Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Ronald spent half a day to review all the shots. The sound and picture synchronization was done very well. Ronald thanked Eric and his two assistants.

"Let's start editing, Ronald?" The two producers next to him, Lin Sen and Azov, were already a little impatient.

When Ronald was watching the shots with sound and picture synchronization, he often paused and took out a notebook to write down the number of a certain frame on the film. He often looked at a film over and over again, and no one knew what he was doing.

If it was just to check Eric's work, it didn't seem to take so long.

"Where do we start? Ronald." Eric has worked with many directors and knows that each director has his own method. Ronald is not particularly out of line.

Some old-school Hollywood directors have their own quirks. For example, Fred Zinnemann, the old director who shot "High Noon", is particularly disgusted with the main shot.

In addition to shooting as few main shots as possible on the set, the first thing in the editing room is to throw away the film of the main shot.

Maybe Ronald has a similar quirk, excluding the shots he doesn't like before using the scissors?

"You have to wait for me. I have to turn these numbered positives into negative copies and take them to Kodak for printing. It will take a few hours. Once I get the photos, we can start.

After that, Ronald apologized to everyone and went to work with the numbers in his hand.

Lin Sen and Azov looked at each other, not knowing what was going on. Lin Sen asked the editor Eric: "What method is this? I have never seen a director do this before?"

"It's the first time I've seen it too." Eric shrugged and answered the two producers, "Maybe it's Ronald's habit? ”

The few people didn’t know what to do, so they went out for lunch and waited for Ronald to finish his work before coming back.

Ronald was looking for film on the equipment on the other side of the editing room according to the lens number.

He spent the whole afternoon selecting the most representative decisive moment for each camera position and each lens. For some longer shots, he also selected two or three photos.

Then he copied a negative film with a sensitivity of only 2 for each decisive moment based on these numbers. According to the appropriate exposure time figured out by Walter Merz, Ronald copied all the lens photos.

After that, he took the negative film and drove to a Kodak one-hour photo studio, where he printed all the photos. Looking at the finished film, Ronald was quite satisfied. Using the parameters given by Merz, the color balance and contrast of the photos were close to the effect of movie film.

When the two producers and several editors returned to the editing room, Ronald had already posted all the photos on the whiteboard on the wall.

"Aha, this method is much more intuitive. "Eric in the editing room couldn't help but admire the photos on the whiteboard on the wall.

"This method is really good. I have to learn it and use it when I become a director in the future." Lin Sen was also very surprised. He had directed a movie before and knew that when editing, it was a waste of time to find the one you want in many shots.

Many times when you find it, the inspiration in your heart is gone. This is indeed more convenient to grasp the inspiration and make editing more efficient.

Azov has no experience in filming movies, but he also thinks this method is very intuitive. He looked at the photo of Spicoli smoking and hitting his head with Vans shoes. The scene he saw in the morning immediately jumped out of his mind.

He couldn't help but think, "This young man named Ronald does have some ideas. ”

Ronald was writing numbers on each photo, and then transcribing the duration of the shots into a table in his notebook. "Fast-paced Richmond High" is a group portrait drama with six main characters. How to balance the roles of many people is the key to film editing.

So the arrangement and combination of various shots is essential for trial and error. In this way, using a photo to represent a shot can be easily arranged and combined.

"I have transcribed it. If you don't mind, you can start."

Ronald asked the two producers Lin Sen and Azoff to sit next to the editor Eric, and then he stood behind them.

"Hey, Ronald, come and sit down. You are the director."

Lin Sen and Azoff saw him standing, and both stood up to give him a seat. It's good for the young man to respect his predecessors. But according to the rules of Hollywood, the producer only makes comments on the results of the editing, and cannot completely replace the director to give editing instructions.

At least not before the director edits a bad first cut, fails to pass the producer's approval, and is deprived of the editing rights by the studio.

"You're welcome. I'm just used to editing while standing. "Ronald took two steps to the side and stood next to the editor Eric and said.

He tore a piece of paper from his notebook, cut it in half, and then folded two sitting figures. According to the length and width of the editing machine monitor, he calculated the size ratio of the screen and him, and then reduced it proportionally to the height of the figures.

Ronald folded the figure representing the female audience again, making her shorter, and then placed the two figures in front of the monitor and said to the two producers, "This is our audience, looking at the marked screen with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, sitting at the approximate distance of the golden position.

In this way, we can refer to the approximate picture that the audience sees on the screen, and we will not take into account the problem of shifting the audience's attention because the monitor is too small.

"You are very well prepared." Azoff was completely relieved. Ronald seemed to be an expert in editing.

"I wonder what the editing level is like?" Lin Sen looked at Ronald's decent work and became curious about his actual editing level.

The opening shot in the storyboard of the movie happened to be the first shot of Ronald's first day of shooting. It was Robert Romanus entering the picture from behind the camera, then dodging two cars, running to the other side of the road, and finally walking toward Shot of walking through the door of a department store.

"The first one is better, the actors' performance is more natural." After watching several film clips, editor Eric expressed his opinion.

