Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Jonathan Demme, Ronald Lee." Niceta introduced the two customers.

Ronald and Jonathan greeted each other with hugs. At first glance, Jonathan Demme does not look like a movie director, but more like a university professor in a gentle manner.

"What movie are you working on?" Ronald asked after greeting him.

"Is it convenient?" Niceta asked Demi.

"It's nothing inconvenient. I know Ronald is a successful director of commercial films. I can just listen to his opinions. Can you give me some advice? Ronald."

Jonathan Demme spoke rhythmically, and Ronald shrugged and said we could chat.

"Jonathan's new film has been edited. The distributor Orion wants to promote it as an erotic thriller that reflects New York style, mainly in the New York area and big cities. Jonathan has a different view. We are coordinating."

"I haven't seen the movie, I'm afraid I can't express any opinion." When Ronald heard that this was the case, he quickly shied away.

"I happen to have a copy here, why don't we take a look at it? I'd love to know what my colleagues think of my film. This is my debut."

"This is not your debut, Jonathan. His 1980 film "Melvin and Howard" was only a small release, but it was nominated for three Oscars and won two."

“Universal almost didn’t release that movie because they didn’t know how to market an underdog story about someone who helps an old stranger and turns out to be Howard Hughes.

Melvin obtained the will from Hughes and donated one-seventeenth of the estate to the young man, but in the end he failed to obtain Hughes' estate. "

"You see, I always have this problem, I make a movie and the distribution company doesn't know how to market it. And now it's the same thing with this movie."

"Even if that movie is not released, you still have little confused tears of love (sgshift)"

"Not to mention that one. You know, the husband and wife team of Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell were the directors of that movie. I couldn't stand Goldie Hawn's dictation, so I left the crew, and finally It’s only because of the protection of the Directors Guild that my name remains in the subtitles.”

"Let's go watch Jonathan's movie first, Ronald. We'll talk about you later." Niceta took the lead and walked out of the room and went to drive.

Ronald felt that this Jonathan was very free and easy. If he made a movie and won an Oscar, it was not released in the end. For the second film, the star took over the role. I'm afraid I can't be as full of fighting spirit as the other person and continue to be a director.

"You also have trouble with being a star. If it's convenient, can we talk about it? I'm also going to make a movie starring a star. I want to hear your experience."

"Yes, in fact, the biggest problem for celebrities, and also their biggest advantage, is that they have a fixed image. This image can attract audiences to the cinema.

If my first movie had a star in it, it wouldn't have bombed at the box office. I learned my lesson on the second film, but Goldie Hawn was not satisfied with his image in the script and asked for changes to the script every day.

In addition, there is one more thing. Stars are actually very unsure of their images in the demos and often ask for reshoots..."

Jonathan Demme and Ronald also left the room and went to the parking lot. They communicated along the way, and Demi shared a lot of lessons about dealing with celebrities.

The two got into Niceta's car and drove to a studio with an editing room and screening room, where a copy of Demme's latest film was sitting.

Niceta made arrangements and the copy started to be shown. When the screen was still dark, a song full of Caribbean style entered the ears.

As soon as the screen lit up, a garbage ship was seen passing through the sea outside Lower Manhattan in New York City. The slowly moving ship, the dilapidated and garbage-filled neighborhoods on the shore, and the bright twin towers of the World Trade Center in the distance complemented each other and became a The opening of the movie.

"God, that's what I used to see when I was a kid," Ronald exclaimed. The scenery on the boat was when Aunt Karen brought her home from the hospital and took the boat to Manhattan every week to see the doctor. It’s a scene you’ll see every time.

Ronald seemed to smell the special smell of rust on the ship and the stench of the garbage ships around him.

The music and influence seemed to be flowing slowly, fully awakening Ronald's memories.

The beginning mobilized vision, hearing, and even images and sounds triggered Ronald's olfactory memories. It makes people blend into the background of the story Jonathan wants to tell. This is a very clever director's technique.

Ronald tilted his head and glanced at Jonathan. Such a level should not be unknown.

When the opening piece of music ended, the stereo sound in the background converged into a point-shaped sound source. On the screen was a black guy, carrying a large speaker tape recorder on his shoulder, slowly twisting forward to the Caribbean-style music.

The camera panned and focused on a restaurant across the street. The music gradually fades away and the story officially begins.

Ronald couldn't help but tilted his head and glanced at Jonathan. A very advanced mixing technique was used here. It was the sound environment technique invented by Orson Welles and carried forward by Walter Murch.

"This interlude is called "Crazy for Love (lobsp; deaor)", and there are several lyrics of "wildthg" in it, which matches the title of the film "sothgwild"."

Jonathan introduced some of his ideas to Ronald.

Originally, it was a perfect soundtrack like a record, but in the last two sentences, it switched to a tape recording with a little noise from the recorder.

"Here you can use the soundtrack of the record interlude and the music recorded on the recorder, mix them according to the proportion, and then slowly adjust the proportion of the two at the end. Don't switch them all at once, it will be more charming." Ronald told Jonathan the skills he and Murch learned.

"They did this in the wedding scene at the beginning of The Godfather." Ronald concluded at last.

"Aha, so that's how it is." Jonathan nodded and wrote Ronald's secret in his notebook. If no one tells you this technique, you may have to think about it for a long time before you can break through it.

A shot of the upper body of a man in a suit appeared in the restaurant. Ronald recognized that this was Jeff Daniels, who played Debra Winger's husband in "Mother and Daughter".

The man finished his lunch in the noisy cafe, and seeing that no one was paying attention to him, he secretly picked up the receipt and ran away.

