Exploiting Hollywood 1980

   Chapter 385 Performing in front of the camera

"Hi Kevin. This scene is when Hector wants to go home to check on his family after he learns that the comet turned everyone who was directly exposed to the red light to dust, even though he knows there's a good chance they'll all be gone. He was killed, but he still had a glimmer of hope..."

   "Keep this trace of hope that nothing happens to the family." Kevin Costner came to the crew today to report that his male lead roles are relatively small, and they are concentrated in several concentrated locations such as homes, department stores, and underground bases. Therefore, it was only in the second week of filming that I came to the crew to report.

Seeing Kevin nodded, Ronald continued to talk, "So, when he got home and found that everyone was gone, he didn't know it well. At this time, he had an emotional breakdown. At this moment Zombies came in to kill him, and he quickly switched from a collapsed state of tragic death to a state of escape..."

   "Let's go for a rehearsal, don't arouse your emotions." Ronald urged Kevin to start moving.

"Mom, Mom..." Kevin Costner walked into his house wearing a shirt and jeans, the jukebox on the table was still playing music, the lights in the room were hanging on the wall, and below it was "Comet of the Comet". night".

   Hector knew right away that the family was celebrating the comet's return last night, and the whole family went to see the comet. Knowing that he couldn't help it, he sat on the bed and suddenly felt sad.

   The jukebox completes a loop and starts playing the music again. Hector woke up from his grief, he had more important things to do, so he took a bag and put all the family photos in it.

   "Who's there?" Kevin Costner, as if he had heard an unusual noise, stood up, took out an automatic, and loaded it with a click. .

"Very good, we'll do the storyboards like this, give Kevin a few more full body shots, he's in great shape. Then we'll give a close-up when he's sitting in bed sad, and finally a medium shot when he's standing up to take pictures of his family, I need his tender gesture of putting family pictures into the bag."

  Kevin Costner is a good actor with layers of acting skills. All kinds of emotions are stimulated by the objects in the lens, and there are obvious ups and downs. Perhaps it was well trained by director Lawrence Kasdan in "The Big Chill", Ronald felt that he was very good at acting in front of the camera.

  Different from the fixed seat and field of view like in a drama, moviegoers actually watch the actors’ performances through the camera. Therefore, body movements, language, expressions, etc., the details of the performance, must be realized with the camera.

   And this scene requires a lot of emotional accumulation, transformation, and release. It is a major scene in the middle of the movie, which makes the audience feel moved by Hector's emotions towards his family, and then continues the battle against the zombies.

   This is the middle of a zombie battle scene, the audience needs a little soothing emotions, and all the performances are brought by Costner alone. So Ronald let Kevin Costner go through the scene first, and then based on his performance in front of the camera, he would prepare the scene.

  "I need some time", Kevin Costner walked into his trailer to brew his emotions, but after ten minutes, he came out of the trailer, "I'm ready."

   "Action!"

When    Hector walked into the house, he still had a hopeful expression on his face, because there was nothing unusual in the house, as if the family had just gone out. He also carried a lot of hope.

   Then he turned his back to the camera, saw the colorful lights on the wall, and suddenly understood that his family was also going to see the comet. The rhythm of his movements was noticeably slower, and a sad mood suddenly emerged from Costner's back.

   Then there is a close-up of a face. Hector already knew the tragedy of his family in his heart. His whole spirit was like a tire with a hole, and it quickly deflated.

Suddenly, Hector was awakened by the music playing on the jukebox. He raised his head and saw the photos of his family on the table. He quietly wiped his eyes, took out a bag from the drawer, and began to put the family photos in carefully and gently. .

   "Cut!"

  Ronald is very satisfied. The biggest characteristic of a good actor is relaxation. He can be very relaxed in front of the camera, so he has room to express various emotions. If you are very nervous when you go up, you will not be able to perform this kind of play that requires transitions and layers.

   "Very well, let's move on to the next game."

   No one applauds, and everyone automatically enters the mode to prepare for the next game. Save a few minutes per shot, and you can take more shots at the end of the day.

   "Ronald, how is my performance?" Kevin Costner came over, he felt that his performance still had some room for improvement, and hoped to do another one.

"You know what? If I had an eight million budget, I could shoot this scene for a day, and you have room to play. But it's a pity that I'm not Lawrence Kasdan, and Atlantic is not the former United Artists, so I I'm satisfied with what you just said."

   "Oh, I wish you were Kasdan so you wouldn't cut all my scenes."

"No, it's up to you to attract female audiences to my movie. In addition to liking Regina's self-reliance and self-reliance, they also have to have a handsome guy to fall in love with her to be successful." Ronald knew that Costner was a bit overwhelmed. She was afraid, and hurriedly gave him a ticket.

   "The next scene is for the child actor to appear with you. I can only take his state first, so you have to cheer up."

   "Okay, I'll cooperate with him."

   The next scene is a zombie played by a child who rushes into Hector's house to bite him. Hector recognized the neighbor's child and couldn't bear to shoot him with a gun. After locking them up, he went out to find the car and ran back to find Regina.

   It is said in the industry that the most difficult scenes to film are children, animals, and water.

