zeffirelli.

The old director hugged Ronald, "Would you like some whiskey? I always like to drink some when filming."

Ronald declined, not wanting to drink hard liquor during the day. Zeffirelli, however, took him aside.

"Tell me, Ronald, how did you make Brooke look so natural?"

"Huh?" Ronald was a little confused.

"It's that jeans ad."

"That was not my idea, it was a script given to me by Calvin Klein." Ronald quickly denied that he had created it, "There is nothing between me and Calvin."

"Idiot, I'm talking about the version of 'I'm the one who brings the bread home'. How did you make her smile so naturally in the end?" Zeffirelli also smelled of alcohol on his breath.

It turned out that Franco Zeffirelli encountered the same problem as Ronald after turning on the phone. Brooke Shields shoots print ads all year round. She was trained to think like a model who is very sensitive to her smile and body shape.

Therefore, during the filming process, Brooke Shields often pays attention to whether her smile is beautiful, whether the camera is facing her more beautiful side, and whether her posture is elegant.

The movie is a moving image, and the result of caring about it everywhere is that Brooke Shields' smile looks very artificial and has no natural feeling. Zeffirelli was not satisfied with the daily work samples. Not long after I started shooting, the shooting schedule started to fall behind.

Zeffirelli complained to the producer that Brooke Shields' acting skills were not up to par and could not achieve the performance effect he wanted. He hoped to change the heroine while not many scenes were shot.

Of course the producer refused to do it and showed Zeffirelli some of the ck commercial videos shot by Ronald, which made the old director a little bit helpless.

In the advertisement, Brooke Shields actually smiled very naturally, without any concern that she would become less beautiful because of her laughter.

After learning from the producer that the director of the commercial was Ronald, who had previously helped him cast the film, Zeffirelli also asked the film producer for Ronald to come to the crew to help.

"Ah, you mean that smile?" Ronald finally understood what Zeffirelli wanted to know.

"The filming process was very difficult, and I even made her cry. In the end, I asked Brooke's close friends to record some private jokes they usually chatted on the phone, and played them to her on Walkman to achieve that effect. "

"Is that so?" Zeffirelli's eyes lit up. He had an idea and knew where to start to train Brooke Shields' acting skills.

"Will you come to Kaufman Studio tomorrow? We have a major event and need your help."

Patting Ronald on the shoulder, Zeffirelli turned back to his assistant and shouted, "Get ready to start shooting..."

"You drank too much when you woke up in the morning? You already have an Italian accent," Ronald thought to himself, "Can a director who drinks during filming like this do a good job?"

Alcohol, it turns out, had little effect on Zeffirelli's ability as a director.

Ronald stood in a safe area behind the camera, watching a Tom Cruise scene with Paula Wagner.

Tom was among the extras, playing football. When you feel tired after a sprint, you have to rest. Then he took off his vest in front of the camera, revealing his strong upper body.

When I heard the male protagonist and his friends discussing how to have a tryst with his girlfriend Jade, he interrupted and talked about his own experience when he was eight years old.

"and cut."

Zeffirelli's casting was so smooth that he and the director of photography murmured, "This one is passed, let's develop it."

Paula quickly stepped forward to give Tom some water, and Ronald also stepped forward to congratulate Tom Cruise on his successful big screen debut.

"I have practiced for a long time and have memorized all the lines by heart." Tom Cruise smiled happily. My dream finally came true.

"Tom reads slowly, so I recorded his lines for him and asked him to memorize them by listening to the recording." Paula said beside her.

"Anyway, you acted very well, very naturally." Ronald really felt that Tom Cruise's performance was good, and even compared to the leading actor Martin Hewitt next to him.

Of course, Tom Cruise's handsome appearance and hormonal, graceful upper body also contributed a lot.

Perhaps because they were speaking a little too loudly, the actor Martin Hewitt looked back at them.

"He is the leading actor in the audition, Martin Hewitt. He used to be a bartender and valet parking person." Paula Wagner said quietly. She felt that the protagonist's image was not as good as Tom Cruise.

"Really?" Ronald raised his eyebrows. As expected, Martin Hewitt's facial hair and melancholic temperament fit in with director Zeffirelli's aesthetic.

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