Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Tulsa does not have a photo lab itself. The negatives of "The Kid" had to be sent to Warner Bros.'s nearest lab in Dallas, Texas, for printing.

Every two days, the filmed negatives will be sent to the laboratory, developed into sample films, and then sent back. The crew will rent a movie theater in the small town of Tulsa to play these samples at night.

Due to limited conditions, the routine of watching sample films every day has become once every two days.

What was playing on the screen that day was an emotional scene of three brothers filmed at Ma Zai's house.

Patrick Swayze, who plays the eldest brother, is actually thirty years old. The role of the twenty-year-old eldest brother is quite convincing. Although he is old and has some wrinkles on his face, he still looks like a young man due to his abundant male hormones and explosive power of anger.

After being beaten up by his eldest brother, Ma Zi, played by C. Thomas Hall, sleeps on the same bed as his second brother Soda Soda in the bedroom, and the two talk about their innermost thoughts.

This conversation was actually filmed over two days. The first day of shooting was the talking scene of Ma Zi played by Hall, and the second day was the talking scene of the second brother Soda Pop played by Rob Lowe.

The unedited sample film flashed across the big screen. Ronald looked at the picture without synchronized dialogue and could only use his imagination to understand the scene of the two people's conversation after the final editing.

But sometimes, the absence of dialogue allows the audience to focus on the actors' facial expressions.

Ronald looked at the close-up of the two actors on the screen. The process of emotions from beginning to development, being stimulated by the other, reacting, and in turn stimulating the other, can be said to be very vividly captured.

Coppola didn't have much scheduling on set, and there wasn't a lot of interference, but the two people's performances were very accurate.

"How did he do it?" Ronald blurted out after seeing this.

"What?" Sitting next to Ronald was Diane Lane and his father Bert.

"I mean, how did Coppola make their dialogues progress so well? It was obviously filmed in two days?" Ronald remembered that Bert had been an acting coach before driving a taxi, so he asked for advice.

"Didn't they rehearse for two weeks? On the last day, they rehearsed every scene in the two-hour script in order from beginning to end without stopping?"

Bert looked at Ronald and wondered why he didn't understand this.

"Ronald,

You haven't studied acting formally, have you? "

"No."

“The continuity of performance depends on rehearsal.

Especially in movie performances, every scene is separated. If you say a word, the opposite actor may have to shoot it two weeks later. Therefore, the main purpose of rehearsal before shooting is to solve the problem of scale in performance.

The non-stop rehearsal on the last day allowed each character to have a deep understanding of the role of their scene in the entire plot. This way, when they were officially filming, they could mobilize their emotional memories during the rehearsal and know what the shot should be. How many points of emotion do you want to give?

When the final editing was put together, the actors' emotions were naturally in tune. "

"So that's it." Ronald didn't expect the answer to be so simple. No wonder Coppola had to rehearse each scene in the order in the script during the rehearsal.

The official filming is not in order, but during rehearsals, the order of each scene is strictly followed.

This allows each actor to know the development trajectory of his or her character, the role of each of his scenes in the plot of the entire movie, and the development of the characters, so that the actors can have an idea of ​​the actual filming.

How much force should be used in this sentence? How sad and angry should this crying scene be? Does this scene need to happen suddenly, or does it happen naturally? All the scale and propriety of performances are solved in rehearsals.

"How did you deal with this problem when you were a director?" Bert looked at Ronald.

"I don't know, so I just shot it."

Ronald didn’t know how he managed to achieve such a “fast pace”. There was no overall rehearsal plan, especially the non-stop rehearsal at the end. No wonder I felt so embarrassed when I saw the scene I directed on the big screen, which made me cover my face and want to reshoot it.

"Hollywood..." Bert muttered and stopped talking. Roger Corman may have been able to train directors to make profitable films, but he could never produce masters of the art.

"I still have a question. Every time when rehearsing and performing, the actors are actually consuming the freshness. Why are they still full of emotions when they are filming?"

Ronald found something wrong again. When directing by myself, the emotions in the first or second line are often the most natural and full. If you have to shoot the third, fifth, or tenth shot...the actors will start to get tired. They can no longer express the abundant emotions they had at the beginning.

So sometimes even though the first one is flawed, it is still retained because of the wonderful performance.

"Real shooting is still different from rehearsals." Burt replied, then leaned into Ronald's ear, "Besides, haven't you noticed that Coppola is letting the actors accumulate energy every day, such as Diane and Dillon?"

Ronald glanced at Diane, who was sitting next to Burt. Diane stopped talking to Matt Dillon these days. Dillon also seemed to dislike Diane and was unwilling to talk to her.

This is allowing actors to take on roles in daily life.

Ronald finally understood the purpose of Coppola's series of tactics. For example, actors from two gangs competed to tease Diane, or deliberately made Diane and Ti Lung hate each other...

In this way, when it is filmed in the drive-in theater tomorrow, when Dali played by Tillon flirts with Cherry played by Diane, the accumulated emotions of the two people will burst out...

"Some directors like to let actors improvise on the spot, and that's why." Bert became interested. He hadn't been a drama performance coach for a long time. It was rare that someone was willing to ask for advice, so he said a few more words to Ronald.

