Hollywood Director 1992

"Teams, get ready!"

"Scene 3, Take 2, Attempt 1, Action!"

Dutchess County, New York.

Afternoon, clear skies. On the set of "Final Destination", within a villa district, the cast and crew are busily working.

Link also sits behind the monitor, carefully watching the shots transmitted from the camera.

After a few days of rain in southern New York, the weather begins to turn hot. Link, wearing a baseball cap, vest, and long-sleeved t-shirt, sits in the tent for a while, breaking out in a sweat.

"John, let's go through this shot again. Don't make the landing point too low. Use a bird's-eye view to capture the situation inside Todd's house. This perspective can be understood as the 'Grim Reaper's perspective', adding some psychological pressure to the audience."

Link walks to the chief cameraman, John Toll, gesturing to show him how to shoot, how to design the film shots, and how to segment them.

John Toll proactively applied for the job when Guessing Game Pictures was recruiting cameramen.

After Link looked at his photos and information, he quickly recognized him.

John Toll doesn't have much fame now, having only worked as a photographer for two documentaries, but he will become one of the authorities in the field in the future.

His representative works include "Braveheart", "Legends of the Fall", "The Thin Red Line", "Almost Famous", "Cloud Atlas", "Vanilla Sky", and many others, having won and been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography multiple times.

Link also specifically studied his works when he was a director. When he saw John Toll applying, he signed him without hesitation.

Now, in addition to John Toll, a very promising photographer, the crew also includes assistant director Sofia Coppola, assistant director Paul Thomas Anderson, sound engineer Andy Nelson, sound effects editor Per Hallberg, prop master Eric Dawson, and others, all of whom are potential future stars in the film industry.

With these people assisting him, he can also save a lot of time and energy during filming.

"Director Link, I understand."

John Toll nods, instructing several assistants to readjust the camera positions.

After the camera crew is ready, the "Final Destination" crew continues filming.

"Final Destination" is a thriller movie, originally released in 2000, with an investment of nearly 20 million, and grossed $186 million worldwide.

The box office revenue is not as good as "Paranormal Activity" or "The Blair Witch Project", but it is very famous and has a large number of fans around the world. The subsequent sequels also performed well at the box office, exceeding 700 million US dollars, making it a movie with great potential for success.

This is also one of the reasons why Link chose "Final Destination" as his fourth work.

Another reason is that the protagonists of this movie are young people, and the movie's plot and character relationships are relatively simple, which is in line with his age and perspective, and is also very suitable for new directors to practice with.

The first "Final Destination" tells the story of a teacher and students from a class at Abraham High School preparing to travel to Paris, France. Before boarding the plane, high school student Alex Browning always has an ominous premonition. Many things around him seem to indicate that this trip will not be too smooth.

After arriving at the airport, Alex sees church members distributing leaflets, telling him 'Death is not the end'. When passing through security, he sees the flight display board constantly flipping, showing flight delays, as if foreshadowing that something bad is about to happen.

After boarding the plane, Alex leans back in his seat and has a nightmare.

In the dream, the plane suddenly shakes violently after taking off. In less than a few tens of seconds, the plane's body ruptures, and many people fall out of the plane from the opening, followed by the plane exploding.

Alex wakes up from the nightmare and finds that the plane has not yet taken off. He quickly goes to the front row of seats to check the situation and is surprised to find that it is the same as in the dream.

Alex shouts that the plane will explode and that everyone should get off the plane.

But no one believes him, and he has a fierce conflict with his temperamental classmate Carter.

In the end, Alex, along with teacher Valerie Lewton, friend Todd Wagner, classmates Carter, Carter's girlfriend Terry, and big classmate Billy Hitchcock, are kicked off the plane.

The heroine Clear Rivers has the ability to sense danger. After hearing the protagonist's shout, she voluntarily follows him off the plane.

After the group of 7 returns to the waiting hall, the plane slowly takes off and explodes in front of everyone's eyes, turning into a ball of flames in the night sky.

All 127 people on board were killed, including 39 teachers and students from the school.

Because of his abnormal behavior before the plane exploded, the male protagonist is investigated and monitored by the FBI.

The 7 survivors return home, and as they secretly rejoice at escaping, death comes.

