Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Hahaha..." Editor Eric looked at the screen on the monitor and couldn't help laughing.

"Your screenwriter is a genius. Although I have seen it many times, I still laugh every time I see this."

Ronald couldn't help laughing. The screen showed Stacey's elder brother Brad. He was fired by All American Burger because of a dispute with a customer. In order to repay the installment loan of his beloved four-door luxury car, he had to work at the competitor "Captain Hook Fish and Chips".

On the way to deliver takeout to IBM, the store manager asked him to wear a full set of Scottish skirts and a wide-brimmed hat with a pirate logo.

At a red light intersection, in a convertible sports car next to him, a beautiful woman with blonde hair and blue eyes, wearing a purple and pink two-color spliced ​​cashmere sweater, kept smiling at him.

Brad thought the beauty was looking at him from behind at first, but the constant smile and sizing made him think that the beauty fell in love with him at first sight. He quickly showed his teeth in response with a smile and winked at the beauty.

The beauty found him more and more ridiculous, and couldn't help but cover her eyes with laughter. When the green light came on, she stepped on the accelerator and left.

Brad realized that he had misunderstood. He looked at his pirate hat in the rearview mirror and angrily grabbed it and threw it out of the car window.

"That's the girlfriend of screenwriter Cameron Crowe, Nancy Wilson. The guitarist of the female rock band "Red Heart Band." Ronald pointed to the beautiful woman in the frozen picture on the screen and said, "If you watch MTV, they are playing their music videos recently."

"No wonder she looks familiar." Editor Eric laughed.

The editing has been going on for two weeks. Ronald and Eric are a little out of touch with the real world every day, soaking in the editing room from morning to night, immersed in the fantasy world depicted in the movie.

"Would you like a cup too?" Ronald picked up the thermos and poured out the black tea, and asked Eric.

"Okay, I'll have a cup too. I see you drink this every day, not coffee?"

"Coffee is like a loan shark. It helps you stay alert, but you'll get it back a few hours later with double the sleepiness. Black tea is more like an installment loan, smoothing out the peaks and valleys of your attention."

The two drank a cup of black tea and returned to their hard work.

"Fast-paced Richmond High School", the recent editing work has encountered a bottleneck and has made little progress. Ronald has done the first cut, and the image of each character in the complete story is vivid and the emotions are in place. The only big problem is that the length exceeds 115 minutes, which is more than 20% longer than the 90 minutes required by the producer.

After watching the first cut without music, the two producers actually had the idea of ​​persuading Universal executives to release it with 115 minutes. But after a little trial, they found that it was impossible.

This type of teen comedy is used by Universal to fill the low tide period every year. After the summer vacation is over, it is the lowest box office period of the year. During this period, few audiences go back to the cinema to watch a two-hour feature film.

Only light comedy has a market. The cinema chain hopes to keep the length of the film within 90 minutes, so that it can schedule more shows during prime time every night and increase box office revenue.

Reducing the length of the 115-minute film by 20% without affecting the original story and emotions is a big challenge for Ronald, who is editing a feature film for the first time.

"We can actually cut out a shot of Brad starting the car, and let Brad and Nancy Wilson's shots intersect, which will make the audience feel that the two are communicating back and forth.

After Nancy drove away, there is no need to play the shot of Brad starting the car, just cut directly to him looking in the rearview mirror and finding himself as ridiculous as a clown."

Editor Eric suggested to Ronald.

Ronald thought for a while and it is true that the audience should not have any obstacles in understanding. Today's Hollywood movies no longer follow the requirements of time and space continuity. For movies before the 1950s, this kind of time and space continuity was a hard rule.

For example, in the reality dramas at that time, it was common to see shots of characters entering skyscrapers.

Under the dogma of time and space continuity at that time, a series of shots of getting on the elevator, closing the elevator door, the elevator indicator light constantly showing the floor rising, the elevator on the top floor stopping with a ding, opening the elevator door, and the character walking out of the elevator must be cut to explain the character's flow in time and space.

However, the new wave of the Chinese people pioneered a new editing method, which spread to Hollywood and profoundly influenced American movies.

Hollywood directors suddenly found that as long as the plot is coherent, after the shot of entering the building, cutting all the elevator shots and letting the character open the office door and walk in directly, the audience will not have any misunderstandings.

They will automatically omit the unimportant parts in the middle, and a light bulb will light up in their minds. Oh, this person entered the building and talked to someone in the office.

The continuity of time and space has since been abandoned by Hollywood, and it is also ranked as the least important in the six editing principles given by Mozi.

"I think it's okay, why not give it a try." Ronald replied to Eric.

"Okay." Eric operated the editing machine and cut out that shot.

The assistant editor came over, wrote down the time when the scissors were cut, and the numbers of the previous and next shots, then picked up the tape and quickly connected the two shots on the machine.

Finally, she carefully collected the cut film and put it in a plastic bag for record keeping, in case the director regretted it in the future and had to reconnect the original shots.

Ronald and Eric watched the edited footage again, and the story and emotions were as expected, unaffected.

"Very good, this saves another four seconds." Just seconds passed like this, and the length of the film was slowly moving towards the 90-minute mark.

"Hi, Ronald. How's the progress today?" After lunch, producers Lin Sen and Azoff "accidentally strolled" into the editing room on time.

During this time they came more frequently, sometimes twice a day, once for a walk after lunch and again after dinner.

