Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 609 A Wedding Gift for Cameron

"When will you hold the wedding?" Ronald saw Cameron and Gail coming to the banquet together, hugging each other sweetly, and asked the date of their wedding.

"What do you say?" Cameron smiled at Gail in his arms.He still had the beard, shirt and jeans.Dressed like a truck driver.

"I want to get the blessing of my parents." Gail cut her short hair to match her ears and wore two diamond earrings, making her look more capable and sexy.

"Oh, let's chat while eating." Ronald felt that he had said the wrong thing. Gail's parents were not satisfied with her marrying Cameron. Maybe her father didn't want to pay for the wedding, so it might be a couple. I want to do my own wedding.

"It's okay, as long as I can be with Jim, I'll be the producer, he'll be the director, and I'm satisfied with life." Gail saw Ronald's embarrassment, and took the initiative to speak.

"What projects do you have in hand now?" Ronald hadn't had dinner with his two friends for a long time. "Terminator" made Cameron famous. Everyone knows that he can shoot spectacular special effects at a cheap cost. Movie director.

"We just submitted the script for 'Alien 2' and the writers union is going to strike soon."

"Huh?" Ronald was busy with director work and didn't know about the strike yet. "How long will it last?"

"I heard it will take at least two weeks."

"Then will you guys get this project?" Ronald asked while cutting the steak.

"Fox's new chairman, Barry Diller, estimated that the film would cost $500 million, and he wanted us to go. But we thought it would be a little over $500 million, and we wanted to talk to him about it. once."

"There is an example of the Terminator, he should believe you." Ronald forked a piece of beef, and the taste was very good when it was fully cooked.Now there is a trend in Los Angeles, the steak is cooked on the spot as the sashimi in the daily meal, and only grilled to medium rare.Ronald is not very cold about this kind of cutting corners.

"I always feel very tired negotiating with the high-level executives of these big studios. Do you have any good ideas?" Gail drank some red wine and asked Ronald for advice.

"If there's one thing I've learned lately, it's to stick to your ideas when you're dealing with studios. People at the executive level are very busy, not very good at filmmaking, and are often challenged by last-minute and The interference of the thoughts of the people they communicate with. As long as you stand your ground and make sense, they will gradually be influenced by you.

You must know that when these people look at people, it largely depends on whether you are confident. If you are confident, then they will think that you fully understand what you are talking about, and they will tend to agree with you. "

Ronald shared his own opinion. This kind of high-level executives often have many projects in hand at the same time. When dealing with them, maintaining self-confidence is the best strategy.

Cameron listened thoughtfully.

After eating, they went to Ronald's office and began to show the samples of the fighter jets on the aircraft carrier that Ronald had taken.

"It's very interesting. Are you going to take a shot in the cockpit?" Cameron leaned closer, looking at the details carefully.

"Not only in the cockpit, but also a movie camera installed on the camera gun in the pod outside the fighter jet, so that it can take a main perspective shot similar to that of a pilot." Ronald explained his thoughts to Cameron.

"Pay attention to this canopy." Cameron pointed to the new bubble-style canopy of the F-14A taking off on the aircraft carrier and said, "Pay attention to this reflection."

On the glass of the cockpit cover, a ray of reflection of the setting sun streaked across.

"Oh," Ronald stroked the beard on his chin, "I have a main character who dare not go into the air, what should I do?"

The sequelae of Val Kilmer's fear of heights are very serious. Both the subjective perspective and the perspective in the cabin will inevitably be photographed on the canopy glass of the Tomcat fighter jet that takes off, reflecting the blue sky and white clouds and objects in the cabin.

If you set up a scene on the ground, how can you shoot this kind of reflection effect?
What's more, the high-altitude shot must be unified with the setting shot, so that when the audience sees the two edited together, they will not see the reaction of "this seems to be fake", which destroys the movie-watching experience.

"You should make two systems on the ground," Cameron drew a schematic diagram for Ronald on white paper.

"You need a front-end projection system to project images captured in the air onto the rear screen of the cockpit on the ground, making people mistakenly think they were shot at high altitude. The traditional rear-end projection method is relatively fake. This Kubrick The invented front-end projection is more realistic and credible in perspective.”

Cameron pointed to the canopy he drew on the paper again, "The key to recreating the reflection is to add a second projection here. Reflect the material onto the glass of the canopy synchronously, so that as long as your cockpit and Like a fighter jet, it is free in three axes, and the cockpit cover will present the same effect as a real shot, capturing the reflected scenery inside and outside the cockpit.”

Ronald nodded, pointed to the cockpit and asked, "How should I build it to realize this cockpit with three axes of freedom on the ground?"

"The easiest way is to build a big ring, so that your cockpit can slide and rotate on this big ring, and then the cockpit itself can also rotate around its own axis. As for the third degree of freedom, you can The camera is placed in a rotation system, and it is added through the rotation of the camera. In this way, your cost will not be too high."

"How much would it cost if you hired someone to build the system?" Ronald asked.

"I can keep costs under $20."

"You make a budget, no more than $35..." Ronald said.

"Ronnie, Gail and I have work on Alien 2."

"It's okay, you are responsible for building it, and then recommend me a few suitable operators." Ronald waved his hand. He already understood Cameron's thinking. It is okay to find a producer to find a team to build, but he can't Free use of a friend's idea.

