Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Before the sun rose, against the dim background of the aircraft carrier deck, a few streaks of white steam drifted past, and the head of an F-14A slowly crossed into the monitor from the left side of the screen.

The music from the "Top Gun" theme slowly began to play on the soundtrack, and bells began to ring in the background.

"Pa", Ronald pressed the pause button, "It happens to be this square. I think this cut will be right here."

Chris and Billy glanced at Ronald. During this period of editing, they had long been accustomed to Ronald's unique trick of stopping on one frame every time.

They saw this trick a few days before editing, and immediately knew that Ronald was also an expert in editing, and they no longer dared to rely on his editing skills to show off his seniority. Seeing that Ronald gave the editing instructions, one went to mark the editing machine, and the other went to move the film reel to be connected next.

"When...when...when...", the opening bells of the theme song rang one after another, and the sound of the lead guitar cut in, repeating the melody that the piano sang softly at the beginning.

On the screen, several navy deck officers began to be busy in the increasingly bright sun and the vast white steam. The nose of the second fighter also begins to cut into the lower left corner of the screen.

"Bang!" Ronald pressed pause again, "This frame will be cut here."

The piano and lead guitar repeat the main melody more excitingly. It seemed that the awakened deck crew and two fighter jets, just in time with the strengthening of the melody, slowly appeared on the left side of the monitor.

Both Chris and Billy found it very interesting. This was a real editing of the movie in the same way as MV editing.

Rather than using images to tell the story, the images are used to dance along with the melody. Every cut in the picture corresponds to the break of the melody. A melody of three to five seconds can be edited with one knife.

The melody of the theme song is high-spirited and fits perfectly with the image of the sun rising and the soldiers going from stillness to getting busy.

This short shot and high-frequency editing method places high demands on the director. It turns out that Hollywood’s classic construction method usually uses a main camera to capture the characters and environment in the entire scene, and first explains to the audience the location, characters, time, and the logical relationship between the several characters.

Then use a mid-shot over-the-shoulder shot to explain the character's dialogue, and finally use a close-up and close-up shot to show the reaction after hearing other characters speak.

Ronald's editing completely abandoned Hollywood's classic techniques. The audience starts from the beginning and is first shown the close-up view of the steel behemoth aircraft carrier.

And moved by the beauty of the very graceful steel eagles.

Then in the slowly brightening steam, the petty officers on the aircraft carrier deck loomed. This is completely the editing method of MV, which is combined with the jump cuts of the new wave of China. There are many places in the middle that require the audience to use their imagination to connect them.

Chris and Billy started chatting quietly again. They couldn't believe it when they encountered this new film editing method. The mv is three to five minutes long, and the audience mainly listens to the mood of the song. Is it feasible for movies released in theaters to use this stream-of-consciousness editing method?

Ronald had known for a long time that the two of them were discussing his own editing. "There is no doubt that today's audiences have been influenced by the new wave of editing methods for many years. Now I just put the past ten years of Hollywood in fragments. The editing methods used throughout the film are uniformly used throughout the film, so the audience will not miss our story at all."

"But why do we always lose the rhythm when we want to imitate your cutting method?" Chris and Billy asked humbly. When Ronald was resting, they also tried to find editing points by themselves. , but it’s not as natural and smooth as Ronald’s cut.

“My teacher Walter Murch taught me that editing is about anticipating where the audience’s thoughts are going and then being there a little before they get there.”

"Oh," Chris and Billy suddenly realized that they indeed lacked this ability to predict.

"Hehehe..." Ronald chuckled in his heart. Such a theoretical statement would definitely make the editor feel that he was very powerful. In fact, he had only shot and edited many commercials and music videos.

An advertisement of more than ten seconds and an MV of several minutes have much more time constraints than a movie.

When Ronald was filming those scenes, he had more repeated training on how to use fast shots and editing to piece together the audience's thoughts in a limited time than Hollywood practitioners.

When can the camera jump cut and let the audience fill in the gaps themselves? When to set the stage soothingly and let the audience gradually understand the whole story, he learned it from the commercials and music videos he shot.

Just take out the finished product and skip the training session in between. It was like a magician pulling a rabbit directly out of a hat, which really surprised the two editors.

"Get that 'Danger Zone' tape and load it up."

Ronald held his head and directed the editor to take action.

The opening interlude "Danger Zone" was sung by several singers, but none of them was ideal. Famous rock singers care more about their own music style. They may have to sing interludes like Cyndi Lauper, a newly debuted singer, so that they can interpret it exactly according to the filmmaker's ideas.

So Ronald discussed with the two producers and gave a chance to Kenny Loggins, a has-been singer who participated in the chorus of "We Are the World" and who was also self-aware and wrote the episode of the beach volleyball scene.

