Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Hi, Kevin. This scene is when Hector learns that the comet turned everyone directly exposed to red light into dust. He wants to go back home to check on his family, even though he knows that there is a high probability that they He was in trouble, but he still had a glimmer of hope..."

"Keep this glimmer of hope that nothing happened to my family." Kevin Costner came to the crew today to report that his male lead roles are relatively few, and they are concentrated in several concentrated locations such as home, department stores, and underground bases. So I didn’t come to the crew to report until the second week of filming.

Seeing Kevin nodding, Ronald continued to tell the story, "So, when he arrived at home and found that everyone was gone, he knew something was not going well. At this time, he had an emotional breakdown. At this moment Zombies came in to kill him, and he quickly switched from a state of collapse where his family was tragically killed to a state of escape..."

"Let's walk around and rehearse, don't arouse your emotions." Ronald warned and asked Kevin to start walking around. .

"Mom, Mom..." Kevin Costner walked into his house wearing a shirt and jeans. The automatic record player on the table was still playing music, and the colored lights in the room were hung on the wall.

Hector immediately understood that his family had also celebrated the return of the comet last night, and the whole family went to see the comet. Knowing that it was inevitable, he sat on the bed and suddenly became sad.

The record player completed a cycle and started playing music again. Hector woke up from sadness. He had more important things to do, so he took a bag and put all the photos of his family in it.

"Who's there?" Kevin Costner acted as if he heard an unusual sound. He stood up, took out an automatic pistol, and loaded it with a click.

"Very good, let's storyboard it this way and give Kevin a few more full-body shots. He has a good figure. Then give him a close-up when he's sitting on the bed and feeling sad, and finally give him a medium shot when he stands up to take photos of his family. I needed that gentle gesture of putting the family photos into the bag.”

Kevin Costner is a good actor with high-level acting skills. Various emotions are stimulated by the objects in the lens, with obvious ups and downs. Perhaps because he was well trained by director Lawrence Kasdan in "The Big Chill", Ronald felt that he was quite good at performing for the camera.

Unlike the fixed seats and field of view like a drama, movie audiences actually watch the actors' performances through the lens. Therefore, body movements, language, expressions, etc., and the details of the performance must be realized in conjunction with the camera.

This scene requires a lot of emotional accumulation, transformation, and release. It is considered an important scene in the middle of the movie, allowing the audience to be moved by Hector's emotions for his family, and then continue the battle against zombies.

This is a break in the zombie fighting scene. The audience needs a little soothing mood. All the performances are brought by Costner's performance alone. So Ronald first asked Kevin Costner to walk through the scene, and then prepared the storyboard based on his performance in front of the camera.

"I need some time," Kevin Costner walked into his trailer to gather his emotions. Within ten minutes, he walked out of the trailer, "I'm ready."

"a!"

When Hector walked into the house, his face still had a hopeful expression, because there was nothing strange at home, as if his family had just left. He also carries a lot of hope.

Then he turned his back to the camera, saw the colored lights on the wall, and suddenly understood that his family had also gone to see the comet. The rhythm of his movements slowed down significantly, and a sad mood suddenly appeared from Costner's back.

Then there is a close-up of the face. Hector already knows the tragedy of his family in his heart, and his whole spirit is like a tire with holes, quickly deflating.

Suddenly, Hector was awakened by the music playing on the jukebox. He raised his head and saw the photos of his family on the table. He quietly wiped his eyes, took out a bag from the drawer, and began to carefully and gently put the photos of his family in it. .

"cut!"

Ronald was very satisfied. The biggest characteristic of a good actor is relaxation. Only by being very relaxed in front of the camera can he have room to express various emotions. If you feel nervous going into it, you won't be able to perform a play that requires transitions and layers.

"Very well, let's move on to the next game."

No one applauded, everyone automatically went into preparation mode for the next performance. Save a few minutes per shot and you’ll get more shots throughout the day.

"Ronald, how was my performance?" Kevin Costner came over. He felt that there was still room for improvement in his performance and hoped for another one.

"You know what? If I had a budget of eight million, I could shoot this scene in one day, and you have room to do whatever you want. But unfortunately I am not Lawrence Kasdan, and Atlantic is not the former United Artists, so I I’m satisfied with what you just said.”

"Oh, I wish you were Kasdan so you wouldn't cut all my scenes."

"No, it's up to you to attract female audiences to my movie. In addition to liking Regina's self-reliance as a woman, they also need a handsome man to fall in love with her to be successful." Ronald knew that Costner was a bit attracted. Jian was scared and quickly gave him a guarantee.

"The next scene will involve a child actor appearing with you. I can only adapt to his condition first, so you have to cheer up."

"Okay, I will cooperate with him."

The next scene is a zombie played by a child, rushing into Hector's house to bite him. Hector recognized that it was a neighbor's child, but he couldn't bear to shoot him. After locking the door, he went out to find the car and ran back to find Regina.

According to the old people in the industry, the most difficult scenes to shoot are children, animals, and water.

