Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Hahaha..." Eric, the editor, looked at the picture on the monitor and couldn't help laughing.

"Your screenwriter is a genius. Even though I have watched it many times, I still laugh out loud every time I see it."

Ronald couldn't help but laugh too. On the screen was Stacey's eldest brother Brad. He was fired from All-American Burger because of a dispute with a customer. In order to repay the installment loan of his beloved four-door luxury car, he had to work at the competitor "Captain Hook's Fish and Chips" fast food.

On the way to deliver food to IBM, the store manager asked him to put on a full Scottish skirt and a big-brimmed hat with a pirate logo to deliver.

At a red light intersection, a beautiful woman with blond hair and blue eyes, wearing a purple and pink two-color spliced ​​cashmere sweater, kept smiling at him in a convertible sports car next to him.

Brad thought at first that the beauty was looking behind him, but the constant smiles and looks made him think that the beauty fell in love with him at first sight. He quickly showed his teeth and smiled in response, and winked at the beauty.

The beauty found him more and more ridiculous, so she couldn't help but cover her face with laughter, and when the light turned green, she stepped on the gas and left.

Only then did Brad realize that he had misunderstood. He looked at his pirate hat in the rearview mirror and was so angry that he grabbed it and threw it out of the car window.

"That's screenwriter Cameron Crowe's girlfriend, Nancy Wilson. The guitarist of the girl rock band 'Hearts.'" Ronald pointed at the beauty in the freeze-frame on the screen and said, "If you watch the stand, Their music video is being played recently."

"No wonder she looks familiar." Editor Eric laughed.

The editing has been going on for two weeks. They stay in the editing room from morning to night every day, immersed in the fantasy world depicted in the movie. Ronald and Eric are a little out of touch with the real world.

"Would you like a cup too?" Ronald asked Eric as he picked up the thermos cup and poured black tea out.

"Okay, I'll have a cup too. I'll see you drink this every day. Don't you drink coffee?"

"Coffee is like a loan shark, helping you wake up for the time you need, only to get it back doubly sleepy a few hours later. Black tea is like an installment loan, smoothing out the peaks and valleys of your concentration."

The two drank a cup of black tea and got back into hard work.

"Fast-paced Richmond High School" has encountered a bottleneck in its recent editing work and is not progressing quickly. Ronald has done a preliminary cut, and each character in the complete story has a distinct image and emotions. The only big problem is that the duration exceeds 115 minutes.

It was more than 20% longer than the 90 minutes requested by the producers.

After watching the complete first cut version without the soundtrack, the two producers actually had the idea of ​​persuading Universal executives to release it in 115 minutes. But after a little trial and error, I found it was impossible.

This is the type of teen comedy that Universal makes to fill the low slots every year. After the summer season ends, it is the lowest box office period for movies of the year. During this period, few viewers go back to the cinema to watch a two-hour feature film.

Only light-hearted comedies have a market. Theaters hope to keep the length of the film within 90 minutes, so that one more show can be scheduled during prime time every night and increase box office revenue.

To reduce the length of the 115-minute film by 20% without affecting the original story and emotion, this posed a great challenge to Ronald, who was editing a feature film for the first time.

"A scene of Brad starting to drive can actually be removed here, and the scenes of Brad and Nancy Wilson can be intertwined. It would have made the audience feel like the two were communicating back and forth.

After Nancy drove away, there was no need to show the shot of Brad starting off, just cut to him looking in the rearview mirror and finding himself looking ridiculous like a clown. "

Editor Eric suggested to Ronald.

Ronald thought for a while, and indeed the audience should not have any difficulty in understanding. Today's Hollywood movies no longer follow the continuity requirements in time and space. In movies before the 1950s, this kind of temporal and spatial continuity was a hard and fast rule.

For example, in reality dramas at the time, we often saw scenes of characters entering skyscrapers.

Under the dogma of time and space continuity at that time, it was necessary to cut a series of shots of getting on the elevator, closing the elevator door, the elevator indicator light continuously showing the rising floor, the top floor elevator dinging to stop, opening the elevator door, and the character walking out of the elevator to explain the character. flow in space and time.

However, the new wave of Chinese people created a new method of editing, and after it spread to Hollywood, it also profoundly affected American movies.

Hollywood directors suddenly discovered that as long as the plot is coherent, after the shot of entering the building, they cut off all the elevator shots and directly let the characters open the office door and walk in, and the audience will not understand anything.

They automatically omit the unimportant parts in the middle, turning on a light bulb in their minds. Oh, this guy comes into the building, goes into the office and talks to people.

Continuity in time and space has since been abandoned by Hollywood, and it is ranked the least important among the six editing principles given by Merzer.

"I think it's okay, you might as well give it a try." Ronald replied to Eric.

"Okay." Eric operated the editing machine and deleted the scene.

The editing assistant came over and wrote down the time when the scissors were cut and the numbers of the front and rear shots. Then he picked up the tape and quickly connected the two front and back shots on the machine.

Finally, she carefully collected the cut film and put it in a plastic bag for record keeping to prevent the director from regretting it in the future and reattaching the original footage.

Ronald and Eric watched the edited footage again, and the story and emotions were as expected, unaffected.

"Very good, this saves another four seconds." Just seconds passed like this, and the length of the film was slowly moving towards the 90-minute mark.

"Hi, Ronald. How's the progress today?" After lunch, producers Lin Sen and Azoff "accidentally strolled" into the editing room on time.

During this time they came more frequently, sometimes twice a day, once for a walk after lunch and again after dinner.

