Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Oh...oh..."

In the New York Giants Stadium, Ronald gathered about 20 extras to play the audience watching the game in the seats on one side, surrounding Billy Crystal and Bruno Kirby who played his best friend Jess.

In a place where the camera lens could not capture, a huge speaker was playing various live sounds recorded during the game.

The shooting conditions given by the Giants were still very harsh. The game broadcast could not be interfered with, and the shooting could only be done during the broadcast advertisement period. And the audience on the scene could not fully cooperate. In the short shooting time, if the audience found out about the filming and gathered around, the whole shooting would be ruined.

So, Ronald thought about it and took out the Roger Corman shooting method. Let the second group take some overhead shots of the game and the shots of the audience making waves in the seats.

The current shooting is to use a medium shot to cleverly integrate the scene where the protagonist Harry and Jess talked about Harry's divorce while watching the Giants game into the warm atmosphere of watching the game on the spot.

"Oh...", another wave of voice came, and the extras on the scene stood up one by one. Harry and Jess also stood up and did the Mexican wave that is very popular in sports games.

Unlike the surrounding audience who were eagerly paying attention to the situation in the field, Harry and Jess's focus was not on the game, but on the conversation between them.

Harry talked about his wife Helen's carefully planned divorce. One day after Harry's birthday, Helen got up in the morning and packed her luggage, and then told Harry that she no longer loved him.

What was even more infuriating was that after Helen said this, three workers from the moving company immediately rang the doorbell. After repeated questioning, Harry learned that his wife had booked the moving time a week ago.

After asking why she didn't bring it up earlier and had to attack suddenly, Helen told Harry that she just didn't want Harry to have an unhappy birthday.

Helen said that she could move to a friend's vacant apartment and live together, and they would be considered separated during this period. Harry didn't believe these words and quietly followed the moving company. Sure enough, Helen finally went to the house of a tax lawyer. She had already moved on to someone else, and that man was bald!

This is the scene designed by Ronald. When everyone is watching the game enthusiastically, Harry is the one who can't fit in and is lonely and sad.

The saddest sadness and loneliness is not crying quietly at home alone, but pretending to be the same as everyone else in a lively place, but actually closing the wounded heart.

This shooting method does not directly give the audience a feeling of loneliness, but creates a scene beyond reality, so that they can feel that Harry is so pitiful.

In real life, we can't discuss these emotional issues with friends when the audience is enthusiastically doing human waves. The decibel level on the scene makes such discussions impossible.

However, this is a romantic comedy movie, which allows some plots to be slightly beyond the boundaries of life (Larger than Life). The audience will not delve into these details. Instead, they will feel comfortable because this slightly dramatic arrangement conveys the mood of the character that the creator wants to convey.

"Cut!"

Ronald was very satisfied with the performance of the two actors. He shot a few more takes and asked the extras to try cheering and human waves a few more times to accumulate materials for editing.

As for the scenes of the real game and the cheers from the audience for the Giants' offense, Ronald asked Emil Adolino to shoot them.

Emil had already finished the first cut of "The Reincarnation of the Young Man" and came to help Ronald shoot the second group. This kind of scene was a bit difficult for the ordinary second group director to shoot, so he took the initiative to help complete a few scenes.

Ronald took Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan to shoot the next two-person scenes. According to the shooting list, the next few weeks are all about the two people's rivalry.

Harry and Sally are both old friends who are facing the breakup of their long-term partners. By chance, they meet again. This part of the play will make the audience accumulate a good impression of the two protagonists when watching. They are both sincere to each other and accompany each other sincerely when the other is sad.

Therefore, the two of them talked about everything, on the phone, met on weekends, listened to each other's venting, etc.

The relationship between the two quickly became close, but there was no desire between men and women, and they became rare close friends of the opposite sex.

…

“I still feel that it’s not synchronized enough here, we have to reshoot it…”

To show that two men and women have a crush on each other on the screen, and the audience can feel that they are a pair full of tacit understanding, the most important thing is not the expression or the lines, but the synchronization of the actors’ rhythm.

Humans are born with a talent to distinguish the opposite sex who have a crush on each other, and use intuition to judge whether two men and women have an intimate relationship, which is also very accurate. It relies on a kind of mirror neuron in our brain that can perceive and imitate each other’s rhythm.

