Exploiting Hollywood 1980

The story takes place in the summer of 1963, when a new group of students arrived at Ryder High School. Stephanie has become the leader of the girls' gang "Pink Girls", and Michael, a new transfer student, returns from South Vietnam with his father, an officer serving in the army, and joins the boys' tough guy gang.

They were rivals at first and disliked each other. But after witnessing the "I Have a Dream" speech by black leader Dr. Martin Luther King and the shock of President Kennedy's assassination, the two eventually discovered that they had a lot in common.

The couple who overcame various difficulties and fell in love eventually parted ways because of their different futures after graduation.

Michael eventually got admitted to Cambridge University in Britain, and Stephanie became a flight attendant for Pan Am. The two met on a plane to London...

Katzenberg, the production director of Paramount, quickly read the plot outline provided by Ronald.

It marked several deliberately reserved singing and dancing times.

The singing and dancing of the Pink Girls at the beginning of the school year inherited the style of the previous episode, and the gorgeously dressed Pink Girls should be very eye-catching.

Michael's experience in the army made him feel at home in the tough guy gang. He danced with the tough guy's standard motorcycle, which just fits the car dance in the previous episode.

Finally, on the plane, the song and dance of the male and female protagonists reuniting is the highlight, leaving enough room for the choreographer to play. The airport, passengers, stewardess uniforms, and the scale of the group play can be compared to the graduation song and dance in the previous episode.

The script has a good structure, leaving space for the beginning, the end, and the middle and the back three major song and dance scenes, which is convenient for the person responsible for the song and dance creation to play.

"It's rare for a young man to understand the writing structure of a musical..." Katzenberg put away the paper in his hand, and then began to ask Ronald, "Why arrange for the male protagonist to go abroad to study in college?"

"The Vietnam War is coming soon, and if he doesn't go abroad, he may be conscripted." Ronald replied.

"Why arrange the family background of the officer?"

"Officers often have to be deployed to different places, so the identity of the male protagonist as a transfer student is more convenient, and he is also exposed to machinery and is a Harley enthusiast, which is convenient for the motorcycle plot of the tough guy gang."

Katzenberg asked a few more questions, and Ronald answered them fluently, and it seemed that he had thought about the script as a whole.

"I said, Ronald is the most suitable person." Robert Stewart was also very happy. The sequel to "Grease" that brought him huge money and reputation income was finally about to start.

"Paramount hired Ronald as the scriptwriter of the sequel to Grease, "Son of Grease" (tentative name), with a creation period of 2 months. Before the deadline, Ronald must provide the script content except the singing and dancing part... Ronald has the first right to refuse script modification. Only when Ronald refuses to modify the script, Paramount can choose other screenwriters to modify it... The fee for each modification is agreed to be..."

The legal lawyer began to discuss the details of the contract with Ronald's agent. After asking lawyer Lindsay Doll to confirm, Ronald signed his name.

The owner of RSO Records, film producer Robert Stewart, had someone send a bottle of champagne in advance. Seeing that both parties signed, he opened the champagne and poured it into a vertical champagne glass. Everyone toasted to congratulate the start of the sequel.

Ronald got a $10,000 script option and the first right to refuse modification. In the future, if Stewart or Paramount is not satisfied with the script, they can only find someone else if they don't want to.

Walking out of Katzenberg's office, someone was carrying furniture in and out of an office opposite Ronald, as if there was a change in senior personnel and it needed to be rearranged.

Everything went well in this trip to Los Angeles. Even the Israeli brothers of Cannon Pictures successfully signed a contract with MGM. From then on, the movies they produced entered the distribution market of mainstream theaters in America.

After writing a commission check to CAA, Ronald flew back to New York.

The two months of writing were very tight, and Ronald had to immediately start writing the script after returning home. In September, Ronald had to go to college to attend classes, forcing him to secretly think about ideas during class time and busy writing and revising at night, making him very busy.

It was time for the new school year at New York University's Tisch School. A group of Chinese graduate students came to the classic film appreciation class. Ronald knew that they were not local Chinese, because their English was not very good, they often avoided greeting their local classmates, and sat together during class.

Ronald still felt a sense of familiarity with Chinese students. After class, he went over to greet three students, one boy and two girls. "Hi, Ho, you dog?"

"Hank you. And you?"

"I'm not sure."

Hmm? Ronald didn't know why he said that.

The other party stopped talking, and it seemed that he couldn't speak any other dialogues. Ronald felt a little embarrassed, so he laughed and went home to write.

"Really? It turns out that foreigners really speak according to the dialogues taught in English textbooks."

"Stupid, you are a foreigner in New York."

"You are stupid, aren't they foreigners to us?"

"Ms. Zhu, Ms. Wang, stop arguing, we should go back early, we still have to review." A male classmate ended the argument and walked out of the classroom with a notebook.

