Exploiting Hollywood 1980

The clip of "Moonlight Sultry" continues. When editing the sex scene between Nicolas Cage and Cher, editor Walter Murch also praised Ronald's directorial skills.

"You are really good at directing this sex scene. This scene should not only show the desire of a man and a woman to fall in love at first sight and be attracted to each other's bodies, but also have a bit of dramatic exaggeration, so that they can say, 'You have my heart, your brother. "You can only get my body" is a line that would appear very gross and exaggerated in a movie.

What you directed makes people look very natural, without the goosebumps feeling. How did you do it? "

"Hehehe, this is a coincidence. It relies less on my on-site guidance and more on the casting." Ronald chuckled.

As Murch said, many places in this film have traces of Broadway plays. Such disgusting lines, if two actors were to perform them, would make people feel so fake that they would give rise to goosebumps.

Even the scene in the movie where Loretta and Ronnie went to see the opera "La Bohème" did not have such disgusting lines.

This drama allows the audience to watch the extremely exaggerated performances of the two actors without making people feel fake. To a large extent, it relies on the special acting skills of Nicolas Cage.

Influenced by his uncle, he highly admired the masterpiece of German Expressionist film "Metropolis" of the 1920s. Expressionism means that through the cooperation of various lights, scenery, and actors, the audience can ignore the details of the performance and reach directly into the audience's heart.

In other words, this acting genre pays more attention to the actor's imagination. The actor can imagine himself as the character himself, and the audience will be directly brought into the actor's inner emotions by the performance of his subconscious in his movements and expressions.

In this case, once the audience can believe that this is a real person, no matter how exaggerated the lines are, there will still be a certain element of truth in their eyes.

What movie directors fear most is that when the audience sees a certain shot, they will suddenly jump out of the plot and realize that they are watching a play. Once there is such an out-of-the-box experience, it will be difficult for the audience to be brought into the plot again.

Therefore, the most difficult thing for such an exaggerated plot is to find suitable actors to play it. As for the on-site director and guidance, it will not play a big role.

You can't take an actor whose acting skills are average and can't bring himself into the situation, and say a few words on the scene, and then make him be convincing to the audience.

"Humph, this nephew of Francis (Coppola) has great potential." Murch pointed at Cage on the small monitor and said.

“He’s truly a unique actor.

"Ronald nodded in agreement. Among the large group of actors in Hollywood who respect method actors, such an actor who does not rely on analysis and skills but relies on strong imagination to perform is very different.

In fact, there was not a strong chemical reaction between him and Cher in this scene, but relying on his own excellent imagination, Cage believed in his role very much and brought Cher into the prescribed situation.

Many strange roles that are difficult for other people to play are actually easy in his hands.

"I have to leave first today. The son of my Chinese partner is coming to America today." In the afternoon, Ronald looked at his watch, said goodbye to Murch, and went to Los Angeles Airport to pick up the son of his partner Lao Yan. "

"Uncle Li!"

Ronald waited until Xiao Yan poked his head outside the cabin, looking at everything new.

"No, just like in Xujiahui, call me Ronaldinho. Or Ronald."

"My dad asked me to call him...hehehehe." Xiao Yan scratched his head in embarrassment. He didn't want to call this person who was about the same age as him uncle.

"I have arranged that you will stay in my apartment for two days, and I will ask my assistant Bud to take you to Los Angeles for two days. After the weekend, he will go back to Staten Island with you. You are in Stanton The admission procedures for Day Island Community College have been completed. You will first take a language class in New York and then wait for admission in the fall."

Ronald arranged for Xiao Yan to go to a community college in his hometown. Xiao Yan's English level was average. He had been practicing with foreigners traveling in the Bund for a long time, but he still couldn't understand it well in the United States.

Staten Island Community College has just joined the City University of New York's public education system. As long as Xiaoyan can graduate with an associate's degree in two years, he can choose other schools in the city university system to continue his studies from junior college to bachelor's degree.

If he is unable to do so, Ronald is also ready to work in the Stanton factory. After he enters the factory to study for a period of time, he can go back to pick up Lao Yan's class.

If he wanted to do something else, Ronald would help. I have to take care of this matter of my partner in the Minhang factory. The Chinese value mutual help between relatives and friends. With Lao Yan as a partner, we can find ways to do other cooperation in the future.

