Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Ronald, come take some pictures?"

"immediately!"

Ronald brought the main cast members to the hot springs to rest this time, and also arranged for a cameraman to shoot behind-the-scenes and stills, and an assistant cameraman to shoot some videotapes.

These can be used as promotional materials after the filming is completed. If you have the opportunity, put on a talk show and show some great clips. If there is no chance, you can also crop and modify the photo to make a poster.

"Please stay close, okay, the two male and female protagonists are in the middle, very good...cheese! Another one."

The photographer pressed the shutter continuously and took a few group photos for everyone. Just as he was about to leave, Ronald stopped him, "Let me and all the dancers take a group photo alone. Patrick, Cynthia, and Jennifer come as well."

Pulling the back dancers who looked crooked, they were either alone or in pairs, and they took separate photos with the main creator. The plump female dancer with excellent shoulder movements also took Patrick Swayze to a solo one.

"Write down their names and addresses, print them out, enlarge them, and send them separately with the negatives."

Ronald instructed the photographer, and asked Bud Jr. to take down the photographer's phone and check it when the time came.

This is the experience gained from "Longwei Kid", the action director and stuntman Daryl Vidal hired by Ronald, with this photo taken with Master Miyagi and Master Daniel, the business of the Karate Club hot.

In his clubhouse, when he entered the door, he wore a wig and put on the unique trick "Crane Kick", and hung his wings in the white crane with Morita Noriyuki, who played Master Miyagi.

There were news reports and TV reports in the back of the front desk, including Ronald Miyagi's words that he was the real crane kick. It was placed in an incomparably large size, making all the children who came to the clubhouse excited. Parents are required to sign up to learn real karate with a real "Master Miyagi".

The budget for this "Spicy Dance" is limited, and all the dancers invited are actually dancers who can only be dance coaches in the industry because of their poor appearance. They usually earn living expenses by teaching some dance lovers to dance.

They can take a photo with the protagonist and director in a movie that is shown in the cinema, and when it comes time to recruit students, they can also raise some of their own fees.

They train hard, and compared to their outstanding dance skills, the minimum wage of the Actors Guild is considered a bargain.

Ronald wants to try to make up for them later.

After the rest at the resort, the actors went back to continue their rehearsals.

Ronald himself secretly went to MGM's office to meet with Weintraub.

"Are you looking for a broker for copyright purchases?" Weintraub was very busy, and MGM's heart was fluctuating. No one was working seriously for more than half a year. Now many things have to be cleaned up from scratch.

But he still found time to meet Ronald, the biggest contributor to Hollywood's top leadership.

"Yes, my current music director seems to be doing a lot of work. I don't want to wait for the filming to be completed, and suddenly find that there is no money to buy music during post-production." Ronald put his small production needs a lot of fifty I talked about the copyright of the songs of the era, and then asked Weintraub to recommend a good candidate.

"Is it from the 1950s and 1960s? That's very convenient, I happen to have someone here. It was the copyright management manager of the original rca record company. I had a lot of dealings with him when I started the record company.

After Columbia Records acquired rca, his copyright department merged and was laid off. Now he is buying music copyrights for movies and TV shows and is a full-time copyright broker. "

"Tear..." A sound.

Weintraub wrote the contact information on a sticky note, tore it off, and handed it to Ronald. "You better hurry up and finish your little production, we are going to start the preparations for the lunar sultry."

Ronald took the note with Jimmy Reiner's name and phone number on it.

"Thank you, you are busy."

Ronald took his leave, called the broker named Reiner, and asked him to negotiate.

"So, your movie needs about fifteen or twenty old fifties songs for background music and interludes, right? What's the budget?"

"The overall budget for the movie is 4.5 million. I have left about 400,000 for the music copyright. Can you buy all the songs?" Ronald handed over the music list made by the screenwriter Eleanor. other side.

"It's a piece of cake. If I don't mention your name, even half the price is enough. I watched most of these songs, and most of them were on some small labels of swing dance songs in Nashville and Detroit. Records in recent years There are many mergers and acquisitions in the industry, and most of the copyrights should be in a few companies such as rca.

Except for the two top three songs on the list that year, and these two famous bands, such as this song by the Four Seasons and this song by the Raspberry Band, which requires a licensing fee of $20,000, the other five thousand to ten thousand can be bought. Down. "

Jimmy Reiner ticked off the list and added up the total, which came to less than $200,000.

"Very good, how much time do you need?" Ronald was very satisfied with the brokers introduced by Weintraub. Independent brokers like to close the deal as soon as possible so that they can make the next order.

"How much time do you need to be able to buy all the copyright licenses?"

"As little as three days, as much as a week." Jimmy Reiner was succinct.

"However, my film already has a music director on file with the union, and your name cannot appear on the subtitles as a music director."

Jimmy Reiner waved his hand to show he didn't care, then picked up the efficiency note and started planning when and who to negotiate the next step.

"By the way, do you want the full copyright authorization, and you can get the original sound record." Jimmy Reiner asked Ronald a question while writing. It's like the grocery store owner who has sold your bottle of wine, while looking for wine, asks if you want an upgraded version of the aged wine.

"Oh? How much will that cost me?"

