Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Ronald quickly started to clean his nose with water, and it took him a long time to clean his nostrils. No wonder the American Actors Guild does not allow the use of smoke and heated powder for lighting, the pollution is too serious.

"Two intentional murderers were charged with manslaughter? What kind of law is this? What kind of justice? This happened because my son is Chinese. If two Chinese killed a white person, they must go to jail, maybe for life... There is something wrong with this country."

"Huh?" Ronald was wiping his face with a towel when he suddenly heard the Chinese guest named Lily Chen on the talk show on the TV show say this.

Ronald simply walked out and sat on the bed to watch TV. What was going on?

"Let's take a look at the whole story..."

It turned out that in June this year, in the automobile city of Detroit, a Chinese young man named Chen Guoren, who worked as a draftsman at the Detroit Automobile Company, was at a local strip bar, having a bachelor party before marriage, and was insulted by two white fathers and sons as a Japanese, and they picked up a chair to hit him.

Chen Guoren knew martial arts, and he beat the white father and son on the spot, then walked away.

The white father and son worked at the Dodge factory, and the production line they worked on was going to be unemployed because it was acquired by Mitsubishi Motors. The two found Chen Guoren, who was working part-time, at a nearby McDonald's and started to call him a Japanese devil who was causing the white man to lose his job.

Then one of them grabbed Chen Guoren, and the other hit Chen Guoren's head with a baseball bat until Chen Guoren fell to the ground.

McDonald's employees sent Chen Guoren to the hospital. Four days later, Chen Guoren was declared dead.

"The Detroit District Attorney only charged the two suspects with second-degree murder, refusing to use the Civil Code to use racial discrimination as a basis for conviction. Moreover, according to the plea bargain, the two suspects agreed to be convicted of manslaughter, and the second-degree murder charge will be removed from the charges..."

"Lawyers and senior legal scholars across the country have denied that the racial discrimination clause in the Civil Code can be used for this crime. Only the newly established 'American Citizens' Justice League' is willing to call for this. Dear audience members and viewers in front of the TV, if you have any opinions to express, please..."

Ronald thought for a long time before he figured out the logical relationship. A Chinese named Chen Guoren was beaten to death by two white people who mistook him for a Japanese.

Then the prosecutor and the judge believed that the deceased was Chinese and the white people were scolding Japanese. There was no racial discrimination here, and it was not applicable to prosecute the first-degree murder with the racial hatred clause in the Civil Code. They only agreed to prosecute with manslaughter.

There must be a big problem here. It seems that white people in America still do not regard Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and other people with different skin colors and hair colors as citizens from the bottom of their hearts. As a Chinese in his previous life, Ronald felt very uncomfortable.

He picked up the phone and called his accountant Lawrence Wang.

Lawrence was also concerned about this matter. The Chinatown in New York felt that this matter was very unfair and wanted to organize donations and relief.

Ronald asked him to donate one thousand dollars anonymously to the "American Citizens' Justice League" that spoke for Vincent Chin and his son to show his support.

When he returned to the set the next day, no one was talking about the Vincent Chin incident.

Ronald stayed on the set of the bar set for a day as usual. Today, he filmed a dance clip of Cynthia Rhodes.

Cynthia herself was a dancer, so her dance did not need a stand-in or post-editing, and it was easier to handle the storyboard during filming.

It was just that her makeup and clothes were really ugly. Cynthia was originally a southern beauty with golden hair, a pretty face and a slim figure.

Wearing a black vest and shorts, with a very short hairstyle, she danced a very rigid dance, and the camera was deliberately shot from a high angle...

Ronald felt that the beauty was photographed to look a bit like Grace Jones, a Jamaican black singer/model who is famous for her unique (ugly) temperament.

The gentle and cuddly characteristics of a southern woman, Cynthia, were minimized as much as possible, turning her into a neutral temperament that is difficult to distinguish between male and female.

"Do you have to make the supporting actress so ugly to highlight the beauty of the heroine?" Ronald touched his beard that had not been shaved for several days.

"Cut." Adrian Ryan stopped after a dance. "Very good, this one will be printed."

Cynthia Rhodes happily left the stage, but the assistant handed her a towel to wipe off the water on her face.

Ronald saw that she still had olive oil deliberately applied by the makeup artist on her body, like a bodybuilder, to highlight her compact muscles. This was not a sexy dance at all, but a curious dance of a female bodybuilder.

"Give her a bath towel." Ronald instructed, and then said to Cynthia, "Director Ryan has finished shooting this scene, you hurry to the dressing room to wipe off the oil, be careful not to catch a cold."

"Thank you, Ronald," Cynthia was a little surprised by Ronald's concern, and then immediately showed a lovely smile, "Do you think I dance well?"

"Of course, you dance with a very good rhythm and strength."

"Then will I have a chance to be the heroine in the future?"

"Ha, it's hard to say. But your appearance is quite suitable for filming."

Ronald is not talking nonsense. The filming of the movie is very picky about the appearance of the actors. Although the unsuitable beauties are charming in life, when they are on the screen, the audience will think that the actors on the flat screen have plain looks and no beauty.

