Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Helen, can you share with us how you got into Hollywood? We occasionally receive invitations to audition, but each time we are unsuccessful, so we would like to learn about your experience in this regard."

At the event site of the actor's theater club "Naked Angels" co-organized by Helen Slater and her bestie Helen Hunt, a red-haired girl raised her hand to ask Helen, who was sharing her acting experience today.

Helen Slater's performance in "Sticky Fingers" made her realize the shallowness of her acting skills. She also gradually gave up the mentality of being anxious to show her acting skills, and began to act in some off-Broadway theater clubs in New York, and then volunteered to share with young people who were interested in Hollywood film and television creation.

"I originally just thought I could shoot some TV series, and when I had experience, I might be able to appear in some medium-sized productions in Hollywood. I never thought I could get the role of Superwoman." Helen, wearing a clean T-shirt and glasses, was very pleasing to the eye, and answered the other party's questions slowly.

"Well, do you want to know how I won the audition? At that time, a friend of mine accompanied me to the audition. He had a crazy idea to wear Supergirl's tights and go in as the comic book character when he arrived at the audition.

He had a relative who could sew. I was the first one to show up at the audition, which was usually the round with the least chance of getting a role, but it was obvious that my sudden attack impressed the casting director, and he could not rule out my image in Supergirl's uniform in subsequent auditions.

So, have confidence in yourself, think of a way, and then do it, maybe your luck will come."

"Hmm...", a tall and handsome guy walked in from a corner of the scene, wearing the aviator sunglasses in Top Gun and a New York Yankees baseball cap, and gave a reminder.

"Okay, let's stop here today, and we'll continue next Tuesday." Helen hurriedly ended the sharing of this naked angel, took the handsome guy's hand, and walked out of the rehearsal room.

"Who is that?" Several members started gossiping.

"Who else, Ronald Lee. You don't think Helen really got so many roles by luck, do you? Do you think her acting skills are superb, so the director appreciates her?"

"That's not the case. I saw her latest movie Sticky Fingers, and her acting is pretty good."

"That was recently. You can watch the original "The Legend of Billie King". Ugh... What we really need to learn is not her acting skills."

】

...

"This is a small gift for you," Ronald said to Helen Slater when he arrived at her apartment, pointing to the Yamaha piano in the corner.

Helen is an independent-minded person. She is unwilling to accept Ronald's expensive gifts, nor is she willing to accept real estate such as apartments. She herself does not have high material requirements. Many times, she can go to the premiere in casual clothes.

So Ronald gave her some gifts that she liked in her heart, such as this piano made in Japan, which does not occupy a small area and is of good quality. It happened that Helen was trained in jazz since she was a child, and now she can resume her old career.

"Oh, thank you." Helen was overjoyed. Ronald could still remember his hobby in high school. With sweetness in her heart, she sat in front of the piano, opened the piano cover, played a jazz melody, and then sang.

"It's raining in the park. Buy two cups of coffee and Yankee tickets at noon. This is New York in June..."

"Well... very good. Did you write this song yourself? What's the name?" Ronald listened to a song next to him. The melody and improvisation were very complete. With his little knowledge of music, it seemed to be a common improvisation in jazz.

"Hahaha, I sang it improvisationally. Well, what's the name? How about New York in June?"

"It's really good. Have you thought about releasing a record?"

"No, but it's a good idea. Do you really think I can release an album?"

"Why not try it? I can ask for you."

"Dear, you're so nice. But now I have to concentrate on preparing for the performance of 'Deep Love'."

Helen talked about her preparations for the new movie in the past month and took notes. There were also a pile of videotapes of youth romance dramas next to the TV in the apartment.

Ronald smiled and nodded. In fact, this movie does not require too much acting skills. Helen's appearance and temperament are very suitable, and her acting skills are enough. However, it is a good thing to be able to concentrate on learning and thinking about acting, so as not to rely only on the method school's empathy method performance, which will not be good for real emotions.

"Well... Ronald..." Helen looked up and kissed Ronald who was holding her shoulders. Ronald was a child from a poor family. He didn't know how to play an instrument like the piano, which required investment. He couldn't play four hands with him, so he had to take the initiative. After not seeing each other for many days, Helen felt that her lower abdomen was stimulated by Ronald's masculine smell, and a warm feeling came up.

