Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Winona Ryder has agreed to finish filming her current movie with Cher and go to Rome to report for Coppola's The Godfather III, the sequel that millions of fans are eagerly waiting for.

Ronald contacted Patrick Schweitzer, Demi Moore, and the actor who played the assassin, and waited for them to adjust their time to go to New York to reshoot the assassination scene.

The news was still occupied by the sudden incident of the Berlin Wall. After the East German residents accidentally broke through that night, the people on the West German side began to take action on their own, using pickaxes, shovels, bulldozers, etc. to dig gaps in the long wall. Various informal channels began to open.

Progressive young people from all over the world began to spontaneously gather in West Berlin and join this action.

The East German government and border guards once wanted to repair the wall to deal with this woodpecker-like action. But they found that this task was impossible to accomplish in the face of the increasing number of people.

Time passed in such a mess. A week before Christmas, Ronald finally gathered three actors and flew to Manhattan, New York to start reshooting the special effects part of "Ghost".

"Huh..." The weather in New York has become very cold. Several leading actors huddled in the trailer and waited until the shooting to go down. Because the two male and female protagonists in the play were still wearing thin spring and summer clothes, they had to make a comfortable and leisurely look of shopping in the summer night.

Fortunately, several actors are very professional, and such things are not too difficult for them. Demi Moore's super control over her body made her not shiver at all.

It's just that Patrick Schwitz is more pitiful, because he has several close-up shots of talking. In the current temperature, white mist will appear when he exhales. As a result, he has to hold a few ice cubes before shooting to prevent the white mist from entering the lens when talking, destroying the continuity of the lens and the logic of the story.

"Cut!"

After shooting many times in a row, Schwitz and Demi Moore strictly followed the positioning tape every time. The three special effects directors also did a lot of coordination work on the scene. They finally nodded, indicating that there were enough qualified shots, so they could speed up the progress and re-shoot the scene where Sam, the male protagonist played by Patrick Schweitzer, had his soul out of his body and saw his girlfriend holding his body and calling for help.

The ghost will pass through the bodies of Molly, the girlfriend who was holding Sam, several times. This kind of shot depends on the shots taken twice, and the positions are perfectly aligned, which can save a lot of post-production alignment work.

"Thank you, thank you..." After the reshoot was completed, Ronald shook hands with the re-assembled photography team, lighting team, makeup team and other members one by one, thanking them for putting down their work and regrouping. Although these people received extra wages stipulated by the union, they also came to help because of Ronald's reputation.

"Thank you, Demi, thank you, Patrick..." Finally, Ronald thanked the two leading actors.

"It's okay, I don't have anything to do in Los Angeles, will you spend Christmas in New York?" Demi Moore said with a smile. She was very willing to shoot for a few days like this. There are subsidies, business jet pick-ups, and most importantly, she can get closer to Ronald.

"I'll stay for two days, but I'll still spend Christmas with Diane..." Ronald replied with a smile. After getting married, of course, he should focus on his own small family.

"Hehe..." Demi Moore smiled interestingly. She also wants to spend Christmas with her family. Everyone enjoys family life.

Ronald also met another old friend in New York this time.

Ang LEE and his wife came to visit Ronald. This was a very rare initiative for this Chinese classmate of NYU.

Helen Slater helped pour coffee, leaving Ronald to chat with him privately, and took Ang's wife to talk about other things.

"This coffee tastes really good..." Ang lee really didn't know how to talk about this kind of thing with the boss.

"We are old acquaintances. You can tell me directly if you have anything to say." Ronald saw that he was uncomfortable, and knew that this old friend had something to say.

"I think I will go to my hometown this time to participate in the script competition next New Year, and if I can win the prize, I will shoot it as my first film work..."

Ang Lee said his purpose a little embarrassedly. He prepared two scripts and sent them to the script competition hosted by the News Bureau. He had two chances to be selected. As long as he entered the top three, his family could pay for half of the filming expenses.

Ang Lee was confident because he recently found a partner named James Shamus. Shamus was a Jew who founded an independent production company and wanted to enter Hollywood.

He had been a screenwriter before, and Ang Lee was not very confident in his screenwriting skills, so he asked him to help him write scripts. James Shamus's screenwriting skills were actually average, but he was familiar with the structure of various three-act plays, which just made up for Ang Lee's structural weaknesses. After his revisions, the two scripts became more compact, with the routine of commercial films that could sell well, but without losing the delicate feeling of Chinese Americans.

"Have you decided?" Ronald asked Ang Lee after reading the two scripts.

In his daydream, Ang Lee actually performed well and helped Helen make many changes based on female psychology in her previous movies.

However, Ronald knew that this person, like himself, was not willing to be a screenwriter doctor in the company. Sooner or later, he would have to take a step to become a director, and always enter that unstable, very laborious, but always attractive job.

"I have figured it out. I have lived in New York for ten years. My life experience is neither pure Chinese nor American..."

"Hahaha, then you can also shoot here..."

Ronald had promised him a long time ago that as long as Ang Lee had a script that passed the green light of Daydream, he would invest in him to shoot a low-cost movie to practice.

However, this time, Ang Lee wanted to change the shooting location to his hometown. In this way, Daydream could not provide him with various conveniences.

"I have figured it out. It is difficult for my English to be recognized by the staff in Hollywood now..."

Ronald sighed in his heart. He understood what Ang Lee did not say. Although Hollywood is open, it is open to all kinds of technical talents. As long as the techniques and methods of various countries can help the box office, they will be introduced and learned very quickly.

However, the director is the soul of the film crew, and a crew must operate according to his orders. In this position, Hollywood still has a kind of racial discrimination.

