Exploiting Hollywood 1980

   Chapter 619 Can you edit like this?

  Before the sun rose, against the dark background of the aircraft carrier deck, a few white steam drifted past, and the head of an F-14A slowly entered the monitor from the left side of the screen.

   The music for the "Top Gun" theme song slowly played on the soundtrack, and the bells began to ring in the background.

   "Crack", Ronald pressed the pause button, "It just happens to be this frame, I think this knife is cut here."

  Chris and Billy glanced at Ronald, who had long been surprised by Ronald's ability to stop at one frame every time during this period of editing.

   They saw this trick a few days before editing, and immediately knew that Ronald was also an expert in editing, and they no longer dared to rely on editing skills to show old qualifications. Seeing that Ronald gave the editing instructions, one went to mark on the editor, and the other went to carry the film reel to be connected next.

   "When...when...when...", the opening bells of the theme song sounded one after another, and the sound of the lead guitar cut in, repeating the melody that the piano sang softly at the beginning.

   On the screen, several navy deck non-commissioned officers began to get busy in the brighter and brighter morning sun and the vast white steam. The nose of the second fighter also begins to cut in from the bottom left of the screen.

   "Crack!" Ronald pressed pause again, "This frame is cut here."

  Piano and lead guitar, repeat the main theme more exciting. It seemed that the awakened deck crew and the two fighter jets also matched the intensification of the melody and slowly appeared on the left side of the monitor.

   Both Chris and Billy thought it was very interesting, this is really editing the movie according to the method of editing the MV.

   does not use images to narrate, but uses images to dance to the melody. Each editing port on the screen corresponds to the punctuation of the melody. A melody of three to five seconds can be edited in one go.

The melody of   's theme song is high-spirited, and it is also very suitable for the image of the rising sun and the soldiers from stillness to busyness.

   This short-shot, high-frequency editing method has high requirements on the director. It turns out that the classic Hollywood method generally uses a main camera to photograph the characters and environments in the entire scene, and first explain the location, characters, time, and the logical relationship between several characters to the audience.

   Then use the medium shot over the shoulder to explain the character dialogue, and finally use the close-up and close-up to give the reaction after hearing other characters speak.

   And Ronald's editing completely abandoned the classic Hollywood method. The audience started from the beginning and was moved by the beauty of the close-up steel behemoth aircraft carrier and the very beautiful steel eagles.

   Then, in the slowly lit steam, the non-commissioned officers on the deck of the aircraft carrier loomed. This is completely the editing method of the MV. It combines the jump cut of the new wave of the hair country. In many places, the audience needs to use their imagination to connect them.

   Chris and Billy started chatting in a low voice again, and they were a little unbelievable when they encountered this brand new method of film editing. The MV is three or five minutes long, and the audience mainly listens to the mood of the song. Movies shown in theaters also use this stream-of-consciousness cutting method. Is it feasible?

Ronald knew for a long time that the two of them were discussing their own editing, "There is no doubt that the audiences today have been edified by the new wave editing methods for many years. The editing methods used in various parts of the film are uniformly used throughout the film, so that the audience will not find our story at all.”

"But why do we always lose the rhythm when we want to imitate your cutting method?" Chris and Billy asked humbly for advice. When Ronald was resting, they also tried to find editing points by themselves. , but there is no natural smoothness where Ronald cut.

   "My teacher, Walter Murch, taught me that editing is about anticipating where the audience's mind is going, and then being there a little bit before they arrive."

   "Oh", Chris and Billy suddenly realized that they really lacked this ability to predict.

   "Hehehe..." Ronald laughed secretly in his heart, such a theoretical statement can definitely make the editor feel that he is very powerful. In fact, he has only shot and edited many commercials and MVs.

  A dozen or so seconds of commercials and several minutes of MV have more time constraints than movies.

   When Ronald was shooting those, he had more training than Hollywood practitioners on how to piece together the audience’s ideas with quick footage and editing within a limited time.

   When can you jump cut the shot and let the audience fill in the gaps in between. When to lay the groundwork soothingly and let the audience gradually understand the whole story, he learned from the commercials and MVs he filmed.

   Take the finished product directly and skip the middle training session. It was like a magician conjuring a rabbit out of a hat, which surprised the two editors a lot.

   "Bring the 'Danger Zone' tape and load it."

   Ronald held his head and directed the editor to do it.

   This opening episode "DangerZone", I found a few singers to sing, but they were not ideal. Famous rock singers care more about their own musical style. They may sing interludes like singers who just debuted like Cindy Lauper back then, so that they can interpret them completely according to the ideas of the filmmakers.

  So Ronald negotiated with the two producers and gave Kenny Loggins, who had participated in the chorus of "One World, One Family", and who was also self-aware, a chance to write the episode of the beach volleyball scene.

