Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Plop." Ronald rolled off the bed. He sat on the ground and scratched his head.

After getting the good news that the script was sold, Ronald felt that he should be able to dream about the completion of the movie. The movie has been approved. He not only participated in the production of the movie, but also knew the heroine of the movie. Did he dream about the movie? Have the necessary and sufficient conditions been met?

I went to bed excitedly, but I was so excited that I couldn't fall asleep several times. Thinking of the last two times I dreamed about movies, I fell off the bed, so I just slept close to the bed, so the chance of dreaming would be higher.

Unexpectedly, apart from falling out of bed in the morning, I didn’t dream about any movies.

Really unable to dream of the finished film, Ronald simply came to the Sentinel Building early and entered the peep show company early to continue watching the film.

"Why did you come to the company so early? I don't recommend working long hours. Editing is not a profession where you can produce masterpieces just by grinding out time. It requires inspiration and accumulation of experience."

When Walter Mersey saw Ronald coming so early, he thought he was going to work overtime, nine hours a day, seven days a week, so he quickly stopped him.

"Ah, no. I was so excited that I couldn't sleep, so I came here. My agent told me that someone was interested in the script I wrote." Ronald replied.

"Aha, congratulations." Walter Mersey hugged him, "This is a very good start. I know your ambition is to be a director, and screenwriting is actually very suitable for young people who want to enter the industry as directors."

Mersey thought that Ronald might have written some low-budget movie script that was picked up by a small producer, but did not go into details.

"So you've been watching the original footage of Apocalypse Now for the past few days, and have you learned it?"

It turns out that not teaching me how to edit these days and letting me look at the original materials by myself is really a test for me, Ronald thought to himself.

"With some progress, I still can't stop on the same grid every time, but the success rate is higher than before."

"You come with me." Walter Mersey opened the doors of his editing room and asked Ronald to follow him inside.

Ronald was very excited, Merzi was finally going to teach him the secret.

Walter asked Ronald to move two previous "Apocalypse Now" finished films and install them on a KEM editing machine made in West Germany.

The film and tape of this horizontal editing machine are placed flat on the editing table.

Instead of standing vertically like the old Moviola editing machine. Put the film and audio tape on the film reel, pull the film through various guide posts, and finally fix it on another film reel.

Turning on the machine, Ronald stood and pressed a handle in the middle of the editing table and turned it left or right to play, stop, and fast forward and rewind.

One of the great advantages of the kem horizontal editing machine is that it makes less noise. The Moviola vertical machine operates like a sewing machine. The noise of the kem is similar to that of a tape recorder, with only a low rustling sound.

Snap, Walter Mersey pressed the stop button.

"This is the editing point I chose. Did you find anything?"

Ronald stepped forward, stared at the display screen for a long time, and shook his head, "I didn't find anything."

"Look at his eyes," Walter Mersey said, pointing to Martin Sheen's character on the screen.

"Eyes?" Ronald picked up the control dial, rewind a section of film, and then played it back at normal speed to the editing point.

This time he stared into the actor's eyes, and the scene on the screen was just past the cut point Walter pointed out, as if Martin Sheen had blinked.

Ronald's heart moved and he went back to read it again.

"Have you discovered it? Very good." Walter Mersey looked very happy.

"Is this here? It seems like he blinked once he passed the editing point you chose." Ronald yelled.

“That’s what I discovered while editing Coppola’s film Wiretaker.” Walter Mersey told Ronald his “secrets.”

"My editing points are all chosen at the moment before the character blinks. That morning, I had just finished editing the film after working overtime, and I discovered this pattern when I was sorting out the film in the morning.

I was walking on the streets of San Francisco and I was so excited that I thought I had discovered a huge secret. By coincidence, I bought a newspaper on the street and read it, and there was an interview with director John Huston that attracted me.

In the interview, Huston shared my view that the blink of an eye is the end of human thought. When a person reaches the end of a thought in his mind, he blinks. "

Ronald looked confused? "In middle school textbooks, doesn't it say that blinking is because your eyes are dry and need to be moistened?"

"This is wrong. If we record a video of people in a desert environment, we will find that their blink frequency is the same as that in a humid environment, such as the seaside."

For the first time, Ronald got a taste of Walter Mersey's scientific thinking. This man did not believe in any textbooks or other people's ready-made conclusions. Instead, he thought independently and used scientific experiments to verify his opinions.

"Then how can I prove your point that blinking is the end of one's thoughts?" Ronald asked. According to Walter Mersey's idea, his idea that blinking is the end of a thought must be scientifically tested before it can be believed.

"It's simple. You look at me," Walter Mersey said to Ronald, "and then look back at the window across the room."

Ronald glanced back at the window.

"Did you notice? When you turned your head sharply, you blinked."

"What?" Ronald began to shake his head from side to side. He could feel that his eyes seemed to have no memory in the middle part during the rotation. If a camera were filming you, you should be able to see that you actually blinked.

In the process of turning his head 180 degrees from left to right, the memory picture at the beginning on the left is clear, and the picture at the stop on the right is also clear, but in the middle part, Ronald's eyes are closed and his brain has no memory.

"Look at me, then look at this machine." Walter asked Ronald to turn to the nearby editing machine display.