Perhaps it is just a difference of a few tenths of a second, the degree of synchronization of the two people’s movements, whether the relationship is close or not, all the audience can feel it from the screen.

Moreover, this is not a TV series, but a big-screen movie, and this kind of synchronization between movements, expressions, lines, and even postures is magnified countless times.

Whether this “When Harry Met Sally” can be loved by the audience depends largely on whether the two protagonists are synchronized for a few tenths of a second.

What was filmed today was a scene where Harry and Sally talked to each other before going to bed at night. This kind of phone call scene dates back to the late 1950s, when the famous actress Doris Day and the male star Rock Hudson, who died of an illness caused by a mysterious virus a few years ago, starred in "Pillow" Talk)", there is a standard shooting method.

It means splitting the screen left and right, and then shooting each character holding a phone separately. Finally, using editing, the close-ups of the two characters are spliced ​​together on one screen.

Ronald also adopted this method at first, shooting a front-reverse shot without an over-the-shoulder shot. While Meg Ryan was lying in bed talking on the phone, Billy Crystal was standing on the other side of the room talking to her, and vice versa.

But with this method of shooting twice, there will always be subtle differences between the two performances. As mentioned before, after the splicing, the synchronization between the two protagonists in a few tenths of a second was broken.

When Ronald looked at the samples, he found that he couldn't achieve complete synchronization, so he had no choice but to reshoot this section.

The props department took care of the set and took advantage of the shooting weekend to build the same bed and floor in the studio as the interior of the apartment where Harry and Sally lived.

Fortunately, Ronald's previous filming went smoothly and he didn't waste too much time on this reshoot. Meg Ryan went back to reunite with her boyfriend, while Ronald spent the weekend with his family in their Fifth Avenue apartment.

It was a waste of time to go back to Staten Island, so both Aunt and Donna came to Manhattan to have dinner with Ronald.

"Ding dong..."

The doorbell rang, and Ronald opened the door and saw little Douglas.

"Why are you here again?" This guy keeps running to his family gatherings recently.

"Donna, Karen..." Little Douglas greeted the two of them and pulled Ronald aside.

"Did you see tonight's campaign ad?"

"no, what happened?"

It was Donna again, who took the remote control and turned on the TV, tuning to the NBC New York local channel.

“Did Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis veto minimum sentences for drug dealers?

Was it vetoing the death penalty (stopping executions in Massachusetts)?

Does his "revolving door" policy allow those felons who are not eligible for parole for life to go home for the weekend?

Since the adoption of this policy, a total of 268 serious criminals have escaped from prison. Many of them have committed serious crimes such as rape and assault outside the prison, and some are still being hunted.

Dukaski said he wanted to do what he did for Massachusetts again for people across the United States.

The people of America don’t want this…”

"Is this true? Let these felons without bail go home for the weekend?" Even Aunt Karen felt outrageous.

Ronald and Douglas Jr. went to the study and hung up the phone with George Jr.

Little George on the other end of the phone told the truth, "This is Jeb's final attack. In fact, it's not that simple. This policy was not adopted by Dukakis, and he abolished it before the primary election." .

It's probably similar to the previous attack and won't have any effect. The communication-themed advertisement led by Roger Ailes and I will be launched next week. Then you will see how your strategy helped my father win the election. "

"Let me tell you, how could Dukakis be so stupid? What if you let the murderers out for the weekend and they run away to commit other serious crimes?"

"Indeed, the governor shouldn't be so stupid," said little Doug.

It was getting late, so Douglas Jr. found a room in Ronald's double-story high-rise villa to spend the night.

The next morning, Ronald, who got up early, had Aunt Karen's loving breakfast. The love of his family turned into a familiar taste, which made Ronald feel very happy. It was much more comfortable than those expensive breakfasts in five-star high-end hotels.

"Good morning, Ronnie... Morning, Doug..." Donna, who yawned, also got up to have breakfast, and greeted little Douglas across the corridor who had also just gotten up.

“George and Dukakis’ attitude toward crime:”

When the morning news on the TV reached the commercial break, a campaign advertisement appeared on the screen. American voters saw this advertisement for the first time.

"George took a tough-on-crime approach and supported the death penalty for first-degree murder.

