Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"When will your wedding be held?" Ronald saw Cameron and Gale coming to the banquet together, hugging each other sweetly, and asked them the date of the wedding.

"What did you say?" Cameron smiled at Gale in his arms. He still had a beard and wore a shirt and jeans. Dressed like a truck driver.

"I want my parents' blessing." Gale cut her hair short and wore two diamond earrings, making her look more capable and sexy.

"Oh, let's chat while we eat." Ronald felt that he had said the wrong thing. Gail's parents were not very satisfied with her marrying Cameron. Maybe her father was unwilling to pay for the wedding, which might not be good for a couple. I want to have my own wedding.

"It doesn't matter. As long as I can be with Jim, I produce and he directs, I will be satisfied with life." Gale saw Ronald's embarrassment and took the initiative to speak out.

"What projects are you working on now?" Ronald hadn't had dinner with his two friends for a long time. "Terminator" made Cameron famous. Everyone knew that this man could produce spectacular special effects at a cheap cost. Movie director.

"We just submitted the script for 'Alien 2,' and the Writers Guild is about to go on strike."

"Ah?" Ronald was busy with his directing work and didn't know about the strike yet. "How long will it last?"

"I heard it will take at least two weeks."

"Then will you get this project?" Ronald asked while cutting the steak.

"Barry Diller, the new chairman of Fox, estimated that the movie would cost $35 million, and he wanted us to leave. But we thought it would be just over $15 million, and we still wanted to find some money. He discussed it once."

"There are examples of Terminators, he should believe you." Ronald forked a piece of beef, and it tasted very good when it was fully cooked. There is now a trend in Los Angeles to cook steak as sashimi in Japanese meals and grill it only medium rare. Ronald was not too fond of this kind of cutting corners.

"I always feel very tired negotiating with the top executives of these big studios. Do you have any good ideas?" Gale drank some red wine and asked Ronald for advice.

"If there's anything I've learned recently, it's to stick to your guns when dealing with studios. Executive-level people are very busy, and they're not film-making experts, and they're often criticized by the last person and Interference with the ideas of the people they are communicating with. As long as you stick to your point of view and make sense, they will gradually be influenced by you.

You must know that when these people look at others, they largely look at whether you are confident. If you are confident, then they will think that you fully understand what you are talking about, and they will tend to agree with you. "

Ronald expressed his opinion. Such high-level executives often have multiple projects going on at the same time. When dealing with them, maintaining confidence is the best strategy.

Cameron listened thoughtfully.

After eating, they went to Ronald's office and started showing the sample footage of fighter jets on the aircraft carrier that Ronald had taken.

"That's interesting. Are you going to take a shot in the cockpit?" Cameron came closer and looked at the details carefully.

"Not only the cockpit, but also the movie camera mounted on the camera gun in the pod on the outside of the fighter jet, so that it can capture a main perspective shot similar to that of the pilot." Ronald explained his idea to Cameron.

"Pay attention to this canopy." Cameron pointed to the new bubble-type canopy of the F-14A taking off from the aircraft carrier and said, "Pay attention to this reflection."

A ray of sunset reflected on the glass of the cockpit cover.

"Oops," Ronald stroked the beard on his chin, "I have a main character who doesn't dare to take off, what should I do?"

Fang Kilmer's fear of heights is very serious. From both the subjective perspective and the perspective inside the cabin, it is inevitable to take pictures of the blue sky, white clouds and objects in the cabin reflected on the canopy glass of the Tomcat fighter jet taking off.

If the scene is set up on the ground, how can we achieve this kind of reflection effect?

Moreover, the high-altitude shots need to be unified in image with the setting shots, so that when the audience sees the two edited together, they will not have the reaction of "this seems to be fake", which will ruin the movie-watching experience.

"You should make two systems on the ground." Cameron drew a schematic diagram on a white paper for Ronald.

"You need a front-end projection system to project the images shot in the air onto the rear screen of the cockpit set up on the ground, making people mistakenly think that they were shot at high altitude. The traditional back-end projection method is more fake. This Kubrick The invented front-end projection is more realistic and credible in perspective.”

Cameron pointed to the canopy he drew on the paper again, "The key to recreating that reflection is to add a second projection here. Reflect the material to the glass of the canopy simultaneously, so that as long as your cockpit and Like a fighter jet, it is free in three axes, and the canopy will have the same effect as a real shot, capturing the reflected scenery inside and outside the cockpit.”

Ronald nodded, pointed to the cockpit and asked, "How should I build a cockpit with three degrees of freedom on the ground?"

"The simplest way is to build a large ring, so that your cockpit can slide and rotate on this large ring, and then the cockpit itself can also rotate around its own axis. As for the third degree of freedom, you can The camera is placed in a rotation system and you add it by rotating the camera so that your cost is not too high.”

"If you find someone to build this system, how much will it cost?" Ronald asked.

"I can keep the cost below $200,000."

"You make a budget, don't exceed $350,000..." Ronald said.

"Ronnie, Gail and I are still busy with Alien 2."

"It doesn't matter, you build it, and then recommend me a few operators who can be used together." Ronald waved his hand. He had understood Cameron's thinking. It was okay to ask the producer to find a team to build it, but he couldn't use his friend's ideas for free.