With a "squeak", Helen was picked up by Ronald and leaned on the piano. She played a strange melody without chords, and then a clang sounded, making a loud noise.

"Oh, be gentle, we need someone to tune it."

"It's okay," Ronald simply picked Helen up and only touched some black keys. Accompanied by the chord combination of the black keys, Helen once again improvised a piece of jazz.

Helen was supposed to go to Los Angeles to join the crew for preparation and rehearsal. Just when she had agreed on a time with Cameron Crowe, the Writers Guild and the Producers Guild broke down again. The strike continued, the strike exemption applied for by Daydream was not approved, and the crew stopped.

The two had to stay in New York, and Ronald was also looking for connections everywhere to try to start work earlier.

After taking a shower, Helen put on a very simple dress and didn't put on makeup. She took Ronald to her father Gerald's big house on the Upper East Side of Central Park for dinner.

Gerald's current wife and children are more and more respectful of Helen, and they treat her as a real movie star at the dinner table.

"I'll make coffee for you." Helen's stepmother took her and the two went to the kitchen to talk in private. Helen, who had been very well-behaved in both families, now gets along well with her father's new wife.

"Let's drink something good. My friend brought it from Bordeaux." Gerard also went to the study with Ronald and took out an unlabeled glass bottle. It contained brandy made by the owner of a Bordeaux winery. It was a gift he received when he went to France to purchase TV series.

"Why didn't it pass this time? When I was at the Producers Guild meeting in Los Angeles, basically all the producers agreed to the conditions proposed by the new mediator. The Writers Guild hasn't started work for almost three months. They can't eat, right?"

Ronald took a sip of brandy. The strike negotiations failed again, which was really beyond his and other Hollywood people's expectations. However, the Eastern Writers Guild voted against the new agreement. This time, he also wanted to visit Gerard Slater and ask this old TV expert what the problem was.

The "final (this time it's real) solution to the strike" proposed by the Producers Guild in early June can be said to have made some nominal concessions to the screenwriters' requirements on the basis of the last time.

Including extending the contract period from three years to four years, so that the screenwriters have better protection and the employers can reduce the frequency of negotiations. It also includes expanding the creative rights and giving screenwriters some power to participate in the early preparation stage.

Originally, everyone was optimistic that they could reach a result, at least they could get an exemption for most new Hollywood films. Who knew that the final vote last weekend was still two to one.

Most screenwriters of the Western Writers Guild have agreed to end the strike and pass a new labor agreement. The number of unions in the East is much larger than that in the West, and the voting results there are still one-sided in support of continuing the strike.

The producers lost a bit unclearly, and they suspected that someone was playing tricks on the vote of the Eastern Writers Guild. Ronald couldn't figure it out, so he asked sincerely.

"Have you seen the voting ratio of the two unions?" Seeing Ronald nod, Gerard took out a copy of the new agreement and handed it to Ronald. On the summary of the second page, he heavily underlined a paragraph with a pen.

"The remaining dividends for movies and TV shows will still be based on the 1985 dividend ratio. Movies and TV shows that are more than one hour long can get dividends from the national TV network and foreign TV broadcasting revenue."

"I still don't understand. Most movies are more than 90 minutes long. Why is this so important?" Ronald saw the words "more than one hour"

"You don't watch TV much, do you?" Gerald laughed.

"Not much." Ronald admitted that he would watch classic movie tapes and study the techniques when he had free time.

"Most talk shows, soap operas, TV series, and talk shows are just under an hour long. Think about it, right?"

"Hmm?" Ronald suddenly realized that it was true. The reason why the number of members of the Eastern Writers Guild is much larger than that of the Western Writers Guild is because they mainly serve TV and radio stations.

It is not, as Ronald thought, that they serve Broadway.

This clause is the negotiating point of several major public TV stations and the most critical clause for them in the new labor agreement.

If it is retained, the dividends that screenwriters can get will be much less.

Imagine, for example, Oprah Winfrey, a black female host who now walks out of a local TV station in Chicago. Since 1987, "The Oprah Winfrey Show" has been broadcast on syndicated TV networks across the country. Compared with her original income from local TV stations, her personal income has increased by 40 times.