Generally speaking, directors are full of love for the films they shoot, and cutting out any part is like cutting off the hands and feet of their beloved with a scalpel.

Recently, Warner Bros.'s "Blade Runner" (; runner), the producer and starring star Harrison Ford, and director Ridley Scott had a falling out over the editing time and plot. The two sides have reached the point of starting a fight. To the point where rumors are spreading all over Hollywood.

Ronald has no prejudice against editing, but the pace of progress has been getting slower and slower lately, which worries the two producers.

"Not bad, about five seconds were cut off in the morning."

The two producers were worried. The editing speed had not increased for several days in a row. The progress was probably going to be seriously delayed, and the editing speed would become slower the further back they went. By then, the editing speed would probably be less than 90 minutes.

The two exchanged glances, and Lin Sen spoke again, "Ronald, we all trust you, but Universal's executives don't know the excellence of this movie. They will definitely use the 90-minute total length in the contract to limit it." your."

"I know..." Ronald also had a headache. "I tried my best to cut without damaging the story and emotion, but it was difficult and the speed couldn't be increased. This is not the kind of comedy farce. Every character and story is unique. There are foreshadowing and highlights, so it’s difficult for me to cut out the entire plot with scissors, so I can only add time to each shot.”

Azoff couldn't help it anymore, "You know, Ronald. There are voices from Universal executives saying that your movie is not a comedy, but a drama that reflects social reality, and even a tragedy with a crying scene. They also say that you are holding a Spend your money around the world.

Tom Mount was prepared to send an experienced director to check the progress and step in if it was not satisfactory. "

Ronald frowned. He didn't know who spread this out-of-context rumor.

There was indeed a crying scene during the filming, but at that time Linda, played by Phoebe Cates, cried and explained to her friend Stacey after being unable to conjure up an imaginary Chicago boyfriend to attend her prom. It's obviously a humorous comedy scene and has nothing to do with tragedy.

As for reflecting social reality, this is a modern teen comedy. Does it reflect some phenomena that are not normal in social reality?

For example, Stacy had an unexpected pregnancy and went to a free clinic funded by Women’s Liberation in California. For example, Brad was working at a Seven-Eleven convenience store and was robbed at gunpoint by a teenage robber.

But these plots are all told in the context of light comedy, and there is no heavy atmosphere like "Famous". "Fast-paced" overall the audience will be amused from time to time.

"Okay, I get it, I'll speed up the process."

Ronald was angry in his heart. This Mount always caused trouble for him, and now he had to send someone to check. This kind of thing is the most taboo in artistic creation. Could it be that when Michelangelo was painting the Sistine frescoes, would the church still let Leonardo da Vinci come to check his artistic ability?

As a last resort, Ronald had to work two more overtime hours every day, but this made the editor Eric and the two editing assistants very tired, and the editing efficiency plummeted.

Seeing that the progress was getting slower and slower, Ronald suppressed his irritation and asked Eric and his assistant to take a day off.

He himself also had the opportunity to reorganize his thoughts and at the same time relax his irritable mind.

But Ronald had few friends in Los Angeles. Jim Cameron couldn't bear it anymore, so he borrowed some money from himself, scraped together a piece of money and bought a plane ticket to fly to Rome, Italy. He couldn't stand his movie being randomly edited, so he went to negotiate with the producer. .

Gale Hurd is getting busier and now oversees four crews at once, and it looks like she has a chance to be promoted to vice president.

Ronald had no friends to talk to about his troubles, so he had to watch TV at home to relieve his boredom. Fortunately, the TV station gave him a lot of fun, and the various weird editing methods there made people think a lot.

The TV station did not have enough film sources. After dozens of minutes, the content was repeated again. Ronald picked up the remote control and changed to a news station.

"A mysterious disease has been found prevalent in communities in San Francisco, often affecting gay men. Local doctors say there is no evidence that the disease is contagious."

"San Francisco?" Ronald was stunned. He hadn't contacted Walter Mersey for a long time. He was an Oscar-winning editing expert. He encountered editing difficulties. Why not ask him for advice?

After Mersey left Peep Show, he did not edit or do sound design for any films. Ronald doesn't have his phone.

After asking around the brokerage company, he got a phone number for the house where he lived with his wife and children in the countryside.

"Hello, I'm looking for Mr. Walter Mersey. I'm his friend Ronald."

"Daddy, someone is looking for you." The person who answered his call seemed to be Merzi's little daughter.

"Hi Ronald, long time no see, how are you doing now?"

"I'm filming a small-production youth film for Universal. I encountered some problems with editing, so I have to ask you for advice."

"Oh, look, Ronald, you've finished your directing work, and I'm still in the script preparation stage."

"That's different. Yours is a big production, mine is an exploitation film."

"Haha, there are no big or small movies."

Merzy chatted with Ronald for a few words, and then listened to Ronald describe his dilemma.

"It's like boiling tomato sauce when making pasta. There are no shortcuts in editing. You can only slowly reduce the juice, cut a little here, cut a little there, and finally slowly simmer out a bowl of delicious sauce."

"I think so too, but Universal is not satisfied with my progress, and some rumors are being spread among the upper levels. They may send another director to check my editing progress. I am also a little anxious."

"Well, if you really have no choice, you can try the 'Procrustean bed', which is also an editing method. I wouldn't do it myself, but George Luca This is how Si edits films, you can try it.”

Walter Mersey saw that Ronald was facing trouble from above and gave him an idea.

7017k

Please remember the first domain name of this book: . :