Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Cut! If we don't get the rhythm right, let's try again..."

Ronald was still thankful that he had a natural advantage in casting. Actors usually get into the mood in the first step. Who knew that the shooting would come to a deadlock the next day.

After Harry and Sally went to bed, they had different perceptions of the matter. Sally has traditional values. She believes that going to bed is something that happens naturally after the relationship reaches a certain level. Affection and love are inseparable. Harry and her went around and over, and finally became a couple, because both parties naturally developed feelings and love because of their understanding.

Harry, on the contrary, believed that love and love were two different things and could be separated completely. Sally's smile, as if she had found her home, frightened him and made him just want to escape as soon as possible.

The next morning, Sally woke up and found that Harry was already getting dressed. She hurriedly left Sally's house on the pretext of going home to take a shower. Both of them found out about each other's misunderstanding, and in desperation, they had to call their best friends of the same sex - Mary and Jace, who were already married.

I have experienced problems caused by out-of-sync when shooting phone call scenes before. Ronald installed three sets in the studio.

In the middle of the studio is a large bed, a perfect replica of the bedroom in Jess and Mary's house. Bruno Kirby, who plays Jace, and Carrie Fisher, who plays Mary, are lying in bed in their pajamas.

On the left side of the studio is a replica of Sally's room. Lying in bed, Meg Ryan called Mary for help, desperate to find out what was going on.

On the right, there was a public phone. As soon as Harry left Sally's house, he called his best friend Jess. He was also confused and needed help from his friends.

The three scenes are actually very close to each other, but they were shot separately by three cameras. They look like three completely unrelated places in the camera lens.

The recording of the three scenes used a set of equipment. The four telephones (Mary and Jess each have a number on their respective bedside tables, which is a common telephone line arrangement in the homes of working women), all have props and are actually connected, giving the actors a real performance experience .

Because the recordings of the three scenes were recorded together, this kind of shooting is actually equivalent to three gangs of people recording together in the studio.

Just like the song sung by MJ and the stars, their voices are picked up by the radio equipment, but each can hear the voices of others, and the collaboration is like a live performance.

In the script, this phone call scene took up three and a half pages. But there is only one long shot (it was actually shot by three cameras, but synchronized in time).

This made shooting very difficult.

Because it requires the special tacit rhythm of a romantic drama, editing cannot be used. There is no dramatic plot, and all the details must fit together like mortise and tenon joints, and no mistakes can be made within 0.1 seconds.

Therefore, the introduction of any editing will make this scene easier for the audience to play. For the sake of the movie's box office and viewing experience, Ronald decided to challenge the difficulty.

"Cut! Cut!...Kelly, you said it too early. Bruno has to say this first."

"Sorry, my bad..."

In this scene, Carrie Fisher’s lines steal half a beat. Harry and Sally both felt that there was another person's voice on the phone, so they asked if it was Mary and Jess's significant other who was also answering their friend's call.

This is when Jess will lie and be the Jane Fonda in the workout tape. Mary would lie and say it was NBC morning TV host Bryant Gumbel.

These two sentences are both expressions of quick wit. In the early morning, Mary and Jess, in order not to make their best friend sad, randomly made up the name of a person who was likely to make sounds of the opposite sex during this time.

The audience should smile knowingly when they see this. Therefore, the words of the two people cannot overlap. It must be in a rhythm where one person has just finished speaking and the other is catching up half a beat.

"Let's do it again..."

"Cut! Cut! Bruno, you didn't catch it this time."

Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal both faced the camera alone, and their dialogue was easy to resolve without any difficulty. Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher are in trouble, and they can't miss the slightest bit of rhythm.

Ronald spent a lot of time explaining to them the rhythm of infringing on each other's speaking space, but not infringing on it. The two actors are more difficult to understand, and this kind of treatment of lines is rarely seen in Western dramas.

Ronald himself couldn't demonstrate a line that could only be performed by two people. Kobe and Fisher just memorized Ronald's ideas and often made mistakes.

"Everyone, take a break..." Ronald had already taken twenty shots, but none of the four actors could finish it smoothly.

This was the first time such difficulties occurred during the filming of this movie. Regardless of Ronald, the four actors were also very irritable, which further increased the difficulty of filming.

Ronald had to call a halt and ask his assistants to bring hot coffee and sweets to appease the exhausted actors and crew.

The key to the problem is to demonstrate to several actors the effect Ronald wants to achieve. Otherwise they are groping in the dark and it will only get worse.

"Just like some duet bands, their voices will match each other..." Ronald took out his treasured biscuits and gave them to the leading actors.

"It's like harmony, right?" said Carrie Fisher's boyfriend, Paul Simon, of Simon \u0026 Garfunkel. This band has sung many classic movie inserts...