Generally speaking, directors are full of love for the films they shoot, and cutting out any part is like cutting off the hands and feet of their beloved with a scalpel.

Recently, Warner Bros.'s "Blade Runner" (Blade Runner), the producer and the starring star Harrison Ford, and the director Ridley Scott had a falling out over the editing time and plot, and the two sides have reached the point of starting a fight. To the point where rumors are spreading all over Hollywood.

Ronald has no prejudice against editing, but the pace of progress has been getting slower and slower recently, which worries the two producers.

"Not bad, about five seconds were cut off in the morning."

The two producers were worried. The editing speed had not increased for several days in a row. The progress was probably going to be seriously delayed, and the editing speed would become slower the further back they went. By then, the editing speed would probably be less than 90 minutes.

The two exchanged glances, and Lin Sen spoke again, "Ronald, we all trust you, but Universal's executives don't know the excellence of this movie. They will definitely use the 90-minute total length in the contract to limit it." your."

"I know..." Ronald also had a headache. "I tried my best to cut without damaging the story and emotion, but it was difficult and the speed couldn't be increased. This is not the kind of comedy farce. Every character and story is unique. There are foreshadowing and highlights, so it’s difficult for me to cut out the entire plot, so I can only cut out the time for each shot.”

Azoff couldn't help it anymore, "You know, Ronald. There are voices from Universal executives saying that your movie is not a comedy, but a drama that reflects social reality, and even a tragedy with a crying scene. They also say that you are holding a Spend your own money around the world.

Tom Mount was prepared to send an experienced director to check the progress and step in if it was not satisfactory. "

Ronald frowned. He didn't know who spread this out-of-context rumor.

There was indeed a crying scene during the filming, but at that time Linda, played by Phoebe Cates, cried and explained to her friend Stacey after being unable to conjure up an imaginary Chicago boyfriend to attend her prom. It's obviously a humorous comedy scene and has nothing to do with tragedy.

As for reflecting social reality, this is a modern teen comedy. Does it reflect some phenomena that are not normal in social reality?

For example, Stacy had an unexpected pregnancy and went to a free clinic funded by Women’s Liberation in California. For example, Brad worked at a Seven-Eleven convenience store and was robbed at gunpoint by a teenage robber.

But these plots are all told in the context of light comedy, and there is no heavy atmosphere like "Famous". "Fast-paced" overall the audience will be amused from time to time.

"Okay, I get it, I'll speed up the process."

Ronald was angry in his heart. This Mount always caused trouble for him, and now he had to send someone to check. This kind of thing is the most taboo in artistic creation. Could it be that when Michelangelo was painting the Sistine frescoes, would the church still let Leonardo da Vinci come to check his artistic ability?

As a last resort, Ronald had to work two more overtime hours every day, but this made the editor Eric and the two editing assistants very tired, and the editing efficiency plummeted.

Seeing that the progress was getting slower and slower, Ronald suppressed his irritation and asked Eric and his assistant to take a day off.

He himself also had the opportunity to reorganize his thoughts and at the same time relax his irritable mind.

But Ronald had few friends in Los Angeles. Jim Cameron couldn't bear it anymore, so he borrowed some money from himself, scraped together a piece of money and bought a plane ticket to fly to Rome, Italy. He couldn't stand his movie being randomly edited, so he went to negotiate with the producer. .

Gale Hurd is getting busier and now supervises four crews at once, and it looks like she has a chance to be promoted to vice president.

Ronald had no friends to talk to about his troubles, so he had to watch TV at home to relieve his boredom. Fortunately, MTV TV station gave him a lot of fun, and the various weird editing methods there are very exciting.

MTV did not have enough film sources. After dozens of minutes, the content was repeated again. Ronald picked up the remote control and changed to a news station.

"A mysterious disease has been found prevalent in communities in San Francisco, often affecting gay men. Local doctors say there is no evidence that the disease is contagious."

"San Francisco?" Ronald was stunned. He hadn't contacted Walter Mersey for a long time. He was an Oscar-winning editing expert. He encountered editing difficulties. Why not ask him for advice?

After Mersey left Peep Show, he did not edit or do sound design for any films. Ronald doesn't have his phone number.

After asking around the brokerage company, he got a phone number for the house where he lived with his wife and children in the countryside.

"Hello, I'm looking for Mr. Walter Mersey. I'm his friend Ronald."

"Daddy, someone is looking for you." The person who answered his call seemed to be Merzi's little daughter.

"Hi Ronald, long time no see, how are you doing now?"

"I'm filming a small-production youth film for Universal. I encountered some editing problems, so I have to ask you for help."

"Oh, look, Ronald, you've finished your directing work, and I'm still in the script preparation stage."

"That's different. Yours is a big production, and mine is an exploitation film."

"Haha, there is no big or small difference in movies."

Merzy chatted with Ronald for a few words, and then listened to Ronald describe his dilemma.

"It's like boiling tomato sauce when making pasta. There are no shortcuts in editing. You can only slowly reduce the juice, cut a little here, cut a little there, and finally slowly simmer out a bowl of delicious sauce."

"I think so too, but Universal is not satisfied with my progress, and some rumors are being spread among the upper levels. They may send another director to check my editing progress. I am also a little anxious."

"Well, if you really have no other choice, you can try 'Procrustes' Bed', which is also an editing method. I wouldn't do it myself, but George Lu This is how Cass cuts the film, you can try it.”

Walter Mersey saw that Ronald was facing trouble from above and gave him an idea.