Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"When you were taking classes at New York University, did the editing class teach the axis principle and continuity editing?" Early the next morning, Walter Mersey came to the office full of energy and began to teach Ronald the secret of editing—— Six principles to distinguish what is good and what is bad.

"Yes, the principle of axis is to keep the camera on one side of the two dialogue characters, and do not move to the other side casually. Otherwise, a character will suddenly appear on the left and right of the audience, which will cause confusion in the audience's thinking. .

The principle of continuity editing is that when editing a person's actions, try to keep them looking continuous together. For example, when a person is sitting on a stool and wants to stand up. When switching from a close shot to a medium shot, you need to find a point where the two pieces of film have the same movements to connect them. Try to keep the standing action continuous to avoid the audience feeling strange. "

Ronald explained the standard answer in the film editing class. He saw that Walter was in good spirits today, with a hippie-like beard and a clean shave. He was wearing a plaid suit, and his temperament had changed from a hippie to that of a Hollywood elite.

"So, when you watch a new movie, have you carefully observed the editing techniques? Do you always maintain these two principles?"

"No, today's films seem to be influenced by the French New Wave director Godard, and editing often breaks the continuity principle and makes jump cuts.

Some Japanese film directors, such as Akira Kurosawa, don't adhere to the axis principle very much, but I didn't feel anything awkward when watching them. It seems that these two principles are often broken. "

Ronald often pays attention to some technical details that others ignore in Scorsese's film appreciation classes. The film review assignments he writes are often different. He does not talk about artistry or ideological aspects, but talks more about technical details.

"Very good, what I will teach you today are the other four editing principles, namely mood, story, rhythm, and focus of attention." Walter put a reel of film on the editing machine and started playing it.

"This is the first 10 minutes of Apocalypse Now. You can see here that the protagonist played by Martin Sheen is full of angry emotions, and the audience is also infected by this emotion. When editing, you have to ensure that the audience's emotions flow smoothly.

As the story and emotions moved forward, the audience gradually discovered that he was a US Army officer who accepted a mission in Saigon and finally embarked on an adventure.

And the pace of this storytelling flows very smoothly. "

"So the first three principles seem to be closely tied together?"

"That's right, it's not easy for us to separate them. Let's look at the focus of the fourth principle. The helicopter propeller gradually fades out.

The focus of the audience's attention is still on the position of the propeller on the screen, so the ceiling fan scene we fade in should also appear at this position. "

"I understand that when editing, you need to pay attention to which part of the screen the audience is looking at, so that the focus of the next picture continues to be there."

“That’s right, don’t let the audience guess where to look next.”

"So mood, story, rhythm, focus of sight, axis principle, and continuity of action. So those that meet these six principles are good ones and should be picked up according to the principles. Those that don't meet the principles are bad ones and should be cut." Luo Nader concluded.

"Don't you think there's something wrong with your statement?" Walter Mersey raised his lips, "Why are the last two principles often abandoned in today's movies?"

Indeed, Ronald looked back at the beginning of Apocalypse Now, and the axis principle was violated by the shot of the protagonist accepting a mission, and the action continuity was not followed at all. The strange thing is that I didn't feel awkward when I watched it.

"I feel that the most important thing is the emotional experience of the audience. As long as this is met and the principle of axis and continuity is violated, the audience will not feel it."

"Very well, principles are important, but what's more important is knowing when not to follow them." Walter nodded. This student knew everything, and his understanding was really good.

“If we rank these six principles, mood, story, rhythm, focus of sight, axis principle, and continuity of action.

Any one principle is more important than all the following principles combined. If you cannot have both, in order to ensure the principle of superiority, you can violate the principle of inferiority. "

"For example, the axis principle is very intuitive, and we always feel that it should not be violated. As long as it is violated, the audience will feel that the two speaking characters have swapped positions, which is very dramatic.

But Akira Kurosawa's films don't take the axis principle into consideration because his story and rhythm are so good that the audience won't feel that the camera is off-axis when watching. The superior principle can always block the inferior principle. "

Ronald quickly wrote down the secrets. This was the true story.

"To give another common example in American movies, there is always a scene in the movie that always deliberately violates the axis principle. Do you know what it is?"

Ronald thought for a while, but still shook his head to express that he didn't know.

"It's a passion scene, because emotionally, we want the audience to feel the power of the hero and heroine's passion. When the passion comes, we always forget everything else and feel like the world is spinning.

Therefore, when editing passionate scenes, good editors will deliberately violate the axis, giving the audience a spinning feeling and letting them feel the power of passion. "

Ronald nodded, "So if you satisfy the audience's visual focus, they will ignore your violation of the subsequent axis and continuity principles. But the audience will not ignore errors in mood, story, and rhythm. The superior principle can block The principle of inferiority, but not vice versa.”

