Exploiting Hollywood 1980

  Chapter 178 When can a principle be violated?

"Did your editing classes teach axis principles and continuity editing when you were taking classes at NYU?" Early the next morning, Walter Murkey came to the office full of energy and began to teach Ronald the secrets of editing— Six principles for distinguishing what is good and what is bad.

"Yes, the principle of the axis is to keep the camera on one side of the two characters in dialogue, and don't run to the other side casually, otherwise one character will appear on the left of the audience and on the right of the audience, which will cause confusion in the audience's thinking. .

  The principle of continuous editing is when editing a person's actions, try to keep them as continuous as possible. For example, when a person sits on a stool and wants to stand up, when cutting from a close shot to a medium shot, one must find a point on the two pieces of film that has the same action to connect, and try to keep the stand up action continuous to avoid the audience feeling strange. "

  Ronald repeats the standard answer in film editing class. He saw that Walter was in good spirits today, with a hippie-like beard and a shaved beard. He was wearing a plaid suit, and his temperament changed from a hippie to a very Hollywood elite.

   "So, when you watch a new movie, have you carefully observed the editing techniques, and are you always keeping these two principles?"

   "No, the current film seems to be influenced by the new wave director Godard, and the editing often breaks the principle of continuity to jump cut.

   And some film directors of Toyo, such as Akira Kurosawa, don’t follow the principle of axis very much, but I don’t feel awkward when I watch it. It seems that these two principles are often broken. "

  Ronald often paid attention to some technical details that others overlooked in Scorsese's film appreciation class. The film review assignments he wrote were often different, not talking about artistic and ideological, but more about technical details.

   "Very well, what I'm going to teach you today is the other four principles of editing, which are mood, story, rhythm, and focus of attention." Walter put a reel of film on the editor and began to play.

   "This is the first 10 minutes of Apocalypse Now. You can see here that the protagonist played by Martin Sheen is full of angry emotions, and the audience is also infected by this emotion. When editing, make sure that the audience's emotions are fluid.

  The story and emotions are pushed forward together, and the audience gradually discovers that he is an army officer of the rice army, accepted a mission in Saigon, and finally embarked on an adventure.

   And the rhythm of this storytelling is also very smooth. "

   "So the first three principles seem to be tightly coupled?"

"That's right, it's not easy for us to separate them. Let's look at the focus of the fourth principle. The picture of the helicopter propeller gradually fades out, and the audience's eye focus still stays on the position of the propeller on the screen, so we connect the faded ceiling fan picture, It should be there as well."

   "I understand. When editing, you should pay attention to which part of the screen the audience is watching, and let the focus of the next picture continue to remain there."

   "That's right, don't make the audience guess where to look next."

"So emotion, story, rhythm, focus of sight, axis principle, and continuity of action. So if these six principles are met, the shot is good, and they are connected according to the principle. If the principle is not satisfied, the shot is bad and needs to be cut." Luo Nader concluded.

   "Don't you think there is something wrong with your expression?" Walter Murkey raised his lips, "Why are the last two principles often abandoned in today's movies?"

   Indeed, Ronald looked back at the beginning of this book of Apocalypse Now, and the axis principle was violated by the scene where the protagonist accepted the mission, and the continuity of action was not followed at all. The strange thing is that I didn't feel awkward when I saw it.

   "I feel that the most important thing is the audience's emotional experience. As long as this is satisfied, and the principle of axis and continuity is violated, the audience will not feel it."

   "Very well, principles are important, but the more important thing is to know when you can disobey them." Walter nodded, this student knows everything, and his understanding is really good.

   "If we rank these six principles, mood, story, rhythm, focus of sight, axis principle, continuity of movement.

   Any one principle is more important than all the principles that follow. If it is not possible to have both, in order to ensure the principle of the superior, the principle of the inferior can be violated. "

   "For example, the axis principle is very intuitive. We always feel that it should not be violated. As long as it is violated, the audience will feel that the two speaking characters have switched positions, which is very dramatic.

   But Akira Kurosawa's films don't think much about the axis principle, because his story and pacing are very good, the audience will not feel that the camera is off axis when watching it. The superior principle can always shield the inferior principle. "

   Ronald quickly wrote down the secret book, this is the true inheritance.

   "Take another example that is common in American movies. There is always a scene in the movie that always violates the principle of axis. Do you know what kind of scene it is?"

   Ronald thought for a while, but shook his head to show he didn't know.

  "It's a passion scene, because emotionally, we want the audience to feel the power of the passion of the hero and heroine. When the passion comes, we always forget everything else, and there is a feeling of spinning around the world.

