Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Former governor of California, former famous movie star, announces to run for the next presidential election." CBS TV station is reviewing the acting career and political career of this Hollywood star with the same name as Ronald.

Ronald put down his pen, stood up to stretch, read the news and take a break.

In the CBS political talk show, two guests were arguing about the prospects of the presidential election. After all, California is the base of the entertainment industry, and neither of them is optimistic that the former governor of California can gain public support outside California and win the primary election of the Elephant Party. If a movie star can be the president, other elites in America will be ashamed.

One guest is optimistic about the political star of the Elephant Party, the former ambassador to the United Nations, and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The other guest is biased towards the Donkey Party, emphasizing that it is extremely rare for the current president to lose re-election.

Listening to the political talk show, Ronald is actually waiting for the old movies of the classic theater. During this period, Ronald has hardly spent much energy on other courses except for the appreciation of classic movies. Anyway, his usual performance is enough to pass.

After watching dozens of classic movies from the golden age of Hollywood, and then borrowing the scripts of several of them from Julia Taylor, Ronald compared the final movies with the scripts one by one, and gained some intuitive understanding of how to write a script.

All the content written in the script must be filmed in a way. You can't write a sentence like "Adam saw the pocket watch left by his father and couldn't help but think that he was a kind person." The camera can only capture Adam's facial expressions and movements, and his thoughts and memories cannot be filmed directly. Even if the memories are shown in flashbacks, it is still impossible to film what a kind person is.

There is a golden saying in Hollywood: "Show, Don't tell." This is the basic principle of writing a script. To show a person's kindness, you can film him giving some money to a beggar, or helping an old lady cross the street, all of which must be written in the script.

In Scorsese's class, Ronald liked Billy Wilder's movies the most. Not only are the plots fascinating, but there are often several twists at the end, which is very enjoyable to watch. Unfortunately, his movies were shot early, and the casting studio didn't have a script to compare with, which Ronald deeply regretted.

So after watching the movie, Ronald started writing a plot synopsis. He used a few hundred words to summarize the plot of the entire movie. This is also a way to train his scriptwriting skills.

Two days ago, Scorsese played Orson Welles's famous work "Citizen Kane". This movie has long been forgotten, and it was only in recent years that it was strongly recommended by director Peter Bogdanovich, allowing people in the film industry to re-recognize its value.

Ronald watched it very attentively. "Citizen Kane" tells a suspense story. A newspaper tycoon died and said a word "rose stamen" before he died. The movie tried to understand the true meaning of this word from different people.

The newspaper announced that CBS would also play another movie by Orson Welles, "Touch of Evil" tonight. In addition to the timed recording, Ronald also planned to watch it in advance.

"Ring, ring, ring..." The phone rang.

It was Julia Taylor from the casting studio.

"Ronnie, Endless Love has been taken over by PolyGram, and Casablanca Records is completely out. They have signed Italian director Franco Zeffirelli to direct. He will come tomorrow to discuss casting. You can come too."

The original producer, Keith Barish of Casablanca Records, failed to invite Paul Schrader to direct the film. Seeing that they couldn't even handle a new director who had switched from a screenwriter, PolyGram simply invested money to buy the filming rights of Casablanca Records, and then kicked them out and became the production company itself.

PolyGram's idea was very simple and crude. Since this was a Romeo and Juliet-style teenage love story, they would find Franco Zeffirelli, who directed the 1968 version of "Romeo and Juliet", to shoot it.

PolyGram, which was rich and powerful, used money to knock down this Italian director. In addition to directing some movies adapted from classic Shakespeare plays, his main job was to direct operas. This is the first time I directed a modern drama.

Although the story takes place in Chicago, PolyGram plans to set the main shooting location in a New York studio and a house in Long Island. So Julia Taylor's New York Casting Studio still got this business.

Ronald promised Julia to rush to the casting studio tomorrow morning. After hanging up the phone, the CBS advertisement just ended and the classic theater column began.

The beginning of "Touch of Evil" is very attractive. When the opening music sounded and the subtitles flowed upward, the plot also unfolded. A person put a time bomb in the trunk of the car and gave a close-up set for 3 minutes.

Then the car began to move slowly among many pedestrians. The protagonist, a Mexican detective, and his newlywed American wife also walked around the car. Time passed slowly, the music gradually stopped, and the subtitles came to the end. Suddenly, with a bang, the bomb exploded, killing the owner of the car and the beauty in the car.

