Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Ronald, are you there?"

Ronald was about to go to the set the next morning to give the main actors some time to rehearse before filming. Suddenly, he heard someone calling his name outside the apartment.

"I'm here," Ronald opened the door and saw, "Hi, you're Tom. Hello, Rebecca, Paula."

Standing at the door was Tom Cruise, holding hands with a blonde wearing sunglasses. It was Rebecca De Mornay, whom he fell in love with in "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." They came together to find Ronald. Following behind was agent Paula Wagner.

"I brought you some cakes," Tom raised his hand and took out a bag, "You were not in Los Angeles during the New Year, so I wanted to send them to you."

"Oh, thank you." Ronald took the cake and ate one, "It tastes great, I'll take it to the set to eat."

"Your new film? What's it about?"

"Breakdancing, have you seen other people do it?" Ronald put the cake in the car, "Would you like to make a cameo appearance?"

"Yeah? Can I?" Tom Cruise's baby fat gradually faded, and his facial lines became tougher. He still wanted to work with Ronald, his benefactor.

"Tom..." Paula Wagner hurriedly stopped him, "Sorry Ronald, Tom's current acting career is a feature film directed by a famous director, so it's not convenient for him to appear in a low-cost production."

"It's okay, I just made a suggestion," Ronald looked at Paula, who was like a hen protecting her chicks, and felt a little interesting.

Tom Cruise's "Crazy Boy" stayed in theaters for a total of 15 weeks, and grossed 63 million at the box office. He and his girlfriend Rebecca De Mornay quickly became famous. They were not satisfied with shooting commercial films. They wanted to find a famous director to cooperate with and enter the Oscars.

His other new film, "Steps to Heaven" co-starring with Lea Thompson, has just been released. The response is average, although because of the nude scenes of him and Thompson in it, many female fans have repeatedly returned to the cinema to watch the two-second scenes.

The two chatted for a while, and Tom and his girlfriend went to send cakes to other important people to maintain relationships. This is a method that Paula Wagner came up with for him to improve his network. Every Christmas and New Year, she sends cakes to friends to remind them to remember her.

"Hey... Seriously, are you really dating Brooke Shields?" Before parting, Tom Cruise couldn't help his curiosity and asked Ronald.

"No comment," Ronald laughed, drove his Saab 900, and rushed to the rehearsal site.

"Are we really going to find a star to make a cameo appearance? This will also be good for the marketing of this kind of exploitation film." Ronald thought while stroking his beard.

"What are your real names?" A few hours later, during a break in rehearsal, Lucinda Dickey asked the black guy, Buffalo Shrimp, "Who is called Shrimp?"

"It's the kind of name that only a few people can call." Buffalo Shrimp made a disgusted expression. He was very dissatisfied with Lucinda's dancing ability. She always couldn't practice the basic style of breakdancing, and her dance had obvious jazz and gymnastics feelings.

"Uh..." Unexpectedly, Lucinda was a little embarrassed after being choked. She felt that she and the two male protagonists were basically in conflict. Buffalo Shrimp might be simply dissatisfied with her dancing skills, while Sabado was more provocative.

"His name is Michael Chambers, and Buffalo Shrimp is his street dance name. They all have nicknames in the breakdancing circle. You can also give yourself one, such as Smiling Lucinda." Ronald helped her out.

Lucinda's new haircut was very short, and her bangs and the hair on top were high with mousse styling gel, looking like an independent woman. However, her character is weak, and Ronald has no choice but to let her face two breakdance masters alone to make her stronger.

"Yeah, then I'll be called Smiling Lucinda" Lucinda Dickey was born in the lower class. She learned to dance with the money she saved from babysitting for rich people, which inspired her strong nature. Gradually, she was not afraid of being bullied by Shrimp and Shambhalo.

Shambhalo and Buffalo continued their dance, and Smiling Lucinda continued to learn clumsily. Ronald didn't have much time, and he couldn't give the three too much rehearsal time. Seeing that they were almost done, he asked them to come later. Ronald went to Venice Beach to check the arrangement of the first shot of the whole film.

The avenue with palm trees on both sides leads directly to the edge of Venice Beach. Today's weather is very warm, and there are people surfing in bikinis in the distance.

Ronald got off the Saab 900 and saw Minahan on the terrazzo floor by the beach, where the dance scene was shot, and hurried over.

"You are a piece of crap, a piece of crap, you can't even handle the actors' union." Minahan, wearing a T-shirt and big sunglasses, was scolding an assistant.

"What's going on? Where are the extras? I'm going to shoot the first shot this afternoon." Ronald stepped forward to question.

It turned out that the crew of "Breakdance" had to register their scripts and shooting plans with major unions in order to be released in North America.

After the actors' union learned about it, they sent a special commissioner to supervise this small production. Knowing that all the extras had not signed the union's standard contract format, they immediately banned the actors of the film union from performing on the grounds that less than 65% of the actors were registered with the union.

Those extras who were union members or wanted to take this opportunity to join the union all listened to the union commissioner and left the crew.

In other low-budget crews, they can usually bribe the commissioner and then shoot in two days. But this movie, which is racing against time, can't wait.

Minahan was also very anxious. He wanted to save some money. His assistant did not communicate and coordinate with the union at the beginning. Now even if he went to apologize, he would be left alone for a while to let them deepen their memory.

"It would be better if we didn't shoot in Los Angeles. We should shoot in Israel." Minahan was so angry that he stamped his feet.

"It's useless to say these now," Ronald took off his sunglasses and looked around. "The union people left. Will they not come back today?"

