Exploiting Hollywood 1980

The person Ronald took Emil to meet was Walter Murch.

Murch has not found a new directing opportunity since the box office failure of "Return to Oz." He himself had several children to raise, so he began to take over editing work again.

Ronald is very busy during this time. Several crews have to follow up, and everything big and small in the "Dirty Dancing" project has to be reported to him and wait for his decision.

After filming the movie, he will immediately start preparations for "Moonlight". So this time Ronald invited Walter Murch, who was also his teacher and friend, to serve as the editor and sound editor of "Dirty Dancing".

"You gave too much, Ronald." Murch took Ronald aside and spoke to him privately.

Murch saw the number on the contract given by Ronald. This price was the market price when he was a gold medal editor and sound editor before he became the director of "Return to Oz." He wasted two years preparing and directing this film, and now he has returned to the professional market, which no longer has the market price.

"I'm not giving it to you in one go. You also know that this is a small production." Ronald pushed the contract back. "Now I can only give you one-third of the total price. I have to wait until it is released to repay the money." , so you have to wait a long time to get paid, so it is normal to be higher than the market price.”

"Okay, I will do my best." Walter put away the contract and advance payment check and put them in his bag. "Let's go see those dancers now."

Walter Murch had a deep understanding of both editing and sound editing, so he usually only took on two projects that were given to him at the same time.

Unlike ordinary editors, he joins the crew after the filming is completed. At the beginning, he has to see the script, then the actors and locations, and is involved in the filming of the film from the beginning. He believes that only in this way can the temperament and tone of the entire film be grasped as a whole.

"Today they go to Palm Springs and dance training is grueling, so let them relax."

Ronald picked up Murch and took turns driving with Emil to Palm Springs.

Gale Hurd, a Palm Springs native, helped contact a company because the director of "Top Gun" was coming and offered a special off-season discount.

“You should dance—yay!”

When they arrived at the resort, the dancers had already turned on the tape recorder and started playing the famous song "You Should Dance" by the beegees, and a group of people started dancing disco.

The dancers had dance bugs and left the rehearsal place. They were unwilling to dance Dirty Dancing, which was adapted from the mambo, and instead chose disco, which was no longer so popular.

Ronald was there too, dancing a few times with them.

"Oh yeah!" The extras started to scream strangely. The director's dancing skills are not bad. It seems that this movie will not mess around and regard those introductory dance steps as classics.

Walter Murch took out a stopwatch, compared the scenes in the script, started watching the dancers' dance rehearsal, and started the stopwatch.

"What are you doing?" Assistant Director Emil asked Ronald in a low voice.

"This is one of Murch's working methods. He is used to estimating the duration of each scene in the script before filming begins. Then when he sees the finished film, he compares it with his own estimate. There is a big discrepancy. That is The major differences between the director’s and my own understanding of the scene need to be carefully considered.”

Ronald explained.

"Yeah, that's it." Murch smiled after hearing Ronald's answer, "Emil, come and time it with me."

Ronald was happy to be alone and relaxed. He walked to the side and picked up a glass of juice drink and drank it in one gulp.

"What happened to Richard yesterday?"

When Ronald saw the two main characters, Patrick Swayze and Cynthia Rhodes, approaching to chat with him, he put down his drink and asked some private questions.

"As a director, it is very useful to know about the actors' private lives. On the one hand, it can be used to guide emotions, and on the other hand, it can also avoid trouble.

"It's Cynthia's suitor," Sweets smiled, took a sip of the drink, and then left, leaving Ronald and Cynthia to chat privately.

"He chases me very persistently, but I don't want to be with him."

"Why? He looks like a good guy." Ronald smiled.

"He is several years younger than me. He is still very naive and immature." Cynthia shook her head and glanced at Ronald.

"You take care of it yourself, don't affect the filming. It's okay to let him come to visit the team when the time comes."

Ronald also took a sip of his drink.

"Ronald, can you ask them to dance for me according to the music in the script?" Walter Murch came over with a stopwatch and made a request to Ronald.

Ronald was distracted and started looking for choreographer Ortega.

"I haven't obtained the copyright for the song yet, and I'm not sure what song it will be for the final dance, so I use a metronome to adjust it to the rhythm of the swing dance of the 1950s and let them dance along."

Ronald suddenly became anxious, "Why hasn't it been done yet? Emil, Emil..."

He quickly called the assistant director loudly, "Go and call Danny Goldberg and ask Danny Goldberg, our music director, what song does he want me to use for the episode?"

Choreographer Ortega saw that the complaint was successful and immediately took out a cassette tape, "We still play the tape of screenwriter Miss Eleanor, although the sound quality of the duplication is average..."

Ronald waved his hand and let him do it himself, helping Murch to better estimate the time of each shot.

He found the phone himself and received a call from the music director Danny Goldberg.

"Danny, how long will it take? The dance rehearsal here will end in a week. Do you want me to use a metronome to accompany them when I start shooting?"