Not only did Dukakis oppose the death penalty, he gave murder criminals a weekend getaway...

One of them was named Willie Horton..."

A typical mug shot of a black man with a thick chin appeared on television. At first glance, it looks like it was taken when one was arrested and imprisoned.

As a photographer, Ronald also saw that the contrast of this photo was adjusted in the darkroom, and the black shadows were deliberately enhanced, making the person named Willie Horton darker and with a full beard. has some aggressive characteristics.

"Willie Horton killed a clerk at a gas station and stabbed him 19 times. He should have been in prison for life, but Dukakis gave him a ten-time weekend getaway card. He took advantage of the weekend getaway and escaped to Maryland, where he attacked a couple, stabbed the husband and raped the wife, such is Dukakis' attitude toward crime..."

Ronald and Douglas Jr. looked at each other... Is there really such a stupid thing?

"This is so disgusting. How can such criminals be allowed to leave jail for the weekend without supervision? This kind of murder has human rights, so who is going to protect the rights of the poor wife and what about the safety of women?"

Now even Donna, who originally supported the governor of Massachusetts, couldn't help but oppose him.

"I'm going to Washington, D.C...." Little Douglas knew that this was a moment of major change, so he quickly picked up the orange juice, took a sip, and took his coat to leave.

"Here you go, take the sandwich with you and eat it..." Donna handed over a sandwich made by her mother.

"Is this true?" Ronald later asked private attorney Lindsay Dole for confirmation.

"Yes, what happened last year was that Maryland finally sentenced Willie Horton to two life sentences and rejected Massachusetts' extradition request. This matter actually had a big impact in the legal community and involved inter-state extradition. case, but the public did not know much about it before.

Only the "Laurence Eagle" in Massachusetts reported this case in series, and finally won the Pulitzer Prize..."

Ronald hung up the phone. It turned out that Dukakis canceled the weekend arrangements for felons to go home during the primary election because of these Eagle News reports.

Now George Sr.'s strategy is likely to work, and Dukaski's approval rating may plummet. But little George will be unhappy. In the competition for favor, he will now clearly lag behind Jeb.

However, Ronald put himself in his shoes and thought about it. Once this kind of thing gets fermented, the opponent's support rate will drop, but it is still uncertain whether Old George's support rate will rise.

Attacking the other party can only lower his approval rating and make voters who might have voted for Dukakis not vote. If you want to win, you have to win over voters who are likely to vote for George Sr.

After all, America’s general election does not require voters to vote. These attack ads affect voters who are undecided about whether to vote for Dukakis. It is very likely that even if they do not vote for Dukakis, they will not vote for George Sr.

Ronald had no time to care about the ups and downs of the election, so he continued filming the rearranged bedtime phone call scene.

This time, Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan were lying on their own beds, separated by a wooden board, and a camera was pointed at them.

They were both talking on the phone, but they could actually hear each other's voices.

“Ingrid Bergman, she’s a low-maintenance girl.” Harry said.

Sally and Harry, both suffering from insomnia because their partners left them, were watching the late-night broadcast of "The Spy" on the TV station and were discussing the role of Ingrid Bergman.

"Low maintenance?" Sally didn't understand.

"Yes, there are two kinds of girls, one is very demanding and the other is not demanding."

“Is Ingrid Bergman low maintenance?”

"Absolutely low maintenance"

"What kind of person am I?" Sally wondered.

"You are the worst kind. It is high cost, but you think it is low cost."

"Really? I don't think so" Sally didn't believe it.

"You don't think so? I want a chef's salad, but not the standard dressing. I want balsamic vinegar and olive oil, but don't put it in beforehand, put it on the side of the salad..."

"Um……"

…

The two actors no longer perform separately, but enter the camera at the same time, so that they can be very synchronized in rhythm. The two talked about their respective emotions and why Ingrid Bergman didn't stay with Humphrey Bogart at the end. Sally's views have changed a lot from her ten years ago. She no longer believes that Ingrid Bergman should be the first lady of the Czech Republic, but should be with her beloved.

"Good night……"

The two actors put down their phones almost at the same time, and a smile appeared on Meg Ryan's face.

"Cut!"

"This is perfect." Ronald was very satisfied with this "low-tech" shooting method, and the two finally got in sync.