Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Jerry Zucker excitedly waved his hands and shouted loudly. The waving hand suddenly swept Gail's nose. Her nose was so painful that she began to shed tears. She squatted on the ground and covered her face with her hands.

Jim didn't see what happened and thought Jerry had hit Gail. He rushed out of the room at high speed, pushed Jerry away, and then went to help Gale.

The one who looked like Jerry's brother in the trio saw his brother being pushed down and rushed up to beat Jim...

Ronald stepped forward, grabbed the shoulders of the man who wanted to hit Jim, inserted one foot between his legs, hooked one ankle, and gently moved back, turning his upper body accordingly, The man fell to the ground.

Then Ronald glanced out of the corner of his eye, quickly turned his head and squatted down, dodging Jerry Zucker's fist from behind. He turned around and reached out to grab his shoulders, using his crotch to touch Jerry's waist, and his hands. Gently...Jerry was put in too.

Ronald stepped forward and pulled Jim up, then shouted:

"Everyone, stop it! It's all a misunderstanding!"

At this time, Roger Coleman also left the office, and other employees who were working overtime in the office also gathered in a large circle outside the boss's administrative office to watch the fun.

Ronald explained to everyone: "This is a misunderstanding, everyone calm down, no one is hurt."

The third person in the trio lifted Brother Zach up from the ground and dusted them off. Said: "We are not here to fight, we just want to talk to Mr. Coleman."

He saw that Ronald put water on his hand, and the two of them just fell to the ground without any pain from the fall.

As he said that, he stretched out his hand: "Hello, we don't mean any harm."

Ronald shook his hand: "I'm Ronald Lee. You guys talk to Mr. Coleman first. I'll go see Gale."

Gail recovered, and Jim helped her to the bathroom to deal with it.

Roger Coleman waved to everyone, "Go back to work, it's okay." Then he thought about it, picked up the phone and called the front desk:

"I'm Roger. Are Julie and Joe Dante still in the conference room? OK, please come up to my office."

Then Roger raised his hand and invited the trio to come into the office to talk. The three of them entered and chose three seats by the window at the conference table and sat down side by side.

After a while, the proprietress Julie Coleman and the co-director Joe Dante also came, and they were equally divided and sat opposite each other.

Ronald saw that Gale hadn't come back yet, so he went to make 6 cups of coffee, sent it in, and was about to leave with the door closed.

"You should also stay and listen, you can learn something."

Roger Coleman looked at the number of people here. He didn't have the advantage, and there was a woman. He still stopped Ronald who was showing off his power just now.

Ronald closed the door, pulled out the chair closest to the door, sat down and listened.

It turned out that Jerry Zucker, his brother, and his best friends from high school, a trio that had been working together for a long time, had written a comedy movie about airplanes and wanted Roger to film it.

But Roger felt that the script was not good. It was all jokes and had no storyline at all. It was also interspersed with various fake advertisements to satirize it. No one paid for the fake advertisements. It is unheard of for a low-budget film to say that the story is unimportant, but to have no story at all.

In addition, Roger Corman has rarely made comedy movies in recent years, so he is unwilling to invest money.

Although Jerry Zucker is the youngest of the three, he is the most talented and is the leader of the trio. He joined "Rock High School" as a second-unit director, hoping to use his talent to impress Roger Corman to reconsider investing.

What the trio didn't expect was that a woman they had approached for investment had lunch with Paramount's chief operating officer (COO) Michael Eisner last week and recommended the trio to Eisner. Accept.

After hearing this, Eisner expressed his interest in this subject and ordered his general Katzenberg to handle the matter.

Katzenberg had read the script, and his point of view was the same as Roger Corman's. The script was unformed, just a collection of jokes. The trio was asked to spend two weeks working with Paramount's screenwriting doctors to restart the stove and rewrite a draft of the script. Once he was satisfied, he gave the green light to the project, with an estimated total investment of US$3.5 million.

The trio were so happy that they didn't expect Jerry to have a problem when negotiating with Roger Coleman. Here at "Rock and Roll High School", Jerry still has 5 days of filming left to complete. So Jerry pestered Roger all day today, trying to get Roger to give up the last 5 days of his contract.

The two sides were deadlocked on this point.

Jerry Zucker offered to refund the upfront salary, and Roger would find someone to complete the remaining five days, allowing them to go to Paramount to write the script wholeheartedly.

Roger Corman felt that he could not find a suitable replacement in a short period of time, so he asked them to stay and finish filming.

The two sides exchanged words for more than ten minutes. Ronald listened carefully and heard two meanings.

The Jerry trio must go to Paramount. If Roger doesn't agree, they may not come to work at all. If there is a legal dispute in the future, there will be ways to remedy it in the future. And Paramount’s $3.5 million cake is smashed on the head. If this opportunity is lost, the next one will be lost.

Roger Corman's attitude was also very clear, you can't just leave the crew and run away.

The second-unit director generally refers to the second group of filming personnel who act separately from the crew. Also equipped with a director and cinematographer. The second team mainly shoots outdoor scenes without the protagonist, empty shots to explain the environment, scenes between supporting actors, etc. The purpose of setting up the second group is to shorten the shooting cycle. During the shooting stage, money is flowing like water. If you can save a few days, it is still a lot of money.

But Roger is an iron rooster, and he must be exploited until there is no more money or water.

This resulted in the second group of directors of New World Production not only having the above tasks, but also filming a lot of plot content in parallel with the crew. If the crew didn't finish filming on any day, Roger Corman would tear the remaining scenes out of the script, hand over the scenes that could be reshot to the second team, and throw the ones that couldn't into the trash can.

This kind of shooting method means that the second team becomes half the crew, and the workload is not small.

Therefore, the second-unit director of "Rock of Ages" must be familiar with the filming conditions of the crew. If you change someone rashly, it might be better to wait for Allen to finish shooting the main unit and then come back to shoot the second unit.

…

"This is unacceptable!" Jerry Zach was a little angry. Roger disagreed today, which was something he didn't expect at all.

"Why not let Joe Dante do the filming? He is familiar with the crew and can also be the director. It only takes a few days and does not delay his other work. He was originally on the crew with Allen to help direct."

"Alan needs Joe. If Joe is not here, it will be a big setback and unfair to him. Because when we were filming 'Piranha' last year, Allen was also helping on the crew and helped Joe complete the first film. He's reciprocating the director's job," Roger Corman replied.

This is certainly part of the reason. However, Ronald feels that the real key is that Joe Dante has escaped from the sea of ​​suffering with last year's "Piranha" and obtained the highest level membership of the Directors Guild. He came to help Alan Aikush to return a favor, but he had no obligation to help Roger Coleman solve his troubles.

Of course Jerry Zucker knew this, and he immediately argued: "This is complete nonsense. Allen's level is not bad, why does Joe have to be a co-director on the crew? This is not the American federal government. There is a The commander-in-chief also needs a deputy commander-in-chief to back him up.”

The two sides were about to quarrel again. At this time, the third person in the trio who was shaking hands with Ronald suddenly interrupted:

"I heard from Jerry that your sample film yesterday was shot by a crew assistant. Why didn't you ask him to shoot instead of Jerry?"

Jerry Zucker, Joe Dante, and Roger's wife Julie all looked at Ronald.