"Do you know why Stanislavsky studied acting methods?"

"Well, I really don't know. I don't like Methodists very much." Ronald has always been biased against Methodists. He thinks that their methods are too dedicated, invading the private space that actors should maintain, and then taking away their personal privacy. Come out and show yourself naked to others.

"No, that's rubbish created by Lee Strasberg. Stanislavsky was originally trying to solve the problem in theatrical performances that as the number of performances increases, actors lose the ability to infect the audience."

Bert talked about his understanding of the performance system.

The interaction between people is very subtle. Based on their own life experience, the audience can quickly judge whether the actor is truly emotionally moved or just pretending to laugh and cry.

Repetition is an actor's worst enemy. Acting in the same play in the theater day after day will soon make the actor lose his stereotype. The audience will never appreciate the subtlety of the drama again.

All performance systems are designed to solve the problem of authenticity of the performance.

"One way is to rely on improvisation. If you say a line that is different from the script and do a different action, your opponent, another actor, will feel the fresh stimulation and give a true reaction. .

A good director will usually ask the actors not to stop and continue performing when something unexpected happens. Often this kind of performance is the most exciting. "

Burt was famous for teaching improv during his days as an acting coach.

He and his partner once broke into Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio, performed an impromptu performance for more than ten minutes, and then lied to the other party that it was a play being rehearsed. In the end, the decryption was made up by me, and I laughed at the other party severely.

Soon Ronald saw the extra authenticity that surprises on set gave actors and actresses the thrill they needed.

What was filmed today was the scene that caused Diane and Tillon to not speak on the set, and Dali flirted with Cherry in the drive-in movie theater.

Dally, played by Matt Dillon, initially lifts Diane's hair and then pretends to ask her if she has natural red hair or if it's dyed.

Ronald hid in a safe area behind the camera, watching Diane's performance.

Sure enough, the unhappy look on her face was very real. Not only was she disgusted with Dillon, but she was also uncomfortable with Dillon blowing on her neck. There was probably a lot of truth in this expression.

However, because there was an explosive scene later, Diane still restrained her emotional expression. Now she looks like a little girl who is bullied, unhappy but afraid to show off. She is very charming.

Next, Dillon should put his feet on the back of the empty chair in front of him and continue to mess with Diane with his feet.

Then Diane couldn't bear it anymore and turned around to scold the little ruffian.

"Hey, hey..." In order to express Dali's chic and ruffian image, Matt Dillon completely let go of his hands and leaned on his buttocks on the seat. With his feet raised, he accidentally lost his center of gravity and fell under the chair.

"Hahaha..." Diane and Howl, who played Ma Chai in the back, burst into laughter.

Hall, the youngest actor, looked at the camera, seeking a signal from the director whether to stop filming.

Ronald was so anxious that he gestured to continue. It would be a pity if such a good opportunity for improvisation was ruined because of his actions while looking at the camera.

Diane was much more experienced. She just glanced at the director and the camera with her peripheral vision. Seeing that there was no signal to stop, she immediately continued to play the role of a beautiful girl who was frustrated.

Fortunately, Hall saw Ronald's gesture and "continue" mouth shape, and quickly turned his head back and continued to perform.

"cut!"

After Coppola finished this piece, he came over and patted Ronald on the shoulder. Fortunately, Ronald was smart in this regard. Otherwise, Hall would only have to look at the camera for one scene, and there would be no room for editing in the entire scene, so the entire scene would have to be scrapped.

"Well done, Diane." Ronald stepped forward to congratulate Diane. She did the best in this scene and could be called the youngest veteran actor on the set.

"It's not a big deal." After a moment of maturity, Dai couldn't help but chuckled proudly.

"Bravo!"

At the screening meeting a day later, Coppola took the lead in applauding this wonderful performance. All the young actors knew what was going on and knew that such a coincidence was rare, so they applauded one after another.

"I have an idea. When filming the battle between the two gangs, I can wear the ugly dentures I used to have, so that when someone punches me, I can spit out the dentures when I turn my head. , which makes the performance more realistic."

Tom Cruise was fascinated by Dillon and Diane's wonderful acting skills and wanted to imitate them. He thought of a plot for his character and asked Ronald if it would make his play more exciting.

A little gangster whose dentures fly out after being beaten not only feels real to the audience, but can also be turned into an improvisational performance, allowing the opposite actor to react more realistically.

"Francis, Tom has some new ideas for the big battle scene the day after tomorrow."

Ronald brought him to Coppola and asked him to talk about his ideas.

"My front teeth are fake. I also have the kind of cheap dental crowns I bought in the supermarket before. They can be put on for this scene and close-ups. These crowns are very loose and they will fall off if I tilt my head hard. come out……"

Tom Cruise sincerely hoped that Coppola would let him improvise.

"So you have to wear these ugly dentures in all your close-ups and close-ups. Aren't you worried about your image?"

"I'm not worried. What I'm worried about is that the character is not realistic enough..." Young Tom Cruise said firmly.

"Well, let Ronald accompany you to talk to the makeup artist."

When Coppola saw the handsome guy actively asking to get closer to the character, he was moved by his enthusiasm and praised Tom Cruise for his dedication.

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