Ronald finally tasted the difficulty of shooting children's scenes, that is, children's performances are not stable enough and unpredictable.

This scene is not the kind of scene that requires a lot of acting skills. It's just pretending to be a zombie, rushing in from the door, and trying to bite Hector played by Kevin Costner.

Children's performances are irregular. They can perform well in one shot, and then they can't shoot well in the next shot for inexplicable reasons. Sometimes they perform well, but the adult actors can't keep up, so they can only try to accommodate them.

And Ronald can't say anything to them. If he says too much, the children will either start crying or become more uncooperative, which will drag out the shooting time.

Fortunately, the producer was a man with children. He saw that something was wrong and gave the child a piece of chocolate. After the child ate it, he was able to shoot the scene smoothly.

"He seemed to be hungry. Sometimes, if you give them some sugar and praise them for shooting very well last time, they will muster up the courage to shoot the next shot."

Ronald touched the head of the child actor. The staff of the actors' union next to him were already waiting to interrupt Ronald's shooting on the grounds that the child was in a bad mood and did not want to shoot continuously.

"Next time, if you feel uncomfortable, just tell me, okay?" Ronald said gently to the little actor.

"This zombie makeup makes me uncomfortable." The little actor pointed to the gray-brown zombie makeup on his face.

"Do you know? The next shot is a close-up. Your classmates and friends will see your terrible appearance on the screen."

"Like a dinosaur?"

"Yes, like a dinosaur."

The energy cycle of children is faster than that of adults. The little actor suddenly became energetic and entered the state quickly. The indoor fighting scene with Costner shot looked quite convincing.

"Oh, kid, what a scary creature."

Ronald looked up and saw that it was his old acquaintance Mary Voronov, who also came to the scene.

Voronov played the old-fashioned female principal in "Rock and Roll High School", and Ronald also asked her to play Audrey White, an expert in the underground biological laboratory base, according to the prompts of the dream.

"Why are you here, Mary?"

"There are some things that don't make sense in my script, and I want to talk to you about it."

"OK, well, when I'm done here, let's talk in the trailer."

Watching the scene being cleaned up, Ronald confirmed that tomorrow's scene would be Mary Voronov coming to the mall where the two sisters fought zombies and rescued them.

He walked into the trailer and started to talk about the script with Voronov.

"Ronald, is there something wrong with Audrey's character here?" Voronov came up and criticized.

"Okay, tell me what's wrong?" Ronald couldn't keep a straight face in front of Voronov. When she was a supporting actress, he was still an assistant.

"This is a good script, but it doesn't tell about any profound human nature, but a collection of all the current fashion elements."

"OK, then what?" Ronald nodded. Indeed, "Night of the Comet" combines many popular elements.

"You see, this is the Valley Girls saving the world. Now the songs of the Valley Girls are popular, and the "Fast Pace" you shot also made their accents and styles popular among middle school students across the country. Then there are zombies. Since "Dawn of the Living Dead", there have been many zombie movies.

Then there are comets. Halley's Comet is about to return to the earth. The newspaper just reported that this return has been discovered by amateur astronomers. Everyone is talking about it. Then there are shopping in the mall and gunfights."

"I agree with these, so what?"

"So Audrey should also be a humane character with changing states. She is a conscientious biological researcher who can't stand the base finding survivors as live blood draw subjects and wants to save these children.

Her character also has a psychological transformation. She is not a symbolic villain, so her lines must be in line with the current situation..." Mary Voronov talked freely.

Ronald scratched his head. What Voronov said was actually quite good. Of course, there were also some small thoughts of her trying to get more close-ups. Ronald did not point it out, "But we will shoot your scenes tomorrow, and I don't have time to change your lines."

"I've written it for you." Voronov handed over a few pages of handwritten paper, all of which were her own ideas and more suitable lines for the character's identity.

Ronald smiled and realized that he was well prepared. He glanced through it and felt that there was no problem. "Very good, then you can write it according to what you wrote."

"You are a good director, Ronald." Mary Voronov was very happy that her understanding of the character was recognized by Ronald.

"This may not be my business, but there is a foreshadowing of Regina here. Why didn't it be connected later?" Mary Voronov felt that Ronald was more open to opinions, so she asked him a question.

"What foreshadowing?"

"It's this dk. When Regina was playing video games, the sixth place was a person named dk who broke Regina's record. Why didn't this dk appear later?"

"This is not a foreshadowing. This is a scene I made to show Regina's competitive and independent spirit, and to match her tomboyish hairstyle so that the audience can immediately accept her identity."

Mary Woronov shook her head. She had made many low-budget movies like Roger Corman, and knew that the audience remembered the plot at the beginning of the movie more clearly. "If it wasn't a foreshadowing, there would be no need to give such a shot at the beginning. Have you heard of Chekhov's gun?"

Ronald whistled. Chekhov's gun means that if there is no plot echoing later, don't add this plot.

"I don't have this idea of ​​foreshadowing, but since you also think there should be a foreshadowing here, I'll think about how to write it."

Multiple books