Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Let's relax and do some physical relaxation. Today I will teach you an ancient oriental relaxation technique, Tai Chi."

Every morning after breakfast, this group of young actors have a morning relaxation class. When actors are rehearsing or performing, if they can't relax their bodies, their emotions will not easily burst out.

However, generally everyone uses stretching exercises or yoga to relax the body. Some old actors will drink a few sips of wine to relax. It is rare to see someone like Coppola who uses the mysterious oriental relaxation technique.

Coppola is a famous American director. The poor young actors have no idea what the mysterious oriental relaxation technique is related to the roles they are about to rehearse, but since Coppola said so, everyone can only do it.

The TV in the rehearsal room plays a Tai Chi teaching videotape, and a thin Chinese actor begins to teach Tai Chi in English.

"Forget your movements, that's not important, remember the state of your body. Raise your hands, inhale, exhale..."

The Chinese actor wearing ancient costumes began to introduce how to practice Tai Chi on TV.

"Several people are missing on both sides." Tom Cruise came over and whispered to Ronald.

"Let's continue practicing and wait for them to take the bait." Ronald nodded and exchanged glances with Tom and Rob.

"Ronald, you did a great job. Do you know Tai Chi? Come to the front and teach everyone." Coppola saw that Ronald's Tai Chi movements were better than others, so he simply asked him to lead the exercise.

The TV screen was too small, and the actors couldn't see clearly. It felt much better to have a real person leading the exercise.

"Tai Chi is easy. Look at my hand shape." Ronald didn't know why his movements were quite standard.

"Relax your body, everyone follow me to imagine together," Ronald raised his hands flat in front of his chest, "I have a big watermelon, big and round." He made a Tai Chi starting gesture, holding a ball in front of his chest.

"Hey, hey..." Two groups of young male actors ran in, and were glared at by Coppola, so they had to follow everyone to practice.

Ronald saw the two leaders at a glance.

One is Emilio Estevez, who plays the role of "Two-Bites" in the Greasers Gang, and is the eldest son of the famous movie star Martin Sheen.

The other is Leif Garrett, who plays Bob in the Young Master Gang, a young singer and movie star, known as a "double threat" in the industry (meaning he can sing and act).

Ronald knew what was going on and ignored them. He separated the ball-holding posture and did a left-right wild horse split, "Cut the big watermelon into two pieces, one for you and one for him."

"Hahaha..." Diane Lane laughed so hard that she covered her stomach and was out of breath.

She saw that the palm of Emilio Estevez's hand, which was stretched out to cut the watermelon, turned black.

When she looked at Emilio, his face turned red and he clenched his hands into fists. She was going to play a prank on Diane again, but Diane's door handle painted her hands with black paint.

"Hahaha..." Some people saw Emilio's dirty hand, and some in the front thought that Diane was amused by Ronald's saying that he was cutting watermelons, so they also laughed.

"Okay, Ronald, come down, you guys continue." Coppola also laughed and called Ronald aside.

"You know I asked them to compete in pranks, right?"

"I guessed it, but Cherry is a fierce girl, and Diane needs to fight back."

It was indeed Coppola's idea to let the two groups of actors compete in playing pranks on Diane.

Ronald continued, "The one who put honey on the toilet seat is very humorous, and the imagination and taste of writing bitch on the mirror are too poor. You should declare the first group the winner."

"Fuck, Emilio, this little Axxhole." Coppola also cursed. This son of Martin lacks a sense of humor and is not as relaxed as his brother Charlie.

It can be seen from the attitudes of the two people towards their stage names on the set of "Apocalypse Now". Emilio is old-fashioned and insists on keeping the Latin surname Estevez. Charlie was more flexible. He inherited his father's stage name and made his debut with no burden.

The small incident passed quickly. Diane did not tell her father Bert about the prank. Teenage actors' attention is easily diverted to new things. They were soon distracted by Coppola's video rehearsal.

During the two-week rehearsal, the actors rehearsed almost all the scenes from beginning to end. Ronald also filmed all the rehearsal parts with a Sony BetaCa camera.

Unlike formal filming, the rehearsal process was carried out in the order of the script, and each scene was carried out from beginning to end. Except there was no makeup and no props.

Every night, Ronald watched the rehearsal video with Coppola and the trainee director. Analyze what the actors did well and what they didn't do well, and continue to improve the next day.

As time passed, Ronald felt that the actors' cooperation was getting better and better. Because the rehearsal was progressive according to the script, the story and the characters were fully developed, and the actors' understanding of the characters was getting better and better.

Ronald now fully understood why Coppola had to gather all the actors for rehearsal in advance. This method could make them more natural when they performed, and make the audience convinced and moved.

"You are indeed a great director," the trainee female director also praised.

"You are right."

Ronald did not completely understand the words of the trainee director from a technical perspective. This kind of long-term rehearsal in advance is difficult to keep the audience in check if it is not a director of Coppola's level. Many actors have schedules and will not waste two weeks of rehearsal.

Of course, most of the actors are newcomers under the age of 20, and they don't have the capital to play big names, which is also an important reason. Except for Patrick Swayze, who plays the role of the gangster boss, the others don't even have a manager or a stand-in.

Rehearsal is very monotonous. Coppola tries to relax the actors and give them something to do so that they will not feel bored because of too much concentration. He always tries to keep them in a state of happy mood and dedication to creation.

Ronald has been watching from the sidelines. He admires Coppola's scale of controlling the actors' mentality and emotions.

Every time the actors are too tense, he will show everyone a movie, or play some games, and give them a short vacation to relax.