   Sure enough, in order to return to the popular spotlight, Kenny Loggins cooperated very well. Regardless of the hard work of his voice, he sang this episode with the tension of flying a fighter jet.

   Loggins, who had no hope at all, accidentally got a chance to sing the main episode.

   "Switch Songs Right Here", Ronald directs two editors to switch two episodes when the tail nozzles of the two F-14A engines on the deck of the USS Enterprise emit orange flames one after another.

   Change the rhythm of the theme song that the morning bell gradually wakes up the audience, to the rhythm of "Danger Zone", which is exciting and about to hunt its prey soon.

The    catapult ejected the front landing gear of the sturdy fighter jet, and the rhythm of the deck non-commissioned officers suddenly accelerated.

   "Start your engine,

   Hear her growl.

  The metal is in a state of tension,

   begs you to touch.

  We head to the danger zone…”

  Kenny Loggins' hoarse voice...

   Ronald squatted on the ground with his Sony monitor headphones on.

   His eyes were fixed on the two little paper figures he folded on the editing table. The size ratio of them to the monitor was exactly the ratio of two adults, a man and a woman, sitting in front of the big screen.

The   2.35 aspect ratio is much wider than Ronald's previous films.

  The F-14 fighter jet under the theme song, the fire from the tail flame can only burn to more than half of the screen, the left half of the screen, and a small half space, to show the steam ejection of the aircraft carrier and the actions of the non-commissioned officers on the deck.

  The plane rose from the deck, and the long tail flame only covered half of the screen Ronald imagined, and the other half was a blank space.

   "Very well, the pace of the next editing should be quickened." Ronald sat back in his seat.

   The rhythm of the episode "Danger Zone" was supposed to be faster, and Ronald added a lot of shots from the USS Enterprise.

  The deck sergeants discussed together, carried the arresting wire, made a posture to allow takeoff, and then danced happily after takeoff.

  Ronald especially liked this dance, which was captured by the non-commissioned officer of the aircraft carrier when he jumped for joy that day. Ronald cut him into two pieces and used it repeatedly.

   In a second or two, the camera switches once.

   The footage on the deck was not enough, and Ronald reused footage in many places. Finally, at the end of the song, Ronald adds two three-second shots.

   One is the take-off subjective shot of "Bozo Bozo" after the incident at the San Diego Naval Base. He flew away from the docked aircraft carrier deck, and then with his superb flight skills, he rolled 360 degrees.

  The subjective lens is taken backwards, as if the aircraft carrier and the sea where it is located, turned around with the sky, and changed to the sky, and the sky changed to the position of the sea. After a while, it turned back.

   The second shot is of the aircraft landing on the aircraft carrier.

  An F-14A landed from the sky to the deck of the aircraft carrier in the sunset, and was stopped by the arresting cable.

   This is also a reshoot of "Bozo the Dummy" in San Diego.

  The technical level of aircraft carrier pilots is also high and low. It is not easy for the F-14A to roll such a standard. When landing, it is simply a smooth landing at one time, and it must be tempered repeatedly.

   "Dumb" is indeed the elite level of naval aviation.

   The daily editing continues, and Ronald is fast.

  Fang Kilmer was there when Mancuso was embarrassing the crew because of various incoordination during filming, and he also stood on the side of the CEO.

   His scenes were deleted by Ronald, intentionally or unintentionally. Anyway, one less of these handsome scenes will not affect the progress of the plot.

  Tom Cruise doesn't need a villain in the traditional sense, but a contender to set off his shrewd skills. And Tom Cruise has always been on Ronald's side, facing all kinds of difficulties together.

   He has been with Ronald through the various special effects shots of the ground cockpit, and then went to report on Martin Scorsese's new crew and filmed opposite idol Paul Newman.

   In this way, the romantic scenes of Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis have been preserved a lot.

   Anyway, the chase scenes of sports cars and motorcycles shot by the two people, because Cruise himself almost had an accident, were full of emotional tension. Ronald can't use it too much.

"Very good, although I knew that using the fast editing of the MV would have such an effect of stirring up the audience's emotions, I didn't expect it to be so good. After I watched it, it seemed that the adrenaline was pumped by 2%. Hundred."

  Producer Don Simpson came to see Ronald's cut work dailies, which he appreciated. This fast pace fits perfectly with what he has in mind for a perfect high-concept movie.

   "Have you recorded the song 'Take My Breath Away'?" Ronald refused to flatter him, reaching out and asking him for the most important episode. This is used when the hero and heroine are in love.

   "I can't make up my mind. There are two versions now. Come and listen." Don Simpson put the two master tapes on the table.

   Ronald plugged in the recorder, put on his headphones and started to sound.

   "This is the tall version, and that one is the short version." Bruckheimer explained to Ronald, "We think each has its own advantages, you decide which song is more suitable for the image."

   (end of this chapter)