"I also think it is because the cars are driven by stuntmen and there are certain rules. Romanus's reaction in the first one was more natural. In the subsequent ones, he was prepared and mentally prepared, and his actions were done in advance. The preparation is not as tight as the first one.”

Ronald pointed at Romanus's movements on the monitor. Before he spotted the approaching Toyota Corolla, he had slowed down and twisted his shoulders to look to the left.

"What do you think?" Ronald turned to ask the two producers for their opinions.

"Yes, I also think the first one is good."

"Do as you wish."

Seeing that the two producers agreed, Eric turned back and asked Ronald, "Where is the cut?"

"Wait a minute." Ronald turned the turntable of the horizontal editing machine and rewind the film to the beginning at double speed.

Then he turned the turntable back to normal speed and Romanus crossed the street again on the monitor.

"Pop." Ronald pressed the stop button, then he picked up a pen, found the middle frame of the film in the specially vacated space in front of the editing machine, and lightly drew A V-mark.

"It's nice here, just in time to pick up

"I'll try again." Ronald turned the control dial again.

Eric expressed his understanding that the director was often hesitant when editing. Especially at the end, there is an open shot where the actors continue to move. There is no definite end point of the action, which makes different people feel that it should be cut here.

Just like this shot of scalper Mike entering the mall door, how close does the actor Romanus go to the inner door to cut off the scissors? In fact, you can cut it and then cut to the next shot. Where do you think the best place to cut is? There is no conclusion.

Ronald moved the film back to the beginning and started playing it at 24 seconds per second. When Mike, the scalper played by Romanus, bypassed the second Volkswagen Beetle that pulled over and headed towards the main entrance of the mall, Ronald once pressed the stop button.

"Snapped!"

Eric leaned forward and looked at the film in the middle, trying to write down the number this time. After seeing the number clearly, he suddenly said "Holy Shxt!"

"What's wrong?" Producer Lin Sen looked over at Azoff, fearing that something might go wrong with the production.

Eric pointed to the gap in the middle of the editing machine. On the film in the middle was the V mark that Ronald had just drawn with a pen.

"How did you do it?" Eric became very curious. There are twenty-four frames of film per second. One frame of film only appears here for twenty-fourths of a second. The probability of stopping on the same frame twice is Very small.

"Is it a coincidence?" A question emerged in the minds of the three people present.

"Is it the same frame?" Ronald asked, then put the film back. "It seems that while watching it this morning, I have gradually mastered the rhythm of this movie."

Ronald said, glancing at the reproduction print of Mondrian's painting placed against the wall on the editing table.

Sometimes things like rhythm are difficult to describe in words, but once you catch it, you catch it. Your body will replace your brain and use your intuition to make decisions for you.

"Snapped!"

Ronald pressed the stop button for the third time, and his intuition did not disappoint him. The film stopped steadily at the same frame.

Neither producer believed Ronald could stay on the same page. They stood up at the same time and looked towards the gap exposed by the editing machine.

Sure enough, under the light, a small yellow V-shaped mark was on the centermost frame of film.

The two of them looked at each other in disbelief. I had never heard of anyone in Universal Productions having such skills.

"How did you do it?" the two asked Ronald.

Ronald opened the thermos cup he brought, poured a cup of black tea and tasted it slowly, "Do you believe I said it was intuition?"

The two producers, Lin Sen and Azoff, looked unconvinced and did not continue to ask. Maybe this is Ronald's unique secret recipe?

"I think I heard someone say that there was an editor who could do it before." Eric seemed to remember something.

"Yes, this is what Walter Mersey from Peep Show Pictures taught me. You should have heard of him, and I'm not lying to you. It's really based on intuition, otherwise people wouldn't be able to react so quickly and stop several times. On the same grid." Ronald said the master's name.

"It turns out it's him." The two producers and Eric in the editing room suddenly realized that they had all heard the name of Walter Mersey, an expert in film editing and sound processing.

He is the master of editing and sound design for Francis Coppola's two "The Godfather" and "Apocalypse Now", and has won an Oscar.

So they nodded and stopped asking Ronald how he could do it. As if it was natural for him to do this.

Eric asked the editing assistant to come over and write down the number on the frame of the working film. As the editing point of the first shot, and then waited for Ronald to give the order.

"Let's continue." Ronald said softly.

After a while, the two producers were very satisfied with the progress of the editing, left the table first, and said that they would come back to see the progress tomorrow.

Ronald smiled and continued to edit the film with Eric.

He knew in his heart that the reason why he was able to stop at the same frame several times was because he spent a lot of time in the morning looking at the shots repeatedly, and then selecting the decisive frame in each shot.

This approach has slowly implanted the lens grammar of the director of photography Matthew into his subconscious mind. In fact, the subconscious mind helped him make the decision where to stop. In addition, he edited while standing, so that he could make full use of the intuition that humans have evolved for millions of years to achieve this effect.

As the editing continued, his subconscious mind digested and absorbed more of the shots, and his editing could be more accurate and reasonable.