After two weeks of rehearsal, the actors are a little tired. Coppola timely booked a theater in Tulsa and showed a new movie "Rocky III".

The opponent that Stallone knocked down with a heavy punch on the screen this time was the black star "Mr. T" with a very special image. This former bodyguard of boxing champion Ali, with a signature Mandingo hairstyle, played a role in the TV series "The A-Tea", an absolute beast.

Rocky's opponent in the first two films, Apollo, took over the coaching baton after the death of Rocky's coach and trained Rocky.

The last shot of Rocky beating Mr. T made all the boys stand up and cheer, leaving behind the fatigue of two weeks of rehearsal and starting to look forward to playing like Stallone during the formal filming.

Ronald learned a lot of these tricks to mobilize the emotions of actors and help filming. He felt that Coppola really cared about mobilizing the state of actors. No wonder the actors in his movies always perform very well.

"Let's have a table tennis game, everyone relax, and start the formal filming tomorrow."

After watching the movie, Coppola saw that it was still early, so he carried the table tennis table in the hotel to the open-air yard and let the boys start playing.

"Ralph, come and play too." C. Thomas Hall, who plays the protagonist "Ma Zai", is only sixteen years old. He follows Coppola's instructions and often hangs out with Ralph Mazzio, who plays his best friend "Johnny", to find the feeling of close friends. Now he also comes to play with Mazzio.

Ralph Mazzio and C. Thomas Hall are good friends in the movie, but they don't get along very well. Mazzio spends all day thinking about memorizing lines and figuring out acting skills. Hall spends all day thinking about playing and being lazy.

"No, I still have to read the script."

"Oh, e On, don't be so boring. Today is the last day of rest."

"Okay", Mazzio thought about it and put down the script and started playing table tennis with Hall.

The boys have never played table tennis before, but no one wants to admit defeat, so they soon started a ring match and automatically stepped down when they lost.

Diane and Michelle Meylink, who plays her best friend, also watched the boys' competition from the side, which made the competition among the actors more intense.

After a while, the Oily Head Gang gradually gained the upper hand. Emilio Estevez had always hated Ronald for embarrassing him, and finally challenged Ronald when he got the racket.

"Hey, Ronald. Do you dare to come and play with us? Those young masters are no match."

"You guys play." Ronald didn't want to disturb Coppola's arrangement. This was a tactic he deliberately designed to provoke the competitive psychology of the two gangs of actors.

"Are you afraid? Or do you think your skills are not at the same level as ours?"

"Your skills are indeed not at the same level as mine." Ronald thought to himself, but he just smiled and turned to leave.

"Loser!" Emilio saw that Ronald didn't dare, and cursed Ronald as a loser behind him.

"Hey, Ronald, let them see how good you are." Diane couldn't stand it anymore, so she came over and took Tom Cruise's racket and handed it to Ronald, "You don't really know how to play, do you? Do you want me to help you play?"

Ronald looked at Diane, and Tom and Rob who were cheering beside him, and took the racket.

"Hey, you don't even know how to hold a racket?" Emilio saw Ronald holding the racket with his thumb and index finger straight, "I'll let you serve first." Then he threw the ping-pong ball over and said to Ronald in a pose that he thought was very handsome.

"Watch carefully, I'll serve you forehand." Ronald raised his hand and served, and Emilio caught it.

Emilio Estevez didn't understand what happened, picked up the ping-pong ball and hit it hard on the racket, sending the ball back.

Ronald kept his body still, stretched out his backhand to push and block, and the ping-pong ball bounced back quickly and urgently. Emilio didn't catch it again.

In this way, Ronald pushed the ball on the left and smashed on the right, without moving his feet much. He stood in front of the table and used a strange grip to beat Emilio so that he could only pick up the ball.

"Shxt", Emilio was beaten and threw the racket on the table, and didn't play anymore.

"You guys play, I have something else to do." Ronald also put the racket on the table, clapped his hands and left.

Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe and others were left looking at each other in bewilderment. What on earth was this special style of play?

Soon it was time for the official shooting, and Ronald arrived early to see what secrets Coppola had.

When he watched "Richmond High" himself, he always felt that the actors' emotions did not match each other.

Because of the lighting, the scenes where two actors talk to each other may actually be shot at different times, or even weeks apart.

For example, today's Ma Zai and his second brother Soda Soda, first spent more than three hours carefully lighting the scene facing C. Thomas Hall, focusing on the scene where Ma Zai talks to his second brother at home.

Then tomorrow, he will light the scene again facing Rob Lauer, focusing on the conversation scene of Soda Soda across the street.

How to keep the emotions of the two actors' conversation scenes very consistent after editing together?

What Ronald wanted to know most was the details of directing the performance. A great director like Coppola must have his own tricks, right?

"Cut!" Coppola stopped the shooting and exchanged opinions with the director of photography.

"It's coming, let's see how the great director guides the actors' performances and emotional scale." Ronald was full of expectations. This kind of opportunity doesn't come often. He didn't dare to blink.

"Very good, this one is good, print it." Coppola nodded with satisfaction, "Let's shoot another one."

"Cut!"

After shooting a few more takes, Coppola still felt that the first two were better, so he asked the script supervisor to write down the number of takes that the final lab would print.

"Next one."

Ronald stood up in shock. How did it pass? There was no re-guidance on the acting part?

Could Coppola be so sure that the intensity and emotions of Rob Lowe's performance as Soda Pop tomorrow would be completely in line with C. Thomas Hall's performance as the henchman today?