Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Jonathan Demme, Ronald Lee." Niceta introduced the two customers.

Ronald and Jonathan greeted each other with hugs. At first glance, Jonathan Demme does not look like a movie director, but more like a university professor in a gentle manner.

"What movie are you working on?" Ronald asked after greeting him.

"Is it convenient?" Niceta asked Demi.

"It's nothing inconvenient. I know Ronald is a successful director of commercial films. I can just listen to his opinions. Can you give me some advice? Ronald."

Jonathan Demme spoke rhythmically, and Ronald shrugged and said we could chat.

"Jonathan's new film has been edited. The distributor Orion wants to promote it as an erotic thriller that reflects New York style, mainly in the New York area and big cities. Jonathan has a different view. We are coordinating."

"I haven't seen the movie, I'm afraid I can't express any opinion." When Ronald heard that this was the case, he quickly shied away.

"I happen to have a copy here, why don't we take a look at it? I'd love to know what my colleagues think of my film. This is my debut."

"This is not your debut, Jonathan. His 1980 film "Melvin and Howard" was only a small release, but it was nominated for three Oscars and won two."

“Universal almost didn’t release that movie because they didn’t know how to market an underdog story about someone who helps an old stranger and turns out to be Howard Hughes.

Melvin obtained the will from Hughes and donated one-seventeenth of the estate to the young man, but in the end he failed to obtain Hughes' estate. "

"You see, I always have this problem, I make a movie and the distribution company doesn't know how to market it. And now it's the same thing with this movie."

"Even if that movie isn't released, you still have a little confused love tear (swing shift)"

"Not to mention that one. You know, the husband and wife team of Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell were the directors of that movie. I couldn't stand Goldie Hawn's dictation, so I left the crew, and finally It’s only because of the protection of the Directors Guild that my name remains in the subtitles.”

"Let's go watch Jonathan's movie first, Ronald. We'll talk about you later." Niceta took the lead and walked out of the room and went to drive.

Ronald thinks this Jonathan is very free and easy,

What if I made a movie, won an Oscar, but ended up not being released. For the second film, the star took over the role. I'm afraid I can't be as full of fighting spirit as the other person and continue to be a director.

"You also have trouble with being a star. If it's convenient, can we talk about it? I'm also going to make a movie starring a star. I want to hear your experience."

"Yes, in fact, the biggest problem for celebrities, and also their biggest advantage, is that they have a fixed image. This image can attract audiences to the cinema.

If my first film had a star in it, it wouldn't have been a box-office flop. I learned my lesson on the second film, but Goldie Hawn was not satisfied with his image in the script and asked for changes to the script every day.

In addition, there is one more thing. Stars are actually very unsure of their images in the demos and often ask for reshoots..."

Jonathan Demme and Ronald also left the room and went to the parking lot. They communicated along the way, and Demi shared a lot of lessons about dealing with celebrities.

The two got into Niceta's car and drove to a studio with an editing room and screening room, where a copy of Demme's latest film was sitting.

Niceta made arrangements and the copy started to be shown. When the screen was still dark, first a song full of Caribbean style entered the ears.

As soon as the screen lit up, a garbage ship was seen passing through the sea outside Lower Manhattan in New York City. The slowly moving ship, the dilapidated and garbage-filled neighborhoods on the shore, and the bright and beautiful Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in the distance complemented each other and became a The opening of the movie.

"God, that's what I used to see when I was a kid," Ronald exclaimed. The scenery on the boat was when Aunt Karen brought her home from the hospital and took the boat to Manhattan every week to see the doctor. It’s a scene you’ll see every time.

Ronald seemed to smell the special smell of rust on the ship and the stench of the garbage ships around him.

The music and influence seemed to be flowing slowly, fully awakening Ronald's memories.

The beginning mobilized vision, hearing, and even images and sounds triggered Ronald's olfactory memories. It makes people blend into the background of the story that Jonathan wants to tell. This is a very clever director's technique.

Ronald tilted his head and glanced at Jonathan. Such a level should not be unknown.

After the opening piece of music ended, the stereo sound in the background converged into a point-shaped sound source. On the screen was a black guy, holding a large speaker tape recorder on his shoulder, slowly twisting forward to the Caribbean-style music.

The camera panned and focused on a restaurant across the street. The music gradually fades away and the story officially begins.

Ronald couldn't help but tilted his head and glanced at Jonathan. A very advanced mixing technique was used here. It was the sound environment technique invented by Orson Welles and carried forward by Walter Murch.

"This interlude is called "Crazy for Love (; de amor)", and there are several lyrics of "wild thing" in it, which matches the title of the film "something wild"."

Jonathan introduced some of his ideas to Ronald.

It was originally a flawless sound track like a record, but in the last two sentences, it was switched to a slightly noisy tape recording played from the tape recorder.

"Here you can use the track from the album interlude and the recorded music from the live recorder, mix them according to the ratio, and at the end, slowly adjust the ratio of the two instead of switching all at once. It will be more charming." Rona De told Jonathan the skills he and Murch learned.

"That's what they did in the wedding scene at the beginning of The Godfather." Ronald concluded.

"Aha, that's it." Jonathan nodded and wrote down Ronald's secret in his notebook. If no one tells you this technique, you will have to think about it for a long time before you can break through.

A shot of the upper body of a man in a suit appeared in the hotel, and Ronald recognized it as Jeff Daniels, who played Deborah Winger's husband in "The Big Brother."

The man finished his lunch in a noisy cafe. Seeing that no one was paying attention to him, he secretly picked up the receipt and escaped.

A woman with short black hair rushed out, called to the man, and finally, half-coercion, half-seduce, let him get into her car and take him for a ride.