"It's not harmony, it's mutuality... How should I explain it to you?" Ronald couldn't explain it, so he simply drew a picture on the paper, using short lines to represent the rhythm of the two people talking, and each short line Before and after, there is a short overlap in the short lines of talking to the other party. "

"I understand..." Everyone nodded to express their understanding.

"!" The break was over, and Ronald's aunt's biscuits were all eaten. He ordered the filming to continue.

"Cut! Cut! There are too many overlapping parts, and the audience will not be able to hear clearly." After just ten seconds of filming, Ronald stopped again.

Western operas, musicals, and plays rarely have this method of handling lines (at least Ronald didn't know it). The actor said he understood it, but actually he still had a big problem with the rhythm.

After shooting intermittently for a day, by dinner time, Ronald had taken thirty-five shots, but still could not achieve satisfactory results.

The director of photography next to me had already suggested that it should be resolved in the editing room. But it was rejected by Ronald.

This is already the third act of the movie. After this scene, Harry and Sally have inevitably discovered that they are not compatible with each other. They have no room for compromise anymore, and the plot has entered a fast lane with no side roads.

Or the two of them will completely break up and stop being friends anymore. Either accept each other and be together forever. When the audience is watching, the experience is like stepping on the accelerator and accelerating. Once the scene is over, they have to hit the top speed of 120, all the way to the end.

Therefore, the rhythm of such a play is very important, so that the audience can subconsciously accept this accelerated arrangement. If editing is used to destroy this rhythm, the audience will be in a state of being out of action from the scene to the end. Ronald felt from experience that this was a critical point and refused to compromise.

When Ronald returned home, he dug out various video tapes and records, trying to find a suitable demonstration. The way this scene was shot actually has a name, called in-camera editing.

In other words, the original rhythm of speaking and hanging up the phone can only be shaped by repeated comparisons before and after in the editing room.

But Ronald adjusted the actor's speaking speed and pauses to achieve a natural editing effect in a long shot. The actors' performances naturally form an editing effect. Therefore, this shooting method is also called editing without editing.

After searching over and over for a long time, Ronald could not find a suitable demonstration. Just as he was dozing off between videos and records, the phone rang.

"Ronald, I didn't disturb you, did I? I'm tired of reading the script in the office. Can I go to your crew for an internship?" It was Ang Lee calling. That is, Ronald can express his request.

"Of course, you can come tomorrow and be my assistant director." Ronald felt that it was good that the other party could take the initiative. "By the way, in your Chinese art, do you have this kind of chasing each other's lines... "

"Yes, we often do this in Peking Opera." Ang Lee happened to be a graduate of Huagang Art School. His classmates sometimes performed arias. He knew the unique performance method of Peking Opera - fish biting its tail.

…

"You and I are married thousands of miles apart. If you have any personal concerns, just say it openly."

"Xiao Tianzuo and Tianmen were at war with each other, and I came to Beifan personally with the grain and grass in hand."

Early the next morning, Ronald played the Peking Opera Theater video "Silang Visits His Mother" that Ang Lee had obtained overnight for several leading actors in the studio. The two protagonists, Yang Silang and Princess Iron Mirror, were singing in the palace. The lines are in line with Ronald's requirement of stepping on each other's lines a little bit without affecting the audience's understanding.

Although several actors did not understand Chinese at all, their performance methods were common, and they quickly understood the rhythm and size required by Ronald.

It's like two ornamental goldfish chasing each other and biting each other's tail, shaking and biting, but not completely biting. It is a dynamic balance.

"Do you want to come over for breakfast?" Fisher and Kobe finally completed their lines perfectly.

"No, I don't really want to go," Christo's last line was successfully completed.

"No, I feel bad..." Meg Ryan's line was also delivered smoothly.

Jump...bounce...bounce...bump...

The four sounds of hanging up the phone were also very rhythmic, and Ronald smiled.

"Oh...god..." Carrie Fisher was exhausted from Harry and Sally's emotions.

"I..." Bruno Kobe suddenly couldn't remember his lines, and he got stuck.

"Shxt..." Ronald cursed in his heart as he looked at the shot that was about to be completed. "It's 'good thing we don't have to go through this again', idiot..."

"Sorry, sorry, I forgot the words..." Bruno Kobe also jumped out of bed and apologized to the actors.

"It's okay, let's come again"

…

Finally, when the 51st scene was filmed, the four actors finally completed this difficult performance.

"Huh... This is a print, everyone has a holiday today..." Ronald saw that everyone at the scene was exhausted and had no extra energy to shoot the remaining scenes.

"It's really difficult to make a movie..." Ang Lee lamented next to him. It was his first time on the set of a Hollywood commercial film, and he saw that an experienced director like Ronald could shoot a scene fifty-one times, which was almost impossible. collapse.

