Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"It's very good..." Ronald gave George Lucas and director Ron Howard the highest compliment a director can give to other people's movies after attending the premiere of "Willow".

"Do you think it's good? Hahaha, I'm really happy." Lucas likes Ronald, a kid. He doesn't have the kind of scheming personality that Hollywood directors have. He retains a lot of the original intentions that inspired people to become directors, which is to make good-looking and amazing movies.

"Yeah, it's very good. I can hardly see any traces of special effects splicing. How did you do it?"

Ronald has been in the industry for nearly ten years. He has directed and produced many movies. If you put a shot in front of him, he can roughly figure out how it was shot. Even if there are some key links that he doesn't understand, he can gather a group of experts and work on it for a while, and then he can find a solution (just like asking Jim Cameron to build an airplane cockpit when filming Top Gun).

But today he really seems to have returned to the perspective of an ordinary audience. For this movie "Willow", he can't figure out how some of the shots in it were shot.

Three scenes are particularly obvious. One is that the wizard shoots lightning from his hand to hit the enemy. In Star Wars VI, the Emperor's trick to deal with Luke Skywalker is this kind of lightning from his hand, which is not a new technology.

But in Star Wars, Ronald can still see that the lightning is the engineers of Industrial Light and Magic, who found a way to shoot (or draw) silver lightning on the film, and then print it through special effects and transfer it to the pre-shot film.

The lightning in "The Gathering of Storms" is definitely not drawn, because the lightning and the fingers are very closely combined, as if they flew out of the fingers and finally hit the enemy, bursting out electric sparks. Even the random little swing of the lightning beam and the small lightning beam that appears behind the person are very natural. The performance is very similar to the electric light emitted from the welding gun of the welder.

This is exactly the same as the "lightning" magic imagined by the audience. Ronald can't think of any way to achieve such an extreme.

The second scene is the scene of the monster (dragon) breathing fire. The fireball spewed out of the monster's mouth is not the light and fluffy version made by the painter. It seems to have mass and impact. When it rushes to the target, it will make the target fall back, which is similar to the feeling of throwing charcoal into the fireplace. After the fireball hits the obstacle, the splashing and spreading explosion feeling is also very similar to the explosion points made by the traditional special effects department.

The last scene that Ronald couldn't think of how to shoot is the scene where the elf is revealing to the protagonist. There is a soft light around the elf, like the holy light behind Jesus in medieval paintings.

What's amazing is that this light is not simply transferred to the film. From the side of the character to the space of tens of centimeters where the holy light dissipates, the holy light has a gradient style, which is very natural. It is very similar to the effect produced by photographers shooting portraits against the light at sunrise and sunset. At the intersection of the holy light and the dark background, there are still small lights that are constantly dissipated into very fine particles.

"Aha, that's... the particle system developed by Pixar Studios." Director Ron Howard used to work for Roger Corman, and he and Ronald were brothers from the same school. So he was not shy about this relatively advanced technology.

"Particle system? The kind of particle physics?" Ronald didn't understand. He was very interested in this new movie effect, because when he watched the movie, he felt a sense of familiarity that made him feel that he needed to pay great attention.

Ordinarily, a director who embraces special effects technology should have noticed this epoch-making special effects scene immediately. But when Ronald saw the fire, lightning, and holy light, he didn't have any emotional fluctuations. It was the exclamations from the audience that suddenly made him realize how powerful the scene was.

It is very likely that he had seen many such special effects in his previous life, so his first reaction was actually very normal. This made Ronald make a bold inference that perhaps in the near future, it would be normal for these special effects to appear in Hollywood movies.

"Ha, no, this is an animation generation technology... Let me put it this way, at Pixar, all the images are rendered by computers."

Lucas has continued to invest a lot of money in Industrial Light and Magic, consuming a lot of the wealth he earned through the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" series. Now is the time to sell some special effects computers and special effects software to his peers in the industry to make some money back. Otherwise, even with his huge wealth, he can't afford it.

It turns out that these very realistic images are not shot through special effects and then transferred to the original film through traditional technology. Instead, they are all generated by computers.

The computer uses an algorithm to simulate a beam of fine particles, spreading, exploding, rebounding, etc. in the air or water, and then inputs the motion trajectory equations of hundreds of small particles into the supercomputer, and then lets the supercomputer generate the final image frame by frame according to the motion trajectory equations through computer graphics. This process of generating images out of nothing is called rendering.

"Every frame is rendered by computer..." Lucas said to Ronald, "If you are interested, come to my ranch and have a look. We have complete machines for sale. The software developed by Pixar is still in Industrial Light and Magic."

It turned out that Lucas was short of funds due to the huge loss of "Howard the Duck". He had been investing in Pixar (computer image generation department) and Industrial Light \u0026 Magic (traditional model animation), but he could only support one.

However, the industry was not very interested in Pixar's technology, and no one bid for it. In the end, Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Computer, who was kicked out of the company he founded, asked for $5 million to buy it, and then continued to invest another $5 million to keep the company running.

Lucas felt guilty about the old Pixar employees who jumped out of the New York Institute of Technology to start a business with him, so he did not ask to retain too many shares in the sale. In the end, except for Jobs, the major shareholder, Lucas and several core team members held shares.

Jobs wanted to turn things around, but he disagreed with the idea of ​​his employees investing more money to pursue more advanced computer graphics rendering capabilities. Now the company can only survive by selling some computer software and hardware.

Ronald secretly said it was a pity. At that time, he did not have the money to buy this new company. Even if he bought it, he estimated that he could not afford the continuous investment at that time.

But now his wallet is deep enough, he can buy some computers, or recruit some people to his own company, and even invest in Pixar.

