Exploiting Hollywood 1980

After six weeks, "The Lost Ark" is again the No. 1 box office of the week. This movie is really popular, surpassing the box office of "Superman 2".

Ronald thought for a long time and thought of an explanation. Many of the comic book movie audiences are comic fans. After "Superman 2" passed the heat of the first few weeks after its release, the follow-up gradually dried up. And "The Lost Ark of the Covenant" is an original adventure story. With word of mouth spread by the audience, more and more people watched it.

As the film continues to sell well, Spielberg's status is rising rapidly, et has added some special effects budget.

Ronald was a little worried. Spielberg was becoming more and more popular with various producers, and he might forget about supporting himself.

So he took the written "Back to the Future" script evaluation, contacted Steven's assistant Catherine, and delivered it to his door in person, reminding Spielberg with his own face.

"Hmm... You have a good idea. You concentrated a lot of scenes in the movie, and the time machine was changed from a nuclear explosion to a car using nuclear fuel. The cost of such special effects has become calculable, and nuclear explosions are simply impossible to shoot." Si Pielberg gave praise while reading the evaluation.

"I heard that ET got the endorsement of Hershey's Reese's Chocolate?" Ronald raised the topic, and flattered Steven first.

"Hershey wouldn't have agreed to pay $1 million if I hadn't had faith in you. I'll regret seeing m\u0026m after the movie comes out."

Ronald himself was also talking about brand placement. He heard from the producer that et and Hershey had signed a $1 million endorsement agreement, and he was very envious.

I also got $5,000 from Perry’s pizza for the placement of my own movie. It was because Jennifer Jason Lee, who has acted in several TV series, went there to experience life as a waiter.

Burger King refused to negotiate after reading the script. They believed that their company was not suitable for appearing in a low-budget movie.

I came up with the idea myself, but others took the big head. Ronald had to hope that the producers' efforts to find a tennis shoe brand would not be in vain.

"Very good, I will pass it on to Zemeckis, he still wants to try to negotiate with a big studio." Spielberg was very busy and got up to leave, "Your evaluation of the script is very interesting, everything is based on reality. From the perspective of shooting, I am really interested in going to your set to see you make movies now."

"Thank you, Steven." Ronald achieved his goal, heaved a sigh of relief, and stood up to say goodbye.

"This is Chris,

The screenwriter who worked on my Ann Bolling. Spielberg pointed to a screenwriter who was working at the desk next to him and introduced it to Ronald. He was very busy when the machine started, and disappeared in a blink of an eye.

"Hello, my name is Chris Columbus." The screenwriter who was about the same age as Ronald came over and introduced himself, and he was helping Amberlin write the script. Ronald exchanged business cards with him and left.

After a few days, the director of photography and art director of the film were also in place. Ronald took them all over the world in Los Angeles to find locations.

"This is a movie theater, and opposite is Perry's Pizza and All-American Burger. What do you think?" In the Sherman Oaks shopping center in the suburbs of Los Angeles, Ronald was looking at the other end of the mall while holding a director's viewfinder.

This mall has a bit of history, and some decorations have begun to look old, but it happens not to be too shabby. Just the kind of authenticity Ronald was looking for.

The viewfinder is like a monocular. There are scales of camera lenses with various focal lengths inside, indicating the size of the picture that can be seen when using different lenses to view the view. Ronald liked this Scorsese gift because it was light and easy to carry.

"What kind of basic tone do you need?" Director of photography Matthew is an old man at Warner, skilled in all types of low-cost productions.

"I need a film style that is close to reality, with a frame size of 1.85. I need to reflect the dilapidated and dirty images in the film. The colors are mainly realistic tones, so that people can recognize them at a glance. It’s a suburban, middle-class enclave of Los Angeles.”

The director of photography hurriedly took out his notebook and wrote down, this young director is not a second-generation star to play for tickets as he thought. What he said was the words of an insider, concise and direct, expressing what he wanted very clearly.

Unlike some directors who only say that I want the tone of "The Godfather".

If I could shoot that kind of dark tone, high contrast, top light photography style, wouldn’t I have won the Oscar for Best Cinematography long ago?

"What kind of image texture do you need? Is the lighting more natural soft light, or more dramatic hard light."

"Natural", Ronald understands the meaning of the director of photography. The lighting method like "The Godfather" is more dramatic. At the beginning, the old godfather played by Brando is sitting in the dark background, stroking the cat to decide various things. Look, very dramatic.

"This is a youth romantic comedy with a slightly realistic undertone. It doesn't need to be too heavy and dramatic, so that the audience can feel relaxed. Even if there are many bad things in the plot, it should look relaxed and let them know that temporarily The suffering will always pass, and the movie finally has a good ending."

"Theatrical lighting is difficult, so I'll hire an expert lighting engineer, because the natural light is enough to finish shooting quickly." Ronald groaned in his heart, whether this photographer Matthew is good, it seems that he doesn't seem to be particularly good. But with my own budget, I can only hire technicians of this level.

The budgets of the big studios were all false reports, and there were many problems with the invoices. The administrative department charged a lot of expenses to the crew, and Ronald did not intend to pursue it. Now everyone is doing it this way.

Ronald asked about the background of the director of photography Matthew, and sure enough, he had previously made TV series and TV movies. I haven't played film film much.

"So our art design also adopts a realistic style?" Dan, the art director, is a veteran. He also participated in the art direction of Spielberg's "Encounters of the Third Kind", and took the initiative to communicate with the director.

