Exploiting Hollywood 1980

These two days, Ronald's main job has become a proud father. Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, Roger Corman and his wife, Cameron, Tom Cruise and his wife, etc., all came to congratulate Ronald on the birth of his first son.

Aunt Karen decided to stay here for a few weeks to help Ronald. Auntie highly recognized the experience of the maid Wang Ma, saying that white people used to have the tradition of grandmothers passing on the experience of raising children, but now most children form small families, and this tradition has basically disappeared on the East and West Coasts.

However, Diane felt that the Chinese custom of staying indoors for a month after giving birth and not being allowed to get out of bed was unscientific, and she started walking and doing yoga a few days after giving birth.

"Aha, Jonathan... Come and see my son Roger... Kurosawa Akira said he is very photogenic..."

On this day, Jonathan Demme and Anthony Hopkins completed the final shot of "The Silence of the Lambs" in the Bahamas and came to Los Angeles with the film of the whole film to be developed.

"Aha, just as cute as Romona when she was just born..." Demme's eldest daughter is just over two years old. She can't speak much yet, gets angry easily, and is very curious.

The two fathers exchanged parenting experiences, and then started talking about the Silence of the Lambs project.

"How is Orion?" Jonathan Demme was very satisfied with the project he had just completed, but as soon as he arrived in Los Angeles, he heard his agent talking about the recent rumors in the industry that Orion's boss, John Kluge, had had enough of Orion's continuous losses and wanted to sell the company.

"There is no problem for the time being. This matter has not been announced yet. Don't spread it... They recently signed a big contract of 175 million..."

Ronald quietly told Jonathan Demme about a big deal that Orion and Sony had reached during this period.

Before Mike McDavoy resigned, he made the last big deal for his old club. After repeated bargaining, it was finally sold. Columbia Pictures, a subsidiary of Sony, signed an agreement with Orion Pictures, paying Orion Pictures $175 million to buy out the rights to their overseas distributed movies and TV shows.

This income finally made the numbers on the financial statements of Orion Pictures, which had not sold any movies for two consecutive years and had lost money, turn black.

However, there were still many twists and turns in this matter. Columbia CEO Peter Guber wanted to make this his first important political achievement at Columbia. His dispute with Jon Peters and Warner Bros. made him not very popular in the new company.

After Sony paid a considerable price and exchanged many TV stations, film assets, and Burbank studios for a complete studio in the suburbs of Warner Bros., the legal dispute was considered to be over.

However, the Wall Street Journal reported in an interview that Sony may have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the long run (estimates ranged from 300 million to 1 billion, depending on the attitude of those analysts towards Sony). Guber urgently needed a good business to shut up the people who were talking inside the company.

Although Jon Peters had a bad attitude towards Ronald and tried his best to persuade him that this was not a good deal. However, apart from Ronald's people, the olive branch extended by Mike Medavoy, the former president of Orion, Columbia Pictures had no projects that could immediately achieve this level of effect.

Finally, Mike Medavoy went to TriStar Pictures to manage film production and distribution and assist Frank Price's work, which made Gubel quickly agree to the price insisted by Orion's boss, the richest man Kluge.

"So, your film and Costner's Dances with Wolves can be distributed normally.

In fact, there is an additional insurance cushion. TriStar Pictures will coordinate overseas distribution, so that Orion's financial pressure on distribution will be much smaller. As long as it focuses on building a reputation in the domestic market, it doesn't have to worry about overseas distribution."

"That's very reassuring..." Jonathan Demme was still not very reassured, but he didn't blame Ronald too much. After all, without Ronald's strong support, this movie would be much worse.

"In fact, Orion has returned to the path that they relied on for success in the past, and the wrong blockbuster strategy has been abandoned..." Ronald told Demi the last bit of inside information about Orion that he learned from Mike McDavoy.

When the financial market was loose, Orion also joined the blockbuster competition. Like Cannon, they began to play the game of big stars, big productions, and big investments. They gave up the medium-sized production that they relied on in the past and relied on the joint efforts of the art team to win the box office.

But after defeating the acquisition war initiated by Redstone of Viacom and topping the rich list, boss Kluge began to pay special attention to the reputation of his business investment. He no longer supported the big investment in Orion to avoid being labeled as a sucker and destroying his wise image as the richest man.

