Exploiting Hollywood 1980

After six weeks, "The Lost Ark of the Covenant" has become the number one box office this week. This movie is really popular, surpassing the box office of "Superman 2" again.

Ronald thought for a long time and came up with an explanation. Many of the audiences for comic book movies are comic book fans. After "Superman 2" experienced a few weeks of popularity after its release, the follow-up gradually dried up. "The Lost Ark of the Covenant" is an original adventure story. Thanks to word-of-mouth word-of-mouth, more and more people are going to see it.

As the movie continued to sell well, Spielberg's status was rising rapidly, and ET added some special effects budget.

Ronald was a little worried that as Spielberg became more and more popular with various producers, he might forget about the support he gave him.

So he took the written "Back to the Future" script evaluation, contacted Steven's assistant Catherine, and personally delivered it to his door, reminding Spielberg with his own face.

"Well... you thought very well. You concentrated a lot of scenes into the movie, and the time machine was changed from a nuclear explosion to a car using nuclear fuel. The cost of such special effects has become calculable, and nuclear explosions are simply impossible to film." Pillberg read the evaluation and gave it a favorable review.

"I heard that et got an endorsement for Hershey's Reese's chocolate?" Ronald brought up the conversation and first flattered Steven.

"If I didn't have confidence in you, Hershey wouldn't have agreed to pay $1 million. I think I will regret it after the movie is released."

Ronald himself was also talking about brand placement advertising. He heard from the producer that ET had signed a $1 million endorsement agreement with Hershey, and he felt very envious.

I only received $5,000 from Perry’s Pizza for product placement in my movie, and it was because Jennifer Jason Leigh, who had appeared in several TV series, went there to experience life as a waitress.

After Burger King read the script, they refused to negotiate. They believed that their company was not suitable to appear in a low-budget film.

The idea I came up with ended up being taken over by someone else. Ronald could only hope that the producers' efforts to find a tennis shoe brand would not be in vain.

"Very good, I will forward it to Zemeckis. He still wants to try to negotiate with the big studios by himself." Spielberg was very busy and stood up to leave. "Your evaluation of the script is very interesting. It is based on reality in every aspect." From a filming perspective, I’m really interested in going to your set to watch you make a movie.”

"Thank you, Steven." After achieving his goal, Ronald breathed a sigh of relief and stood up to leave.

"This is Chris, the screenwriter who works at my Amblin." Spielberg pointed to a screenwriter working at the desk next to him and introduced him to Ronald. The startup was about to start, he was very busy, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

"Hello, my name is Chris Columbus." The screenwriter, who was about the same age as Ronald, came over and introduced himself. He was helping Amberlin write the script. Ronald exchanged business cards with him and said goodbye.

A few days later, the film’s photography director and art director were also in place. Ronald took them all over the world to find locations in Los Angeles.

"This is a movie theater, and opposite is Perry's Pizza and All-American Burger. What do you think?" At the Sherman Oaks Shopping Center in the suburbs of Los Angeles, Ronald held a director's viewfinder and looked at the other end of the mall.

This mall has some history, and some of the decorations are starting to look old, but it's not too shabby. It fit the kind of realism Ronald was looking for.

The viewfinder is like a monocular telescope with scales for camera lenses of various focal lengths, indicating the range of images that can be seen using different lenses. Ronald liked this Scorsese gift because it was light and easy to carry.

"What kind of basic tone do you need?" The director of photography, Matthew, is an old man from Warner and is very skilled in various types of low-cost productions.

"I need a film style that is close to reality, with a 1.85 frame. I need the shabby and dirty scenes to be truly reflected in the film. The colors are mainly realistic tones, so people can recognize them at a glance. It’s a middle-class suburb of Los Angeles.”

The director of photography quickly took out his notebook and wrote down that this young director was not just a second-generation star who came to play for fun as he thought. What he said were the words of an expert, concise and direct, and he expressed what he wanted very clearly.

Unlike some directors who only say that I want a tone like "The Godfather".

If I could shoot that kind of dark tones, high contrast, and top-light photography style, wouldn’t I have won the Oscar for Best Cinematography long ago?

"What kind of image texture do you want? Is the lighting more natural and soft, or more dramatic and hard?"

"Natural", Ronald understood the meaning of the director of photography. The lighting method like "The Godfather" is more dramatic. At the beginning, the old godfather played by Brando sat in the dark background, petting the cat and deciding various things. It looks very dramatic.

"This is a youth romantic comedy with a slightly realistic undertone. It doesn't need to be too heavy or dramatic to make the audience feel relaxed. Even if there are many bad things in the plot, it should look relaxed and let them know that for the time being The suffering will eventually pass, and the movie ends well.”

"It's difficult to achieve dramatic lighting. I'm going to hire a skilled lighting engineer. It's better to shoot quickly with natural light." Ronald complained in his heart. Is this photographer Matthew good? He doesn't seem to be particularly powerful. But with my budget, I can only hire technicians of this level.

The budgets of large studios are all falsely reported, and there are many problems with invoices. The administrative department charges a lot of expenses to the crew, and Ronald has no intention of pursuing them. This is what everyone does now.

Ronald asked the director of photography Matthew about his background, and sure enough, he had previously shot TV series and TV movies. I haven’t played much with celluloid movies.

"So our art design also adopts a realistic style?" Art director Dan is a veteran. He has also participated in the art direction of Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and took the initiative to communicate with the director.

