Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 496 The First Scene
"Ronald, are you there?"

Ronald was heading to the set the next morning to give the lead actors a little time to rehearse before shooting began.Suddenly he heard someone calling his name outside the apartment.

"I'm here," Ronald opened the door. "Hi, you're Tom. Hello, Rebecca, Paula."

Standing at the door is Tom Cruise. He is interlocking fingers with a blonde girl wearing sunglasses. It is Rebecca De Mornay, who he fell in love with because of his co-star role in "Crazy Boys". Together they came to find Ronald.Next came agent Paula Wagner.

"I brought you some cake." Tom raised his hand and took out a bag. "You're not in Los Angeles for the New Year, so I wanted to send it."

"Anthracene, thank you." Ronald took the cake and ate one, "It's delicious, I'll take it to the set to eat."

"Your new movie? What's it about?"

"Break dancing, have you ever seen others dance?" Ronald put the cake on the car, "Would you like to make a cameo?"

"Yeah? Can you?" Tom Cruise's baby fat gradually faded, and the lines of his face became tougher.He still wants to cooperate with Ronald, his noble man.

"Tom..." Paula Wagner quickly stopped, "Sorry Ronald, Tom's current acting route is a feature film by a famous director, and it is inconvenient to appear in a low-cost production."

"It's okay, I'm just a suggestion." Ronald looked at Paula who was like a hen protecting her cub, feeling a little interesting.

Tom Cruise's "Crazy Good Guys" stayed in theaters for a total of fifteen weeks, raking in 300 million box office results.He and his girlfriend, Rebecca De Mornay, quickly became popular, and they were not satisfied with shooting commercial films at first, but wanted to find a famous director to cooperate with and enter the Oscars.

Another new film of his, "Every Step to the Sky" with Lee Thompson has just been released, and the response is mediocre, although because of the nude scenes of him and Thompson in it, it has attracted many female fans to watch those two seconds in the cinema repeatedly. clock shot.

The two chatted for a while, and Tom and his girlfriend had to send cakes to other important people to maintain their relationship.This is what Paula Wagner came up with as a way for him to increase his contacts. Every Christmas and New Year, he distributes cakes to friends to remind them to remember themselves.

"Hi... Seriously, are you really dating Brooke Shields?" Before parting, Tom Cruise couldn't hold back his curiosity and asked Ronald.

"No comment," Ronald laughed, drove his Saab 900, and rushed to the rehearsal site.

"Should I really find a star to comeo? This will also be good for the marketing of this kind of exploitation film." Ronald stroked his beard and thought.

"What's your real name?" Lucinda Dickey asked the black boy Boogaloo Shrimp a few hours later, between rehearsals, "Who else is called Shrimp?"

"It's the kind of name that only a few people can be called." Bugaloo Shrimp made a disgusted expression. He was very dissatisfied with Lucinda's dancing ability, and he couldn't practice the basic style of break dancing well. With a clear sense of jazz dance and gymnastics.

"Um..." Unexpectedly, Lucinda was a little embarrassed after being choked. She felt that she and the two male protagonists were fighting at all.Boogaloo Prawn may simply be dissatisfied with her dancing skills, but Sabado is more provocative.

"His name is Michael Chambers. Boogaloo Shrimp is his street dance name. They all have nicknames in the break dance circle. You can also choose one, called Smiling Lucinda or something." Ronald Relieved her.

Lucinda's new cut is short, with bangs and top hair held high with mousse styling gel, giving her the look of a detached woman.However, her character was weak, and Ronald had no choice but to let her face two breakdance masters alone, so as to be stronger.

"Yeah, then I'll be called Smiling Lucinda." Lucinda Dicky was born in the lower class, and learned to dance with the money she saved from watching the children of the rich. She was inspired to be strong.Gradually, I am less afraid of being bullied by prawns and Sabado.

Sabado and Bugaloo Prawn continued their dance, and smiling Lucinda continued to study clumsily.Ronald didn't have much time, and he couldn't allow the three of them too much rehearsal time. Seeing that they had almost practiced, he asked them to come later. Ronald first went to Venice Beach to check the layout of the first shot of the whole film.

The avenue lined with palm trees leads directly to the edge of Venice Beach.Today's weather is very warm, and there are people surfing in bikinis in the distance.

Ronald got off the Saab 900, saw Minahan on the terrazzo floor by the beach, where the dancing scene was filmed, and hurried over.

"You trash, trash, you can't even handle the actor union." Minahan was wearing a T-shirt and big sunglasses, scolding an assistant.

"What's going on? What about the extras? I'm going to start shooting the first scene this afternoon." Ronald stepped forward and asked.

It turned out that the crew of "Breakdancing" had to file their scripts and shooting plans with major labor unions in order to be released in North America.

After being informed by the Screen Actors Union, they sent special commissioners to supervise this small production.Knowing that none of the extras had signed contracts in the standard form of the union, they immediately banned actors from the film union from appearing on the grounds that less than 65% of the registered actors in the union were registered.

Those extra performers who were union members, or who wanted to take this opportunity to join the union, obediently obeyed the union commissioner's words and left the crew.

In other low-cost crews, generally speaking, the commissioner can be bribed, and then the filming will be done in two days.But this movie that races against time can't wait.

Minahan was also in a state of desperation. He wanted to save some money. His assistant hadn't communicated and coordinated with the trade union in advance. Now even if he came to the door to apologize, he would have to hang out for a while, so that they could deepen their memory.

"It would be great if we didn't shoot in Los Angeles, we should go to Israel." Minahan stomped his feet angrily.

"It's useless to say these things now." Ronald took off his sunglasses and looked around. "The people from the trade union are gone, won't they come back today?"