A woman with short black hair rushed out and stopped the man. Finally, she half-coerced and half-enticed him to get into her car and gave him a ride.

"This is Melanie Griffith." Ronald was impressed by this woman who had fought with Tatum O'Neal and pulled his hair for a role.

After not seeing her for a few years, she seemed to have aged a little, but her figure was still very good. She lifted her skirt in the car and prepared to drive, which was very tough.

"I'm Lulu"

"I'm Charles"

The two male and female protagonists introduced each other.

Ronald saw that Jonathan's filming was very clever and the shots were very smooth. The two actors also acted very naturally. Jeff Daniels is a well-known actor. When the time comes, it's just right to ask Jonathan how he made him act so well.

As the movie continued, Ronald thought the story was probably a story of a man and a woman having an affair, but soon, Jonathan gave him a surprise.

Lulu took Charles to her home and introduced Charles to her mother as her husband. The movie has an unsettling atmosphere. Lulu's mother told Charles the next day that she knew Charles was not Lulu's real "husband" and asked him to be careful of Lulu.

Charles also said that he had a wife and two children in New Jersey and had just met Lulu yesterday.

Ronald felt that the story might be a Hitchcock-style suspense film.

Ronald was surprised again. Lulu took Charles to a high school reunion, and at the reunion, Charles found that one of his subordinates was also at the reunion.

Could it be a movie about the theme of admonition that cheating brings disaster to the family?

Lulu found a man at the high school reunion. She looked scared and pulled Charles away. Charles was deceived and went to dinner with him.

In the end, the man revealed his true face. It turned out that he was Lulu's husband. He was arrested and imprisoned for robbery, and now he escaped from prison to find Lulu.

What is this story?

In just one or two hours, the plot deviated from the course four or five times, but the strange thing is that Ronald was not distracted at all. Although it did not fit any genre, the film was still very attractive, making people not want to go to the bathroom.

Lulu's husband caught the two and beat Charles. Charles was worried about Lulu and came back to save her. It turned out that Charles also lied. He and his wife were divorced, and the so-called warm family was just his own lie.

As a result, Lulu's husband found Charles's residence through telephone fraud, rushed in to take Lulu away, and handcuffed Charles against the bathroom, and went back to the room to beat Lulu who wanted to escape.

Nearly two hours of the movie ended, Ronald couldn't hold it anymore, so he went to the bathroom to relax.

"There is no plot you can guess in this 'Shotgun Lulu'. It is really a very good movie." Ronald said, "But I really don't know how to market this movie. From the beginning to the end, my ideas have changed many times, from thinking it is an erotic film, to a suspense film, a police film, an action film, to a romance film..."

"But it is really good, isn't it?" Jonathan Demme said with a smile.

"Yes, it is really good." Ronald hasn't felt so immersed in the plot of a movie for a long time.

"I think you chose the supporting roles very well. What's the name of the actor who plays Lulu's husband? He looks scary."

"Ray, Ray Liotta."

"Yes, where did you find so many good actors? And Melanie Griffith. She was wearing a black wig, and later with short blond hair, she was completely different. I didn't know she was so good at acting. Her previous movies were very average."

"This is what I learned from my first boss, exploitation film tycoon Roger Corman. When he first asked me to direct "Orange Is the New Black", he taught me a long lesson.

There is a rule that every supporting role determines the quality of the movie. When you cut to a close-up of a supporting role, the movie belongs to him in those three to five seconds. If the role is not convincing, then the audience will lose some faith in the story of the movie at that moment. If it happens a few more times, your box office will definitely be affected."

"Are you the Jonathan that Roger and I were talking about?" Ronald looked Jonathan Demme up and down.

Although he was reluctant to admit it, his directing skills were indeed inferior to Jonathan Demme, who had no successful works from the box office perspective.

"I think the courses he taught me must have been streamlined. He didn't teach me this." Ronald laughed and pulled Demme to have dinner with him.

"How did you choose these good actors?" Ronald's own "Moonlight Temptation" also needed a lot of supporting actors with acting skills, and Demme's experience could be borrowed. In a high-end restaurant in Manhattan, Ronald asked Demme for advice.

"When I cast, I choose people who interest me and you want to know more about them.

There was a pair of extras dancing in the scene where Lulu and Charlie were at the class reunion party. I liked those two actors when I was casting, but when we started filming, I found out that they were a pair of dancing masters.

The most important thing in casting is to choose villains. You must choose according to the standard of the worst villains. Heroes are set off by villains. Without a villain who is extremely bad, there is no good hero."

"Roger taught you all this? I have to ask him why he didn't teach me."

"Hahaha, maybe he found that these techniques are not necessary for his exploitation films."

The two talked about their origins. They were all students taught by Roger Corman, so they were brothers from the same school.

"I have another question. Why are the actors' performances so natural in the plays you shoot? It seems that they have rehearsed 17 or 18 times before, and they are very proficient in the practice, and they are still shooting after practicing." Ronald asked the point that he couldn't understand the most. These actors are not novices. It is impossible for Demme to manipulate them like this, right?

"I never rehearse. The actors' performances are all improvised on the spot. Whatever is performed is what it is."

"Is this impossible?" Ronald didn't believe it. This was not rehearsed?

"Or rather, I let them rehearse under film. The first performance is often the most emotional and the reaction is often the most real. If the rehearsal is the best effect, I don't shoot it, then I won't catch it, right?

So I always let them take their positions, and then notify them to rehearse. During the rehearsal, I turn on the camera in advance, and the best one is usually that one. If what I see is not good enough, I will ask them to shoot another one in a different way."