"It's just not going well. We were all on the same page a few days ago..." Ronald patted him on the shoulder. "Your videotape of Shiro visiting his mother was a big help. Why didn't you show it to me before? Live such wonderful art?”

"Hey... this play wasn't allowed to be performed a few years ago. I'm looking for the mainland version. I heard that they didn't allow it to be performed there for a long time..."

"Oh...", Ronald probably read some of the arias and knew that it was the story of the general breaking through the defense line and running to the enemy camp to visit his mother because he missed his mother. It was not very playable... both sides.

…

After resting overnight, the subsequent shooting went smoothly again.

The crew filmed a lot of Harry's scenes. At the wedding of Mary and Jess, he realized the harm his actions had caused to Sally. He called Sally every day, apologized, gave gifts, and did everything he could. , the other party just doesn’t want to talk to him.

The practice of going to bed and leaving in the morning with an excuse was so classic. Sally felt that she had seen through Harry and didn't want to get hurt anymore.

Finally, on New Year's Eve, Mary took Sally to the New Year's party again, and everyone watched the New Year's countdown live broadcast in Times Square in the ballroom.

Harry was walking alone on the street, and when he saw everyone reunited, very deep feelings suddenly emerged in his heart. He rushed down the street to hail a taxi, but no car would stop.

In the end, Harry couldn't stand the feeling of not being able to be with Sally, so he sped away to the venue of the New Year's party.

"I can't bear the thought of no one kissing me on New Year's Day, so I'm going back first."

Sally had a really bad date and she didn't want to be here until New Year's when everyone was kissing and hugging. Last year it was Harry here, kissing her like a friend, like a consolation prize.

"Don't be like this, Sally, please stay. It's New Year's Day in only ten minutes. If there's no one, I'll kiss you." Jess, played by Bruno Kirby, felt that Sally was very sad.

Mary stopped her husband. She knew that Sally would be even more sad if she stayed and looked at the couple.

"Cut!" Ronald really restored the high efficiency of shooting. This made Ang Lee feel that his skills were so incredible that he could never catch up.

"It's the last scene, how are you preparing for it?" Ronald asked Billy Crystal.

The other party made an OK gesture. He had been thinking about it for a long time.

"!"

Harry ran to the door of the hall and saw Sally leaving.

"I love you, Sally."

"How do you plan for me to reply to you?" Sally didn't want to say more to him.

"You love me too, how about that?"

"Harry, this won't work. You can't just appear in front of me and tell me you love me to make me forget everything."

Meg Ryan's eyes became misty and her voice began to tremble. The audience will definitely fall in love with this kind of Sally. She is sincere in her feelings, unwilling to compromise, and expects the other person to be sincere to her.

"What are you going to do?", played well by Billy Crystal, a man who is finally able to face his inner feelings. He has always been in love with this girl, but he didn't know it...

"I don't know, but it's definitely not like this...", Sally turned to leave, she didn't want to cry in front of Harry.

"What about this?" Harry was anxious and grabbed Sally.

"Nine...eight...seven...six..." People around started counting down.

"I love that you can catch a cold when it's seventy-one degrees outside, I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich, I love the wrinkles on your nose when you think I'm a fool, I love being with you I can still smell your perfume after staying here all day. I love that you are the last person I talk to before going to bed..."

Billy Crystal's lines are urgent and fast, which is very enjoyable.

Meg Ryan's reaction was also great. Sally was surprised by Harry's confession. She didn't expect Harry to remember so clearly a series of details about their relationship. There was mist in her eyes again.

"I say this not because I am lonely, nor because today is New Year's Eve, but because if a person has figured out that he wants to spend the rest of his life with another person, then he definitely hopes that the rest of his life will come as early as possible... "

A happy smile appeared on Meg Ryan's face. She was enjoying such a romantic confession. Isn't this the kind of confession she had been looking forward to? Sweet and tender…

Then her expression changed again, "Look, you're always like this. Every time you say something like this, I can't hate you... I... I hate you..."

Harry looked at Sally lovingly...

"I hate you..." Sally's words were much softer than the previous one, and her eyes turned to happiness.

"I really hate you..." A teardrop fell from Meg Ryan's face.

"I hate you……"

Billy Crystal's expression was full of sweetness, and suddenly, the two kissed each other.

The camera slowly began to zoom out, as the New Year arrived, countless fireworks fell from the ceiling, and everyone in the camera was dancing happily.

Finally, in the center of the picture is a happily kissing couple, Harry and Sally.

"Cut!"

Ronald raised his hands and clapped loudly.

Everyone started clapping. Everyone found this scene very heartwarming and it was well shot.

What's more, the main part of the movie has already been shot.

"There is a party tonight, and then we have to worry about the weather forecast." Ronald finally said to the two protagonists.

The main shooting scenes include the scene of Harry and Sally spending Christmas in the heavy snow. It all depends on the weather.