"What do you want to do? All the extra agency agencies are their members, and we couldn't find an agency willing to temporarily recruit people for us." Minahan reminded Ronald that the control of the labor union is very strong in Los Angeles. In-depth.

"Who said I'm going to find them?"

"Hey guys," Ronald yelled at the men and women surfing on the beach with his hands around his mouth, "any of you want to make a movie?"

"Make a movie?" Men and women walked towards the crew with their surfboards on their shoulders. Who in Los Angeles doesn't want to make a movie?
"One, two, three, four..." Ronald counted, seventeen in total, all wearing bikinis or shorts and swimsuits.Surfers are in good shape, with two great hips and boobs.

"It's not enough, who else can you use?" Ronald said to Minahan. The crew is relatively streamlined, and there are not many staff members who can fill in and pretend to be audiences.

"Only two extras stayed, and came back again. I heard that they are from China, and they don't understand the mysteries of unions. They just want to appear in Hollywood movies."

"People from China, that's fine," Ronald asked them to get ready too.

Still not enough, Ronald thought it would be great if he was in New York, calling Eddie, and recruiting people from the fraternities of various universities would be enough, and there are no connections here in Los Angeles.

"Let's find a way to find someone first, but I can't bring the staff of your cannon..." Ronald took out the director's viewfinder and looked at the beach and palm trees.

The secret to a quick shot is not to do too much camera movement.The more the camera moves, the longer the shot, and the more complex the actor's scheduling, the higher the chances of mistakes being repeated.

The principle Ronald set for himself was to keep the camera still as much as possible, poke it there, and then let the actors start jumping!

"Huh", Ronald found that there seemed to be many people under the building next to the palm tree.

"Who are they?" Ronald asked Minahan.

"The homeless, they are the homeless who usually hang around here. I let them go away for a while, and gave them a few dollars each for the filming."

Ronald looked again through the viewfinder. "Bring them back."

Standing on the terrazzo floor, looking at the dozen or so homeless men, Ronald knew what was going on.When filming "Night of the Comet", he came into contact with homeless people. Some of them fell down because of misfortune, and some because they couldn't pay alimony and mortgage due to divorce.

He left the ones that didn't look like drug abusers, and then turned to the costumer, "Clothes, costumes, go find fifteen sweaters!"

"Let these homeless people take a shower, put on sweaters, and fill the audience behind the crowd. Don't give money, each person has two meals, two cans of Coke, and then wears the clothes by himself, and then buys some food stamps." Rona De told his assistant to deal with it.

"Don't save money like this in the future, Minahan, or you will delay things?" Ronald turned his head and said.

Soon Lucinda Dicky, and Sabah, the prawn's RV arrived.Ronald asked them to change into costumes, put on makeup, and prepare for the first seaside dance scene.

This is the first few minutes after the opening of the movie, break dancing is a very rhythmic and novel dance for the audience.

Ronald gets ready to show Sabado, Prawn, and their dance rivals Falcon and Solomon.

Boogaloo Prawn is good at moonwalk and floor dance, and the highest level of robot dance is not Shabadu, but his opponent Falcon.

Arrange for both of them to have a solo dance, and then Falcon challenged Sabado with a solo dance in front of Lucinda Dickey's Kelly.

The homeless men still dressed in a loose circle around the terrazzo floor.The surfers wore bikinis, and Ronald arranged for them to stand in the inner circle, and the two girls with great figures got a chance to show themselves.

"Does everyone understand?" Ronald asked all the extras.

"understood."

"I'll say it again, everyone is not allowed to look at the camera, whoever looks at the camera will be cut off, and the food and clothes will be taken back, do you hear me?"

"learn!"

"Okay, let's start shooting right away."

The actors started to stand still, and the camera crew metered them and measured the focal length.After everything was ready, Ronald began to call for shooting.

"recording?"

"All right!"

"camera?"

"full speed!"

"The first rule of the first break dance, bang", the record of the scene was laid down.

"Action!"

Shabadu and Bugaloo prawns began to dance hard in front of the camera.

A bikini beauty comes up from behind and the camera shows her buttocks for a second before she walks away to give the view back to the two dancers.

The camera uses a zoom lens and slowly focuses in. The dance moves of Shabadu and Prawn are very powerful, and the dual-card loudspeaker recorder on the ground next to it is playing enthusiastic music.

This is an arrangement made by Ronald after discussing with the director of photography.The fixed-focus lens is too rigid, and the sliding of the slide rail requires repeated rehearsals. Instead, use a zoom lens. If the position is not right, just zoom in and frame the actors in the center.

The surrounding audience is carefully selected. The surfers are all masters of music rhythm, and they start to twist their bodies along with the music rhythm.

Then there were the two Chinese actors who were willing to disobey the orders of the trade union and stay to participate in the performance.One of them was wearing a one-piece spandex bodysuit and had a really good figure.They are relatively large compared to the surfer, so Ronald placed it behind the bikini surfer, making a jagged background of human flesh.

"Very good, keep going down," Ronald was secretly satisfied.In this way, the camera does not move, allowing the actors to give full play to the shooting method, and the shooting is very fast.

"Huh?" Ronald frowned, and the Chinese-haired actor squeezed left and right, and squeezed from the middle of the two extra performers to the front.Then, following the music, he jumped up dramatically.

"Fuxk! Cut! Cut! Cut!"

Ronald rushed up to him, "Who the fuck do you think you are? Who asked you to steal the spotlight?"

The Chinese man scratched his head in embarrassment, and said in English with a thick Chinese accent, "My name is Jean-Claude, and this is my friend Miguel. We have no malicious intentions, we just want to show ourselves."

"I'll show everyone a chance, don't act on your own, OK?"

(End of this chapter)