Exploiting Hollywood 1980

Not far from the Boy Scout camp is Lake Lure.

This morning, Ronald and the crew arrived here very early.

The prop team had already built a wooden bridge for the two male and female protagonists to practice dancing.

Ever since Master Miyagi taught Daniel karate by waxing cars, painting walls, and other strange tricks in "The Karate Kid", many scripts will add a similar teaching trick to the plot.

Screenwriter Eleanor is no exception. She added a plot where Johnny teaches Baby to dance a hot dance on a log bridge.

Mambo dance has a special move, which is to lift the knee and then insert the foot down. It looks very good with the swing of the hips. It is a bit like a combination of rumba and tango.

But this move requires good body coordination and a slightly more adventurous spirit than other dances.

So Johnny pulled Baby and forced her to practice on the log bridge, forgetting all the fear of stepping on the male partner, and only thinking about the rhythm, and she was able to learn this dance step soon.

"A!"

The log bridge was built over a stream beside the lake. Patrick Swayze stood on it, spread his arms, and kept his balance like those acrobats.

Jennifer Grey was on the other side of the log bridge, looking very scared, and sat on the bridge head, not daring to stand on it.

"Now, the most important thing is balance. You have to remember to keep your balance." Patrick Swayze stood barefoot on the log, spread his arms, and looked confident.

Ronald was distracted again. The TV station's celebrity acrobatics program invited Brooke Shields to perform aerial trapeze. But even a girl like Brooke who practiced gymnastics since childhood did not dare to try walking on the tightrope.

For laymen, the balance of walking on the tightrope is not easy to grasp, and it is also a watershed that distinguishes real acrobats from ordinary people.

"Oh, oh, oh..."

Patrick Swayze did a gymnastics move, jumped up and fell back to the log bridge.

He did not keep a good balance and almost fell off the bridge. Then he felt swaying left and right, trying to find balance, and finally stood still after turning around once and adjusting many times with small steps.

"Cut!"

Ronald quickly asked the staff to help him down and handed him a blanket.

The weather was very cold today, and Sweets almost messed up a simple move because the temperature may have affected the coordination of his muscles.

However, it was a blessing in disguise. The way he tried hard to keep his balance just now unexpectedly became a very interesting episode in this teaching. Ronald planned to use it in the final film.

"I wrote a scene where Johnny had to do a vertical jump and turn 180 degrees, landing steadily on the log. Show Baby that as long as you focus on the rhythm, there will be no problem.

"I'd better do it myself. I've been practicing ballet since I was a child, and this is nothing." Sweets insisted.

"Pat, this is not necessary. We can let the double shoot a shot of the legs taking off and rotating and landing, and then cut to your full view. He has registered with the stunt union. "

"No, I can do it. "

When Sweets heard that Ronald wanted a stuntman to perform, his hormones exploded even more. He refused to let a stuntman perform this action that was not very difficult on flat ground.

Ronald persuaded him a few times, but seeing that he was so stubborn, he let it go.

When it comes to a man's face, many actors have similar problems.

"A!"

"The important thing is balance." Sweets said a line, and then jumped barefoot on the log again.

"Oh oh oh..." When he landed, he encountered the same problem again.

This action is indeed not difficult on flat ground. But first, this time he was barefoot without dancing shoes.

Second, the log was soaked by the light rain and was slippery, so it was not easy for him to stand firmly.

"Pah..."

Seeing that things were not going well, Sweets jumped off the single-plank bridge.

After landing, Sweets covered his ankle and squatted there for a long time without getting up.

"What's wrong? Doctor! "

Ronald saw that things were not going well, and immediately called the doctor on the scene. This was a dangerous action shoot registered with the Stunt Union. The union stipulated that a doctor must be present, otherwise the stuntman could refuse to shoot.

"It's okay, it's an old injury I got when I was dancing before."

Sweet was still saying that he was fine.

But the doctor's face was obviously wrong. He asked Sweet to sit down, and then looked at his ankle, which was already swollen.

"There is fluid in the ankle joint. Your actor has been engaged in dance training for a long time, so the synovial membrane is severely worn. The sprain just now has aggravated the problem. He can't continue shooting. "

"What should I do? Is he seriously injured? How long does he need to rest?"

Ronald didn't understand those medical terms, so he asked directly about the severity of the injury.

"It's not very serious. Just lie still and you can recover in a week. "

"Hiss..." Ronald grinned. He didn't have a week to waste.

It was overspent.

"Doctor, I can use a syringe to drain the fluid. "Sweetie grinned, obviously in great pain. He often encountered knee and ankle injuries during his dancing career, and actually knew more about the treatment methods.

"Are you sure? This is very painful. And it will affect your dancing career," the doctor confirmed to Sweetie.

"I no longer have a dancing career. Now I have to save my acting career."

Sweetie even joked, "Come on, it will get better sooner, and I can recover the day after tomorrow."