"It doesn't cost much, your music is mostly old songs from the 1950s. At that time, many singers gave up their performance rights in copyright and sold them to the company. So as long as you are willing to bid, the record company is very willing to sell more. a little.

That is, the songs of these famous bands require separate authorization from the songwriters and performers. "

It turns out that the use of interludes in a movie involves two copyrights.

One is the right to use the song itself after it has been recorded into an album. This part of the right can be rented to the producers, who can record and mix the soundtrack of the original album into the original soundtrack of the movie.

And songwriters and singers can receive a portion of the remaining dividends at the box office of movies that use their music.

This part of the money, after Ronald has filed with the musicians union, will be allocated to the two major union organizations ascap and bmi according to the agreement, and then the union will be responsible for distributing it.

Another type of copyright, the right to reproduce and publish, is also known as a complete copyright.

You can use this copyright to re-record the album and publish it as a compilation. You can also give priority to inviting the original singer to re-sing a new performance version for the movie, and the copyright of this version will stay with the production company, not the original record company.

Even if it is not re-recorded, in order to obtain this part of the right to publish the original sound recording, the production company has to pay a one-time transfer fee of about 20,000 US dollars to the star singer. Lesser known singers decrease.

"I suggest that you still buy the full copyright, old songs are not expensive. Then you can also have the opportunity to release an acoustic record, I see no problem with the original. We can sign a five-year or ten-year license period, during which time You don’t get a one-time transfer fee for reprints, you just pay them royalties every six months.”

Ronald calculated his own money, and the budget allocated for music was almost used up. Many of the best-selling movies now have pop music on the charts to help market the movie.

If you don't have the money to hire pop singers or bands to compose new songs for movies, if you want to re-release old classics, you can also make a little bit of momentum.

"Okay, just follow your recommendation."

It only took Jimmy Reiner three days to get the rights to all the music Eleanor had assigned, and Ronald called in his personal lawyer from New York to review all the contracts in Los Angeles.

"No problem, there are no big problems with these contracts. You can sign them." Miss lawyer Lindsay Dole stretched and pushed all the contracts in front of Ronald.

"There are still these blank music copyright purchase agreements. After you find a suitable newly created theme song, you can use this template to sign contracts with songwriters and singers, and then fax the contract over, saving me from running trip."

"Okay," Ronald gestured to the lawyer with his eyes, and he understood.

He was also on the phone with art director Ryan Weaver. When he reviewed the photos and storyboards of all the scenes in the script again, he found a lot of problems.

"So how do they solve the problem of set continuity?"

"The location was split into two locations in different states, but in the film it's actually one place where there's a lot of tedious work to do.

David Chapman, the location designer, thought a lot about it. For example, the scene where the protagonist baby descends from the ballroom to the cabin where Johnny lives, the first half of the scene was filmed at Mountain Lake Villa in Virginia, and the second half was filmed at the Boy Scouts camp in North Carolina.

We need to add some people to keep all the scenes in order and in sync. As far as possible there are no flaws in the film.

For example, on the way down the mountain, there are many lamp posts on both sides. You have to hire one or two props staff. Here in North Carolina, make the same props street lamps as Virginia Mountain Lake Villa.

We've had David Chapman make a list of all the props that could be worn, and then we cross-checked. The record of this film is also unprecedentedly heavy work. The two locations require a lot of meticulous work, and I suggest you find a few more to flesh out the on-set team. "

"You make a list, and I'll let Richard LeWitt look at it, and then I'll hire someone."

Ronald hung up the phone and added a sum of money to the budget bill.

"Spending money like water...Aha." The lawyer lady started joking when she saw Ronald's bad face.

"Yeah, what I'm most afraid of now is hearing about additional staff and additional money.

Fortunately, there is no bad news that I am most afraid of, 'There is not enough time for a certain work, and the whole filming will be postponed. That waste of money is terrible, and it costs more than 100,000 every day. "

"Okay, anyway, you don't have to worry about lack of money. If you don't have money to direct a new film, you will earn it back." The lawyer yawned again.

"You are so boring here, I'll go and watch a movie."

"I'll ask Bud to take you there." Ronald didn't look up.

"What are some good movies to watch now?" The lawyer picked up "The Hollywood Reporter" on the coffee table and turned to the box office column.

"Stand by me seems to be good. It won the box office championship for four weeks in a row. You have directed a lot in the top ten, and Top Gun and Dragon Power 2 are all yours, right?"

"Yes, and there are villains in the family that I also produced."

"I've already seen that one, Helen's acting is so funny." The lawyer giggled non-stop.

"No, this is last week's box office, what about this week's new newspaper?" Lindsay Dole looked at it for a long time and found that the date was wrong. He wanted to see what new films were released this week.

"There's a fun movie I found over the weekend, it's Australian, it's called 'Crocodile Dundee', and the new paper seems to be at the door."

"Oh, I'll take a look." Lindsay went out and brought in some new papers.

"Oh, God..." Lindsay turned to the latest box office report, screamed in horror, walked over quickly, and pointed it to Ronald.

"Your Top Gun is No. 1 at the box office again."

"Huh?" Ronald was also shocked and took a look.

In the 19th week of its release, the North American box office is close to breaking through 160 million. The smash hit "Top Gun", with its weekend box office data of 3.5 million, stands at the No. 1 box office chart. one.

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