Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Ronald tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep well all night.

Sometimes, judging whether a person is talented in something is to see if he can quickly identify the master. Only by knowing who is good can we talk about learning and improvement.

Many people have been reading books and practicing for many years, but they can't tell who has real skills and who has fake skills, so they can't be said to have talent.

Walter Mersey was such an expert, and his few answers seemed to open a door in front of Ronald's eyes, allowing him to take a peek at the real secrets of top directors in the movie palace. Then he closed the door miserably.

Of course, when you meet an expert, whether he is willing to teach you or not depends on fate. Walter Mersey and Ronald knew each other well. After a few rounds of questions and answers, Walter asked Ronald to be his assistant.

The original plan was to stay in Los Angeles and wait for the start of school in the fall before returning to New York to attend college. But when faced with this rare opportunity to study side by side with a master, Ronald didn't want to let it go.

I thought about it all night, and the next day I made a special trip to ask my former boss, Roger Coleman.

Roger Corman heard that Walter Mersey agreed that he should work as an assistant editor at the Peep Show Company, and he also agreed:

"You may not know that Walter Mersey was at USC, and he and Star Wars director George Lucas were the two most outstanding students at the time. George's film debut, THX1138, was written by Walter.

Later he entered the field of sound editing, Coppola's film "The Wiretaker", for which Walter was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Sound Effects. He also made the recording of 'The Godfather', although it was not signed. "

"Coppola admires him very much. If Peep Show hadn't had financial difficulties with 'Apocalypse Now,' Walter would have had the opportunity to direct last year."

"So you think I should quit college and study editing at a peep show?"

"No, no, no, Ronald, that's not what I meant. I think you should go to college."

Roger Coleman said solemnly, “Anyone who has the opportunity should try college life, it will change a person’s way of thinking and his destiny.

You go to school first. Walter always welcomes you to go anyway. You can also study with him during your vacation. "

Ronald nodded, he was indeed a little too eager.

"I heard from Mr. Merzi that he will give a lecture at New World Company today. Can I attend?"

Roger Coleman stood up and hugged Ronald, "Kid, you are always welcome here."

Walter Mersey's lecture was held in the New World Company Screening Room. Ronald arrived early and chose a seat by the aisle to sit down. This was the place where he watched the "Rock and Roll High School" demos. It was a bit intimate to return to a place full of memories.

Walter Mersey was a cross-disciplinary professional, editing film and sound editing. So editors and mixers from the new world came to listen to his lectures.

Walter first played a video, which was a clip from an early black-and-white Hollywood film, about five minutes long.

"Has anyone noticed anything special about this film?"

"He didn't edit it, it was one shot." An editor replied.

"Yes, in fact Hitchcock also made such a movie. His Rope has only 8 shots in the whole film. Each film is connected by a black screen. Except for a jump cut in the middle, the whole film is Not a single cut.”

"My question is, if the movie can be shot this way, why does it need to be edited?"

Walter Mersey continued to question himself.

"There are two reasons. One is the difficulty of shooting. This kind of shooting requires a long time of rehearsal, and if one place is not handled well, the long shot will have to be reshot. Due to cost reasons, Hollywood chose editing instead of long shot."

Walter Mersey continued with another video, the opening sequence of Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey."

A great ape threw a bone into the air, and when it fell it turned into a long spaceship.

“Another reason is that editing can challenge the limits of human imagination. If we all use Hitchcock’s method, then such an imaginative narrative cannot be completed.

Millions of years of human evolutionary history were completed in this single drop. You can't find a simpler way to express it than Kubrick. "

“That’s what editing is about.”

Walter Mersey was an encyclopedic guru, talking about film editing, recording, sound editing, and more.

Sometimes Beethoven's symphonies are quoted, sometimes Shakespeare's sonnets are quoted, and sometimes the ancient Eastern Book of Changes is quoted to explain various editing and sound editing methods.

Ronald listened with fascination.

For example, when he talks about movies, they are more like Beethoven in classical music. One of the hallmarks of Beethoven's music is the introduction of dynamic range. The music can be very loud at one time and very soft at the other time.

Just like the close-up and long shot of a movie lens, you can switch at any time. In the older Bach, there is absolutely no such difference and contrast of hundreds of times loudness.

For another example, he talked about the use of soundtracks in movies and not telling the audience the climax of the plot in advance.

Many editors and sound editors, to save trouble, will add a piece of weird music when encountering scary things. When you are happy, have a happy time.

But before the character discovers the danger, you add a dangerous soundtrack, and the audience will not be so scared when they actually see the frightening aspects of the danger. Because they have been reminded by the music: there is danger next.

In the movie "The Godfather", the classic Michael Corleone assassination scene. Walter Mersey just kept quiet, without any background music.