"That's right. The reason why this is possible lies in the audience's attention. The purpose of these principles is to keep the audience's attention on the screen. We must be able to predict the audience's shift in attention in the next film. Give them something new before they lose interest.”

Ronald felt that these words were very familiar. Roger Corman's directorial secrets also talked about the preciousness of the audience's attention. It seems that successful film industry practitioners all think the same thing.

“So how do you predict audience attention?”

"Experience, intuition, and feedback from test screenings, there is no other way." Walter Mersey sighed, "This is why no one understands the secret to a successful movie. Every new movie is groping for it. trade off."

"If I can continue to dream about the movies I watched in my previous life, wouldn't that be a more powerful weapon than others?" Ronald decided to go back to the hotel and try sleeping and dreaming again.

"Do you still remember my lecture at New World Company?" Walter seemed to want to tell Ronald all the important things first and ask him to write them down, and then he would slowly understand them when he met them at work.

"Yes, I keep all my notes."

"Editing is not about speed. It depends on you to speed up the editing. It's not about how many times you cut. Counting the number of edits counts the money. This is an art and a science. To be more appropriate, editing is a kind of craft."

“The more you practice, the more familiar you will be with scientific principles and artistic trade-offs, and the faster you will be able to find the best solution.”

"Editors often have to go back and forth to consider different arrangements and combinations. How about connecting this one to that one, cutting it from here, and connecting it there. Many times you will feel that there is not enough time. Now I will teach you a trick to save time. the way of thinking."

Walter Mersey opened his desk drawer, took out a large notebook, opened it and showed it to Ronald.

"This seems to be a photo reprinted from film?" Ronald himself is a photographer and is very familiar with the various photos in his notebook, which are all reprinted from the film of Apocalypse Now.

"Yes, my method is to pick a frame that best represents it for each shot, print it into a photo and paste it on the wall. If it is a long shot, you can use 2-3 photos to represent it.

This way, when I'm thinking about permutations and combinations, I don't have to repeatedly disassemble and assemble the film. I can use these photos instead. "

"So that's it." Ronald looked at each photo carefully. For example, in the long shot of getting up at the beginning, Walter chose Martin Sheen to jump up from the bed, cut his palm on the mirror, and started doing Tai Chi. The three photos represent.

If you have seen every piece of film footage, it is easy to recall which scene these three photos represent.

"The exposure process of movie film is different from that of photo film. I explored a set of parameters that can reproduce the effect of a general photo from the film film in a Kodak printing shop without losing the details of the film film."

Walter took out a piece of paper and handed it to Ronald.

"You learn quickly." I have nothing left to teach you. "All that's left is to hone and gain experience."

Ronald took a look and saw that it was a set of parameters, using a low sensitivity and long exposure method. According to this method, the film film can be developed at the Kodak printing shop to produce photos with ideal effects.

After taking the secret and carefully putting it in his notebook, Ronald had a lot of words of gratitude to say in his heart.

Walter turned around and took another large glass bottle and handed it to him, "This is the honey that Anji brought to you. It was made by our own bees. I heard that you like it very much, so I will give you another large bottle."

"Keep working hard, and one day I will see the movie directed by you on the screen." Walter hugged Ronald encouragingly and patted him on the back.

"Same to you, Walt, I'm going to see your new Disney movie."

Friendship between men sometimes does not need to be measured by material things, nor does it need to be spoken. Ronald returned to the hotel with a full harvest and carefully sorted it out. Don’t forget this precious knowledge.

Ronald sorted it out carefully before starting to rest.

Just lie in bed for a while and try to feel like dreaming.

I turned off the lights and fell asleep on the hotel bed in broad daylight.

Vaguely, Ronald seemed to dream of a white soldier, picking up a rifle and trying to save people in the hail of bullets. He put a black soldier on his shoulders, ran back desperately, and then was hit by a bullet in the buttocks. The black soldier muttered something to the white soldier.

As the scene changed, Ronald saw the face of the black soldier clearly, it was his uncle Steve. No, Steve is white. Ronald looked at the white soldier's face again, but it was blurry and he couldn't see who it was.

"Ring ring ring ring..." Ronald was woken up by a phone ringing.

"Hello, who is it?" Ronald answered the phone angrily. It turned out that it was really a dream, about his uncle who died in the Vietnam battlefield, not the movie "My Brother's Protector".

"Your script sold for $350,000?" Eddie, his advertising director business agent in New York, was yelling on the phone. "I regret now that I didn't get your screenwriting agent business as well. "

"How did you know?" Ronald sat up from the bed. How could the news be leaked?

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