Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"When will your wedding be held?" Ronald saw Cameron and Gale coming to the banquet together, hugging each other sweetly, and asked them the date of the wedding.

"What did you say?" Cameron smiled at Gale in his arms. He still had a beard and wore a shirt and jeans. Dressed like a truck driver.

"I want my parents' blessing." Gale cut her hair short and wore two diamond earrings, making her look more capable and sexy.

"Oh, let's chat while we eat." Ronald felt that he had said the wrong thing. Gail's parents were not very satisfied with her marrying Cameron. Maybe her father was unwilling to pay for the wedding, which might not be good for a couple. I want to have my own wedding.

"It doesn't matter. As long as I can be with Jim, I produce and he directs, I will be satisfied with life." Gale saw Ronald's embarrassment and took the initiative to speak out.

"What projects are you working on now?" Ronald hadn't had dinner with his two friends for a long time. "Terminator" made Cameron famous. Everyone knew that this man could produce spectacular special effects at a cheap cost. Movie director.

"We just submitted the script for 'Alien 2,' and the Writers Guild is about to go on strike."

"Ah?" Ronald was busy with his directing work and didn't know about the strike yet. "How long will it last?"

"I heard it will take at least two weeks."

"Then will you get this project?" Ronald asked while cutting the steak.

"Barry Diller, the new chairman of Fox, estimated that the movie would cost $35 million, and he wanted us to leave. But we thought it would be just over $15 million, and we still wanted to find some money. He discussed it once."

"There are examples of Terminators, he should believe you." Ronald forked a piece of beef, and it tasted very good when it was fully cooked. Nowadays, there is a trend in Los Angeles to cook steak as sashimi in Japanese food and only grill it medium rare. Ronald was not too fond of this kind of cutting corners.

"I always feel very tired negotiating with the top executives of these big studios. Do you have any good ideas?" Gale drank some red wine and asked Ronald for advice.

“If there’s anything I’ve learned recently, it’s to stick to your guns when dealing with studios. People at the executive level are very busy, and they’re not film-making experts, and they’re often criticized by the last person and Interference from the ideas of the people they communicate with. As long as you stick to your point of view and make sense, they will gradually be influenced by you.

You must know that when these people look at others, they largely look at whether you are confident.

If you are confident, they will feel that you know exactly what you are talking about and will be more inclined to agree with you. "

Ronald expressed his opinion. Such high-level executives often have multiple projects going on at the same time. When dealing with them, maintaining confidence is the best strategy.

Cameron listened thoughtfully.

After eating, they went to Ronald's office and started showing the sample footage of fighter jets on the aircraft carrier that Ronald had taken.

"That's interesting. Are you going to take a shot in the cockpit?" Cameron came closer and looked at the details carefully.

"Not only the cockpit, but also the movie camera mounted on the camera gun in the pod on the outside of the fighter jet, so that it can capture a main perspective shot similar to that of the pilot." Ronald explained his idea to Cameron.

"Pay attention to this canopy." Cameron pointed to the new bubble-type canopy of the F-14A taking off from the aircraft carrier and said, "Pay attention to this reflection."

A ray of sunset reflected on the glass of the cockpit cover.

"Oops," Ronald stroked the beard on his chin, "I have a main character who doesn't dare to take off, what should I do?"

Fang Kilmer's fear of heights is very serious. From both the subjective perspective and the perspective in the cabin, it is inevitable to take pictures of the blue sky, white clouds and objects in the cabin reflected on the canopy glass of the Tomcat fighter jet taking off.

If the scene is set up on the ground, how can we achieve this kind of reflection effect?

Moreover, the high-altitude shots need to be unified in image with the setting shots, so that when the audience sees the two edited together, they will not have the reaction of "this seems to be fake", which will ruin the movie-watching experience.

"You should make two systems on the ground." Cameron drew a schematic diagram on a white paper for Ronald.

"You need a front-end projection system to project the images shot in the air onto the rear screen of the cockpit set up on the ground, making people mistakenly think that they were shot at high altitude. The traditional back-end projection method is more fake. This Kubrick The invented front-end projection makes the perspective more realistic and credible.”

Cameron pointed to the canopy he drew on the paper again, "The key to recreating that reflection is to add a second projection here. Reflect the material to the glass of the canopy simultaneously, so that as long as your cockpit and Like a fighter jet, it is free in three axes, and the canopy will have the same effect as a real shot, capturing the reflected scenery inside and outside the cockpit."

Ronald nodded, pointed to the cockpit and asked, "How should I build a cockpit with three degrees of freedom on the ground?"

"The simplest way is to build a large ring, so that your cockpit can slide and rotate on this large ring, and then the cockpit itself can also rotate around its own axis. As for the third degree of freedom, you can The camera is placed in a rotation system and you add it by rotating the camera. This way your cost is not too high."

"If you find someone to build this system, how much will it cost?" Ronald asked.

"I can keep the cost under two hundred thousand dollars."

"Make a budget, don't exceed $350,000..." Ronald said.

"Ronnie, Gale and I are still busy with Alien 2."

"It doesn't matter. You are responsible for building it, and then recommend me a few suitable operators." Ronald waved his hand. He had already understood Cameron's idea. He could ask the producer to find a team to build it, but he couldn't I used my friend’s creativity for free.

