King of Hollywood

After April Fool's Day, it took about 10 days to prepare, and "The Shawshank Redemption" started filming in Mansfield State Correctional Facility in Ohio. The fact that everything can be arranged in such a short period of time is mainly due to the high work efficiency of Laverne and others, mainly because of Adrian’s early preparations. Convinced Tim Robbins to take the role.

Among the appointed actors, Morgan Freeman and James Whitmore, who was added later, readily agreed. Bob Gunton gave affirmative doctor although he considered it for a while. The ability to direct and produce two films with word-of-mouth and box office within a year, and the title of ghost director added a lot of weight to Adrian.

However, Tim Robbins rejected this role in the first contact, and the reply he gave was that this role is not suitable for him! Adrian, who was drinking water, almost didn't spit out when he heard the news. It was so funny—of course, it was just for him—so after a long time of depression, he decided to pay a visit in person.

"He helped those people feel good again, he gave those who were locked into the system a glimmer of hope, he was painful and unyielding and... perfect. I can't figure it out, Tim, I can't think of anyone more suitable than you." Sitting on the sofa at Tim Robbins' home on Floss Avenue, savoring his ... life partner, the famous Susan Saran Deng brewed black tea, Adrian said so eloquently.

"There are many actors who are better than me in Hollywood, aren't there?" Robbins' answer seems to have not changed, but obviously he should have been tempted, but he doesn't know why he refused.

"Yeah, I'll admit, for example at first I considered Tom Hanks for the role, but I ended up thinking you were the best fit. I don't know why, Tim, I've seen almost all of your shows, From "Heavenly Soldier" to "The Big Man", and even "Super Player" which was released a few days ago, frankly speaking, none of the images are suitable. But my intuition just tells me that you are the one who forbears Andy who never gave up." Adrian continued with an extremely serious tone, "I trust my instincts so much that I didn't even ask you to come and audition."

At this point, he turned his head and looked at Susan Sarandon: "Isn't it so, Susan? Some birds can't be kept, their feathers are too bright, and when they fly away, your heart You know it's a sin to keep them locked up, and it cheers you up. Isn't Tim one of those birds?"

Although Adrian didn't know why Robbins refused, he also knew the reason to break through from the flank if the front failed. Sure enough, Sarandon, who had read the script, began to persuade Robbins after thinking about it. The two went to one side and argued in a low voice for a long time, and finally Robbins agreed to Adrian's invitation.

He later learned that Robbins refused the invitation mainly because he had just finished the promotion of "Super Player" and wanted to stay at home with Sarandon for a few days. Since Sarandon suggested him to follow up, there was no delay. reason.

"Attention everyone, this is the first scene of "The Shawshank Redemption", I hope everyone can take this opportunity to cooperate more, thank you." Adrian, standing on the lift, pointed a loudspeaker at the crowd in the open space shouted.

The first scene is the part where Andy is imprisoned. The reason why Adrian chose this scene is that besides being easier to control, it is what I just said. I hope these extras can get along well.

Although the exterior of the Mansfield State Correctional Facility is well maintained, and many movies have been filmed here, the interior is really terrible. It would cost a lot more to redecorate than to set up in a studio, so here we only Can shoot exterior scenes. But except for a few shots, all the exterior scenes are basically large scenes with a lot of people, and there are not enough extras. Adrian even contacted the correctional center to ask their staff to come and play a cameo temporarily. With so many people together, even a slight problem may require reshoots.

"Let everyone get ready, we will start trial shooting in 10 minutes." Adrian used the walkie-talkie to contact the people below. He stood on the elevator and prepared to shoot in person with the camera, just as he said to Spielberg before, He is still lacking in the scheduling of big scenes. If he can shoot well this time, then he can basically get started.

"Action!" With this shout, the filming began on the set. This is a panoramic shot looking down, from the front of the correctional center across the windy playground, and then moving to the gate of the barbed wire fence, it is not a small test for the cameraman.

This is the first time for Adrian to shoot down from such a high place. It is impossible to say that he is not nervous or afraid, but when he picked up the camera, the negative emotions disappeared without a trace, and the only thing left is to shoot .