"What do you want to do? All the group acting agencies are their members. We can't find an agency willing to temporarily recruit people for us." Minahan reminded Ronald that the control of the union is very deep in Los Angeles.

"Who said I was looking for them?"

"Hey, guys," Ronald put his hands around his mouth and shouted to the men and women surfing on the beach, "Do any of you want to make a movie?"

"Movie?" Men and women carried their surfboards and walked towards the crew. Who in Los Angeles doesn't want to make a movie?

"One, two, three, four..." Ronald counted, a total of seventeen, all wearing bikinis or shorts. The surfers all have good figures, and two of them have very impressive buttocks and breasts.

"Not enough, who else can you use?" Ronald said to Minahan. The crew is relatively streamlined, and there are not many staff members who can fill in and pretend to be the audience.

"Only two extras didn't leave, and they came back again. I heard that they are hairy people. They don't understand the secrets of the union. They just want to appear in Hollywood movies."

"Hairy people, that's fine," Ronald asked them to get ready.

Gu Jian

It's still not enough. Ronald thought it would be better if he was in New York. He could call Eddie and get people from the fraternities of various universities. He didn't have any connections in Los Angeles.

"First, try to find someone. If not, get your cannon staff here..." Ronald took out the director's viewfinder and looked at the beach and the palm trees.

The secret to fast shooting is not to do too many camera moves. The more the camera moves, the longer the lens, the more complicated the actor's scheduling, and the higher the possibility of making mistakes and starting over.

The principle Ronald set for himself is to keep the camera as still as possible, stick it there, and then let the actors start jumping!

"Hey", Ronald found that there seemed to be a lot of people under the building next to the palm tree.

"Who are they?" Ronald asked Minahan.

"Homeless people, they are homeless people who usually wander around here. I asked them to leave for a while for the filming and gave them a few dollars each."

Ronald looked again with the viewfinder, "Let them come back."

Standing on the terrazzo floor, looking at a dozen homeless people, Ronald knew what was going on. When filming "Night of the Comet", he had come into contact with homeless people. Some of them fell into misfortune, and some of them could not pay alimony and mortgage due to divorce.

He kept those who did not look like drug abusers, and then turned to the costume designer, "Costume, costume, find 15 sets of hoodies!"

"Let these homeless people take a shower, put on hoodies, and pretend to be the audience behind the crowd. Don't pay them, two meals and two cans of Coke each, and then wear the clothes and go, and buy some food stamps." Ronald asked his assistant to handle it.

"Don't save money like this in the future, Minahan, otherwise it will delay things?" Ronald turned his head and said.

Soon Lucinda Dickey, Sabado, and Shrimp's RV arrived. Ronald asked them to change into costumes, put on makeup, and prepare to start the first beach dance scene.

This was the first time that the audience was shown breakdancing, a very rhythmic and novel dance, a few minutes after the movie opened.

Ronald was ready to show Sabado, Shrimp, and their dance opponents Falcon and Solomon.

The Buffalo Prawn is good at moonwalk and floor dance, and the robot dancer with the highest level is not Sabado, but his opponent Falcon.

Arrange both of them to do a solo dance, and then Falcon will use a solo dance in front of Kelly played by Lucinda Dickey to provoke Sabado.

The homeless people put on their clothes and still loosely filmed in a circle around the terrazzo floor. The surfers wore bikinis, and Ronald arranged them to stand in the inner circle. The two girls with great figures got the opportunity to show themselves.

"Does everyone understand?" Ronald asked all the extras.

"Got it."

"I'll say it again, no one is allowed to look at the camera. Whoever looks at the camera will be cut off, and the food and clothes will be taken back. Do you hear it?"

"Understood!"

"Okay, we'll start shooting right away."

The actors began to stand still, and the camera crew measured the light and focal length for them. After everything was ready, Ronald started to call for shooting.

"Record?"

"Okay!"

"Camera?"

"Full speed!"

"Break dance first scene first line, snap," the script supervisor slapped the board.

"A!"

Sabado and Boogaloo Prawn began to dance hard in front of the camera.

A bikini beauty came up from behind, the camera showed her buttocks for a second, then she walked away, returning the view to the two dancers.

The camera used a zoom lens, slowly focusing in, Sabado and Prawn's dance moves were very powerful, and the dual-card large speaker recorder on the ground next to them played passionate music.

This is Ronald's arrangement after discussing with the director of photography. Fixed-focus lenses are too rigid, and the slide rail push-pull needs to be rehearsed repeatedly, so it's better to use a zoom lens. If the position is not right, just zoom it and frame the actor in the center.

The audience around is carefully selected. The surfers are all masters of music rhythm and begin to twist their bodies to the rhythm of the music.

Then there are the two hairy actors who are willing to disobey the union's orders and stay to participate in the performance. One of them is wearing a one-piece spandex tights and has a very good figure. Their bodies are relatively large compared to surfers, so Ronald arranged them behind the bikini surfers to be an uneven human background.

"Very good, keep going down," Ronald was secretly satisfied. This way, the camera does not move, allowing the actors to give full play to the shooting method, and the shooting is very fast.

"Huh?" Ronald frowned, and the hairy actor squeezed left and right, squeezing from the middle of the two group actors next to him to the front. Then he jumped up in a big way to the music.

"Fuck! Cut! Cut! Cut!"

Ronald rushed to him, "Who the hell do you think you are? Who asked you to steal the spotlight?"

The Chinese man scratched his head embarrassedly and said in English with a strong Chinese accent, "My name is Jean Claude, and this is my friend Miguel. We have no ill intentions, we just want to show ourselves."

"I will give everyone a chance to show themselves, so don't do anything on your own, OK?"