Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 709 Are you the Jonathan Coleman said?
"Jonathan Demme, Ronald Lee." Nisita introduced the two clients.

Ronald and Jonathan greet each other with a hug.At first glance, Jonathan Demme doesn't look like a film director, but rather like a university professor.

"What movie are you working on?" Ronald asked after greeting.

"Is it convenient to say?" Nisita asked Demi.

"It's nothing inconvenient. I know Ronald is a successful director of commercial films. I can just listen to his opinion. Can you give me some advice? Ronald."

Jonathan Demme spoke rhythmically, and Ronald shrugged and said it was time to chat.

"Jonathan's new film has been edited. The distributor Orion wants to release it mainly in the New York area and big cities according to the erotic thriller that reflects the New York style. Jonathan has a different view. We are coordinating."

"I haven't seen the movie, so I'm afraid I can't express any opinions." When Ronald heard that it was such a thing, he quickly evaded it.

"I happen to have a copy here, why don't you take a look together? I'd like to know what my peers think of my film. This is my debut."

"This isn't your debut feature, Jonathan. His [-] film, 'Maven and Howard,' which had a small release, was nominated for three Oscars and won two."

“That movie Universal barely announced because they didn’t know how to market a story about a loser. A story about helping an elderly stranger who turns out to be Howard Hughes.

Mevin obtained the will given by Hughes and donated one-seventeenth of the estate to the young man, but in the end he failed to obtain Hughes' estate. "

"Look, I've always had this problem of making a movie and the distribution company didn't know how to market it. It's the same thing with this movie now."

"Even if that movie isn't released, it doesn't count, you still have a little confused love tears (Swing Shift)"

"Not to mention that one, as you know, the husband and wife team of Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell is the director of that movie. I couldn't stand Goldie Hawn's dictating, left the crew, and finally It's only because of the protection of the directors' union that my name stays in the subtitles."

"Let's go watch Jonathan's movie first, Ronald. We'll talk about you later." Nisita took the lead out of the room and went to drive.

Ronald felt that this Jonathan was very free and easy. If he made a movie and won an Oscar, it was not released in the end.The second movie was robbed by the star and seized the right. I am afraid that I can't be the same as the other party, but I am still full of fighting spirit and continue to be the director.

"You also have trouble with celebrities. If it's convenient, can you talk about it? I'm also going to make a movie starring a star. I want to hear from you about your experience."

"Yes, in fact, the biggest problem of stars is also their biggest advantage, that is, they have a fixed image. This image can attract audiences into the cinema.

If my first movie had a star in it, it wouldn't have been a flop at the box office.I learned my lesson in the second movie, but Goldie Hawn was not satisfied with his image in the script, and asked to change the script every day.

Also, one more point.Stars are actually very unconfident about their images in the demos, and often ask for reshoots..."

Jonathan Demme and Ronald also walked out of the room to the parking lot.They communicated along the way, and Demi talked a lot about his lessons in dealing with celebrities.

The two got into Nisita's car and drove to a studio with an editing room and a screening room, where a copy of Demme's latest film was housed.

Nisita made arrangements, and the copy began to be shown. When the screen was still black, a song full of Caribbean flavor first entered the ears.

When the screen is lit up, a garbage ship is passing through the sea outside Lower Manhattan, New York. The slowly moving ship, the dilapidated and garbage-filled blocks on the shore, and the bright and beautiful World Trade Center twin towers in the distance complement each other and become a beautiful scene. The opening of the movie.

"God, that's what I used to see when I was a kid." Ronald called out. The scenery on this boat was when Aunt Karen brought herself home from the hospital and then took the boat to Manhattan every week to see the doctor. Every now and then, you will see the scene.

Ronald seemed to smell the special smell of rust on the ship, as well as the stench of garbage ships around.

The music and influence seemed to be flowing slowly, fully awakening Ronald's memory.

At the beginning, it mobilized vision, hearing, and even video and sound, which also aroused Ronald's olfactory memories.It is a very clever director's technique to let people blend into the background of the story Jonathan wants to tell.

Ronald turned his head to look at Jonathan. With such a level, he shouldn't be unknown.

The opening piece ended, and the stereo sound in the background converged into a point-shaped sound source. On the screen was a black guy with a big speaker recorder on his shoulder, slowly twisting forward with the Caribbean-style music.

The camera pans to a restaurant across the street.The sound of the music gradually faded away, and the story officially began.

Ronald couldn't help but tilted his head to look at Jonathan again. A very advanced sound mixing technique was used here, which was invented by Orson Wells and carried forward by Walter Murch.

"This episode, called "Loco De Amor," contains several "Wild Thing" lyrics that fit the title "Something Wild"."

Jonathan introduced some of his ideas to Ronald.

Originally it was the flawless soundtrack of a record, but at the last two sentences, it was switched to a slightly noisy tape recording from the tape recorder.

"Here you can use the audio track of the album interlude and the tape recorder music recorded on the spot to mix according to the ratio. At the end, you can slowly adjust the ratio of the two. Don't switch over all at once, it will be more charming." Rona De told Jonathan about the techniques he and Murch had learned.

"That's what they did in the wedding scene at the beginning of The Godfather," concludes Ronald.

"Aha, so that's the case." Jonathan nodded and wrote down Ronald's secret in his notebook.If no one tells you this kind of technique, you have to think for a long time before you can break through.

A top-half shot of a man in a suit appears in the restaurant, which Ronald recognizes as Jeff Daniels, the husband of Debra Winger in "Mother and Daughter."

The man finished his lunch in a noisy cafe, saw no one was paying attention to him, secretly picked up the receipt, and escaped the order.