Maybe deep in my heart, there is still a little idealism. After getting off the elevator after filming, Adrian thought to himself with some self-mockery.

There is nothing wrong with this shot - if it is screwed up when it is well prepared and requires no acting skills but extras running around, then the director and production are useless - however in the following During the filming, various situations emerged one after another.

Because the time is set in the 1940s and 1950s, all props must conform to the characteristics of the era. Clothes and other things are fine, but transportation is very troublesome. Most of the vehicles of that era are in museums or private collections at this time, not to mention things like prison escort vehicles. Thanks to the correctional center, I managed to get one to drive before filming started, but it was so old that it could actually break down three or four times at a distance of tens of feet.

In addition, there were a lot of jokes and mispronounced lines. Some people even knocked down some barbed wire fences that were erected temporarily because they were too excited. Fortunately, no one was injured.

Although this situation had been anticipated before the shooting started, Adrian still felt depressed and had to be patient and repeated shooting over and over again. The consolation is that both Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins or James Whitmore and Bob Gunton are excellent actors, especially Tim and Morgan, very simply The characteristics of the characters are captured, so their shots are relatively smooth.

"Why is it so urgent? Because I don't have much time. In my plan, it would be great if I could finish the outdoor shooting in three weeks and finish the indoor shooting in three weeks." Facing Nathan White's question, Adrian So replied.

Nathan is a producer sent by Universal, and is only responsible for reporting the crew's financial expenditure to the company. Universal was a little hesitant about investing at the beginning. They thought that what Adrian was going to adapt was a certain horror novel by Stephen King. Judging from his previous ability, it was definitely worth investing in. But after finding the novel, they found out that the adaptation was actually one of Stephen King's worst series of novellas, which made them very embarrassed.

We all know that Stephen King is best known for his horror novels, but because of this, he is often panned by mainstream critics. Although Stephen King didn't take it to heart, he would inevitably get angry after a long time, so he simply wrote a few novellas that had nothing to do with ghosts, devils and other things—except for the last one that involved some mysticism— Then assembled into a volume and published. However, it is a pity that after this collection that took him a lot of hard work was released, the publisher only said one sentence to Stephen King: You continue to write horror novels.

It was such a big blow that Stephen King has never written a similar more literary novel since, and he rarely mentioned this collection of novellas, so Adrian was able to tell Laverne in such a short I was surprised to get the right to adapt "The Shawshank Redemption" within a short period of time.

Faced with this situation, Universal could not stop arguing. The original sales volume of this collection was really bad, and Adrian was still a newcomer after all. If "Two Smoking Barrels" and "Memory Fragments" were produced within two years by him, then Universal would not hesitate to make one, but now no one knows what Adrian can shoot. , Qualifications are such a wonderful thing sometimes. Fortunately, a word from Berrand, who was finally called for consultation, gave them confidence.

“Think about it, gentlemen, what was he doing when we tried to get the scripts for Scream and American Pie from him?” Berlant said.

Think about it too, how many directors in Hollywood can do like Adrian? And he seems to intend to cooperate with Spielberg, so Universal finally invested 10 million, and in order to express trust, Nathan was only responsible for reporting the situation to the company.

"You plan to finish this movie in 6 weeks? But the schedule predicts that it will be two months." Nathan seemed a little surprised. Originally, he just saw Adrian whining and wanted to come over for a few words.

"Plans always plan for the worst," Adrian shrugged. "As long as everyone stays in good shape and doesn't make any low-level mistakes, I can definitely finish shooting all the shots within 6 weeks."

"But..." Nathan made a gesture and didn't know what to say. An investment of more than 20 million can be regarded as an upper-middle investment in Hollywood today, and making a movie has never been successful in terms of investment, speed, and quality. Proportional. It seems that Adrian should be used to quick shooting before, so he wants to do this now, but...

"In my hands, speed and quality are directly proportional." As if seeing what he was thinking, Adrian smiled, "I know you may not believe it now, but, Nathan, I will prove it to you Look, I'm a man of miracles!"

After finishing speaking, he walked towards the camera without looking back, and clapped his hands and shouted: "Okay, guys, it's time for a break, let's continue!"

(Tears, the collection is not good...)