"The extra profit will be my wedding gift to you and Gail in advance."

The next day, Ronald came to the two producers with the drawings of the stunt cockpit.Hearing that it was the idea of ​​the director of "Terminator", the two exclaimed that it was cheap, and immediately signed a check to purchase Cameron's services.

"Can you get your friend to help us shoot the whole process?" Don Simpson liked Cameron's creative solution very much.

"He was spotted by Barry Diller, and he may want to make a sequel to Alien. He wrote the script." Ronald said that he had no choice.

The two producers called it a pity.

Soon, a ground cockpit shooting mechanism began to be built, and it is expected to be successfully debugged in a few weeks for Ronald to shoot.

"Ronnie, have you ever thought about the special effects of aircraft combat?" Cameron specially came to help supervise the initial model building. Before building the real system, a small ring model was built to verify the usability of the design. .

"Tsk, that's what I'm worried about." Ronald told his friend everything, "The Navy agreed to the actual shooting index of our two air-to-air missiles, as well as the deployment of F-14A and F-5S fighter jets.

But what I am most worried about is whether the special effects of the enemy plane being hit by a missile, exploding in the air, and crashing can be consistent with the real shots.

And that shot of the lone ranger and the goose, stalling into the horizontal spiral, I'm not so sure that the pilot can do this stunt, and our camera plane, can capture usable footage. "

A horizontal spiral is a very crash-prone scenario in which the aircraft spins in the air after losing its horizontal speed.Whether the pilot can use the F-14A to do such dangerous maneuvers, the Navy has not yet given a clear response.

And even if you can use a Tomcat fighter jet to take real shots, it is difficult to find an aircraft that is slow enough to take wonderful shots of horizontal spirals at close range.

"You'd better have a backup, Ronnie. Can't rely on live shots from the air."

"I know, how long does it take to complete such a model stunt?" Ronald asked Cameron, an expert in stunt models.

"If I were to do it, it would take at least three to six months for the design, production, debugging, modification, and re-production to meet your requirements." Cameron said a number.

"Tsk", Ronald felt that this time was too long.

"But there are suitable companies in the market, you can ask them."

"Who?"

"Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic, don't you think the dogfight of fighter jets is very similar to the X-wing fighters fighting TIE fighters in Star Wars?"

"Hiss, yes."

At night, Ronald dialed the home phone number George Lucas had given him, Skywalker Ranch.

"Mr. Lucas, I'm Ronald. I have some special effects shots of fighter jet dogfights, missile attacks, and crashes. I wonder if your industrial light and magic company can accept external commissions recently?"

Industrial Light & Magic, as the benchmark of special effects in the industry, has always been the focus of the seven big Hollywood competitions.However, Lucas has limited production capacity, and can only give priority to supplying his own special effects research, and a few friends such as Spielberg's film special effects business.

"No problem, I'm taking all kinds of business now, you can find time to come over," Lucas agreed without hesitation, without fear of not having enough time for business.

Ronald was very surprised, it was different from the rumors in the industry.

"I'm short on money right now, so I desperately need ILM's business income," Lucas explained.

Ronald was so moved that he thought Lucas was joking, how could he be short of money.Maybe it was because he was afraid that he would be embarrassed by his favor all the time, so he said that on purpose.

"By the way, I just have something to ask you. Ronald, you have directed many young actresses."

"Yes, that's right." Ronald said respectfully.

"Which one do you think has better acting skills? Or you have seen live performances."

"A lot." Ronald smiled. He has indeed directed many actresses with good acting skills.There are Phoebe Cates, who is the heroine in several of Spielberg's films, and Jennifer Jason Lee, who is suitable for tragedy, and Diane Lane, who has the closest relationship with him, is also deeply Coppola's beloved, repeatedly used heroine.

"No, no, I don't want the kind of ordinary acting skills, I want a heroine who has outstanding imagination and can fall in love with the air."

"Falling in love with air?"

"Yeah, I'm talking to Universal about a project that will have an actress, and a stunt animal. So you have to be good at acting, but you have to be able to perform love to a blue screen or a stunt model. It doesn't have to be sexy. , but it must have a sense of playfulness, and it is best to have a rock style, because the heroine is the lead singer of a rock band."

"You can try Diane, Diane Lane. I filmed her in a rock singer scene, and Francis likes her very much." Ronald immediately recommended Diane.

"Very well, I remember her, is there any more?"

"Phoebe Cates isn't bad either."

"Steven recommended her. But I'm going to do a full audition and pick the best one." Lucas was very ambitious.

"Hmm..." Ronald racked his brains and thought for a while. Apart from the actresses he directed, there are two other actresses he knows well.

"There was an actress who played 'Footloose' and she was a cellist and sang, Lori Singer"

"I know her," Lucas wrote down her name.

"There's another one, I did her Burger King ad, and she's probably the most talented actress I've ever seen."

"Is that the sweet girl from your karate movie?"

"Not Elizabeth Shue, she went to Harvard. I'm talking about Lea Thompson, who recently played 'Back to the Future,' which should be in post-production."

"Okay, thank you, Ronald. Your recommendation is very valuable. I will give them a call from Industrial Light and Magic. You can just go to them directly."

(End of this chapter)