After two consecutive years of big production failures, Orion returned to its original medium-sized route and re-invited Dennis Hopper, the director of "Easy Rider" who fired the first shot of the New Hollywood movement, and paired him with an actor who became famous for the TV series "Miami Vice", Melanie Griffith's husband Don Johnson, and the hope of Jewish actresses, young Jennifer Connelly, to shoot a "Hotspot"

In addition, there are two medium-sized productions, "The Grudge" starring two promising male actors, Sean Penn and Ed Harris. In this way, in terms of cash, this year's Orion is the most relaxed in three years.

As long as these two films do not fail, the release of "Dances with Wolves" and "The Silence of the Lambs" will not be dragged down.

"Don't worry, Jonathan, if it doesn't work, I'll back it up. Mike McDavoy and I have already made a clause in the contract. If Orion can't release it, I will get the distribution rights, you can rest assured..."

"I still hope that there will be no problems with Orion. We will operate the distribution ourselves, after all..."

"I hope so... I am very confident", Ronald also knows that if there is no release schedule that Orion has negotiated in advance at the Western Film Exhibition in Las Vegas, the movie will still be greatly affected.

But the richest man Klug has already made money through the Columbia contract, and his business reputation has been preserved. As long as he wants, his pockets are bottomless...

After sending Jonathan Demme away, Ronald sighed and called Kevin Costner again.

Unlike Demme, whose artistic level is very high and he does not need to worry about the post-production of the film, Kevin Costner, who is a director for the first time, not only encountered many beginner problems during the shooting, but also had a lot of troubles in the post-production.

The length of the film agreed by Ronald and him is 180 minutes, but after Costner finished editing the five-hour version, the progress was slow and he didn't know how to edit it.

Costner fell into a common trap of novice directors, thinking that it was good here and there, and he was reluctant to cut any scene that was shot with great difficulty.

Editor Neil Travis kept in close contact with Ronald, and he also called Ronald and asked him to go over and give Costner some advice.

After making an appointment, Ronald came to the editing room of Orion in Burbank.

"Kevin, I heard that your editing progress is slow. I came to see if there is anything I can help with?"

"Oh, Ronald, it's great that you're here. I'm in a vicious circle now. I dare not edit any scene, for fear that the wrong editing will affect the overall situation..."

It's much better than expected. Costner still realized that he had a problem and did not reject Ronald's opinion.

"Tell me, why can't this section be cut?" Ronald saw that a long shot was playing on the editing machine. The picture was full of trees on the mountains, which was very beautiful.

If Ronald were to edit, this section might be kept for a few seconds to give the audience a very favorite visual picture, and then the rest would be cut out, because the audience could not be given any extra stimulation. However, he did not rashly express any opinions, but listened to the director's opinions first.

"This is Dunbar and "Kicking Bird" riding through a beautiful forest in the Grand Teton Mountains, but found that the area was full of dead trees and animal carcasses left by white hunters..."

Costner pointed to the monitor. The two small dots on the screen were Dunbar, who he played, riding with the Indian Kicking Bird. They did not look particularly eye-catching in the long shot.

Ronald fast-forwarded a section and found that the rhythm of the whole film was completely different from the commercial films he was good at... The length of the lens was about twice as long as the current Hollywood lens, and it even felt like a rhythm of movies in the 1950s.

However, these pictures are a kind of nature rarely seen in recent movies. At first glance, you can feel a sense of emptiness and wildness, which is very unique.

"Oh, God, this movie is really unique..." Ronald fast-forwarded many times and found that he couldn't edit it.

"Yes, yes, look here", Costner found another picture on the editing machine, which was a scene of hunting buffalo. There were two buffaloes in it. Under the lighting conditions of the magic hour under the sunset, it seemed that some special chemical reaction occurred with the lens.

The Indians hunted buffaloes, but they did not waste them. Instead, they only took what they needed for their lives. After shooting down the buffaloes, they also prayed for them and thanked them for offering food to them.

This formed a sharp contrast with the scene just now, where the white colonists killed a bunch of animals in the woods, but only took the most valuable fur parts, and wasted the rest of the animals in nature.