"Director Huang's application materials have been brought to me." Xiao Yan asked Xiao Yan to translate the materials for Director Huang's participation in the Los Angeles Women's Independent Film Festival and ask Xiao Yan to bring them to Ronald.

"It's very good. Director Huang's film has caused a small sensation among female producers and directors in the industry here. They didn't expect that Xujiahui could produce such a pioneering work."

Ronald collected the materials and asked Xiao Yan to send a telegram to his family to report that everything was safe. Then he asked little Bud to accompany him shopping, completely transforming into a young man dressed as America.

Ronald brought Director Huang's application materials to Gale Hurd. She is now working with director Martha Coolidge and others to form a Hollywood Women Producers and Directors Association. It happens to be related to the independent film festival held at the beginning of each year.

Ronald approached them and added an award for emerging female directors at the independent film festival. For female directors around the world. It just so happened that there weren't many people who signed up for the first session, which took advantage of Director Huang's "love between humans and ghosts".

Martha Coolidge, who had been fired by John Hughes from the cast of "Wonderful" and had her comedy ideas stolen from him, now cursed the Chicago native John Hughes.

Ronald listened for a while, but found nothing new. Coolidge just kept cursing Hughes, while assuring Ronald that such a pioneering and progressive film by Director Huang must be seen by more Americans.

Ronald knew in his heart that except for a small number of curious people in America, it was impossible for Americans to watch the story of a Chinese opera actress. So he just asked Daydream Company to contact movie theaters in Chinatown in major cities.

There are many immigrants here who have worked here for many years and are eager to see more of the scenery and culture of their hometown and relieve their homesickness. So let "Human Ghost Love" be released in these places first, and then we can make money from the copies.

Maybe it was the curse of Martha Coolidge that was taking effect, or maybe her replacement as director of "Wonderful", Howard Deutch, was not taken seriously within Paramount.

The day after sending Xiao Yan away, Ronald received a distress call from Paramount President Ned Tanning.

"This is what happened. I am investigating. If someone is behind the scenes, I will definitely give him justice. But now that this kind of accident has occurred, I can only ask you to help me see if I need to reshoot the footage.

Now that the crew is scattered, only you have the prestige to bring the main actors back for reshoots. "

Ned Tanning watched the dailies of Serious Accident with Ronald and director Howard Deutch in the Paramount screening room.

The movie has been shot and edited. But while editing the negatives and developing the copies, a serious accident occurred.

A romantic outdoor scene between Eric Stoltz, who plays the male lead, and Lea Thompson, who plays the female lead, at the "Hollywood Bowl", the largest outdoor movie theater in Los Angeles.

In this semi-open-air theater, in addition to showing movies, various performances are also held.

The male protagonist, Keith, just wants to touch Amanda Jones, whom he has had a crush on for a long time. Finally, in the room inside the Hollywood Bowl, he showed Amanda the portrait of the other person that he had spent several months painting. In the end, Amanda was so moved that she faced up to this man who was poor but upright and dared to love. young man.

On the screen, there are black borders and dark frames around this scene, and the film has been damaged.

"Do you have any enemies? Howard?" Ronald asked the extremely frustrated director Howard Deutch who was sitting next to him.

"I can't think of anyone who wants to harm me, unless..."

"Martha? The most she can do is curse you. It's impossible for you to go to the printing laboratory to do this."

Ronald sighed.

In a lab, a chemical formula prescribed by the formula is used every time a copy is made. This is the most important part of quality management. A good studio can develop and print hundreds of copies so that no difference can be seen with the naked eye.

But this time, for some reason, there was an accident at Paramount's printing plant. There was something wrong with the film of these scenes, the formula of the chemical solution, or the water temperature control, and there were overexposed burnt marks around the film.

Fortunately, experienced experienced technical workers discovered and stopped the accident from further expansion in time.

But what is very unfortunate is that the scene that was damaged this time happened to be the scene that director Howard Deutch only shot.

It costs a lot of money to rent a venue to film at the Hollywood Bowl. To save money, Howard Deutch only rented it for a half-day.

As a result, the only lens I was satisfied with and could be used was damaged by the photo lab.

There were no extra copies to replace this scene. There were only two choices before him, either to delete this scene, or to recall the two leading actors Eric Stoltz and Lea Thompson to reshoot.

Howard Deutch didn't have the cachet to call back actors and pay for technical errors at the lab. Only Ronald, who managed Stoltz's out-of-the-box mentality at that time and persuaded Leigh Thompson to take over the lead role, might be able to make them lose face.