"This is Melanie Griffith." Ronald was deeply impressed by this woman who had to fight with Tatum O'Neal and cut off her hair for the role.

After not seeing her for a few years, she seems to have aged a bit, but she is still in good shape. They were chatting about skirts in the car and were getting ready to drive, looking very tough.

"I'm Lulu"

"I am Charles"

The two male and female protagonists introduce each other.

Ronald could see it, Jonathan was very good at shooting, and the shots were very smooth. The two actors also acted very naturally. Jeff Daniels is a relatively well-known actor, so I wanted to ask Jonathan how he could perform so well.

As the movie continued, Ronald felt that the story was probably about an affair between a man and a woman, but soon, Jonathan gave him a surprise.

Lulu abducted Charles to her home and introduced Charles to her mother as her husband. The movie has an unsettling atmosphere. Lulu's mother made it clear to Charles the next day that she knew Charles was not Lulu's real "husband" and asked him to be careful about Lulu.

Charles also said that he has a wife and two children in New Jersey, and he and Lulu just met yesterday.

Ronald felt the story might be a Hitchcockian suspense film.

Ronald was surprised again. Lulu took Charles to the high school reunion. At the party, Charles discovered that one of his subordinates was also at the reunion.

Could it be a movie about the admonition that cheating can bring disaster to a family?

Lulu found a man at her high school reunion. She looked scared and pulled Charles to leave. Charles is tricked into going to dinner with him.

In the end, the man's true identity was revealed. It turned out that he was Lulu's husband. He was arrested and sent to prison for robbery. Now he escaped from prison and came out to find Lulu.

What is this story?

In just one or two hours, the plot deviated from the channel four or five times, but the strange thing is that Ronald was not distracted at all while watching it. Although it could not fit into any genre film, the film was still very gripping. The thought of not going out to go to the bathroom.

Lulu's husband caught the two and beat Charles. Charles was worried about Lulu and came back to save her. It turned out that Charles also panicked and said that he and his wife were divorced, and the so-called warm family was just his own lie.

As a result, Lulu's husband found Charles's residence through phone fraud, rushed in to take Lulu away, handcuffed Charles in the bathroom, and went back to the room to beat Lulu who was trying to escape.

As the two-hour movie came to an end, Ronald couldn't hold it in any longer, so he went to the bathroom to relax.

"In this film, there is no plot that you can guess. It is really a very good film." Ronald said, "But I really don't know how to market this film. From beginning to end, my idea changed many times, from thinking it was a pornographic film, to a suspense film, to a police film, to an action film, to a romance film..."

"But it does look good, doesn't it?" Jonathan Demme said with a smile.

"Yeah, it's really good." Ronald hadn't had this feeling of being immersed in the plot of a movie for a long time.

"I think your supporting roles are all well chosen. What's the name of the one who plays Lulu's husband? He looks scary at first glance."

"Ray, Ray Liotta."

"Yes, where did you find so many good actors? And Melanie Griffiths. She was wearing a black wig, and she looked completely different from the way she looked with her short blond hair. I didn't even know her. She is so good at acting. Her previous movies were very average."

"I learned this from my first boss, exploitation film mogul Roger Corman. He taught me a long lesson when he first asked me to direct 'Orange Is the New Black' .

One thing is like this, every supporting character determines the quality of the movie. When you cut to a close-up of a supporting character, the movie belongs to him in those three to five seconds. If the character is unconvincing, then the audience's belief in the film's story will drop a few points at that moment. Come a few more times and your box office will definitely be affected. "

"Aren't you the Jonathan that Roger told me about?" Ronald looked up and down at Jonathan Demme.

Although I don't want to admit it, my directing skills are indeed inferior to Jonathan Demme, who has no successful films from a box office perspective.

"I think the lessons he taught me must have been streamlined. He didn't teach me this." Ronald laughed and pulled Demi up to have dinner with him.

"How did you choose these good actors?" Ronald's own "Moonlight" also requires a large number of supporting actors with acting skills, and Demi's experience can be borrowed. In an upscale restaurant in Manhattan, Ronald asked Demi for advice.

“When I cast, I cast people who interest me, who you want to know more about.

In the scene where Lulu and Charlie were at the class reunion party, a pair of extras were also dancing there. I liked those two actors when I was casting, but when we started filming, I discovered that they were a pair of dancing masters.

The most important thing in casting is to choose the villain, who must be selected according to the criteria of the worst villain. Heroes are set off by villains. Without a bad villain, there will be no good hero. "

"Roger taught you this? I have to ask him why he didn't teach me."

"Hahaha, maybe he discovered these techniques and didn't need them in his exploitation films."

The two talked about their origins. They were both students taught by Roger Coleman, and they could be considered brothers in the same discipline.

"I still have a question. Why are the actors' performances so natural in the scenes you filmed? It seems that they have been rehearsed seventeen or eight times before, and they have become very proficient. They were filmed after practicing and surviving." Ronald I asked myself what I least understood. These actors were not novices. They couldn't let Demi manipulate them like this, right?

"I never rehearse, the actors' performances are all improvised on the spot, and whatever is performed is what is performed."

"Isn't this impossible?" Ronald didn't believe it. This was not rehearsed?

"In other words, I let them rehearse on film. When they perform for the first time, their emotions are often the fullest and their reactions are often the most real. If the rehearsal is the best effect and I don't film it, then I haven't captured it. ?

So I always ask them to get into position, and then notify them to rehearse. During the rehearsal, I turn on the camera in advance, and the best one is often the one. If what I see is not good enough, I will ask them to take another photo in another way. "

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