Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 349 There is something wrong with this country
Ronald hurriedly began to wash his nose with water, and it took him a long time to clean his nostrils.No wonder the Actors Union of America doesn't allow the use of smoking and heating incense powder to light up. This pollution is too serious.

"Two intentional murderers charged with manslaughter? What kind of law is this? What kind of justice? This happened because my son is Chinese. If two Chinese kill a white man, they must Go to prison, maybe you will spend your life in prison, there is something wrong with this country."

"Huh?" Ronald was wiping his face with a towel when he suddenly heard the Chinese guest named Lily Chen say something like this in the TV talk show.

Ronald simply walked out and sat by the bed watching TV. What happened?

"Let's take a look at the whole story..."

It turned out that in June of this year, in Detroit, the Motor City, a young Chinese man, Chen Guoren, who worked as a draftsman for the Detroit Automobile Company, was held by two white fathers and sons when he was having a pre-marriage bachelor party in a local strip bar. People insulted him and picked up chairs to beat him.

Chen Guoren knew martial arts, knocked down the white father and son on the spot, and then walked away.

The white father and son worked at the Dodge factory, and the production line they worked on would lose their jobs due to the acquisition by Mitsubishi Motors.The two found a part-time job at a nearby McDonald's, Chen Guoren, and began to call him a Japanese devil, causing white people to lose their jobs.

Then one of them grabbed Chen Guoren, and the other hit Chen Guoren on the head with a baseball bat until Chen Guoren fell to the ground.

McDonald's employees took Chen Guoren to the hospital.Four days later, Chen Guoren was declared dead.

"The Detroit District Attorney only charged the two suspects with second-degree murder, refused to use the citizenship law to criminalize racial discrimination, and under a plea bargain, the two suspects agreed to a manslaughter charge, and the second-degree murder charge would be Dismissed from charges..."

"Lawyers and senior jurists across the country deny that this crime can use the racial discrimination clause in the Citizenship Act. Only the newly established 'American Citizens Justice League' is willing to call for this. Dear audience and audience in front of the TV, If you have any comments to make, please..."

Ronald thought for a long time before he understood the logical relationship inside.A Chinese named Chen Guoren was beaten to death by two white men who thought he was Japanese.

Then the prosecution and the judge believed that the deceased was of Chinese descent, and the white people were of Japanese descent. There was no racial discrimination here, and the racial hatred clause in the Citizenship Act was not applicable to prosecute first-degree murder. They only agreed to prosecute with manslaughter.

There must be a big problem here. It seems that the white people in America still do not regard Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people with different skin and hair colors as citizens.As a Chinese in his previous life, Ronald felt very uncomfortable.

He picked up the phone and called his accountant, Lawrence Wang.

Lawrence is also concerned about this matter. Chinatown in New York feels that this matter is very unfair and wants to organize donations and relief.

Ronald asked him to anonymously donate a thousand dollars to the "American Civil Justice League" for Chen Guoren's mother and son to express his support.

Back on the set the next day, no one was talking about the Chen Guoren incident.

Ronald still spent the day on set for the bar set, and today was filming a Cynthia Rhodes dance segment.

Cynthia herself was born as a dancer, so her dance does not need a stand-in or post-editing, and it is easier to handle the storyboard during shooting.

It's just that her makeup and outfits are really ugly.Cynthia was originally a southern belle, fair-haired, good-looking, and slender.

Putting on a black vest and shorts, combing a very short hairstyle, dancing a very rigid dance, and deliberately looking up at the camera...

Ronald felt that making the beauty look a bit like Grace Jones, the black Jamaican singer/model known for her unique (ugly) temperament.

Try to reduce Cynthia's very strong southern women's gentle and gentle nature, and turn her into an indisputable androgynous temperament.

"Do you have to uglify the supporting actress in this way to highlight the beauty of the heroine?" Ronald stroked the beard that hadn't been shaved for a few days.

"Cut." Adrian Lane stopped after a dance. "Very good, this is a print."

Cynthia Rhodes happily left the field, took the towel handed by the assistant, and wiped off the water on her face.

Ronald saw that she still had olive oil on her body, which was deliberately applied by a makeup artist, like a bodybuilder, to accentuate her tight muscles.This is not a sexy dance at all, but a strange female bodybuilder dancing.

"Give her a bath towel." Ronald ordered, and then said to Cynthia, "Director Ryan has finished filming this scene, so hurry up and wipe off the oil in the dressing room, and be careful not to catch a cold."

"Thank you, Ronald." Cynthia was a little surprised by Ronald's sudden concern, and then immediately showed a cute smile, "Do you think I dance well?"

"Of course, you dance with a very good rhythm and strength."

"Then will I have a chance to be the heroine in the future?"

"Huh, it's hard to say. But your appearance is quite suitable for filming."

Ronald, this is not nonsense, the filming is very picky about the looks of the actors.Although the beauties with unsuitable looks are very charming in life, when they are on the screen, the audience will feel that the actors on the flat screen are plain and unaesthetic.