"That's it. Everything is based on the current Los Angeles public high school students, making them feel familiar at a glance." Ronald was quite satisfied with him.

"Let's go over there and have a look." Ronald walked around the mall to the All-American Burger and Perry's Pizza across the street. Jennifer Jason Leigh was working at the pizza restaurant. She wore a red headband and wore A dress with red and white vertical stripes, a white bib on the outside, white socks and white sneakers.

The whole person fits perfectly with the style of Perry's pizza.

"Hey, Jennifer, bring us some pizza." Ronald sat down with the two instructors and asked Jennifer to order.

"Hello, director." Jennifer laughed happily, took out a pencil from her bib bag and started ordering. She is very stylish, like a high school girl working part-time.

"Two copies of this, and some... Coke?" Ronald asked the two companions.

"We only have Pepsi, we'll be here soon." Jennifer walked over to place her order, and soon pizza and Pepsi were served to her.

"You look great," Ronald praised. "How's the All-American Burger business over there?"

"It's great, they have the best business here," Jennifer said.

"Jennifer, can you sign your autograph for us?" Two children had seen Jennifer's TV series, recognized her, and came up to ask for her autograph.

Ronald put down the Pepsi, took out his notebook and took notes, asking the producer to discuss advertising placement with All-American Pizza. Maybe someone would be interested in a regional burger restaurant like this.

After the three of them finished eating the pizza, they continued to enjoy the scenery.

"This is Van Nuys High School, and I plan to put all the school scenes here." Ronald took the two of them to the old location, which was the location where "Rock and Roll High School" was filmed.

"Were the students still in school when the camera was turned on?" Photography director Matthew has filmed many TV series, and sometimes he went to school to shoot scenes during holidays.

"I made an agreement with the principal. He is an old acquaintance of mine. Many students here are artistic. If they are willing to come and see it, I can choose some to do group performances."

Ronald took out the director's viewfinder again and started looking at it. The two directors looked at each other. This director Ronald was extremely efficient, as if he knew all the work on the crew, except makeup. Be careful after starting up.

Such a director is generally very demanding and cannot fool him in any job. Fortunately, Ronald didn't seem to have a bad temper, otherwise the crew would have had a difficult time.

"The stadium here is not good, and the camera cannot be placed. We have to find another high school football field." Ronald recorded the degree of cooperation for important scenes in a few words, "I went to call the producer, and we had to expand the scope. "

"We also need to find an Italian restaurant where we can film Mark and Mike discussing how to pick up girls." Ronald crossed off another item on the list in his notebook.

…

The work at Kanjing continued, and Ronald and Dan, the production designer, kept running.

The director of photography, Matthew, obtained the camera assigned by Universal Pictures.

Next, we need to determine the film development and printing process parameters. Ronald and the photography director will try to shoot some samples to see the effect after development and printing.

Because there are many batches of film, the same brand, the same model of film, if the factory time is different, it will also cause color inconsistency. Therefore, when shooting in major studios, a batch of films with a similar production date will be used.

Ronald tested the camera again with Matthew, the director of photography.

Matthew is also a camera operator and is very skilled at changing films in a secret bag. He locked the latch on the film door and began taking test shots of Ronald.

"What brand of camera is this? Why haven't I seen it before?" Ronald was a little surprised.

"Ultraca," Matthew replied while taking pictures, "a new brand from America. Not long after it was launched, Universal bought a batch and allocated it to us.

Generally, film crews in America use Panavision cameras. This brand of cameras is only available for rent, not for sale, and is very expensive.

Ultraca may be cheaper, so Universal Studios was impressed and bought a few units for the crew to use.

"shxt!" The next day, Ronald saw the results after the samples taken by ultraca were developed, and angrily took Matthew to find trouble with the producer.

"Why did you give our crew these rags?" Ronald threw the developed film onto producer Lin Sen's desk. Everything was fucking exposed. This tattered film hatch, fixed with latches, was all leaking light.

"My dear Ronald, I'm sorry. This was assigned by someone from the technical department and our crew had a limited budget."

"It's limited in size. Your truck pulls the wood and parks it outside the office door in the morning, and then pulls it back in the evening. The cycle starts over and over again. These invoices are reimbursed by the crew's accountant.

Don't think I don't know. You guys go to Gogo tonight. The money for watching Stripper is paid here. "

"Okay, okay, keep your voice down, Ronald. What do you want to do?"

"Change our camera to Panavision or Arri's."

"That's impossible. Panavision is being rented to the crew of "Spring City Flowers" starring Dolly Parton. And our American film company can't use German products like Arri."

"The camera is the most important equipment. I can't compromise."

"It's very useful, but it leaks a little. You think of a way. The business manager I found found the owner of All-American Burger for you. He is willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for the burger restaurant to appear on the screen. You must give their trademark close-up.

We also found a sneaker manufacturer. They have a new shoe with a checkered pattern and are willing to spend money on advertising. "

"No problem, I promise to give them the biggest and longest close-up!" Ronald laughed, and then said seriously, "But this money must be used on the crew!"

"Okay. "

"We're going to shoot related scenes anyway, so let's just take it as a ride." Ronald was happy.

"What about our camera?" Director of Photography Matthew followed Ronald around, but he didn't get a better camera, so he was a little panicked.

"This is your first time shooting a movie in theaters, Matthew." Ronald whistled, took out a roll of black tape from his bag and threw it over, "A must-have for movie photographers. There is no camera failure that can't be fixed with a roll of tape."