Many elective courses are available in the second year of college. New York University allows students to take courses across departments, and there are also requirements. Most students choose acting classes. Ronald is busy with scripts and has no time to take acting classes. He found two courses on the course list and signed up for both.

One is a course, and the other is a study of ancient Chinese poetry. Ronald took two classes. Both are very simple for him and can meet the credit requirements, so he can have more time to write. After getting the newly bought textbook, Ronald went to the library to find the books on the reference reading list given by the teacher.

"Three Hundred Tang Poems", "Sound and Rhythm Enlightenment",... um, all in traditional Chinese.

"Can you speak it?" The Chinese male student in the appreciation class saw Ronald holding Tang poetry and asked.

"I can speak it, but I can't write this..." Ronald pointed to the traditional Chinese characters.

"It is more difficult to write. I see that your pronunciation is very standard. Where did you learn it?"

"Uh... high school, high school. I remember you have a simpler way of writing."

"Yes, that's the way of writing on the other side of the strait. We still use this traditional way of writing."

"Do you want to add a role of a foreign student?" Ronald returned home and thought about the encounter with foreign students and began to think. In 1963, the situation in South Vietnam was turbulent, and some wealthy Vietnamese students began to immigrate to America.

The heroine Cindy in the original "Grease" was a foreign student. Here, a Vietnamese female student is added to tell the story of what happened in Vietnam, creating conditions for the hero and heroine to break the stereotype and begin to have a good impression of each other.

Ronald began to fill in the details of the plot on the skeleton of the script.

"The strike of the actors' union caused the 32nd Primetime Emmy Awards on September 7 to be dim. Almost no actors went to the scene to receive the performance awards.

Only one Powers Booth went on stage to receive the award. In his acceptance speech, Booth said that this might be the bravest or stupidest move he has ever made in his career.

The Actors' Union said that it would not punish Booth for accepting the award. The Emmy Awards on-site acceptance does not fall within the scope of the Actors' Union strike."

Ronald, who was walking around the room and thinking about the details of the script, heard the NBC entertainment news report from the TV.

Strike? Should the hero and heroine also go on strike? Let high school students strike to protest the US military's support for the unjust government in Vietnam.

Ronald sat down, crossed out the original plot on the draft, then loaded new paper on the typewriter and began typing.

"The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Television Actors Guild (AFTRA) held a rally in support of the strike at the Hollywood Bowl Stadium in Hollywood yesterday (September 16).

Many stars showed up to support, and thousands of spectators attended. The event, called "Night of Stars," raised $300,000 for the strike fund of the two unions, which will be used to pay basic living expenses for the grassroots actors who are out of money during the strike.

ABC reports for you in Los Angeles"

Parade? Good! Add a scene of the male and female protagonists participating in a rally in support of the equal rights movement. This way there are still a lot of backgrounds and group performances, and a rally dance can be designed. It seems that ABC's news is also good and very inspiring.

You can also have a character recite the famous speech "I Have a Dream".

Ronald got inspiration from entertainment news again, and quickly recorded these details on the typewriter before forgetting them.

"The strike was able to continue because of the fundraising. The Producers Guild announced that it would continue negotiations on the same day. The two sides sat at the negotiating table for the first time since the strike began in July. Union negotiator Ed Asner said that the two sides reached an agreement on the revenue sharing of home entertainment media such as videotapes.

After the sales of videotapes in home entertainment media exceed 100,000, actors can start to share a maximum of 4.5% of the sales revenue.

However, the two sides did not reach an agreement on the union's condition of raising the minimum wage by 35%.

Ed Asner said that the two sides will continue negotiations. The union vowed to defend the rights of actors and will not give up until the goal is achieved."

When will this damn strike end? If it continues, all of his businesses will be affected. Ronald watched the news and cursed the greedy capitalists and the union negotiators who took the opportunity to seek personal gain.

"On September 21, the first televised debate of the presidential election will be held at the Baltimore Center in Baltimore, Maryland. The current president, Jimmy, refused to attend because of the participation of independent candidate Anderson. The performance of the Democratic candidate and former California governor in the debate was well received.

The independent candidate Anderson's polls dropped sharply after the debate. He told reporters that he would not participate in the second debate next month to give the current president a rally to express his views. He also said that he would not withdraw from the election."

Ronald was scratching his head about how to write a play so that the male and female protagonists would begin to understand each other, break the original bad impression, and change from hostile relations to ease, and finally become mutual affection.

"Debate? How about arranging a debate for high school? Should we support the Vietnam War?"

In this way, the debaters on both sides can speak one by one, which is convenient for composing and writing lyrics for male and female duets. Other debaters and the audience can serve as harmony, and there is a mezzo-soprano played by the teacher.

Ronald feels that only CBS current affairs news is the biggest source of his writing inspiration.