Exploiting Hollywood 1980

  Chapter 133 The Italian Famous Director with a Situation

   "The former governor of California, a former famous movie star, announced his participation in the next presidential election." CBS TV is reviewing the acting career of the Hollywood star with the same name as Ronald, and his journey after entering politics.

  Ronald put down the pen in his hand, stood up and stretched, read the news, and rested.

   On CBS's political talk show, two guests were arguing over the prospect of a presidential campaign. After all, California is a base for the entertainment industry, and neither of them is optimistic that the former California governor can gain popular support outside of California to win the Elephant Party's primary election. If a movie star can be the chief commander, wouldn't the other elites in America be ashamed to the end.

   One of the guests is optimistic about the political star of the Elephant Party, the former ambassador to the United Nations, and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Another guest is partial to the donkey party, emphasizing that it is extremely rare for the current commander to lose re-election.

   Listening to the political talk show, Ronald was actually waiting for the old movie from the classic theater. During this time, Ronald spent little energy on other courses besides classic movie appreciation. Anyway, his usual performance was passable enough.

After watching dozens of classic movies from the golden age of Hollywood, and then borrowing the scripts of several of them from Julia Taylor, Ronald compared the last movies and the script content one by one, and gained some emotional understanding of how to write the script .

All the content written in the script must be filmed. You can't write a sentence "Adam saw the pocket watch left by his father and couldn't help thinking that he was a kind person." The camera can only capture Adam's facial expressions, His thoughts and memories cannot be photographed directly. Even if flashbacks are used to express memories, it is impossible to make a good person.

   Hollywood has a golden sentence: "Show, don't narrate. (Show, Don'tell. is the basic principle of writing a script. To show a person's kindness, you can film him giving some money to a beggar, or helping an old lady cross the road, all of which should be written in the script.

  In Scorsese's class, Ronald liked Billy Wilder's movies the most. Not only are the plots fascinating, but there are often several reversals at the end, which are very enjoyable to watch. It's a pity that his movie was shot early, and the casting studio didn't have a script to compare it, Ronald deeply regrets it.

   So after Ronald finished watching the movie, he started writing the plot synopsis. Summarize the plot of the entire movie in a few hundred words. It's also a way to train your own screenwriting skills.

   Two days ago, Scorsese played Orson Welles' famous "Citizen Kane". This film has long been forgotten, and was only strongly recommended by director Peter Bogdanovich in recent years, so that people in the film industry re-recognize his value.

Ronald watched it very well. "Citizen Kane" told a suspenseful story. A newspaper tycoon died and said a word "rose stamen" before his death. The movie tried to understand this word from different people. real meaning.

  The newspaper announced that tonight CBS will play another Orson Welles movie "Touch of Evil". In addition to the timed video, Ronald also intends to have a sneak peek.

   "Ring, bell, bell..." The phone rang.

   is from Julia Taylor from the casting studio.

"Ronnie, Endless Love has been taken over by Polygram, Casablanca Records is out, they signed Franco Zeffirelli, an Italian-born director, and he's coming tomorrow to talk about casting, you Come along too."

  The original producer, Keith Barrish of Casablanca Records, still did not hire Paul Schrader to direct the film. Seeing that they couldn’t even handle a rookie director who had turned from a screenwriter, Polygram simply invested in the film rights to buy Casablanca Records, and then kicked them out and started their own production company.

  The idea of ​​​​Polygon is very simple and rude. Since this is a Romeo and Juliet-style teenage love story, we asked Franco Zeffirelli, who directed the 1968 version of "Romeo and Juliet" to shoot.

  The rich and powerful Polygram used money to knock down the Italian director. In addition to directing some movies based on classic Shakespeare plays, his main job is to be the director of operas. This is the first time to direct a modern drama.

Although the story of the novel takes place in Chicago, Polygram plans to set the main shooting location in a studio in New York and a house on Long Island for field shooting. So Julia Taylor's New York casting studio got the deal anyway.

   Ronald promised Julia to come to the casting studio tomorrow morning. Putting down the phone, the CBS commercial just finished, and the classic theater column began.

   The beginning of "Beautiful Lady in Tribulations" is very attractive. The opening music plays, and when the subtitles flow upward, the plot is also unfolding. One person placed a time bomb in the trunk of the car and gave a close-up set for 3 minutes.

   Then the car starts and drives slowly among the pedestrians, and the protagonist, a Mexican police detective, and his newly married American wife, also walk around the car. Time passed slowly, the music gradually stopped, and the subtitles came to the end. Suddenly, with a bang, the bomb exploded, killing the owner and the beautiful woman in the car.