The climax of the opera is not set until after the assassination is completed. Only in this way can the audience's emotional experience be complete.

"Ambient music is an amplifier of emotions, not a generator." Walter Mersey concluded.

"When it comes to ambient music, I think music should be globalized."

Worldizg does not mean to use music from other countries in the world, but it means that the music in the movie should feel like what we hear in the real world, and should not directly use record tracks.

Walter Mersey again used the wedding scene at the beginning of "The Godfather" as an example, since that's a movie that most everyone has seen except poor Ronald.

“When filming the wedding scene, we were playing music on site, so the live sound recording would include noise, speech, the sound of wind blowing through the microphone, and most importantly, we were recording more than ten meters away from the performance. Local recording.

Human ears are very keen. We can easily distinguish a sound source from a distance of more than ten meters, a few meters, or a hundred meters away.

If we synthesized the music from the Godfather's Wedding directly from record tracks, we would lose most of the real-world information.

Therefore, I used the live audio track and the record audio track to synthesize it at the same time. When the camera went outdoors, I played more live audio tracks, so when you watch the wedding scene, you will have the feeling of being there. "

No wonder the music of "Rock and Roll High School" is a bit weird and has no live feeling.

Ronald thought to himself. After I participated in the filming and post-production of "Rock and Roll High School", I was able to improve my level by listening to Walter Mersey's lectures.

"How can we better determine where a certain shot should be cut? Sometimes it's the first half second or the last half second, which feels almost the same." An editor asked.

"This is a very good question, and my answer is, let our intuition tell us which frame should be cut?"

Ronald's ears pricked up when he heard Walter Mersey also exalt his intuition.

"If you stay with a movie for a long time, you will form an intuition. The director's guidance, the actors' performances, and the interaction between the actors, a movie will have its own unique rhythm.

As long as we feel this rhythm, we can intuitively find the pattern. No matter how many times you hit the stop button, the video will stop at the same frame every time. "

What? The editors below coaxed and started talking to each other.

Is this possible? A movie can play 24 frames of film in one second, and each frame of film lasts only 24 seconds. Play the movie at normal speed, and then press the stop button every time to hit the same frame?

"In fact, if I don't hit the same frame twice, I know that I haven't formed an intuition yet. I will go back and watch more films until I incorporate these emotions, feelings, and performances into my brain and internalize them into intuition. part, so that I can play in the same space.”

"Then if you want to stop at the same square every time, are there any other tricks?" Ronald took the opportunity to ask.

"Hi, Ronald. Yes, I have some tricks that help me achieve this. The simplest trick is to edit while standing," Walter said.

Editing while standing? Can you still sit down? Ronald was a little confused. The editor next to him whispered, "Walter and the others are using a West German KEM editing machine at the Peep Show. It is a horizontal type. You have to sit in front of the table to edit."

"Humans evolved from apes, and we are used to standing and walking. When standing, human intuition responds fastest and most accurately. This is the intuition evolved by humans over millions of years of hunting, so I am used to editing while standing. "

"The second trick is to imagine yourself watching the film on the big screen. The window of the editing machine is usually very small, and the small picture will create an illusion.

In fact, when played on the big screen, the picture will have more details, which will cause editing points that are established on the small screen but not on the big screen. "

Walter Mersey added: "I usually make two little figures out of paper, one male and one female, and place them in front of the editing screen, so that I can imagine what the scene will look like on the big screen."

It turns out that, what Walter Mersey meant, intuition is the internalization of various daily feelings. As long as we are immersed in a kind of world for a long time, we will also make decisions intuitively, and this kind of decision is often the most in line with the needs of this world.

Could it be that my intuition came from watching movies in my previous life? How many movies do you have to watch before you naturally develop all kinds of intuitive premonitions? Could it be that I was a movie fan in my previous life?

After the lecture, Walter Mersey stopped Ronald and handed him a bottle of something.

Ronald took it and saw that it was a bottle of honey.

"This is honey made by my wife Angie and I from the bees we raised ourselves. This is the best honey, given to you." Walter Mersey said with a smile.

"I'm about to leave for Cannes, France. Coppola will continue to revise the film there. I heard Roger said that you are going to study at New York University in the fall. I will wait for you in San Francisco next summer."

Ronald hugged Murchie excitedly. Murchie was born in 1943, just the same age as Ronald's uncle.

"Remember to watch more good movies, whether new or old, they are the source of inspiration." Walter Murchie reminded.

The two waved goodbye.

Ronald felt that everything in Los Angeles was over, and there was no good opportunity for improvement if he stayed any longer. He should return to Staten Island, New York, to prepare for college life and his photography business in New York.