Ronald patted Sweetie's shoulder. This trouble was originally caused by his stubbornness and face-saving, but now it is a way to make up for the loss and minimize the impact on the filming.

The crew had to stop filming for a day, because Sweetie's scenes ran through the subsequent filming, and there was no great benefit in shooting other shots in advance.

Ronald shot for a long time and finished all the shots that could be shot in advance, so he had to take a holiday helplessly.

"Fortunately, there is a product placement advertisement made by Procter \u0026 Gamble's acne removal products to help", Ronald and Eddie, the general manager of Daydream, calculated the accounts in the room for a while.

"Fortunately, Sweetie is experienced. When he jumped down, he was ready to cushion the impact of landing. If he was seriously injured, I'm afraid you would have to stop filming for more than a month, and financially, this "Dirty Dancing" would be a disaster."

On the third day, Sweetie's ankle finally swollen. Although it was still a little painful, he took the initiative to resume filming.

After all, the crew was waiting for him alone, and he couldn't handle such invisible pressure.

Ronald quickly moved up the scene in the lake, and Sweets and Gray went to the nearby Lake Lure with the crew.

"I arranged this lifting scene in the lake. Your ankle is not fully healed yet, so shooting this scene will put less pressure on your ankle. After all, there will be a series of dance scenes later."

"Okay, I'm fine." Sweets nodded in agreement, which was considered to be a disruption of the shooting order for his physical condition.

"Woo..."

A cold wind blew, and Jennifer Gray, who had just got off the car and arrived at the lake, shivered and wrapped the blanket tightly around her body.

"It's so cold..."

"It's really strange." Ronald also felt that his luck was too bad.

When they were at the mountain lake villa in Virginia, it was too hot and caused the actors to suffer from heatstroke. When they moved to North Carolina, it entered late autumn early, and the wind was actually very cool.

Gray tested the water temperature with his hand and looked embarrassed. It will be freezing cold if the temperature goes down, and maybe I won't be able to speak the lines smoothly.

"What's the weather forecast for tomorrow and the day after tomorrow?" Ronald also tried the water, took off his socks, and tried it himself.

It might be bearable for a man, but it would be a stretch for Jennifer Grey to go down.

"It seems that there is a cold front passing through, the temperature will drop, and there will be strong winds."

"Why is the weather so strange! It seems that there is no autumn." Ronald had no choice but to look back at Grey.

"I'll try, Director Ronald. But you have to prepare me for the cold."

Jennifer Grey looked at Ronald's embarrassed face and knew that she couldn't postpone the filming for another three days. Otherwise, the crew might go bankrupt before the filming was finished.

For art, for the box office of the movie, and for her future acting career, she had to fight!

"You know, the best place to practice lifting is in the water."

Swayze said the lines in the script and stood half-squatting in the lake.

Jennifer Grey wore a white dress and pants, and asked Sweets to hold her waist, then she jumped up slightly. .

She was lifted up by Sweets.

Sweets stood up from the water, and shivered when the wind blew, and almost couldn't hold Jennifer. Fortunately, he had strong upper limb strength and barely saved her.

Jennifer saw Sweets standing, and immediately opened her arms and made a flying gesture.

"Speak the lines." Ronald was anxious and repeatedly signaled to Sweets.

"Very good, very good..." Sweets was shivering from the cold, and he finally controlled his abdominal muscles so that the lines could not be heard with shivering.

"Keep this posture, don't move, don't move."

"Ah..." Jennifer Grey was also shaking in the wind, and she couldn't keep her balance, so she jumped over Sweets' head.

Both of them fell into the lake.

"Hahaha...hahaha..."

Both of them tried their best to hold on, so as not to let the synchronous sound record the sound of their shivering.

After shaking off the water from their hair, they didn't feel so cold.

"Keep going!" Ronald ran to the opposite side of them, waved his hands and gestured to them, indicating that he would not call for a stop.

Anyway, it would take a long time for the two of them to recover after one take, so they simply did not stop, and shot a long shot to the end, and used it as long as it could be used.

Both actors were very professional, and they also understood Ronald's meaning, and did not look at the camera in the middle.

"Keep going, one, two, three..."

Another lift, then freeze into the action of spreading wings and flying, and finally couldn't support it again, and fell into the water together.

"Cut!"

Ronald rushed up first and put the blanket on Jennifer Grey.

"Whiskey" Ronald took the liquor handed by the assistant and asked the actors to take a sip.

Four assistants carrying stretchers carried the two leading actors wrapped in blankets into their respective RVs.

The air conditioner had been on for a long time, and there was a hot water bathroom, so they quickly restored their body temperature.

The morning sun rose over the lake, and Ronald quickly directed them to shoot some empty shots for editing.

"How is it?" Ronald asked the director of photography.

"Very good, you will have enough material for editing."