"This subtitle is not very good. It was just finished, and the time bomb should have exploded. The audience actually received the hint that the subtitle was finished and the background music stopped, and already knew that the bomb was about to explode, which was a little less suspenseful and frightening. "Ronald jotted down his analysis in a notebook.

   After watching "Beautiful Lady", Ronald was ready to rest. This movie is really strange. In some places, the plot and editing are skipped, and it seems that a lot of scenes have been cut.

  Ronald heard Scorsese's anecdote. Back then, in Hollywood, studios had editing rights, and directors were often not allowed into the editing room. What artistry is not considered at all, the studio owner wants it quickly, and what he wants is commercial value. Once it is cut, it will be released immediately, if not, it will be replaced by the next one. Warner Bros. boss famous quote "I don't want a good movie, I want it to be released next Tuesday."

Fortunately, the managers of these old studios are all old and dead, ToFrancis Coppola, and new directors such as Martin Scorsese, Spielberg, and George Lucas. Fortunately, Hollywood now respects the artistic pursuit of directors. Who makes the films made by these directors who value art become very popular?

  …

Franco Zeffirelli is a little old man, wearing a pair of gold wire glasses, with thin gold chains on the temples, around the scarf behind the neck, easy to take off and hang on the chest not lost.

  Awesome, artistic achievement, Franco Zeffirelli also has many fans in America.

  In addition to "Romeo and Juliet", his work most familiar to American audiences is Shakespeare's famous "The Taming of the Shrew" starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

However, Ronald found that the little old man's eyes were a little strange. When he looked at the actor's photo prepared for him by Julia Taylor, he was more normal to the actress, but when he saw the photo of the male actor, his eyes were bright and he was still I will slowly rub the photo with my hand.

   This kind of behavior regardless of the occasion made Ronald feel a chill and couldn't help but stay away from him.

   "What do you think of the casting of the heroine?" Franco Zeffirelli took a few photos and asked everyone's opinion as if he didn't notice Ronald's little actions.

  Italians speak very good English with no accent. Franco Zeffirelli himself said that he learned English from a British nun as a child and worked as an interpreter for the American army during World War II.

The casting studio hadn't answered yet, and another woman who came with him took the lead and said, "Please Franco, we can't pick Brooke Little for the heroine Jade. She's not good enough for the role. With such a complex role, Hollywood has no shortage of young and good actors."

The woman who spoke    was the first supporting actress to be decided, Shirley Knight. In the "Endless Love" movie, she will play the heroine Jade's mother Ann, a thoroughly liberal character who, in addition to agreeing that her daughter had **** with her boyfriend David when she was a minor, finally tried to seduce David. .

  Shirley Knight is a veteran amphibious actress who has performed in movies, TV series, and Broadway, and has served as a producer for many TV and Broadway.

   She was the first to finalize Polygon this time, and she also meant to use her rich experience in production and performance to help the producer look at the director.

  Polygram are laymen after all, they entered the film industry, more or less bewitched by Peter Guber, the film director of the original Casablanca Records. And Peter Guber and Shirley Knight had a good relationship.

   "What do you recommend? Shirley?" Franco Zeffirelli actually had his own considerations for the selection of the heroine, but he was not as persistent as the male lead.

"I think there are a lot of girls in Hollywood right now, all with great acting skills, like Jodie Foster as a taxi driver, Bo Derek as perfect, Carrie Fisher as Star Wars, and TV shows. Deborah Wenger, Jennifer Jason Leigh. You can audition."

  In this, in fact, Jodie Foster, Jennifer Jason Lee, Ronald is not the first time to hear names. In the last "Blue Coral Reef", they were also considered as heroines, but later gave up because the director insisted on appearing in full nudity, and in the end it was cheaper for Brooke Stoudemire.

  Although Hollywood is very big, big productions often pursue stability, so the roles of young girls come and go are these people competing.

   "We'll send them an audition invitation as soon as possible," Julia Taylor agreed, then hesitated for a while, or asked, "Borgy Xiaos, do you need to send an audition invitation?"

   "Let's post it too", Franco Zeffirelli ignored Shirley Knight's complaints about her acting skills and decided to ask Brooke Stoudemire to audition as well.

   "As for the male lead, I plan to..." Franco Zeffirelli put on his glasses, found Ronald's direction, deliberately looked him up and down a few times, and then said:

"It's still a selection audition for the community. This is the publicity strategy proposed by Guber, CEO of Polygram Pictures. Before the movie audition begins, let the audience know that the movie based on the novel's endless love is about to start shooting. ."

   I will start to adjust the update time today. It is still 9:00 in the morning and 17:00 in the afternoon.

   (end of this chapter)