But all this money belongs to the producer of the program, that is, Oprah Winfrey, the fat woman who likes to fan the TV. The writing team under her can't get a penny of dividends, and they have to look at the boss's face to ask for a raise.

This is the power of this clause. The actual length of the talk show, minus the advertising time, is less than one hour.

So the request to amend this clause, so that the writers can also get dividends for programs less than one hour long as they are broadcast nationwide, has received opposition from the three major wireless TV networks and Fox and Paramount, two studios with their own TV businesses.

"It's a dog-eat-dog moment now, Ronald. We all stand on the river bank, watching two packs of vicious dogs fighting each other. The loser will either be eaten by his own kind or driven into the river and disappear in this industry."

"But dog-eat-dog fighting is not good for the long-term development of the entire industry." Ronald shook his head. He didn't like this kind of thing.

The dogs that Gerrard is talking about are about to fall into the river, which are the independent producers in Hollywood. They have been dragged down by the strike and have high financial costs. If they are pushed again, they are likely to go bankrupt.

The vicious dogs that eat each other are the hardcore screenwriters who are struggling to survive. The strike has been going on for three months, and they have not taken home a penny in compensation. The newbies at the bottom have run away. These backbones feel that there is still hope of returning to work, so they are still persisting.

With the savings of an ordinary American family and the meager income from screenwriter work, Ronald felt that they would soon be unable to even take out valuables from the pawn shop, and maybe in a few weeks, they would have to mortgage their house. This kind of thing will do great harm to the entire talent training. If these people leave the industry sadly, they will never come back.

"So, you are so sure about the TV drama industry? The Writers Guild must have collapsed first?" Ronald didn't know what the TV station's executives were thinking. They haven't filmed a new TV series in three months. Are they still going to rerun Hu Nong in the upcoming new TV series season?

"Of course not. Many medium-sized local TV stations and medium-sized TV drama projects are now on the verge of collapse, but... New York's Midtown, from Fifth Avenue to Eleventh Avenue, the people there are the same as those in downtown Wall Street. Love crises more than fear them.”

"Well, are you trying to take advantage of the opportunity to annex those small and medium-sized TV stations and production companies?" Ronald understood after being prompted by Gerald. The Producers Alliance is now as divided as the Writers Guild.

The film industry, which has a numerical advantage in the Producers Alliance, wants to end the strike as soon as possible, while the large television networks, which have few votes, want to wait.

Therefore, these giant television networks, in order to continue the strike, secretly supported the Eastern Writers Guild - most of the screenwriters who wrote scripts for the network, and strongly opposed themselves.

"Damn capitalists." Ronald cursed.

"Huh??" Gerald was stunned.

"I'm talking about those Wall Street capitalists who instigated TV stations to artificially prolong the crisis." Ronald found that this sentence could easily cause misunderstanding, so he immediately explained a few words.

“Do you have any spare production capacity here, or a production company that is not regulated by the Writers Guild of America?”

"Huh? Of course I do, what kind do you need?" Ronald thought to himself, does Gerald have any production work that he wants to subcontract to himself?

"There are also differences among the three major TV networks. NBC is the toughest. ABC and Paramount do not have the kind of talk shows to fill the time slots. These TV stations, which use TV series as their main weapon to attract viewers, actually want the strike to end as soon as possible. It's just that it's inconvenient for them due to some rules of the TV station.

The general manager of abc came to me. The old TV series they bought from cbs some time ago, the ratings of Daredevil were actually good, so they came up with the idea of ​​making a new version. They came to me and wanted to take advantage of my relationship with the BBC's TV series procurement and co-produce it with a British TV production company.

But now the BBC, ITV and others are raising prices. Do you have any other places with English production capabilities? "Gerald took a sip of wine. If Ronald can discover more affordable and high-quality production capabilities that are not under the jurisdiction of the Writers Guild, it will be very profitable."

"Don't tell me, I really do." Ronald thought of Mr. Crocodile Dundee and Paul Hogan, who had promised to make sure he could live well. If he wanted to film in Australia, he would ask him to take care of everything.