Sure enough, in order to return to the popular spotlight, Kenny Loggins was very cooperative. Regardless of the hardness of his voice, he sang this interlude with the tension of flying a fighter jet.

Loggins, who had no expectations at first, unexpectedly got an opportunity to sing the main episode.

"Change the song right here," Ronald directed the two editors to switch the two interludes while the tail nozzles of the two F-14A engines on the deck of the Enterprise emitted orange-red flames in sequence.

The rhythm of the theme song, which gradually wakes the audience up, is transformed into the exciting and upward rhythm of "Danger Zone", where prey is about to be hunted.

The catapult ejected the thick nose landing gear of the fighter jet, and the rhythm of the actions of the deck officers suddenly accelerated.

"Start your engines,

Listen to her growl.

Metal in a state of tension,

Begging you to touch.

We head to the danger zone..."

Kenny Loggins' husky voice sounded...

Ronald put on Sony's monitoring headphones and squatted on the ground.

His eyes were fixed on the two paper figures he had stacked on the editing table. Their size ratio to the monitor was exactly the same as that of two adults, a man and a woman, sitting in front of the big screen.

With an aspect ratio of 2.35, it is much wider than Ronald's previous films.

The fire from the tail flames of the F-14 fighter jet under the theme song can only burn more than half of the screen. There is still a small half of space in the left half of the screen to show the steam ejection of the aircraft carrier and the actions of the deck officers.

The plane rose from the deck, its long tail flames only covering half of the screen in Ronald's imagination, and the other half was blank space.

"Very good, the pace of editing should be accelerated next." Ronald sat back in his seat.

The "Danger Zone" episode was meant to be faster-paced, and Ronald included a lot of shots captured aboard the USS Enterprise.

The deck officers discussed together, moved the arresting rope, made a gesture to allow takeoff, and then performed a happy twisting dance after takeoff.

Ronald particularly liked this dance. This was captured by the aircraft carrier petty officer who accidentally danced because he was happy that day. Ronald cut him into two pieces and used them over and over again.

After a second or two, the camera switches.

The footage on the deck is not adequate, and Ronald reuses footage in many places. Finally, at the end of the song, Ronald added two three-second shots.

One is a subjective take-off shot taken by "Bozo" at the San Diego Naval Base afterwards. He flew off the deck of the docked aircraft carrier, and then relied on his superb flying skills to roll 360 degrees.

The subjective lens is shot from behind, as if the aircraft carrier, the sea surface where it is located, and the sky have turned around and moved to the sky, while the sky has changed to where the sea surface is. After a short pause, he turned back.

The second shot is of a plane landing on an aircraft carrier.

A shot of an F-14A landing on the aircraft carrier deck from the sky at sunset, and then being stopped by the arresting cable.

This was also re-shot by "Bozo" in San Diego.

The technical level of aircraft carrier pilots also varies. It is not easy for the F-14a to perform such a standard roll. When landing, it requires repeated practice to land neatly and smoothly on the ship.

"Fool" is indeed the elite level of naval aviation.

The daily edits continued and Ronald was fast.

Due to various uncooperative aspects during filming, Val Kilmer was there when Mancuso made things difficult for the crew and took the CEO's side.

A lot of his scenes were deleted by Ronald intentionally or unintentionally. Anyway, missing any of these handsome scenes will not affect the progress of the plot.

What Tom Cruise needs is not a villain in the traditional sense, but a competitor who can set off his wisdom and prowess. And Tom Cruise has always stood by Ronald's side and faced various difficulties together.

He accompanied Ronald to complete the various special effects shots of the ground cockpit, and then went to report to Martin Scorsese's new crew to film opposite his idol Paul Newman.

In this way, the romantic scenes between Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis were retained a lot.

Anyway, the chase scenes between the sports cars and motorcycles shot by the two were full of emotional tension because Cruise himself almost had an accident. Ronald can't use it too much.

"It's very good. Although I knew that the fast editing of music videos would have such an effect of stirring up the audience's emotions, I didn't expect it to be so good. After watching it, it seemed that the secretion of adrenaline was accelerated by 2%. Hundred."

Producer Don Simpson came to see the working samples that Ronald had cut, and he was very impressed. The fast pace fit perfectly with his idea of ​​a perfect high-concept film.

"Have you recorded the song 'Take my breath away'?" Ronald refused to flatter him and reached out to ask him for the most important interlude. This is used when the hero and heroine establish their love.

"I can't make up my mind. There are two versions now. Come and listen to it." Don Simpson put the two master tapes on the table.

Ronald plugged in the tape recorder, put on his headphones and started listening.

"This is the tall version, and that one is the short version." Bruckheimer explained to Ronald, "We think each has its own merits. It's up to you to decide which one is more suitable to match the image."

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