Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Ronald didn't bring good news to Niceta, but Niceta brought him bad news.

"Ronald, when are you going to Hawaii? Next Monday? Well, Walter Murch called me and said J has a serious problem and wants you or Coppola to mediate it this weekend."

"Can you let Francis go? I'm busy shooting now."

"Coppola is also busy with his new film "Peggy Sue Goes to Get Married", and J is more familiar with you, so I'll try to get him to go and see it."

"Okay, okay." Ronald thought of his daydream producer, who participated in this big production of more than 20 million, but together with Lucas and Coppola, the three of them made a lot of money from Disney. It is also a professional ethics to solve problems like this.

"What's wrong?" Ronald came to the shooting site, and Walter Murch was drinking honey water brewed by his wife next to the camera, with a dull look in his eyes.

"J refused to come out."

"Was he unwilling to come out of the dressing room? What did you do to offend him?" Ronald looked inside. J's current celebrity status was unmatched by any movie star.

Ever since he organized the charity show for disaster relief in Africa, his reputation has grown, and he feels like he is going to become a saint.

"It's my problem. It was my first time shooting a 3D movie, and I made a mistake in editing."

"Can you make a mistake in editing?"

It turned out that Walter Murch was very cautious. When he shot 3D for the first time, he developed the film on the same day, and then used the negative to print a version after editing. Before the shooting was completed, he first made a half-minute sample to try this first-time stereoscopic movie camera.

Because there was a problem with this sample, Murch asked to reshoot the scene of J's moonwalk, which made the most popular star in America unhappy. He hid in the dressing room to make a phone call and ignored Murch.

This situation has been going on for a day. Ronald watched for a while and thought to himself that it might not be so bad. After all, J did not refuse to shoot, and he still came to the scene.

"What's wrong with the editing?"

Murch took Ronald to watch the film. He played the 2D version first, and everything was normal. J's dance steps became more mature and more flexible.

Then the 3D version...

"Huh?"

Ronald, wearing red and blue stereo glasses, saw a stereo image of J on the screen. He was dancing his best moonwalk. He was wearing a white suit and a top hat, but the funny thing was that his moonwalk was not coherent at all. It was intermittent in the middle, as if he stepped on the electric switch and kept shaking.

"What's going on?" Ronald took off his glasses, and two double images appeared on the screen, but the shaking disappeared. He put on his glasses, and J on the screen began to sift chaff again.

"You know, our brain has a mechanism called visual persistence, which can automatically synthesize 24 frames per second into a continuous action.

For 2D images, our brain can supplement and depict the action by itself. For 3D images, it seems that our brain needs to spend more resources to carefully align the boundaries of the two images to see the three-dimensional illusion.

The brain needs more energy to make up for those moving images. Therefore, our brain seems to have crashed at this moment and cannot keep up with the 24 frames per second action. There are too many details that need to be supplemented and depicted.

So I found a Disney engineer and increased the frame rate of the shooting to 60 frames per second. In this way, our brain is provided with more than twice the picture details per second, and does not need to spend too much energy to make up. So it is normal.

Look at this segment, I asked J's dancers to shoot it, everything is normal."

"I understand", Ronald saw that there was no technical problem here, so he stood up to solve the problem of J's star playing big over there.

"Dangdang..." Ronald knocked on the door of J's dressing room, "Get ready in five minutes."

No one answered.

"I'm Ronald. Is there anything J can do for us?"

"The door opened," J's manager, Frank Dario, walked out.

"Ronald, let's go outside to talk."

At a glance, J was on the phone, and Ronald waved to him.

"It doesn't seem like a big problem, just a problem with his treatment." Ronald and Dario walked to the outer room together.

"Ronald, J is a sensitive artist, and we have to be patient with him. Any suggestion that there is something wrong with his performance will make him feel bad."

"That's not the case. All the mistakes were caused by Disney's cameras. After our experienced Murch adjusted, the mistakes have been completely corrected. J's great dance will be presented to the audience in Disneyland in a three-dimensional way without any errors."

"That's good, you come with me, J is on the phone with his good friend Paul McCartney of the Beatles, and we can start when he finishes."

Ronald was taken into J's lounge. He nodded to J and absent-mindedly thought about his filming beside him. Dario went over and repeated Ronald's words into J's other ear.

J nodded, and at the same time he was still talking to McCartney of the Beatles, "Paul, you all seem to be veterans who understand the record industry very well. Although I have sold a few records, I am still a rookie. Can you give me some advice?"