Whether it is British, European, or Australian directors, they can find projects in Hollywood relatively easily. But those directors from Asia, Latin America, and other third world countries, who are different from their own race, are not so easy to find directing jobs in Hollywood.

For example, in the directing industry, the world-renowned Kurosawa Akira basically can't find a job in Hollywood. If Kurosawa Akira still has a language barrier, then the Bengali Indian director Satyajit Rai, who is also a very famous director, can't find a job in Hollywood. It must be said that there must be a reason for racial discrimination.

This implicit discrimination also exists in the acting industry. It is not uncommon for foreign-style actresses to play the leading role in Hollywood blockbusters because there is such a role in the script.

However, a yellow-skinned actor who speaks Japanese or Chinese English, or Indian English, will almost never get the leading role in a Hollywood production.

This is implicit racial discrimination, but it is also the reality of the Hollywood market. How many teenage male audiences (who are also the most important group of moviegoers now) are willing to watch a foreigner with a different skin color fall in love with a white American beauty?

Bruce Lee's special case is due to his personal charm and the kind of neat kung fu that Americans have never seen before, which has caused the public to become popular. But when he was alive, there were also many audiences who didn't like him. In Bruce Lee's movies, there are no white heroines, although he himself married a white wife.

Ang Lee smiled shyly. He knew that with his English level, even if he didn't look at his appearance, many crew members would find it difficult to accept him. In this case, if he couldn't control the work team when filming in Hollywood, it would definitely be a disaster...

But it would be different when he returned to his hometown. He is a graduate student at New York University and works at Daydream Pictures, which has performed very strongly in Hollywood in recent years (his hometown introduced and screened some of Ronald's films, so Daydream is still somewhat well-known there).

In this way, those practitioners in the hometown's film industry look at Ang Lee, who came back from Hollywood, with a halo.

And the script competition hosted by Song Changguan of the Information Bureau, needless to say, Ang Lee, who has learned from New York University and Hollywood, has a much greater chance of winning.

"Okay, what you said makes sense, but I still want to invest in you. If you need it, just call me directly, don't go through Daydream. In addition, if the movie is released in America, I have some distribution channels for Chinese movies here..."

Ronald simply gave Ang Lee a little more benefit. It is impossible to retain talents in Hollywood now. After the great success of Dirty Dancing, independent films began to rise, and talented people can find financing everywhere.

If you can't keep him, just invest in him. As for Daydream, there are many Chinatown cinemas that have good cooperation, and there are also some newly built Palm Tree chain cinemas in big cities such as New York and Los Angeles, and the help of the established Hollywood cinemas on the East Coast. In fact, it is also advantageous to distribute such foreign-language films.

Having high-quality movies to fill the distribution theaters is a win-win situation for Ronald and Ang Lee.

Christmas is a holiday for most people in America. Ang Lee chose to go home and celebrate it, which is also a Chinese holiday with the theme of family reunion, and then come back after the Spring Festival. At that time, the awards of the Information Bureau can also be awarded, and he can start his dream.

Ronald went back to Stanton to accompany his aunt for a day, and chose to return to Los Angeles to spend a complete Christmas with Diane.

The two men and women who lacked a complete family since childhood finally have their own family. This Christmas was very happy.

The driver, Little Bud, also came to celebrate the festival with his fiancée Lucy, Ronald's bodyguard Dan, the Queen Mother and his wife who were responsible for taking care of Diane, and single Richard. Everyone who could come was called by Ronald I came here mainly to give Diane a warm experience.

Everyone having dinner together was very lively, which made Diane feel very happy. After eating and drinking, she and Ronald lay on the sofa and watched the annual Christmas TV station's repertoire, the old movie "It's a Wonderful Life."

The room was very warm, and the two of them felt a little drowsy after seeing the protagonist played by Jimmy Stewart return to the real world with the help of angels and being thanked by everyone.

Diane was about to go back to her room to rest, but Ronald was interrupted by a phone call.

"Who is calling at this time?"

"Mr. Li, you have to be responsible for my clients!"

The voice of Winona Ryder's agent came over the phone.

"What's responsible? You have to speak clearly..."

Ronald picked his ears. If Diane heard this, wouldn't it cause misunderstanding?

"I... I'm sorry... I was too anxious. Winona went to Rome to start filming The Godfather III. I kept in touch with her on the phone every day. Today she suddenly broke down and cried on the phone, saying that she was alone I was under a lot of mental pressure in Rome. If I couldn't fulfill the director's requirements, I would collapse if I went on.

Winona is a sensitive girl, and I was worried that something would happen to her, so I took the liberty of calling you through Mr. Niceta..."

"What is all this?" Ronald lamented that he couldn't have a good Christmas no matter what.

Speaking of which, he is also responsible for Winona Ryder. Because at the beginning, her agent did not recommend her the role in The Godfather Part III. She made a sidestep and "accidentally" told the actor herself the news when she was scouting for Cher's movie.

In this case, to a certain extent, Winona Ryder is actually his "Ronald's person" in the crew of The Godfather Part III.

Now Winona Ryder has a serious psychological problem over there. If Coppola ignores the actor's psychological and physical condition and something goes wrong, Ronald actually has the responsibility to speak out.

Of course, there are many irresponsible producers in Hollywood, but Ronald is famous, and Winona's agent is still in Los Angeles, so she has no choice but to ask him for help.

"What, are you going to solve the problem?" Diane heard some snippets and looked at Ronald's frown, a little worried.

"I will solve the problem, but I don't want to go to Rome now..." Ronald smiled and touched Diane's waist. He picked up the phone and called Richard.

"Richard, something happened to the Coppola crew. Can you go to Rome on my behalf? You're really sorry for having to work during the Christmas and New Year holidays."