"The extra profit is my wedding gift to you and Gail in advance."

The next day, Ronald came to the two producers with the drawings of the stunt cockpit. Hearing that it was the idea of ​​the director of "Terminator", the two shouted that it was cheap and immediately signed a check to purchase Cameron's services.

"Can you let your friend help us shoot the whole process?" Don Simpson liked Cameron's creative solution very much.

"He was spotted by Barry Diller and may shoot the sequel to Alien. He wrote the script." Ronald said he had no choice.

The two producers said it was a pity.

Soon, a ground cockpit shooting mechanism began to be built, and it is expected to be successfully debugged in a few weeks for Ronald to shoot.

"Ronnie, have you ever thought about the special effects of the aircraft's air combat?" Cameron came to help supervise the initial model building. Before building the real system, a small ring model should be built to verify the usability of the design.

"Tsk, this is also what I am worried about." Ronald told his friend everything he knew, "The Navy promised us the actual shooting indicators of two air-to-air missiles, and the deployment of two fighters, f-14a and f-5s.

But what I am most worried about is whether the special effects of the enemy aircraft being hit by missiles and exploding in the air and crashing can be consistent with the actual shots.

And the shot of the Lone Ranger and the Goose stalling and entering the horizontal spiral, I am not very sure that the pilot can perform this stunt, and our camera plane can take usable shots."

The horizontal spiral is a very easy crash scenario in which the aircraft spins in the air after losing the horizontal speed. The Navy has not yet given a clear response on whether the pilot can use the f-14a to do this dangerous action.

Even if we can use Tomcat fighters to shoot live, it is difficult to find a slow enough plane to shoot the wonderful horizontal spiral shots at close range.

"You'd better make a backup, Ronnie. You can't rely entirely on live shots in the air."

"I know, how long does it take to complete such model stunts?" Ronald asked Cameron, the stunt model expert.

"If I were to do it, it would probably take at least three to six months to design, make, debug, modify, and remake it to meet your requirements." Cameron said a number.

"Tsk," Ronald thought this time was too long.

"But there are suitable companies on the market, you can go and ask."

"Who?"

"Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic, don't you think the dogfight of fighters is very similar to the X-wing fighter vs. TIE fighter in Star Wars?"

"Hiss, yes."

At night, Ronald dialed the home phone number of Skywalker Ranch given to him by George Lucas.

"Mr. Lucas, I'm Ronald. I have some special effects shots of fighter dogfights, missile attacks, and crashes to shoot. I wonder if your Industrial Light \u0026 Magic can accept external commissions recently?"

As the benchmark for special effects in the industry, Industrial Light \u0026 Magic has always been the focus of the seven major Hollywood studios. However, Lucas's production capacity is limited, so he can only give priority to his own special effects research and the film special effects business of several friends such as Spielberg.

"No problem, I'm taking any business now, you can find time to come over", Lucas agreed without any fear of not having enough business time.

Ronald was very surprised, how could it be different from the legend in the industry.

"I'm short of money now, so I urgently need the business income of Industrial Light \u0026 Magic", Lucas explained.

Ronald was very moved. He thought Lucas was joking. How could he be short of money? Maybe he was afraid that he would be embarrassed by his favors, so he said so deliberately.

"By the way, I just have something to ask you. Ronald, you have directed many young actresses, right?"

"Yes, that's right." Ronald said respectfully.

"Who do you think has the best acting skills? Or you can also see those who have performed live."

"A lot," Ronald smiled. He had indeed directed many actresses with good acting skills. There was Phoebe Cates, who played the leading role in several Spielberg movies, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, who was suitable for tragedy. In addition, Diane Lane, who had the closest relationship with him, was also deeply loved by Coppola and used many times as a leading actress.

"No, no, I don't want the kind of good acting skills. I want a leading actress with outstanding imagination who can fall in love with the air."

"Falling in love with the air?"

"Yes, I am negotiating a project with Universal, which will be co-starred by an actress and a stunt animal. So she must have outstanding acting skills and be able to perform love with a blue screen or a stunt model. She doesn't have to be very sexy, but she must be a little playful, and it is best to have a rock style, because the heroine is the lead singer of a rock band."

"You can try Diane, Diane Lane. I have filmed a rock singer for her, and Francis also likes her very much." Ronald immediately recommended Diane.

"Good, I remember her, is there any more?"

"Phoebe Cates is good too."

"Steven recommended her. But I'm going to audition thoroughly and pick the best one." Lucas is very ambitious.

"Hmm..." Ronald racked his brains and thought about it. In addition to the actresses he had directed, there were two others he knew well.

"There is an actress who played "Footloose". She is a cellist and also sings. Her name is Lorisger."

"I know her," Lucas noted her name.

"There is another one. I shot her Burger King commercial. She is probably the most talented actress I have ever seen."

"Are you the sweet girl from the karate movie?"

"It's not Elizabeth Shue. She went to Harvard to study. I'm talking about Leigh Thompson. She recently acted in 'Back to the Future' and should be in post-production."

"Okay, thank you, Ronald. Your recommendation is very valuable. I will give them the phone number at Industrial Light and Magic. You can just go to them directly."