"The extra profit will be used as an early wedding gift from me to you and Gale."

The next day, Ronald came to the two producers with the drawings of the stunt cockpit. Hearing that it was the director of "Terminator"'s idea, the two said it was a bargain and immediately signed a check to purchase Cameron's services.

"Can you ask your friends to help us shoot the whole process?" Don Simpson liked Cameron's creative solution very much.

"He was spotted by Barry Diller and may be filming the sequel to Alien. He wrote the script." Ronald said he had no choice.

The two producers expressed their regret.

Soon, a ground cockpit shooting mechanism began to be built, and it is expected to be successfully debugged in a few weeks for Ronald to use for shooting.

"Ronnie, have you ever thought about the air combat special effects of airplanes?" Cameron came specially to help supervise the initial model construction. Before building the real system, a small ring model must be built to verify the usability of the design. .

"Tsk, this is what I'm worried about too." Ronald told his friend all he knew, "The Navy promised us the actual shooting targets of two air-to-air missiles, as well as the dispatch of two F-14A and F-5S fighter jets to cooperate.

But what I am most worried about is whether the special effects of the enemy plane being hit by a missile, exploding in the air, and crashing can be consistent with the real shots.

There is also the shot of the Lone Ranger and the Goose stalling and entering a horizontal spiral. I am not very sure that the pilot can perform such a stunt, and our camera plane can capture usable shots. "

A horizontal spin is a situation in which an airplane spins in the air after losing horizontal speed and is very likely to crash. The Navy has not yet given a clear response as to whether pilots can use the F-14A to perform such dangerous maneuvers.

And even if you can use a Tomcat fighter jet to take real shots, it is difficult to find an aircraft slow enough to take wonderful shots of horizontal spirals at close range.

"You'd better have a backup, Ronnie. You can't rely entirely on live shots from the air."

"I know, how long does it take to complete such a model stunt?" Ronald asked Cameron, a stunt model expert.

"If I were to do it, it would probably take at least three to six months for the design, production, debugging, modification, and re-production to meet your requirements." Cameron said a number.

"Tsk", Ronald felt that this time was too long.

"But there are suitable companies on the market, you can ask."

"who?"

"Lucas Industrial Light and Magic, don't you think the dogfight between fighter jets is very similar to the X-wing fighter versus TIE fighter in Star Wars?"

"Hiss, that's right."

At night, Ronald dialed the home phone number at Skywalker Ranch that George Lucas had given him.

"Mr. Lucas, this is Ronald. I have some special effects shots for fighter jets, missile attacks, and crashes to be shot. I wonder if your Industrial Light \u0026 Magic can accept external commissions recently?"

As the benchmark for special effects in the industry, Industrial Light and Magic has always been the focus of the Hollywood Seven. However, Lucas has limited production capacity and can only give priority to its own special effects research and the film special effects business of a few friends such as Spielberg.

"No problem, I'm taking all kinds of business now. You can come over when you find time." Lucas agreed without any fear of not having enough time for business.

Ronald was greatly surprised. It was different from the legend in the industry.

"I'm short of money right now, so I desperately need the revenue from Industrial Light and Magic's business," Lucas explained.

Ronald was so moved that he thought Lucas was joking, how could he be short of money. Maybe he said this deliberately because he was afraid that he would be embarrassed by being favored by him all the time.

"By the way, I just have something to ask you. Ronald, you must have directed many young actresses."

"Yes, that's right." Ronald said respectfully.

"Which one of them do you think has better acting skills? Or maybe you've seen a live performance."

"A lot," Ronald smiled. He had indeed directed many actresses with good acting skills. There are Phoebe Cates, who has been the heroine in several Spielberg movies, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, who is suitable for tragedy. In addition, Diane Lane, who is closest to me, is also deeply loved. A heroine that Coppola loved and used many times.

"No, no, I don't want ordinary acting skills, I want a heroine with outstanding imagination and the ability to fall in love in the air."

"Falling in the air?"

"Yes, I'm negotiating a project with Universal. It will involve an actress co-starring an animal made of stunts. So she needs to have outstanding acting skills, and she also needs to be able to perform love in front of a blue screen or a stunt model. It doesn't have to be sexy. , but it needs to be a bit playful, and preferably a bit rock and roll, because the heroine is the lead singer of a rock band."

"You can try Diane, Diane Lane. I have filmed her as a rock singer, and Frances likes her very much." Ronald immediately recommended Diane.

"Very good, I remember her, is there anything else?"

"Phoebe Cates is good too."

"Steven recommended her. But I'm going to audition thoroughly and pick the best one." Lucas is very ambitious.

"Hmm..." Ronald racked his brains and thought about it. In addition to the actresses he had directed, there were two others he knew well.

"There is an actress who played "Footloose". She is a cellist and also sings. Her name is Lori Singer."

"I know her," Lucas noted her name.

"Another one, I filmed her Burger King commercial. She is probably the most talented actress I have ever seen."

"Are you the sweet girl from the karate movie?"

"It's not Elizabeth Shue. She went to Harvard to study. I'm talking about Leigh Thompson. She recently acted in 'Back to the Future' and should be in post-production."

"Okay, thank you, Ronald. Your recommendation is very valuable. I will give them the phone number at Industrial Light and Magic. You can just go to them directly."

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