Exploiting Hollywood 1980

  Chapter 212 Inspiration from the election of the great leader

   After a night of thinking and a long-distance phone call with his main agent, Richard, Ronald finally agreed to give up writing the "Grease" sequel and instead adapt the script for "Fast-Paced Richmond High School."

  Hollywood reality is the main reason for being objective. But Ronald, who has been kicked out of the set twice, is more aware of the importance of participating in the power of filming. If your dream is only to write a few screenplays, then of course hold on to the big-budget and big-star grease sequels.

   But his dream is to shoot classics and even make a name for himself in film history. Then the real participation in the shooting from start to finish, and post-editing, is the most needed way at present.

   But he kept an eye on it and asked CAA to specify in the new contract that the plot of the two versions of the grease sequel he wrote should not be used in the final revised version requested by Timothy Hutton.

   Ronald has the right to pursue responsibility and require a signature if the plot "reference" limit set by the Screenwriters Guild is exceeded.

   A few days later, the contract reviewed by Lindsay Dole's lawyer was sent back, Ronald and Cameron Crowe got on the phone, and the script revision work officially began.

   The first job is to cut characters.

  The original novel by Cameron Crowe has many characters. But the movie can't hold that many people. As a typical teen exploitation film, Ronald asked Universal executives and learned that the studio would only give the movie 90 minutes.

   This kind of exploitative film does not have much marketing investment. When young audiences go to the cinema, they see the poster and decide to watch it temporarily, which is the main source of audience for exploitative films. Then compressing the length of the film and allowing the cinema to line up one more game every day is a more favorable way to increase the box office.

  This is different from a blockbuster movie made by a big star, or a sequel movie. For those movies, the audience will go to the cinema specially to watch the blockbuster. Those movies are usually 120 minutes long, which is too short for the audience to enjoy.

  According to experience, Ronald calculates that each character needs at least 20 minutes to have a complete story. In addition, the scenes between different characters have the same frame, so the movie can only accommodate up to 6 main characters.

  Ronald starts with the two central figures.

  Brad and his sister Stacey are the opening and ending characters of the novel. The roles of many other characters are all strung together by him, and they are characters that cannot be omitted.

  Brad Hamilton is a grade 12 student at Richmond Middle School in Southern California. He is 18 years old. He usually works part-time in a Burger King fast food restaurant. Because he is conscientious and responsible as a foreman, he earns a good salary.

   He used a mortgage to buy a 1958 Buick Sabre. This old-fashioned car has very soft shock absorption, plus a full-size car length and a high-horsepower engine, which attracts the attention of girls.

   He has a girlfriend Lisa, but he wants to break up with Lisa, enjoy the "freedom" of his last year of high school, and try life with different girls.

  Unexpectedly, he conflicted with the refund because a nasty customer thought the hamburger for breakfast was not delicious, but refused to fill in the form, and was finally fired by the boss.

  In order to secure the last few installments of the car mortgage, Brad had to join the "Captain Hook" fish-fried fast food, put on the ridiculous pirate costume hat to deliver the meal...

  ...Eventually, Brad got a job as a cashier at a convenience store, and in the process of being robbed on a night shift, he wisely grabbed hot coffee and poured the robber all over and subdued him. Therefore, he got into the newspaper and was promoted to the store manager after being recognized by the boss.

   Ronald begins writing Brad's character synopsis on his typewriter. A short summary is a 2-3 minute long picture in a finished film. Ronald wrote more than 30 paragraphs at once, and the plot was greatly overrun.

   Not knowing that those plots should be cut off, Ronald simply went to CAA's New York office, faxed these pages of Brad's plot to Los Angeles, and asked novelist Cameron Crow to help reference.

Along the way, various cheering signs for the upcoming election came into view. Ronald had watched the video of the debate and had already decided to support the former California governor. He did the math. According to the governor's tax cuts, he could pay about half of his taxes. .

   "Please cast... a vote, let's make America great again, Let'sMAGA!"

   There are many volunteers canvassing votes along the way, taking advantage of the last few days of canvassing opportunities to win more voters. In addition to door-to-door phone calls and door-to-door visits, in some lively neighborhoods, there are also volunteers canvassing votes on the street.

   Ronald looked, in addition to the volunteers in the election of the chief commander, there were also some volunteers in the election of the New York State Senator, and some volunteers in the election of the House of Representatives. This year coincides with the need for a new senator from New York State. The old senator refused to align himself with the values ​​of California's governor, while his challenger insisted on being governor.

   "I won't vote for you if I don't support tax cuts," Ronald thought to himself.

   Cameron Crowe's phone call came quickly, and the two argued on the phone for a long time. The author of the novel was even more reluctant to delete his beloved characters. I also don't want to delete any part of the characters.

   "Cameron, the length of the film is only 90 minutes, this is not deleted, this is not deleted, we can only make TV series. That can accommodate all the plots in your novel." Ronald joked.

   "Ronald, you know, this novel was written by me undercover for a whole year. All the character archetypes are friends in my life. I don't know how to cut them out. It's up to you to decide."

   Well, Cameron Crowe throws the tough job back on Ronald.