While on the phone, J glanced at Ronald. Very good, he also surrendered, he was the boss on the set.

Seeing Ronald sitting in the corner thinking about something, and constantly taking out a pen to write something on the notebook, he felt very happy. J smiled slightly and raised his hand to Dario, motioning him to get a piece of paper and a pen.

"Yeah, listen, the most important thing is not to lose the copyright of your own songs. We made a mistake during the Beatles period, and the copyright was taken away by the record company. Now we are trying to buy it back." Paul McCartney on the phone was still very proud that the most popular person in the record industry came to ask him for advice.

"Really? How much money do you have to spend to buy back the copyright of your own songs?" J said, while writing a line of words on the paper Dario brought.

"Thirty million dollars."

"Thirty million dollars? Oh, that's a lot of money."

"Yeah, don't make the same mistake we made. Michael."

"Okay, thank you."

J hung up the phone, quietly walked behind Ronald, and gently pasted the paper on Ronald's back.

Ronald felt someone gently touch him from behind, and turned around to see that it was J and his manager Dario.

"Michael, what's up, are you done?"

"Hehehe..." J, wearing a performance costume, covered his mouth with his hands and laughed secretly.

Ronald saw that he was laughing innocently, and smiled back, "Michael, I apologize for Disney's machine error, you are the best performer. Walt is ready, and can use the most realistic technical means to leave your heroic appearance to more audiences."

J nodded, still chuckling.

"When you are ready, just call me and I'll ask them to prepare."

"Hehehe", J laughed even more happily, and he touched Ronald's back again.

Ronald reached back and found the paper. He took it down and saw a line of words written on it, "Kick my ass."

"Hahaha..." Dario laughed at the right time, making Ronald laugh too.

J is really childish and likes to play these tricks that ten-year-olds play. Ronald thought to himself.

"You have to sign for me, I'll keep it, otherwise I'll forget who kicked my ass in the future." Ronald picked up the paper and teased J.

"Good idea," J picked up a pen, added "To Ronald" in the front, and signed his own name, Michael Jackson, at the back.

Ronald folded the paper and put it in his pocket.

"Wait a minute, I'll make a call."

J was having fun, picked up the phone and called his agent, "Hello, Paul's bid is 30 million US dollars, you double it and buy the copyright of the Beatles in a package. For 60 million US dollars, Paul McCartney will have to pay me copyright fees when he sings his own songs in the future, hehe."

"Ronald, should I have an entrance speech?" J asked Ronald with a smile again.

Ronald was very surprised when he heard J talking.

How come J is like a child at one moment and a cold and mature businessman at another? The two identities switch very smoothly, just like Peter Pan in the fairy tale, childish on the one hand, but with superpowers that ordinary people can hardly reach.

"Please come, Captain Io, your spaceship will set sail soon." Ronald said the lines he liked to hear without changing his expression.

"Yeah!"

"Where should I look?" J came to the shooting site. He knew all his dances by heart. All he wanted to ask was which direction the camera should look.

"Cut!"

It was passed in one go.

Walter Murch was shocked. When he was a director, J's cooperation was not so high. Did Ronald have some magic? Or did he know how to make an artist like J happy?

"What should I do with him when you go to Hawaii in the future?" Murch also understood that J was deliberately showing his face to let everyone know who has the final say on the set. He wanted to learn from Ronald and find a way to deal with the big star.

"You should knock on the door and ask him to come out at the beginning, once every half an hour, fifteen minutes, and five minutes, and be respectful to him.

In addition, if he still takes too long, you can say this, 'Captain Io, please come, your ship will set sail soon.'" Ronald whispered in Murch's ear.

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, if you want to finish the filming smoothly, you have to do this."

"Okay."

On Monday, Ronald and the crew arrived at Los Angeles International Airport. The crew was going to Hawaii to shoot the Okinawa plot. There is a windy beach on Oahu Island in Hawaii, which is similar to the scenery in Okinawa.

"Ronald, let me introduce you, this is the famous screenwriter Oliver Stone."

Agents Niceta and Richard also came to the airport to see him off. They were asked to stop Ronald at the airport and introduce him to another famous screenwriter who was going to the Philippines to scout locations.

"Hello, Mr. Stone." Ronald shook hands with him indifferently and prepared to run away. This old guy wrote "Year of the Dragon" in such a weird way, maybe he is also discriminating against Chinese people in his heart.

"Ronald, can you chat for a while?"