After the movie starts filming, Link plans to first shoot the individual scenes of several leading actors. The individual scenes are mainly indoors, and the group scenes will be shot later.

On the one hand, this can save costs and control costs to not exceed the budget.

On the other hand, when filming individual scenes, he has the opportunity to individually guide several new actors, so that they can perform better when filming group scenes.

After practicing well in the front, filming will be faster in the back.

According to this filming plan, the first to be filmed is the plot of male number three, Todd.

The role is played by Joaquin Phoenix.

Todd Wagner is 17 years old this year, a relatively normal adolescent boy with golden-brown hair, freckles on his face, ordinary appearance, ordinary figure, likes beautiful women but is not favored by girls, is more lively, and has a relatively close relationship with the male protagonist.

Before the plane exploded, his brother George saw that the male protagonist was not in a good mood and asked Todd to go down and take care of him, so Todd survived, and his brother died in the plane crash.

After Todd returns home, he looks in the mirror in the bathroom and trims his nose hairs. At this time, the Grim Reaper arrives, and he is also the first person in the main cast to be taken away by the Grim Reaper.

"Scene 4, Take 1, Attempt 1, Action!"

The movie starts filming.

Joaquin Phoenix walks into the camera, wearing a plaid shirt, walking barefoot into the bathroom, standing in front of the mirror and looking at himself. Suddenly, a cool breeze blows in from the window, and the curtains flutter in the wind.

Todd walks to the window and closes it.

"Cut!"

No mistakes, a first-class performance!

"Todd, when the wind blows in, turn around slower, you don't need to make a too horrified expression. Todd is an ordinary person, not sensitive in character, unable to sense the existence of the Grim Reaper, and will not be frightened by a little cool breeze. When performing, you don't need to use too much force, just follow the normal plot, I will remind you where you need to use force."

Link stands on the right side of the camera, pointing at Joaquin Phoenix in front.

After the movie starts filming, all the actors in the crew call each other by their character names. This is his rule to enhance the actors' immersion in the role.

"Director, I understand."

Joaquin Phoenix continues to perform, and several special effects crew members blow a cool breeze outside the window.

The blowing wind scene has been practiced in advance. The amount of wind, when to blow the wind, the staff has practiced more than ten times, and there will be no mistakes during filming.

Todd stands in front of the mirror looking at his face, a gust of wind blows in, Todd reacts after a few seconds, looks back at the window, and walks over to close the window.

"Cut!"

Link returns to the director's area to check the shots taken by the monitor.

"How is it?"

Sofia leans over and asks.

She is mainly responsible for scheduling in the crew, and sometimes she also replaces Link to shoot some outdoor scenes, which is equivalent to the co-director of the crew.

"Not good enough."

Link calls Joaquin over, "Don't frown when you look in the mirror. Looking in the mirror is for self-appreciation, the mood is relatively relaxed. You frown, which seems contradictory in emotional processing, which is not necessary."

"Director, this is what I think. Todd's brother just passed away, I think he should show a sad emotion."

Joaquin asks.

"No need. Earlier at the memorial ceremony held at the school, Todd said he had passed that psychological barrier and invited Alex to drive to New York to watch the Yankees game. In addition, Todd's brother is very good, always bullies Todd, and his parents often compare him with his brother at home, which makes him seem useless. Todd lives in his brother's shadow, and now that shadow has disappeared, he won't be too sad."

"Do you understand?"

Sofia says, patting the table, "You are not focused on studying the role, and you are still arguing when I explain the scene to you. If I were the director, I would hit you directly."

Joaquin takes a step back in fright. In the crew, Link doesn't hit or scold people, but Sofia, this young lady, does, and she scolds very harshly.

Link smiles and says, "Joaquin, the atmosphere in the front of this scene needs to be more relaxed, and the audience will also relax when watching it. After various anomalies appear in the bathroom, the audience's emotions will gradually be mobilized, and their hearts will also be raised. If the front is a sad emotion, the audience will be in a bad mood, and the emotional mobilization effect will be worse when watching it.

So you need to perform this part a little more relaxed. The more relaxed, the more sudden and unpredictable the accident seems, just like fires, car accidents, plane crashes, etc. in our daily life. Many people did not expect that they would die before they encountered the disaster."

"I understand, I will definitely be able to perform well this time."

Joaquin nods with a smile and returns to the set to wait.