At that moment, Ronald and Lucas agreed to visit Pixar's "computer magic" after returning home.

As for other special effects, they are also groundbreaking, but Ronald can almost estimate the shooting methods.

】

For example, a monster with two twin heads, that is obviously the traditional model technology of Industrial Light and Magic, a barbarian knight, that is the traditional makeup technique, adding a set of masks to the knight.

The heads of these two monsters, one is called Albert and the other is called Cisco, which is obviously Lucas's satire of two Chicago film critics. And the death knight, named General Carl, is a mockery of Pauline Carl, a female film critic in New York. Because she has always been famous for telling the truth, Lucas named a protagonist with her name and appearance.

There is also one of the two male protagonists, a dwarf farmer named Willow who wants to be a wizard, which is even simpler, that is played by a dwarf actor. His name is Warwick Davis. When he was a child, he played the native who looked like a bear and helped several people escape from danger in Star Wars VI.

Now he is 18 years old, and Lucas asked him to come back to play the leading role, which made him very happy. This kind of special actor often has the opportunity to play supporting roles, but the opportunity to play the leading role is rare.

Warwick Davis was on the scene, jumping around and still had the character of a child. Ronald waved to him, and behind him was another male lead, Val Kilmer.

Val Kilmer still had a lot of knots about Ronald reducing his role in "Top Gun" that year, but now he has no successful works. In order not to offend the three major Hollywood directors on the scene, he also had to perform better.

Next to him was Val Kilmer's new girlfriend, the heroine of this film, Joanne Whaley. She is a British actress, and Val Kilmer is acting out her fake role. The two seem to be inseparable.

Ronald greeted them and looked at Warwick Davis. This kind of story of a dwarf as the protagonist always makes him feel familiar. Have you seen similar movies in your previous life?

"Does it remind you of something?" George Lucas smiled at Ronald's look. He is also a director and producer with a strong business sense. This time, Ron Howard directed him, and the two worked happily together, which was very similar to when Spielberg directed the Indiana Jones series for him.

If Ronald... well, Ronald has made a lot of money now. There are rumors in the industry that his "Dirty Dancing" produced independently of the seven major studios has earned him at least 50 million (in fact, it is far more). Since he is interested, then take him to Lucas Ranch to see that the old brothers of Industrial Light \u0026 Magic and Pixar will have a better life if they can get shares.

"I was just thinking, is this story about a dwarf wizard as the protagonist..." Ronald was still searching his subconscious mind, what kind of movie was it... It seems that he has to wait and see if he will dream about it..."

"Haha, you are right, it just incorporates a lot of plots from Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings". The copyright of his book is in the committee, so it is difficult to negotiate. ”

Lucas is indeed a shrewd businessman. He just kept the characters of Lord of the Rings… a clever dwarf (changed from a hobbit to a farmer), a wandering knight (starred by Val Kilmer), an evil wizard (changed from Sauron to a witch)… and then changed the entire plot without catching the copyright issue.

The copyright of Tolkien's adaptation has always been in the hands of a committee composed of his family and publishers. In addition to high copyright fees, they also made many demands for this work that influenced a generation of teenagers.

To this day, except for an unsuccessful cartoon, a TV series, and a radio drama, only "The Hobbit" filmed by the Suvir Alliance has some response. Speaking of this influential work, there are audiences everywhere who are willing to pay to watch the movie version.

"When will you release it in America?" Ronald asked Lucas and Ron Howard.

"Starting at the end of May..." The two looked a little unhappy, because the previous work failed, and there was no successful precedent for this kind of fantasy-themed movie in the 1980s. Fox and Paramount, which they had been working with, both refused to release it.

In the end, only MGM agreed to release the film in the North American market. This was because the executive who discovered Star Wars was now working at MGM.

"At the end of May..." Ronald felt that they were a little embarrassed. Lucasfilm did not have its own distribution channels. He had previously made a high-profile move to let 20th Century Fox share the profits from him and monopolize the derivatives market. Although this made him the richest director in Hollywood, it also offended many distributors.

It was fine when the box office was good before, but now a Howard the Duck movie has also affected his movie.

And at the end of May and the beginning of June, there are many blockbusters in Hollywood this year. In addition to Lucas's film, there is also "Big and Small" starring Diane Lane, "Crocodile Dundee 2", and "Rambo 3: First Blood" will all be concentrated during this period.

"Where are your videotapes?" Ronald then tried to get some videotape business for his company.

As a result, the videotape copyright of Lucas's "The Meeting of the Wind and Clouds" had not been sold yet, and Ronald immediately said that his Daydream could be a one-stop agent for production and distribution.

Lucas didn't expect to have an unexpected surprise. In addition to being happy, he was more determined to sell more Pixar special effects computers to this newly rich director. Artists always have a special hobby of spending money.

Ronald returned to Los Angeles without waiting for the Golden Palm Award to be selected.

The most important thing about this trip to Cannes was to finalize the next key work of Daydream, "Steel Magnolias". Ronald began to send audition invitations to middle-aged female stars through CAA. In addition to Olympia Dukakis and Shirley MacLaine, who Ronald contacted through personal relationships, two middle-aged female stars were also required to play the mothers.

Jane Fonda, Sally Field, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, Jessica Lange and others all said that as long as Ronald was the director, they were willing to work with him.

However, Ronald carried the movie and stage play scripts of "Steel Magnolias" with him every time he flew, and even used it as a pillow to sleep, and he did not dream of any clips of the movie in his previous life. This still made him doubt about directing movies.

So CAA is also helping him find a suitable director. Ronald only needs to invest and be a producer, just like he and Joel Silver co-invested in Die Hard.