Exploiting Hollywood 1980

   Chapter 649 Invite Captain Io to visit

   Ronald did not bring good news to Nisita, but Nisita brought him bad news.

   "Ronald, when are you going to Hawaii? Is it next Monday? Well, Walter Murch called me, MJ has a serious problem, and I want you or Coppola to settle it over the weekend."

   "Can you let Francis go? I'm busy shooting right now."

   "Coppola is also working on his new film 'Peggy Sue is getting married', and MJ is a little more familiar with you, so I try to let him go and watch it too."

"Okay, okay." Ronald remembered his daydream production, participating in this big production of more than 20 million, but together with Lucas and Coppola, the three of them jointly made a huge profit A sum of Disney money. It is also professional ethics to solve problems in this way.

   "What's the matter?" Ronald came to the shooting scene, Walter Murch was drinking honey water made by his wife next to the camera, his eyes were dull.

   "MJ won't come out."

   "Don't want to come out of the locker room? Why did you offend him?" Ronald looked inside, MJ's current level of big name is not comparable to any movie star.

   Since he organized the disaster relief performance in Africa, his reputation has grown, and he feels like he wants to become a saint.

   "It was my problem, the first time I made a 3D movie, I made a mistake with the editing."

   "How else can you go wrong with editing?"

It turned out that Walter Murch was very cautious. When shooting 3D for the first time, he printed the film on the same day. After editing, he used the negative to develop a version. Before the shooting was completed, he made a half-minute sample first. Try this stereoscopic cinema camera for the first time.

  Because of the problem with this sample, Murch asked to re-shoot the picture of MJ jumping in the spacewalk, which made America's hottest star unhappy, hiding in the locker room on the phone, ignoring Murch.

  This situation has been going on for a day, Ronald watched for a while, thinking that maybe it wasn't so bad, after all MJ didn't refuse to shoot, he still came to the scene.

   "What's wrong with the editing?"

  Murch took Ronald to the film. Played the 2D version first, everything was normal, MJ's dance moves became more mature, and now he is more comfortable.

   Then the 3D version…

"Um?"

   Ronald, wearing red and blue 3D glasses, saw a 3D picture of MJ appearing on the screen. He was doing spacewalking, which he is best at. I saw him wearing a white suit and a top hat, but the funny thing was that his spacewalk was incoherent at all, intermittently, as if he stepped on the switch and kept shaking.

   "What's the matter?" Ronald took off his glasses, and two double images appeared on the screen, but the shaking was gone. Putting on the glasses, MJ on the screen began to sieve again.

   "You know, our brain has a mechanism called persistence of vision that automatically synthesizes 24 frames per second into a continuous motion.

With   2D images, our brains can supplement and describe actions by themselves. With 3D images, it seems that our brains have to spend more resources to carefully align the boundaries of the two images in order to see the illusion of three-dimensionality.

   The brain needs more energy to make up for those moving images. Therefore, our brains seem to be down at this moment, unable to keep up with the action of 24 frames per second, and there are too many details to be supplemented.

   So I asked Disney engineers to increase the frame rate of the shooting, all the way to 60 frames per second. In this way, our brain is provided with more than double the details of the picture every second, and we don’t need to spend too much energy on brain compensation. So it's normal.

  Look at this part, I found MJ's backing dancer to shoot, everything is normal. "

  "I understand", Ronald saw that there was no technical problem here, so he stood up and went to solve the problem of MJ's star playing a big name over there.

   "Dangdang..." Ronald rang the people in MJ's dressing room, "It's ready in five minutes."

   No one answered.

   "I'm Ronald, is there anything MJ needs us to do?"

   "Pop, the door is open", MJ's manager, Frank Dalio, came out.

   "Ronald, let's go outside and talk."

   At a glance, MJ was on the phone and saw Ronald also waving.

   "It doesn't seem to be a big problem, just a problem with the treatment." Ronald and Dario went to the outside room together.

   "Ronald, MJ is a sensitive artist and we have to be patient with him. Any suggestion that something is wrong with his performance will put him in a bad mood."

"There is absolutely no such thing, all errors are caused by Disney's cameras, which have been completely corrected by our experienced Murch adjustment, MJ's great dance, will be exactly three-dimensional, displayed in Disney in front of the audience in Paradise."

   "Well then, you and me, MJ is on the phone with his good friend Paul McCartney of the Beatles, and when he's done, we can start."

   Ronald was taken into MJ's lounge, he and MJ nodded, and absently remembered their own movie shooting. Daario went over and repeated Ronald's words in MJ's other ear.