Cynthia's face shape is the same as that of ordinary dancers, relatively thin.There is also a small depression under the cheekbone. This kind of face shape is especially easy to cause shadows on the face. When the audience watches it on the big screen, they will feel that it is full of sculptural three-dimensionality and beauty.

"Really?" Cynthia is 25 years old, but born in a family with a strong religious atmosphere in Nashville in the south, she still has a natural sense of innocence.

"I don't need to lie to you, but whether you can be the protagonist or not depends on your luck."

After filming was over for the evening, director Ryan, and Ronald, the two producers, Don and Jerry, had another task to watch the dailies.

Pittsburgh has a filming base for industrial films. It has filmed many industrial films for induction training and technical training for major companies.The printing factory is not far away, and you can see the samples taken the day before every day.

"Om..."

The noise of the projector slowly filled the room, and Ronald sat in the back, watching the dailies on the screen that hadn't been synchronized yet.

The director is very level.Maybe it's because Ronald shot and edited a feature film himself, and he is now more and more able to discover why other directors want to split the mirror in this way.

The shot of Marlene, the dance stand-in of the main character Alex, was shot like this on purpose.In that dance interlude, the rhythm of each bar is exactly in line with the inner rhythm of several shots taken.

Moreover, director Ryan did not use dreams as a reference like Ronald. He was equivalent to using pre-imagined editing screens, and then reversing the shots that needed to be shot.

For example, the shot of Marlene sitting on a stool with her two long legs stretched forward can just match the last part of the verse in the interlude.The rhythm of the previous dance music was relatively fast, and the rhythm of the music gradually slowed down in the last few bars of the verse, ready to catch up with the climax of the chorus.

Then there is this shot of stretching out the rope to pour water, which is just right for the drumbeat of the main chorus transition.

First imagine the final picture, and then shoot the camera backwards. In this singing and dancing scene, it is a very indispensable creative method.

"Shxt!" Director Ryan cursed in a low voice.

Ronald also discovered the problem. A few scenes of Marlene dancing were misleading.

The white high-illumination background on the stage is very bright when shooting from the front.

At several points, the camera captures Marlene's face during short pauses in the dance, so that the audience can see that it's not Jennifer Beals dancing.

"Are you going to reshoot? Or use editing to remove these goofy scenes?" Ronald raised the issue of editing, and Ryan had a headache.

"There are too many, these few are useless. And if you retake, such a long dance scene, it's hard to guarantee that it won't go wrong again."

Ronald touched his beard again. The way of splitting the mirror in the dream was actually similar to that of Marlene dancing.However, the lighting in the dream is very dim, which is a low-light lighting method. In the camera, Ma Lin's face is in the shadow, even if it is shot from the front, it will not be worn out.

Because Ma Lin has been in motion, and the dance has occupied most of the audience's attention, as long as it is not paused and carefully distinguished like a video recorder, it is difficult for the audience to find the substitute.

Ronald remembered the movie "Old Love, New Love" by Coppola. Many of the dancing scenes in it were done under low light.And he pioneered a method in which actors' faces were illuminated by colored lights.

Under the traditional Hollywood lighting method, the actor's skin color is emphasized, especially the face should keep the original skin color.

But Coppola was ingenious, let the red and blue lights reflect the actor's skin color into red and blue, so that not only can the dance scene be shot in low light without white lights, but also the color of the face can be used To reflect the character's heart.

The wet chair dance in the dream is using this method.

No wonder Hollywood always calls Coppola "the director's director".He always makes some explorations on the edge of the film's expression method, trying to test out a way for other directors.

Sometimes he succeeds, the audience embraces his new style, and the box office hits like "Apocalypse Now"

Sometimes the audience can't accept it, and it becomes a box office bomb, such as this "Old Love, New Love".

But other directors can undoubtedly take advantage of the path he blazed and move on.

"Adrian, have you seen Francis Coppola's 'Old Love, New Love'?"

"what do you mean?"

"Can the light on the white background be changed to low illumination, so that Marlene's face can be immersed in the red neon light in the foreground and the blue light above. In this way, in many shots, Marlene's body can become a silhouette.

The audience can see the dance moves, but the lighting is not enough for them to tell that the fast-moving stuntman is not Bills?
And if that's the case..."

"And in this way, we can also add some mysterious colors to this long dance scene. Later, when shooting the audience, we can unify the illumination of the stage and the audience, without having to adjust the color in the later stage, to unify the two very contrasting scenes. illuminance."

Adrian Ryan didn't need Ronald to explain, but he wanted to understand the beauty of this attention, and he did it in one fell swoop.

"Ah, I'm really an idiot, you're right.

You know what, Ronald.You are by no means a director who only makes exploitation films.They're not judging you fairly.I think your "fast pace" is definitely not that you can't shoot that kind of artistic feeling, but that you can only shoot like this because of the limited budget.

That's a pity, your movie would have been well received by the critics if it had been carefully crafted. "

"You're overrated. Let's re-set the lighting tomorrow and reshoot the scene of Marlene." Ronald accepted all the praises from his peers.

"Okay, anyway, her scene is easy to shoot, so I'll ask someone to modify the background." Don Simpson answered from the side.

(End of this chapter)