Ronald didn't want to deal with this shit.

But the movie is innocent, and the rest of the movie is shot very well. The interactions between the three protagonists, one male and two female, are very chemical. It can be seen that they all put a lot of effort into giving extraordinary performances.

This scene is the scene where the two protagonists establish their love. It is a key change in the plot of the movie. If it is deleted, the entire story of the movie will collapse. There is no plot where Keith uses Amanda as a model to draw pictures. When the audience sees this, they will be very confused as to why Keith and Amanda suddenly have a crush on each other.

Looking at Howard Deutch's pitiful face, Ronald agreed to give it a try.

There are no mistakes in the film itself. It cost tens of millions of dollars and hundreds of people worked hard for several months. Ronald didn't want everyone's hard work to be ruined by an accidental or intentional technical error.

"I watched the movie you filmed. It's very good, very good." Ronald arrived at the mansion in Beverly Hills. Leigh Thompson was packing up her house. Her house was about to be taken over by real estate agents and she was looking for a house to view. .

The failure of "Howard the Duck" caused her expected income to plummet, and now she can no longer afford the mortgage on such a good house. After filming "Breaking Bad," Leigh Thompson got rid of the house as quickly as possible and prepared to move with her sister.

"Ha, I followed the guidance you gave me. I'm not pretty enough, so I made Amanda try harder to be kind." Leigh Thompson shrugged and looked at the house, still a little reluctant.

"I have to thank you very much. If this movie can do well at the box office, I may not have to sell my house. I like this house very much."

"Hey, actually, I came here to..." Ronald glanced at the director Dutch who was also here, and seeing that he didn't speak, he had to speak himself.

"Sister, your phone" her sister called from the room.

"Sorry, I'm going to go for a moment." Lea Thompson said sorry to Ronald and went inside to answer the phone.

"You bastard...why do you say that? If you don't want to get engaged, I can cancel it..."

After a while, the sound of a quarrel came faintly from the room.

Ronald and director Howard Deutch looked at each other, knowing that something embarrassing had happened again. Leigh Thompson and boyfriend Dennis Quaid are fighting again.

"Eric? Eric? I just have a relationship with him as colleagues, but you actually beat me up and said that I..."

Leigh Thompson hung up the phone and came out with a very bad expression.

"We have a scene that needs reshoots..." Howard Deutch was very concerned about Leigh Thompson. Seeing that her expression was not good, he comforted her a few times and told her the purpose of his visit.

"I'm sorry, Howard, I'm not in a good state right now and I need to adjust. When will you reshoot?"

"Oh, the movie is scheduled to be released next month, it'd better be as soon as possible..."

"Forget it, you need to rest for a few days. Howard and I are thinking about other options. The photo lab destroyed the negatives."

"Sorry, you asked me to adjust for a day, and I can resume filming the day after tomorrow. Which scene is it?"

"It's the scene where Amanda finds out that Keith secretly painted his oil painting."

"Oh..." Leigh Thompson covered her face in pain.

This scene requires a long time of preparation to show the kind of mentality of two lovers who have broken through the barriers and progressed to a mutual affection, but have not yet officially fallen in love.

Lea Thompson was accused by her boyfriend Dennis Quaid of having an affair with Eric Stoltz because of filming with him. It is estimated that it will be difficult to regain that subtle feeling in a short time.

"What happened? Did you make their drama come true?" Ronald asked director Dutch after coming out of the mansion.

"No, how could I do this?"

Romantic comedies, especially this kind of whole movie, rely on the chemistry between the leading actors and the script to impress the audience with true feelings. Some directors can't find that subtle feeling, so they take shortcuts and make the actors really of falling in love on set.

This is more convincing than acting.

But on the set, I filmed many falling-in-love scenes with beautiful women and dashing men. It was hard not to really fall in love on the set.

If the male and female protagonists do not work hard to get rid of their emotions after filming is completed, they will easily fall into emotional distress.

"I won't do this. I just let them be together and discover more of the advantages in each other..."

"This..." Ronald scratched his head. Doesn't love start from discovering the advantages in the other person, this kind of small spark?

Now, on the one hand, there is Leigh Thompson's personal love life, and on the other hand, the movie requires her to use her acting skills again and pretend to be in love with Stoltz.

"Isn't this a moral dilemma?"