MJ nodded while still talking to McCartney of the Beatles, "Paul, you all seem to be veterans who understand the record industry very well, I've sold a few records, but I'm still a rookie, give me some advice. ?"

   On the phone, MJ glanced at Ronald. Very good, he also surrendered, he is the boss of the set.

Seeing Ronald sitting in the corner thinking about things and constantly taking out a pen and writing something in his notebook, he was very happy. MJ smiled slightly and raised his hand to Dario, motioning him to bring a piece of paper and a pen. .

"Yeah, listen, the most important thing is not to lose the copyright of your own songs. We made a mistake during the Beatles, and the copyright was taken away by the record company. Now we are trying to find a way to buy it back." Paul McCartney, who is the most popular person in the record industry, made a special trip to ask himself, and is still very proud.

   "Really? How much do you have to pay to buy back the copyright of your own songs?" MJ said, writing a line with a pen on the paper Dario brought.

   "Thirty million dollars."

   "Thirty million dollars? Oh oh, that's a lot of money."

   "Yeah, don't make the mistake of turning over. Michael."

   "Ok, thank you."

  MJ hung up the phone, walked quietly behind Ronald, and gently taped the piece of paper on Ronald's back.

   Ronald felt someone touch him lightly behind his back, turned his head and saw that it was MJ and the manager Dario.

   "Michael, what, you're done?"

   "Hee hee hee..." MJ wore a costume, covered his mouth with his hand, and laughed secretly.

Ronald saw him smile innocently, and smiled back, "Michael, I apologize for Disney's machine error, you are the best performer. Walter's side is ready and can use the most real technical means, Leave your heroic presence to more audiences."

  MJ nodded, still snickering.

   "You're ready here, just call me, and I'll get them ready."

   "Hee hee hee", MJ laughed even more happily, he touched Ronald's back again.

  Ronald reached back and found the piece of paper. He took it down and looked at it. There was a line on it, "Kick my ass."

   "Hahaha..." Daario laughed at the right time, making Ronald laugh too.

  MJ is really childlike and likes to play tricks like these ten year olds. Ronald thought.

   "You have to sign me and I'll keep it, otherwise I'll forget who kicked my **** in the future." Ronald picked up the paper and teased MJ.

  "Good idea", MJ picked up the pen, added to Ronald in front, and signed his own name, Michael Jackson.

   Ronald folded the paper and put it in his pocket.

   "Wait a minute, I'll make a call."

MJ was having fun, picked up the phone and dialed his agent, "Hey, Paul's bid is $30 million, you double that and buy the copyright of the Beatles. For $60 million, In the future, Paul McCartney will pay me royalties when he sings his own songs, hee hee.”

   "Ronald, should I have an appearance?" MJ asked Ronald again with a smile.

   Ronald, who heard MJ speak, was very surprised.

   Why is this MJ like a child at one time, and a ruthless and mature businessman at another time. The two identities switch smoothly, just like Peter Pan in a fairy tale. On the one hand, he is naive, but he also has superpowers that are unattainable for ordinary people.

   "Invite Captain Io to come with you, your spaceship is about to set sail." Ronald did not change his face, and matched with MJ to say the lines he liked to hear.

"yeah!"

   "Where should I look?" MJ came to the filming location. He knew all of his dances by heart, and all he wanted to ask was which direction to look at the camera.

   "Cut!"

   once again.

  Walter Murch was shocked. When he was a director, MJ's cooperation was not so high. What magic does Ronald have? Or do you know how to make an artist like MJ happy?

   "After you go to Hawaii, what should I do with him?" Murch has also understood that MJ is deliberately showing his face, to let everyone know who has the final say on the set. He wants to learn from Ronald and find a way to deal with the big stars.

   "If you're like this, knock on the door and ask him to come out, half an hour, fifteen minutes, five minutes each, and you have to respect him.

   Also, if he still delays too long, you say, 'Captain Io, please, your ship is about to set sail'. ' Ronald whispered in Murch's ear.

   "Are you serious?"

   "Yes, you have to do this if you want to finish the filming smoothly."

"All right."

   On Monday, Ronald and the crew all arrived at Los Angeles International Airport. The crew is flying to Hawaii to film Okinawa. On the Hawaiian island of Oahu, there is a windward beach, similar to the scenery on the other side of Okinawa.

   "Ronald, let me introduce to you, this is the famous screenwriter Oliver Stone."

   Brokers Nisita and Richard also came to see him off at the airport. They were asked to stop Ronald at the airport and introduce him to another famous screenwriter who was going to fly to the Philippines.