   Ronald finally got a taste of the difficulty in filming children's scenes, that is, children's performances are not stable enough and unpredictable.

   This time the scene is not the kind of drama that takes a lot of acting skills. It just pretends to be a zombie and rushes in from the door to bite Hector played by Kevin Costner.

   Children's performances are irregular. They can perform well in one scene, and then start to fail because of inexplicable reasons. Sometimes they perform well, but the adult actors don't keep up, so they can only try to keep up with them.

   And Ronald couldn't talk about them yet. If he talked too much, the child either started crying or even more uncooperative, which dragged the filming time for a long time.

   Fortunately, the producer is a person with children. He saw something was wrong and gave the child a piece of chocolate. After the child ate it, he shot the scene smoothly all the way.

   "He seems to be hungry, and sometimes he gives them a little sugar, and then praises them for how good the last shot was, and he will summon the courage to take the next shot."

   Ronald patted the child actor's head. The staff of the Actors Guild next to him was already eyeing them, and they were waiting to come out to interrupt Ronald's continued shooting on the grounds that the child was in a bad mood and should not shoot continuously.

   "Next time, if you have any discomfort, just tell me, okay?" Ronald said softly to the little actor.

   "This zombie makeup makes me uncomfortable." The little actor pointed to the taupe zombie makeup on his face.

   "You know what? The next shot is a close-up, your classmates and friends will see you horribly on screen."

   "Like dinosaurs?"

   "Yes, like a dinosaur."

   The energy cycle of children is faster than that of adults. The young actors suddenly became energetic and entered the state very quickly. The scenes of fighting with Costner in the interior of the shooting looked quite convincing.

   "Oh boy, what a horrible creature."

   Ronald looked up and saw an old acquaintance, Mary Voronoff, who had also come to the scene.

  Voronov played the old-fashioned headmistress in "High School of Rock", and Ronald also asked her to play Audrey White, an expert in the underground biological laboratory base, according to the dream.

   "Why are you here, Mary?"

   "There is something in my script that doesn't make sense. I want to talk to you."

   "OK, okay, when I'm done here, let's talk in the trailer."

   Watching the scene tidied up, Ronald confirmed that tomorrow's scene was Mary Voronoff coming to the Two Sisters vs Zombies mall to rescue them both.

   He went to the trailer and started chatting with Voronov about the script.

   "Ronald, is there something wrong with Audrey's character here?" Voronov came up with a criticism.

   "Okay, tell me what's wrong?" Ronald couldn't keep his face up against Voronov. When she was a supporting actress, she was still an assistant.

   "It's a good script, but it's not about deep humanity, but a collection of all the fashion elements of the moment."

   "OK, then what?" Ronald nodded, indeed "Night of the Comet" combines a lot of popular elements.

"Look, it's the valley girls saving the world, and now the valley girls' songs are just trending, and the 'fast tempo' you shoot has also made their accent and style popular with middle school students across the country. And then there's the zombies, since 'Dawn of the Living Dead' , there are a lot of zombie movies coming out.

   Then comes the comet. Halley's Comet is about to return to Earth. The newspapers just reported that this return has been discovered by amateur astronomers, and everyone is talking about it. Then there's mall shopping, and shootouts. "

   "I agree with these, so what?"

   "So Audrey should also be a character with humanity and state of change. She is a conscientious biological researcher, and she can't bear the fact that the base recruits survivors as living blood samples, and wants to save these children.

  Her character also has a psychological transformation, not a symbolic villain, so her lines should be in line with the current situation..." Mary Voronov said eloquently.

  Ronald scratched his head, what Voronov said was actually good, and of course there were some of her careful thoughts about getting more close-ups. Ronald didn't point it out, "But I'm going to shoot your scene tomorrow, and I don't have time to change your lines again."

   "I've written it for you." Voronov handed over a few pages of paper that she had handwritten, all of which were lines she had come up with that were more in line with the character's identity.

   Ronald smiled and turned out to be well prepared. He browsed through it and felt that there was no problem, "Very good, then you can follow what you wrote."

   "You're a good director, Ronald." Mary Voronoff was glad that her understanding of the characters was recognized by Ronald.

   "It's probably none of my business, but here's a foreshadowing of Regina, why isn't it followed?" Mary Voronoff felt that Ronald was more humbly accepting opinions, so she asked him a question.

   "What foreshadowing?"

   "It's this DMK. When Regina was playing video games, a person named DMK broke Regina's record in sixth place. Why didn't the latter DMK play?"

   "This is not a foreshadowing, this is a scene where I want to show Regina's independent spirit that she likes competition and refuses to admit defeat, and cooperates with her tomboy-like hairstyle to make the audience immediately accept her identity."

Mary Voronoff shook her head. She has made many Roger Coleman-style low-budget movies, and she knows that the audience remembers the beginning of the movie more clearly, "If it wasn't foreshadowing, there's no need to begin For such a shot, have you heard of Chekhov's gun?"

  Ronald whistled, Chekhov's gun meant that if there is no plot echoing behind it, don't add this plot.

   "I don't have the idea of ​​​​this foreshadowing, but since you also think there should be a foreshadowing here, let me think about how to make it up."

   (end of this chapter)