The problem is that in order to achieve this feeling of empathy for the audience, spontaneously identify with the Dakota Indians' philosophy of coexisting in harmony with nature, and feel disgusted with the brutality and waste of white industrialization, these lengthy scenes are indispensable.

In other words, the inherent rhythm of this movie is slow and lyrical. Rather than dramatic and fast.

Ronald also fell into deep thought. To achieve such a feeling of empathy for the audience, three hours is really not enough...

If he is given more time, there is no doubt that no cinema will be willing to give him many screens. But if it is edited like an ordinary Hollywood movie, it is better to keep the original editing rhythm, or even keep only half of the plot, which is more touching than random editing.

"Huh?" Ronald figured out something.

When he was learning from Walter Murch, Murch once taught him that in addition to the usual practice of editing according to the rhythm and direction of the material itself, there is another editing method that can be tried.

"Well, I have a solution here. You can try it..."

With that said, Ronald put on the first editing tape, then turned the big dial to the fast forward position.

"Zi..." The motor drove the editing tape forward rapidly, and at the ten-minute mark, Ronald clicked to the pause position.

"Here, the opening ten minutes. If you want to have a small climax that makes the audience fully immersed, what do you think is here?"

"Well...it's the scene of Lieutenant Dunbar rushing into the enemy's position in order to win the war..." Costner saw a close-up of a cavalryman on the monitor, which was exactly the scene of Dunbar, played by himself, charging into the battle.

"Well, write it down..."

Ronald pressed fast forward again and advanced to twenty minutes, "What is this?"

The picture shows a common caravan in the Western era. This is a shot of Lieutenant Dunbar getting the most remote border outpost, giving him the order to advance, finding the only coachman who would go there, and setting out on the road to the western frontier. .

"Well, this is good, it's just a turning point in the plot..."

"Zi..." He fast forwarded to thirty minutes again, "What is this?"

The picture shows Dunbar carrying a bucket and fetching water from a lake. He sees the skeleton of a deer in the lake and discovers that it is full of dangerous scenes.

"This point is the scene that prepares Lieutenant Dunbar for entering the most dangerous outpost infested by Indians..." Costner thought he had found Ronald's idea and took the initiative to write it down in his notebook.

"This doesn't work, keep going, Zhi...zhi...hey, what is this?" Ronald fast forwarded and found a shot of three Indian warriors with their faces painted in red and white patterns. .

"It was the savage Comanche warriors who killed the coachman so that no one would know where Lieutenant Dunbar was..." Costner replied.

"Well, the thirty-minute mark is right here. You need to cut out the middle shot so that this point falls on this scene..."

"Okay, I'll write it down." Costner also understood. Since the method of starting from a rough cut of five hours and then slowly editing downwards, it is like when cooking pasta, slowly reducing the sauce. The slow-boil method won't work.

Then just do it the other way around and start from scratch. First decide on a few time points that the movie needs, and then fast forward there to see if there is a logical connection between the shots.

If you can, then find a way to make up that time with film in between. If it doesn't work, then keep moving forward until you find a shot that matches the current time point, and then cut off the middle shot to match the time.

In other words, normal editing is like a tailor custom-making a suit for someone, taking the measurements, and then slowly making the pattern. After trying it on a few times, adjusting the details, the final result is a suit that fits perfectly.

But the rhythm of movies now is different, like clothes made by a person with strange proportions of hands, feet and torso, and a different length than ordinary people. If we use this tailor-made method, the tailor has no experience and the efficiency is too low.

Ronald simply brought over a piece of ready-made clothing, and then cut off the weirdo's hands and feet according to this model, forcing him to wear normal clothes. It didn't matter whether the exciting part was cut off.

"That's it. It seems that you have mastered the method. I will give you another month. Then we will take the three-hour version for a test screening..."

Ronald demonstrated a few scenes and then turned the editing over to Costner and the editor.

"Aren't you going to continue? I feel that with you here, our efficiency is much higher..." Editor Neil Travis felt that with Ronald's authority, Costner would be easier to talk to.

"I have to go back to spend time with my wife and son..." Ronald chuckled. How can I go home and enjoy a happy family life with you rough old men?