   Ronald's adaptation work encountered a bottleneck. The characters and the plot are not a single unit drama, but an organically linked mass. If the plot of this character is reduced, it will affect the growth of that character.

   If you spend more time on this character, the role of his opponent will be underdeveloped again, and it will not be right.

   This kind of group drama is based on other people's novels. Ronald felt **** everywhere, completely lacking the fun of his own creation. It was the first time that I wrote such a group drama, and the difficulty exceeded Ronald's imagination.

   Strictly speaking, "Famous in the World" is also a group drama. But at that time Ronald was only concerned with improving the lines of certain clips and making the plot of a certain character more reasonable, which was based on the modification of the original screenwriter's structure.

   And this time, we have to plan the story development of the six protagonists from a global perspective. Building the skeleton, and developing the details, are not the same thing at all.

   It is necessary to let everyone have a beginning, middle, and end, and to insert the other six or seven supporting characters in the original book.

  Ronald wrote many times at the typewriter, and each time he wrote a large amount of time for the characters' plots.

   Early that morning, Ronald had to interrupt the slow-moving script adaptation, because it was November 4th, America's quadrennial election day for the Grand Commander.

  Because the voter was registered on Staten Island, Ronald picked up Aunt Karen early in the morning and went out to the town of Totville, Staten Island to vote. In addition to the commander-in-chief, there is also a New York state senator and congressmen from the district to be elected.

   Aunt taught him how to select candidates, and after the two had drawn their votes, they lined up and put the votes into the box.

   "You really don't ask who I picked?" Ronald asked Aunt Karen.

   "Citizens should have the right to choose, unless you want to tell me yourself."

   "I chose the former actor from the Elephant Party."

   "Me too. The Elephant Party advocated ending the Vietnam War. If the impeached liar had come to power sooner, there might not have been that war," said Aunt Karen.

  The two went back to their Manhattan apartment and started watching NBC live, usually in the evening, when Aunt Karen made some steaks to eat together when Donna came back.

   "Oh my God, even Massachusetts has turned red." Aunt Karen exclaimed, and the state of Northeastern New England was the first to announce the results.

  Massachusetts has always been the bastion of the Donkey Party, but this time it turned into a red state.

"There are only more than 3,000 votes left, and a recount is needed." Ronald pointed to the subtitles and said, but this may have nothing to do with the overall situation. The Northeastern New England states where the Donkey Party has been operating for decades have chosen the governor of California. The leader is expected to lose the election.

  In New York State, where they are located, the Elephant Party candidate won 2.67%, with more than 160,000 votes.

  On the map of the NBC studio, the grids were filled in red, and in the final 538 electoral votes, the governor of California is estimated to have passed half of it.

   After 8 p.m., NBC took the lead in using data from exit polls to announce the victory of the Elephant Party candidate, the 69-year-old former governor of California.

   Aunt Karen switched to CBS and ABC, and they are still waiting for official data, no announcement. But their hosts also knew about the exit polling data NBC used, and they started talking about the upcoming new leader.

   Ronald looked at the map, America was not a direct election. The winning candidate in each state will receive all the electoral votes given by that state based on population. The candidate then won by more than half of the 538 total electoral votes.

   Ronald moved in his heart, as if he had found some inspiration to solve too many problems with characters and plots.

   If I can’t cut from the plot, I might as well start with the total length. Like an election, the story that can fill the total length wins and stays.

   Ronald took out a piece of paper and began to write and draw.

   Before 10 p.m., the incumbent president announced his defeat and congratulated his rivals for winning the election. He only got 5 states, including the hometown of himself and the deputy commander, and the DC Capital District. Never before has the current commander been defeated so badly.

   "Is there a big stationery store here?" Ronald asked his aunt suddenly.

  "We have it near our school" Donna didn't sleep either, watching TV and answering Ronald's question.

  I'll check the phone and have them deliver the goods to your door tomorrow. Ronald thought to himself.

   The next day, Ronald wrote all the characters in the novel on sorted cards. Then for each plot, write the synopsis on the card.

   "Bell bell bell..."

   The doorbell rang, Ronald took off the intercom, two delivery workers were at the door of the apartment downstairs, and the secret weapon he ordered had arrived.

   Two workers carried up a huge pine board. Ronald, who had paid, found a spot, nailed the wall, and installed the large pine plank on the wall.

   Then he took out a box of pushpins and pressed the character cards of Brad Hamilton and others on the top of the pine board.

   Then he took out a ruler and with a pencil he drew four horizontal lines running through the board on the pine board. Place the plot card in the space marked out by the four horizontal lines.

   The cards are like racing cars, and the horizontal lines on the pine boards are like racetracks. Each track can hold 10-12 cards.

  The scene and plot of each card, about 2-3 minutes after being filmed into a movie clip. So to fill the 90 minutes, Ronald can only fill in about 40 plot cards at most.

   In this way, you can adjust the plot and characters.

   With an intuitive feeling, Ronald really felt that the job of cutting characters became easier.

   That slogan, 2016 was actually copied from 1980.

   (end of this chapter)