"Strange, I didn't seem to blink during the process of turning my head this time." Ronald discovered a subtle difference between the two turns of his head. If the angle of rotation is smaller, he will not blink.

"Do you know the 30-degree angle rule in film editing?"

"Yes, I learned it in the editing class in college. This was discovered by the film pioneer Mérieux. If we shoot the same subject, the angle of camera rotation before and after editing must be greater than 30 degrees, otherwise the picture will jump and the audience will find it strange. . If it exceeds 30 degrees, our brains can understand this kind of picture jump and don’t find it strange..."

"I understand!" Ronald yelled.

"When our brains rotate violently, we close our eyes and blink. Therefore, when the angle of rotation in the clip is greater than 30 degrees, our brains adapt very well, because when we usually turn our heads, we close our eyes in the middle, and the brain Helping us edit."

Walter Mersey was glad that young people understood his theory of editing,

"If it's less than 30 degrees, we don't close our eyes, and we don't do natural editing in our brains. We see all the objects in the middle, and when editing a rotating lens within a 30-degree angle on the screen, it's inconsistent with our usual experience. , the brain will feel strange."

"So that's it."

"This is our usual experience and its impact on film editing. But there is a time when our brains can freely switch and imagine images without complying with physical laws, so we accept the existence of editing and do not find it strange."

"When?" Ronald touched his head.

"There's a time every day."

"Dream?" Ronald suddenly realized.

"Yes, dreams are illogical. You can switch between story scenes at will without paying attention to continuity. Isn't this just a jump cut?"

Ronald kept nodding in agreement. No one had told him such an obvious truth before, not even the professor in the editing class at New York University.

"Dreaming is not bound by the laws of physics. We can dream that we are running on the flat ground, suddenly flying like a bird, and looking at ourselves on the ground. Isn't this the flying scene in the movie?"

"Yes." Ronald felt more and more justified.

"Some people often compare movies to daydreaming. In fact, there is a very profound physiological connection between the two." Walter Mersey pointed at Ronald's brain and drew a circle:

"It is a very strange thing that our brains can understand movie editing. The editing of the movie is completely inconsistent with daily life experience. Why do we switch between front and back over-the-shoulder shots? We can understand that this is the role of the character. Conversation? Have you ever seen anyone running around while talking?"

Ronald shook his head.

"We can understand movie editing because we often dream about similar camera cuts. Our brains edit every day while sleeping. We are used to dreaming, so we can understand the plot effortlessly when watching movies."

"And our brains may use the same part when processing language, so after a sentence is said, our brains seem to understand that the scene needs to change significantly, and they will blink to adapt to this change."

"Then when I'm editing, can't I just watch the character blink and edit?" Ronald asked.

"Alas..." Walter Mersey said impatiently, "Think about the logic you learned in high school, Ronald. The brain's large-scale processing of scene changes is only one reason for blinking, and other reasons can also cause blinking. . This is a sufficient condition, not a necessary condition.

For example, we blink when we sneeze, we blink when our eyes feel dry, and we blink when we lie. These cannot be regarded as indicators of editing. "

"Besides, not every actor can be so into the play. Sometimes they are really just reading their lines." Walter Mersey corrected Ronald's idea, "I mean, if the actor is really good, you You can use the method of checking the blink time to verify whether your selection of editing points is correct."

Ronald nodded, "But are everyone's blinking time choices the same? For example, when watching a movie, is my blinking time the same as your blinking time? If it is the same, can I use blinking as a standards to check your own editing point selections."

"Your idea is very good. My experience says that most, I mean more than 95% of people, their choices are consistent. We don't need to worry about the 5% of people, as long as we focus on the vast majority of the audience Just behave.”

"Why would the 5% be different?"

"Most of the 5% are film practitioners, who focus on areas related to their profession. For example, the lighting crew pays attention to the lights, the acting teachers pay attention to the actors' performances, and there are always people in the industry and film critics during test screenings. Always look for flaws in your movie, something they can criticize.

Therefore, their attention span is different from that of ordinary viewers, and their thinking content is also different, so the timing of blinking is also different. "

"Actually, if we have a magical camera that can record the blinking behavior of the audience in the dark without disturbing the movie, then we put such a magical camera behind the screen to record the audience's reaction while watching the movie.

When we watch the footage captured by this camera afterwards, we will see that if the film editing follows the rules, 95% of the audience will blink at the same time.

If this magical camera can capture the reflection of the audience's eyes when they blink, we will see that in the dark, every audience member blinks at your editing point, just like the stars in the sky, twinkling at the same time. "

Impressed by the scientific theories and artistic images painted by Walter Mersey, Ronald sat down in this office and began to watch the "Apocalypse Now" clip from the beginning.

He found that every shot was arranged just right. At the editing point, the audience's brains were at the editing point and were thinking about the next shot.

Immersed in the new knowledge and constantly comparing his thoughts with the finished film, Ronald didn't notice the passage of time. Four or five hours passed quickly, and he was awakened from that state of excitement by a phone ringing.

Ronald rubbed his face and answered the phone, "This is Walter Mersey's office."

"This is Thomas Wilhite from Disney Studios, please put Mr. Mersey on the phone."

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