There are many troubles. Ronald's first movie invested by himself, all kinds of unsatisfactory places feel magnified countless times compared to when he was shooting other people's movies.

Every time there is a small setback, Ronald feels that the numbers in his account have turned into bats and squeaked away. And every time a small problem is solved, it feels that the green banknotes are attracted by the movie and fly back.

Ronald can now better understand the state of mind when Weintraub asked him to be the director of "The Karate Kid". Investing your own money in a movie project is really nervous, and you will think too much when there is a slight disturbance.

"Don't worry, I'm negotiating with major record companies now. You want famous songs at the time, and the property rights are complicated. Our budget is not much, and I don't want them to feel that we really want these songs, so we can only talk slowly and not reveal our true purpose..." Danny Goldberg was still operating slowly.

Ronald couldn't stand it anymore, "I'm about to start shooting, you get it done as soon as possible. If you can't do it, tell me earlier so that I can find someone who can do it..."

"Pah..." Ronald hung up the phone angrily.

"What's wrong? Is there anything wrong?"

The person asking the question was Ronald's other agent Richard, who had returned from "The Nanny Adventures" to help Ronald.

There were some minor problems with the investment in "The Nanny Adventures", and the second phase of the "Screen Fund" where George Jr. was the director was directly allocated to Michael Eisner.

The first phase before George Jr. intervened was evenly distributed to HBO and British EI Productions.

Wall Street is advancing by leaps and bounds, and the Dow Jones Index has risen a lot compared to a few years ago. The third phase of the Screen Fund began to be sought after by high-net-worth private investors. Roland Bates, who was responsible for issuing the fund, wanted to increase the financing amount of the third phase from 190 million in the second phase to 300 million US dollars.

Faced with such a large amount of money, HBO and Disney were both vying for the right to use the funds.

The condition given by HBO was that the Screen Fund had the right to decide on the project. Disney's Eisner, on the other hand, demanded full control over the project.

The reason he gave was that there was a director and producer with outstanding vision like Ronald working for Disney. As capital, Wall Street only needed to hide behind professionals, let them decide on art and please the audience, and count the money after the release.

Therefore, Eisner called Ronald and asked him to start filming "The Adventures of a Nanny" the day after New Year's Day next year. In this way, this movie led by Ronald, which is likely to be a hit, can be included in the investment scope of the third phase of the fund.

With this golden signboard, compared with investors' opinions on giving Disney the right to use the third phase of the Screen Fund, it will have the upper hand.

"Our music director, Danny Goldberg, has not yet negotiated the copyright of the interlude. This time is enough for a pregnant woman to give birth to a child." Ronald began to sneer.

"Goldberg is Jewish, I know him." Richard saw that there was no one around, and whispered in Ronald's ear, "These songs from the 1950s have never been valued by anyone. Danny is dragging his feet because he wants to make this a big business.

If I'm right, he will say that some singers and songwriters have passed away, and their relatives are more difficult to negotiate."

"Huh? He did say that." Ronald looked at Richard Lovett, his agent was also Jewish.

"I'm different from them. I'm a Jewish boy who grew up in the countryside of Wisconsin. There are only 20,000 Jews in the entire state. When I was a child, I went to public school with Puritans and Catholics. My family also celebrated Christmas, which was no different from theirs.

These Jews who grew up in the Los Angeles area of ​​California only discovered when they became adults that there were more than just Jews in the world...but they still used those Jewish business rules to treat clients from other cultural backgrounds. In their view, as long as they can make enough money, it's their own ability."

Richard pushed his glasses and said.

Ronald nodded. Richard has always been very loyal to him. In this kind of thing, he, his biggest client, is the biggest guarantee of his interests. He must be telling the truth.

Danny Goldberg's ineffective work should be a strategy of his. He wants to buy the copyright so as not to delay Ronald's business, and pay a price that is neither too high nor too low to make a profit for himself.

"Do you have any suggestions?"

"Dirty Dancing has a plot problem with the Jewish girl, so I suggest finding a non-Jewish agent to handle the purchase of the copyright for the episode," Richard moved closer and spoke in a lower voice, "The key is that the person who buys it should buy it in the capacity of your company's purchasing agent, and don't reveal that you are the person behind the project. If you act quickly, it should be done quickly."

Ronald suddenly woke up from his dream. If he didn't invest in and direct the film project himself, then "Dirty Dancing" would just be a boring movie about a love story of a high school girl in the 1950s with an investment of 4.5 million. Who would be excited about it?

Songs from the 1950s, no matter how famous they were at the time, would be thankful if they could sell a little copyright fee now.

"I'll go to Weintraub and borrow someone." Ronald figured out the crux of the problem and smiled slightly.

Danny Goldberg still wanted to monopolize the benefits and eat both ends. As long as Ronald kept it secret and beat the slow with the fast, he would get things done before he could react.

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