Ronald also felt a little painful. The director's professional ethics cannot intrude too much into the actor's private life. But the total cost of tens of millions before and after is missing a scene, which is more important?

"What should I do?" Howard Deutch was very painful. He thought about it for a long time. He had no choice between his work and the actor's private life.

"Take me to see the props and scenery and see if there are any other ways to remedy this."

The two came to Paramount's warehouse, where all the important props for "Wonderful" were kept.

"So, did Leigh and Eric really fall in love during the filming?" Ronald looked at the various props and remembered that when he watched the dailies again, the chemistry between the two was indeed very good, so he asked Howard.

"They must have dated once or twice. But I don't think Leigh Thompson necessarily likes Eric. She is looking for feelings.

But Mary Stuart Masterson, who plays Keith's neighbor girl Watts, is actually a bit interesting. That’s why the final confession scene between Watts and Keith was so beautifully shot. Mary Stewart Masterson cried beautifully. "

"Is this Amanda's oil painting prop?" Ronald turned over a framed oil painting and asked Howard Deutch.

"Yes, that's it." The woman above is somewhat similar to Leigh Thompson, but there is still a gap between her and the real person.

In fact, I should find a better painter. Ronald thought to himself that the audience actually didn't care whether Keith could draw very well or not, and the audience would be disappointed if he didn't look like him.

"What is this?" Ronald finished looking at the portrait and found that there was a frame behind it.

"Uh?" Ronald found another portrait of Amanda.

"Where's this? And this?" Jumping into the pile of props, Ronald found that there were seven or eight portraits leaning against the wall, all of which were based on Leigh Thompson.

"Well, I didn't think I could draw well, so I found a lot of painters."

Ronald gave Howard Deutch a long look.

It seems that it is easy for the director to fall in love with the heroine. He thinks about the inner drama of the heroine every day, what are her advantages, and why the hero falls in love with her. After thinking more about it, doesn’t love sprout from this little place? ?

In fact, these paintings are all of the same level. Howard Deutch is also a little crazy, and he seems to be very obsessed with Leigh Thompson. I just don't know if he has discovered it himself.

"Okay, let's think of a solution and check on Li's condition tomorrow."

Ronald had no choice but to reshoot the matter.

"What's wrong with you? You seem to have something on your mind?"

Back in the editing room, Walter Murch could tell that something was on Ronald's mind.

"As a producer, a movie that I promoted had a big technical problem. When the film was developed, an accident happened... The scenes that need to be reshot now are difficult to find because of the heroine's private love life. state……"

Ronald told Murch about the dilemma he faced.

"How did you wash it?"

"It's the formula of the potion, time, and temperature. One of the three things went wrong. The four corners of the film turned black and the four edges turned yellow, making it unusable."

"You said it would be difficult to reshoot?"

"Yes, it's difficult to handle. Leigh Thompson has had a big problem in her personal love life recently. I think she is a very good actress, but there are some things that she cannot control."

"If that's the case, you can go to Lloyd. He's been working in a photofinishing plant for forty years. He has a way."

"any solution?"

…

"Can this method work?" Ronald found Lloyd, who Murch said had worked at Paramount Printing Plant for forty years and was about to retire.

"It depends, you might lose a few frames."

Lloyd operated the machine slowly and unhurriedly.

"Okay, look at this section."

"Huh? Not bad." Ronald leaned against the monitor and looked at the picture that Lloyd was repairing.

"Come and see, Howard." Ronald gave up his position to director Dutch. This old-fashioned machine only allows one person to view the film through the monitor.

"Not bad, not much loss."

Howard Deutch watched it several times.

The four sides of the film were carefully cut, and the original long shot was cut off on all sides to become a medium shot.

Although a lot of lens arrangement and image quality have been lost. But I finally don’t have to reshoot anymore.

"That's it, it's good to be able to save a little bit."

Ronald felt that although the picture quality was a little rough, it was much better than reshooting the heroine who couldn't find her condition.

"Thanks, Ronald." Howard Deutch admired this strange trick to solve the problem. If it weren't for Ronald, his second movie would have been terrible.

"It's okay, you have to be busy with marketing next. By the way, those portrait oil paintings, won't you just put them in the warehouse if you don't take them back?"

"I found one and gave it to Li."

"Hey, you don't understand." Ronald thought of the models who looked very similar to the "spirited" Likin Cattrall, "You don't know what those warehouse workers can do to the portraits of beautiful women. Come."

"First Evolution"

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