Oliver Stone saw Ronald was about to leave, and hurriedly stopped him and asked him to come to the side to talk.

"I'll get straight to the point. There is a misunderstanding between us. I asked Mr. Ovitz of CAA to explain it to you."

"We have never interacted with each other, but I like your script of Conan the Barbarian very much. I am just curious, why did you write the Chinese in Year of the Dragon like that?" Ronald asked the crew members to leave first, and sat down by himself. Have a chat with Stone.

"That's what I'm saying, it wasn't mine. I signed it, but Cimino, you know him, all the scripts, he's going to disparage and take the credit for himself. If not If you come out to refute him this time, I'm afraid I will be implicated as well.

In fact, I just hated the Vietnam War. They drafted me, a Yale college student, and sent me to the Vietnam battlefield to be an infantryman. I almost died on the battlefield. My classmate, George Jr., the eldest son of the current deputy commander, was able to fly airplanes in the National Guard. "

"So you are a real Vietnam War veteran, not like that fake Cimino." Ronald respected veterans quite a bit, and he also knew Cimino's virtue, so he couldn't help but believe Stone's words.

"He really is a 'lucky son,'" Ronald quoted from a famous song by the band R.

“Some people are born to wave the flag

The colors of the flag are red, white and blue. "Ronald thought of his father and Aunt Karen's husband Steve, who were both infantrymen who went into battle.

"Hahaha, yes." Stone also picked up the lyrics.

“Some people are born with silver spoons in their hands

Lord, they will help themselves. "

The two looked at each other and smiled. They were both ordinary people, at least middle-class.

"Ronald, I am currently preparing to make a movie 'Platoon'. I wrote the script myself. My producer Hemdale is only willing to provide a production cost of 3 million, and Orion will make up the other 600. Wan. We are now looking for ways to reduce costs.”

"Hey, two companies again, this number again, this is their old routine." Ronald understood as soon as he heard it, wasn't this the routine that Cameron used when filming "Terminator".

"Today's new directors have already started making movies with a budget of 6 million." Ronald thought to himself, fortunately, he became a director relatively early, and he still had the opportunity to get ahead with a production budget of 2 to 3 million.

"Actually, this is my second movie. My first directorial work, 'El Salvador,' was just filmed in Mexico. Do you have any experience in saving money that you can share?"

Oliver Stone is not afraid to learn from Ronald, who is much younger than him.

"I have nothing to teach you, Oliver. It's just that shooting a movie like this in the jungles of the Philippines is extremely difficult. You have to be careful not to do what Coppola did with Apocalypse Now.

Also, you'd better pick some new actors, who are willing to endure hardships in order to get ahead, and who don't complain even if they film for more than ten hours a day. "Ronald thought of the two uncles in his crew, who were still newcomers who were easy to train.

"What about Emilio Estevez? I heard he doesn't have much acting right now?"

"Um..." Ronald thought of the grudge between himself and Emilio. It seemed that no one had revealed it. Maybe Stone didn't know about it.

"He's more difficult to deal with, you know what I mean, right?"

"Understood, I have to find someone who obeys me." Stone crossed out Emilio's name. "What about his brother? Charlie Sheen? Martin's sons can all act."

"He seems pretty good." Ronald felt that he couldn't beat everyone to death with a stick.

"I also need a supporting character who looks like a villain but has a kind heart. This can give the audience a reverse feeling."

"Let me see," Ronald simply took the casting list prepared by Stone, "I have seen Willem Dafoe act before, and he is very good at playing the villain."

"And this is Forest Whitaker," Ronald pointed to another person's name. "This black actor played my fast-paced debut. He is very obedient and looks like a big football player."

"That's all. I haven't worked with anyone else, and I don't know their performance on set." Ronald finished his coffee and was about to leave. His flight had already been called on the radio.

"Thank you very much. We will talk more if we have the opportunity. Now there are not many people in Hollywood who are willing to make controversial subjects like the Vietnam War."

"Okay", Ronald carried his bag, caught up with Richard who was still waiting for him, and walked towards the boarding gate.

"Passengers please note that the flight to Hawaii is boarding. Business class passenger Ronald Lee, please board the plane as soon as possible."

"Antonia, what's wrong with you? Our plane to London is about to board."

"Oh, ah...I'll come." Antonia Franceschi, with the New York City Ballet, was about to fly to London for a season performance. She suddenly heard Ronald's name being called on the radio. I got up, and there were ripples in my heart.

"I wonder what movie he is going to Hawaii to film now?"