A woman with short black hair rushed out, stopped the man, and finally let him get into her car with half coercion and half temptation, and took him for a ride.

"This is Melanie Griffiths." Ronald was deeply impressed by the woman who fought with Tatum O'Neal to pull her hair out for the role.

I haven't seen her for a few years. She seems to be getting older again, but she is still in good shape.The appearance of lifting up the skirt in the car and preparing to drive is very sturdy.

"I'm Lulu"

"I'm Charles"

The two protagonists introduce each other to each other.

Ronald saw it. Jonathan shot it very well, and the shots were very smooth.The two actors also played very naturally.Jeff Daniels is a well-known actor, and it's time to ask Jonathan how he can perform so well.

As the movie continued, Ronald felt that the story was probably a story of an affair between a man and a woman, but soon, Jonathan surprised him.

Lulu abducted Charles to her home and introduced Charles to her mother as her husband.The film has an unsettling atmosphere. Lulu's mother confronted Charles the next day that she knew that Charles was not Lulu's real "husband" and told him to be careful with Lulu.

Charles also said that he has a wife and two children in New Jersey, and he and Lulu just met yesterday.

Ronald felt that the story might be a Hitchcockian suspense film.

Ronald felt a surprise again. Lulu took Charles to the high school class reunion. At the party, Charles found that one of his subordinates was also in the class reunion.

Is it a movie about the exhortation theme that cheating brings disaster on the family?

Lulu found a man at the high school reunion. She looked scared and pulled Charles away.Charles is tricked into going to dinner with him.

In the end, the man revealed his true face. It turned out that he was Lulu's husband. He was arrested and imprisoned for robbery, and now he escaped from prison to find Lulu.

What is this story?
In just one or two hours, the plot deviated from the channel four or five times, but the strange thing is that Ronald didn't lose his mind at all while watching it. Although he couldn't match any genre film, the movie was still very catchy. Makes life difficult to go to the bathroom.

Lulu's husband grabbed the two and beat Charles up.Charles cared about Lulu, but came back to save her.It turned out that Charles also lied. He divorced his wife, and the so-called warm family was just his own lie.

As a result, Lulu's husband found Charles' residence through telephone fraud, rushed in to take Lulu away, handcuffed Charles in the bathroom, and went back to the room to beat Lulu who wanted to escape.

Nearly the end of the two-hour movie, Ronald couldn't hold back, so he went to the bathroom to relax.

"This 'Shotgun Lulu', there is no place where you can guess the plot. It is really a very good movie." Ronald said, "But I really don't know how to market this movie, From the beginning to the end, my thoughts have changed many times, from thinking it was a pornographic movie, to a suspense movie, a police movie, an action movie, to a romance movie..."

"But it's really nice, isn't it?" Jonathan Demme said with a smile.

"Yeah, it's really good to watch." Ronald hasn't had this feeling of being immersed in the plot of a movie for a long time.

"I think your supporting roles are well chosen. What's the name of the one who plays Lulu's husband? It looks scary at first glance."

"Ray, Ray Riota."

"Yeah, where did you get all those good actors? And Melanie Griffiths. She's a completely different person in a black wig and later with short blond hair. I don't even know her So good at acting. Her previous movies were very average."

"That's what I learned from my first boss, the exploit mogul Roger Corman. He taught me a long lesson when he first asked me to direct 'Orange Is the New Black' .

There is one thing like this, every supporting role determines the quality of the movie, when you cut a close-up shot of a supporting role, that movie belongs to him in those three to five seconds.If the character is not convincing, then the audience's belief in the movie's story will drop a little at that moment.Come a few more times, and your box office will definitely be affected. "

"Aren't you the Jonathan that Roger told me about?" Ronald looked Jonathan Demme up and down.

Although I don't want to admit it, my director skills are indeed inferior to Jonathan Demme, who has no successful works from the box office point of view.

"I think the lessons he taught me must have been streamlined, but he didn't teach me this." Ronald laughed loudly, and pulled Demi up to have dinner with him.

"How did you choose these good actors?" Ronald's own "Moonlight Sultry" also needs a lot of supporting roles with acting skills, and Demi's experience can just be borrowed.At an upscale restaurant in Manhattan, Ronald asked Demme for advice.

"When I cast, I cast people who interest me and you want to know more about them.

In the scene of Lulu and Charlie at the reunion party, there is a pair of extras dancing there. I liked those two actors when I was casting, but when the filming started, I realized that they were a pair of good dancers.

The most important thing in casting is to choose the villain, which must be selected according to the standard of the worst villain. The hero is set off by the villain. Without a bad villain, there is no good hero. "

"Roger taught you this? I have to ask him why he didn't teach me."

"Hahaha, maybe he discovered these skills, so he doesn't need to shoot his exploitation films."

The two talked about their origins. They were both students taught by Roger Coleman, and they were considered brothers in the same school.

"I still have a question, why are the actors' performances so natural in the scenes you filmed, as if they have been rehearsed seventeen or eighteen times before, and after they have been honed very proficiently, they were filmed after they were proficient." Ronald I asked myself the most incomprehensible point, these actors are not newbies, it is impossible for Demi to manipulate them like this?
"I never rehearse. The performances of the actors are improvised on the spot. What is performed is what it is."

"Is this impossible?" Ronald couldn't believe it. This was never rehearsed?

"In other words, I let them rehearse on film. The first time they perform, the emotions are often the fullest, and the reaction is often the most real. If the rehearsal is the best effect, if I don't shoot it, then I haven't caught it. ?

So I always let them take a good position, and then inform them to rehearse. During the rehearsal, I turn on the camera in advance, and the best one is often the one.If what I see is not good enough, I will ask them to take another shot. "

(End of this chapter)