Cynthia's face is similar to that of an average dancer, thin. There is a small depression under her cheekbones, so lighting this face is particularly prone to shadows on the face, and the audience will feel that it is full of sculptural three-dimensionality and beauty when watching it on the big screen.

"Really?" Cynthia is already 25 years old, but she was born in a family with a strong religious atmosphere in Nashville, South, and she still has a natural sense of innocence.

"I don't have to lie to you, but whether you can be the protagonist depends on your luck."

After the shooting ended in the evening, director Ryan, Ronald, and the two producers Don and Jerry had another task, watching the sample film.

There is an industrial film shooting base in Pittsburgh, where many industrial films for on-the-job training and technical training have been shot for major companies. The photo processing plant is not far away, and the sample films shot the day before can be seen every day.

"Buzz..."

The noise of the projector slowly filled the room, and Ronald sat in the back, watching the sample film on the screen that had not yet been synchronized with the sound and picture.

The director is quite capable. Perhaps because Ronald shot and edited a feature film himself, he is now more and more able to find out why other directors use this kind of split screen.

The shot of Ma Lin, the dance double of the protagonist Alex, was deliberately shot like this. The rhythm of each measure of the dance interlude just matches the internal beat of the several shots shot.

And Director Ryan is not like Ronald, who can use dreams as a reference. He uses the pre-imagined editing pictures and then reverses the shots that need to be shot.

For example, the shot of Ma Lin sitting on a stool with her long legs stretched forward can be matched with the last part of the main song in the interlude. The previous dance music has a fast rhythm, and the rhythm of the music in the last few measures of the main song gradually slows down, preparing to connect to the climax of the chorus.

Then there is the shot of reaching out to pull the rope to pour water, which can be stuck on the drum beat of the main and chorus transition.

First imagine the final picture, and then reverse the shooting shot. This is a very indispensable creative method in this song and dance scene.

"Shxt!" Director Ryan cursed in a low voice.

Ronald also found the problem. Several of Marin's dance shots were exposed.

The white high-illuminance background on the stage was very bright when filmed from the front.

There were several places where Marin paused briefly in her dance, and the camera captured her face, so that the audience would know that the dancer was not Jennifer Beals.

"Are you going to reshoot? Or use editing to remove these exposed scenes?" Ronald raised the problem of editing, and Ryan had a headache.

"Too many, these few can't be used. And if we reshoot, it's hard to guarantee that such a long dance shot will not be exposed again."

Ronald stroked his beard again. The storyboard method in the dream was actually similar to that of Marin's dance. However, the lighting in the dream was very dark, a low-illuminance lighting method. Marin's face was in the shadow in the camera, so even if it was filmed from the front, it would not be exposed.

Because Marin was always in motion, the dance also occupied most of the audience's attention. As long as they didn't pause and carefully distinguish like a video recorder, it would be difficult for the audience to find the double.

Ronald thought of Coppola's failed movie "The Old Love, the New Love", in which many dance scenes were shot under low light. Moreover, he pioneered a method of illuminating the actors' faces with colored lights.

Under the traditional Hollywood lighting method, the actors' skin color is emphasized, especially the face should maintain the original skin color.

But Coppola was ingenious and let the red and blue lights reflect the actors' skin color into red and blue. In this way, not only can the dance scenes be shot under low light without white light, but also the color of the face can be used to reflect the inner heart of the character.

The wet chair dance in the dream is made using this method.

No wonder Hollywood always calls Coppola "the director's director". He always makes some attempts on the edge of the film's expression method, trying to find a way for other directors.

Sometimes he succeeds, the audience accepts his new style, and the box office is as big as "Apocalypse Now"

Sometimes the audience cannot accept it, and it becomes a box office bomb, such as this "The Old Love, the New Love".

But other directors can undoubtedly use the path he has paved and move forward.

"Adrian, have you seen Francis Ford Coppola's 'The Old Man'?"

"What do you mean?"

"Can the lighting of the white background be changed to low illumination, so that Marlene's face is immersed in the red neon light in the foreground and the blue light above. In this way, Marlene's body can become a silhouette in many shots.

The audience can see the dance movements, but the illumination is not enough for them to distinguish that the fast-dancing stuntman is not Bielce?

And in this way..."

"And in this way, we can also add some mysterious colors to this long dance scene. When shooting the audience later, we can unify the illumination of the stage and the audience, without the need for color adjustment in post-production to unify the illumination of two very contrasting scenes."

Adrian Ryan didn't need Ronald to explain it, he figured out the beauty of this idea by himself, killing two birds with one stone.

"Ah, I'm really a fool, the method you said is right.

You know what, Ronald. You are not a director who can only make exploitation films. Their evaluation of you is unfair. I think your "fast pace" is not that you can't shoot that kind of artistic feeling, but it is limited by the budget. It can only be shot like this.

It's a pity. If your film can be carefully crafted, it will be favored by film critics. "

"You are overpraising. Let's re-light and reshoot Ma Lin's scenes tomorrow." Ronald accepted all the praise from his colleagues.

"Okay, anyway, her scenes are easy to shoot, I will ask someone to modify the background." Don Simpson said from the side.