   "Hello, Mr. Stone." Ronald shook hands with him, ready to run. This old boy wrote the "Year of the Dragon" as that ghost, maybe he also discriminates against Chinese people in his heart.

   "Ronald, is it convenient for a few words?"

  Oliver Stone saw that Ronald was about to leave, and hurriedly stopped him and asked him to come to the side.

   "I'll get straight to the point. There was a bit of a misunderstanding between us. I asked Mr. Ovitz from CAA to explain it to you."

"We've never dealt with each other, but I really like your Conan the Barbarian script. I'm just curious, why did you write the Chinese in the Year of the Dragon like that?" Ronald let the crew go first and sat down by himself Talk to Stone.

"That's what I'm going to say, that's not mine. I signed it, but Cimino, you know his, all the script, he's going to take the credit and take the credit. If you came out to refute him this time, I am afraid I will also be implicated.

   Actually, I just hated the Vietnam War. They recruited me as a Yale college student and sent me to the Vietnam battlefield to serve as an infantryman. I almost died on the battlefield. My classmate, George Jr., the eldest son of the current deputy commander, can fly to the National Guard. "

   "So you're a real Vietnam War veteran, not like the fake Cimino." Ronald still respected the veteran, and he knew Cimino's virtues, so he couldn't help but believe Stone's words.

   "He's really the 'lucky son'", Ronald cites a famous CCR song.

   "Some people are born to wave the flag

   The colors of the flag are red, white and blue. "Ronald thought of his dad, and Aunt Karen's husband, Steve, who were infantrymen going into battle.

   "Hahaha, yes." Stone also took a lyric.

   "Some people are born with silver spoons in their hands

   Lord, they will help themselves. "

   The two looked at each other and smiled, they were all ordinary people, at most middle-aged.

"Ronald, I'm currently working on a film 'Field Platoon', which I wrote myself, and my producer Heimdall is only willing to pay 3 million for the production cost, and Orion will make up the other 600 Wan. Now we are trying to reduce the cost.”

   "Hey, it's two companies again, it's the same number again, this is their old routine." Ronald knew as soon as he heard it, wasn't this the routine Cameron used when he filmed "Terminator".

   "Now the new directors start making movies at six million." Ronald thought, fortunately, he became a director earlier, and he still has a chance to use a production budget of two or three million.

   "Actually, this is already my second film. My first directorial work, 'El Salvador', has just finished filming in Mexico. Do you have any money-saving experiences that you can share?"

  Oliver Stone was not afraid to learn from Ronald, who was much younger than himself.

   "I don't have anything to teach you, Oliver. It's just this kind of movie, it's very difficult to set in the Philippine jungle. Be careful not to be like Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now'.

   Also, you'd better pick some new actors, they are willing to endure hardship in order to get ahead, and they don't complain about filming for more than ten hours a day. "Ronald remembered the two uncles in his crew, who are newcomers and easy to train.

   "How about Emilio Estevez? I heard he doesn't have much acting right now?"

   "Uh..." Ronald remembered his grievance with Emilio, as if everyone hadn't disclosed it, maybe Stone didn't know it.

   "He's more difficult, you know what I mean?"

   "Understood, I'll have to find someone obedient." Stone crossed out Emilio's name. "How about his brother? Charlie Sheen? Martin's son can act."

   "He seems to be fine." Ronald felt that he couldn't kill everyone with a single stick.

   "I also need a supporting role, who looks like a villain, but has a good heart, so that it can give the audience a sense of reversal."

   "Let me see", Ronald simply took the casting list prepared by Stone, "I've seen Willem Dafoe act, and he's very good as the villain."

   "And this Forrest Whittaker," Ronald pointed to another person's name, "This black actor played my fast-paced debut, very obedient, very similar to playing a big football player."

   "That's all, no one else has cooperated, and I don't know their performance on set." Ronald finished his coffee and was about to leave, his flight had already been called on the radio.

   "Thank you very much. We have the opportunity to chat more. There are not many people in Hollywood who are willing to film such controversial subjects as the Vietnam War."

  "Okay", Ronald carried his bag, caught up with Richard who was still waiting for him, and walked towards the boarding gate.

   "Passengers and friends, please note that the flight to Hawaii is boarding. Ronald Lee, a business class passenger, please board the plane as soon as possible."

   "Antonia, what's the matter with you? Our flight to London is about to board."

"Oh, ah... I'll come." Antonia Francesky, who was flying to London with the New York City Ballet for a season performance, suddenly heard Ronald's name called on the radio. Ripple in my heart.

   "I wonder what movie he's going to make in Hawaii now?"

   (end of this chapter)