"That's it. Everything follows the current Los Angeles public high school students, making them feel familiar at a glance." Ronald was quite satisfied with him.

"Let's go... let's go over there." Ronald went around the mall and walked to the opposite of All American Burgers and Perry's Pizza. Jennifer Jason Lee was working at the pizzeria Lee. She wore a red headband and wore A dress with red and white vertical stripes, a white bib around the outside, white socks and white sneakers under the feet.

The whole person is in perfect harmony with the style of Perry's pizza.

"Hi, Jennifer, bring us some pizza." Ronald sat down with the two directors and called Jennifer to order.

"Hello, director." Jennifer laughed happily, took out a pencil from her bib bag and started to order. She is very stylish, like a part-time high school student girl.

"Two of these, and some more... Coke?" Ronald asked the two companions.

"We only have Pepsi here, and it will be here soon," Jennifer went to place an order, and soon she was served pizza and Pepsi.

"You look great," Ronald praised. "How's the national burger business over there?"

"Very well, their business is the best here." Jennifer said.

"Jennifer, can you sign for us?" The two children had seen Jennifer's TV series, recognized her, and came up to ask for an autograph.

Ronald put down his Pepsi, took out his notebook and wrote down, and asked the producer to discuss the placement of advertisements with American Pizza. Maybe you will be interested in this kind of regional burger restaurant.

The three of them finished their pizza and continued to view the scenery.

"This is Van Nuys High School, I plan to put all the school scenes here." Ronald took the two to the old place, which was the location where "Rock High School" was filmed.

"Students were still in school when it was turned on, right?" Director of photography Matthew has filmed many TV series, and sometimes he went to school to shoot scenes during the holidays.

"I made an agreement with the principal. He is an old acquaintance of mine. Many students here are art students, and they are willing to come and see it. I just chose some to do group performances."

Ronald took out the director's viewfinder and started to look at it. The two directors glanced at each other. This Ronald director is extremely efficient, as if he can do all types of work in the crew, except for makeup. Be careful after booting.

Such a director is generally very demanding, and he cannot be fooled by any job. Fortunately, Ronald doesn't seem to have a bad temper, otherwise the life of the crew would be difficult.

"The stadium here doesn't work, and the camera can't move. We have to find another high school football stadium." Ronald recorded the coordination of important scenes in a few words, "I'll call the producer, and I have to expand the scope. "

"I still need to find an Italian restaurant where we can film Mark and Mike discussing how to pick up girls." Ronald crossed another item on the list in his notebook.

...

The scouting work continued, and Ronald and art director Dan continued to run.

The director of photography, Matthew, brought in the cameras allocated by Universal Pictures.

The next step is to determine the printing process parameters of the film. Ronald will try to shoot some samples with the director of photography, and see the effect after printing.

Because there are many batches of film, the same brand and the same type of film, if the factory time is different, the color of the front and back will also be inconsistent. Therefore, in general, shooting in large studios will use a batch of films that are close to the factory date.

Ronald and the director of photography Matthew test the machine again.

Matthew is also a camera operator, and he is very skilled at changing film in his dark pocket. He locked the latch on the film bay door and began taking test shots at Ronald.

"What brand of camera is this? Why haven't I seen it before?" Ronald was a little surprised.

"ultracam", Matthew replied while taking pictures, "a new brand from America. Not long after it was launched, Universal bought a batch, which happened to be allocated to us.

Generally, film crews in America use more Panavision () cameras. Cameras of this brand are only rented and not sold, and they are very expensive.

The ultracam may be cheaper, which impressed Universal Studios and bought a few units for the crew to use.

"Shxt!" The next day Ronald saw the results of the sample film shot by ultracam, and angrily brought Matthew to trouble the producer.

"Why did you give our crew these rags?" Ronald threw the developed film on producer Lin Sen's desk. It's all fucking exposed, this tattered film bay cover, fastened with a bolt, it's all light leaks.

"My dear Ronald, I'm sorry. This was assigned by someone in the technical department, and our crew has a limited budget."

"Limited size, your truck pulls the wood in the morning and parks it outside the office door, and pulls it back in the evening, repeating the cycle. These invoices are all reimbursed by the crew's accountant.

Don't think I don't know, you go to gogo at night, the money for the stripper is all paid here. "

"Okay, okay, keep your voice down, Ronald. What do you want to do?"

"Swap our cameras for Panavision, or Arri's."

"That's impossible. Panavision is being leased to the crew of "Flowers in Spring City" starring Dolly Parton, and our American film company cannot use German products like Alai."

"The camera is the most important piece of equipment, and I can't compromise."

"It's not very easy to use, but it's a bit of a light leak. You have to think of a way. The business manager I found found you the owner of the national burger. He is willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for the burger restaurant. You have to give them a trademark. close-up.

I also found a sneaker manufacturer who had a new checkerboard pattern and was willing to spend money on advertising. "

"No problem, I promise to give them the biggest and longest feature!" Ronald laughed, and then said seriously, "But the money must be spent on the crew!"

"Can."

"Anyway, I was going to shoot related plots, so I took it as a ride." Ronald felt very happy.

"Then what about our camera?" The director of photography, Matthew, followed Ronald around for a while, but couldn't get a better camera, feeling a little flustered.

"This is your first time making a theatrical movie, Matthew." Ronald whistled, took out a roll of black tape from his bag, and threw it over, "A cinematographer must have a magic weapon, and there is nothing wrong with a camera malfunction." A roll of tape won't do it."

Duoben

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