"The subtitles aren't very good. They just ended and the time bomb was about to explode. The audience was actually hinted at by the end of the subtitles and the stop of the background music. They already knew that the bomb was about to explode. It lacked suspense and shock." Ronald wrote down his analysis in his notebook.

After watching "Touch of Evil", Ronald prepared to take a break. This movie is really a bit strange. In some places, the plot and editing jumped, and it seemed that a lot of scenes were cut.

Ronald has heard the story told by Scorsese. In Hollywood back then, the studio had the right to edit, and the director was often not allowed to enter the editing room. Artistic quality was not considered at all. The studio boss wanted speed and commercial value. If the editing was done, it would be released immediately. If it was not good, the next one would be replaced. The boss of Warner Bros. once said, "I don't want a good movie, I want it to be released next Tuesday."

Fortunately, the managers of this group of old studios are all old and dead. Thanks to Francis Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Spielberg, and George Lucas, the new directors, Hollywood now respects the artistic pursuit of directors. Who makes the movies made by these directors who value art so popular?

…

Franco Zeffirelli is a little old man wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. The legs of the glasses are tied with a thin gold chain, which is wrapped around the scarf behind the neck, so that he can take it off and hang it on his chest without losing it.

With his extraordinary demeanor and remarkable artistic achievements, Franco Zeffirelli also has many fans in America.

In addition to "Romeo and Juliet", the most familiar work of his to American audiences is Shakespeare's masterpiece "The Taming of the Shrew" starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

However, Ronald found that this little old man had a strange vision. When he looked at the actor photos prepared by Julia Taylor for him, he was more normal with the actresses, but when he saw the photos of the male actors, his eyes lit up and he would slowly stroke the photos with his hands.

This behavior regardless of the occasion made Ronald feel a chill, and he couldn't help but stay away from him.

"What do you think of the casting of the heroine?" Franco Zeffirelli seemed not to notice Ronald's little action, took a few photos and asked everyone's opinions.

Italians speak very good English, and you can't tell what their accent is. Franco Zeffirelli said that he learned English from British nuns when he was a child, and he also worked as a translator for the US Army during World War II.

Before the casting studio could answer, another woman who came with him spoke first: "Please Franco, we can't choose Brooke Stowe to play the heroine Jade. Her acting skills are not enough to play such a complex role. Hollywood is not short of young good actors."

The woman who spoke was the first supporting actress to be decided, Shirley Knight. In the movie "Endless Love", she will play the mother of the heroine Jade, Ann. This character is a thorough liberal. In addition to approving her daughter to have a relationship with her boyfriend David when she was underage, she also tried to seduce David in the end.

Shirley Knight is a senior three-dimensional actor who has performed in movies, TV series, and Broadway, and has served as a producer for many TV and Broadway projects.

This time, PolyGram first decided on her, and also used her rich experience in production and performance to help the producer see the director's intentions.

After all, PolyGram was an outsider. They entered the film industry more or less because they were bewitched by Peter Guber, the former head of the film department of Casablanca Records. Peter Guber had a good relationship with Shirley Knight.

"What do you recommend, Shirley?" Franco Zeffirelli actually had his own considerations for the casting of the heroine, but he was not as persistent as the male lead.

"I think there are many girls in Hollywood now who have superb acting skills, such as Jodie Foster who played the taxi driver, Bo Derek who played the perfect, Carrie Fisher who played Star Wars, and Debra Winger and Jennifer Jason Leigh who played TV series. They can all be invited to audition."

In fact, it is not the first time that I have heard the names of Jodie Foster, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Ronald. Last time, they were considered as the heroines in "The Blue Lagoon", but later gave up because the director insisted on performing nude, and finally Brooke Swank got the chance.

Although Hollywood is big, big productions often pursue stability, so the roles of young girls are always competed by these people.

"We will send them auditions as soon as possible," Julia Taylor agreed, then hesitated for a moment and asked, "Do we need to send auditions to Brooke Little?"

"Send it too," Franco Zeffirelli ignored Shirley Knight's complaints about her acting skills and decided to ask Brooke Little to audition.

"As for the male lead, I plan to..." Franco Zeffirelli put on his glasses, found the direction of Ronald, deliberately looked him up and down a few times, and then said:

"It's better to do a selection audition for the society. This is the publicity strategy proposed by Gubel, CEO of PolyGram Pictures. Before the audition of the movie starts, let the audience know that the movie adapted from Endless Love is about to start shooting."