  So when cutting a passion scene, a good editor will deliberately violate the axis, causing the audience a sense of turmoil and making them feel the power of passion. "

Ronald nodded, "So satisfying the audience's visual focus, they'll ignore your violation of the axis and continuity principle. But the audience won't ignore errors in mood, story, rhythm. The principle of superiority can be shielded to The principle of inferiority, and vice versa.”

"That's it, the reason why it's possible is because of the audience's attention. The purpose of these principles is to keep the audience's attention on the screen, and we need to be able to foresee the audience's next shift in attention. Give them something new before they lose interest."

  Ronald finds this very familiar. Roger Coleman's director's secrets also talked about the preciousness of audience attention. It seems that successful film industry practitioners think about the same.

   "So how do you predict audience attention?"

"Experience, intuition, and test screening feedback, there's no other way." Walter Murkey sighed, "That's why no one understands the secret to a movie's success, and every new movie is groping for it. trade off."

   "If I can continue to dream about the movies I watched in my previous life, wouldn't that be a more powerful weapon than others?" Ronald decided to go back to the hotel and try to sleep and dream again.

   "Remember my lecture at New World Company?" Walter seemed to want to tell Ronald everything important first, let him write it down, and then slowly comprehend it when he encounters it at work.

   "Yes, I keep all my notes."

"Editing is not about speed. It's good to see if you speed up the cuts. It's not about how many times you cut, and the number of edits counts for money. This is an art and a science. More appropriately, editing is a kind of craft."

   "The more you practice, the more proficient you are with scientific principles and artistic trade-offs, and the faster you can find the best solution."

"Editing often has to go back and forth to consider different arrangements, how to connect this one to another, how to cut it from here, and how to receive it there. Many times you will feel that time is not enough, and I will teach you a trick to save time now. the way of thinking."

  Walter Murkey opened his desk drawer, took out a large-format notebook, and opened it to Ronald.

   "This looks like a reprinted photo from film?" Ronald himself is also a photographer, and he is familiar with the various photos in the notebook, which are all reprinted from the film film of Apocalypse Now.

   "Yes, my method is to pick a frame that best represents it for each shot, and reprint it as a photo and stick it on the wall. If it is a long shot, it can be represented by 2-3 photos.

  In this way, when I think about the arrangement and combination, I don’t have to disassemble and install the film repeatedly, and I can use these photos instead. "

"So that's how it is." Ronald looked at each photo carefully. For example, in the long shot of getting up at the beginning, Walter picked Martin Sheen to jump up from the bed, cut his palms by the mirror, and started to play Tai Chi. The three photos represent.

   If you have seen every film shot, it is easy to recall which scene these three pictures represent.

   "The exposure process of film film is not the same as that of photo film. I explored a set of parameters that can reproduce the effect of ordinary photos on film film in a Kodak printing shop without losing the details of film film."

  Walter took out a piece of paper and handed it to Ronald.

   "You learn fast." I have nothing left to teach you, "all that's left is to hone and gain experience."

  Ronald took a look at it. It was a set of parameters, using a low sensitivity, long exposure method, according to this method, the film film can be processed in the Kodak laboratory to produce the desired effect photos.

   took the secret book and carefully clipped it in his notebook, Ronald had a lot of words of thanks to say in his heart.

  Walter turned around and took another large glass bottle and handed it to him, "This is the honey that Angie brought you. We brewed it from our own beekeeping. I heard that you like it very much, so I will give you another large bottle."

   "Keep working hard, one day I'll see the movie you directed on the screen." Walter hugged Ronald encouragingly and patted him on the back.

   "You too, Walter, I'm going to see your new Disney movie."

  The friendship between men sometimes does not need to be measured or spoken. With a full harvest, Ronald returned to the hotel and sorted it out carefully. Don't forget these precious knowledge.

   Ronald carefully sorted it out before he began to rest.

   Or lie on the bed for a while, looking for the feeling of dreaming.

   turned off the lights and fell asleep on the hotel bed during the day.

Dimly, Ronald seemed to dream of a white soldier, picking up a rifle to try to save people from the hail of bullets, he carried a black soldier on his shoulders, ran desperately back, and was hit in the **** by a bullet, The black soldier was muttering something to the white soldier.

  The screen turned, Ronald saw the face of the black soldier, his uncle Steve. No, Steve is white. Ronald looked at the white soldier's face again, blurring out who it was.

   "Ring, ringing, ringing..." Ronald was awakened by the ringing of the phone.

   "Hello, who?" Ronald answered the phone angrily. It turned out that he was really dreaming about his uncle who died on the Vietnam battlefield, not the movie "My Brother's Protector".

"You sold your script for $350,000?" yelled Eddie, his New York-based advertising director business agent, "I now regret not taking your screenwriting agent business as well. "

   "How did you know?" Ronald sat up from the bed at once, how could the news be leaked?

   (end of this chapter)