Exploiting Hollywood 1980

   Chapter 264 The director is the one who makes the decisions

  Alonso is a Latino photographer with a Mexican mustache. He was in his fifties, had a calm face, and spoke with a slight Spanish accent. After greeting Ronald and others, he went to work.

   He turned the camera on, loaded scrap film, and began to start and stop repeatedly.

  UltraCam is inherently louder than Panavision, Alai and other brands. In the indoor environment of the office, there is a humming echo. Alonso picked up the camera and ran to the corner to experiment.

Ronald went to watch for a while, but Alonso didn't like to talk much, he just turned on and off repeatedly, the motor finished turning the waste film, Alonso took it off and put it back on, then turned it on and started again. .

   Ronald looked sullen, and went back to his chair to close his eyes. During filming hours, rest is a luxury for the director, and he has to seize the free time.

   After waiting for a long time, UltraCam's technical support staff finally arrived. He asked about the camera's symptoms, and he didn't go there to see Alonso debugging the machine. He just took out a repair application form and asked the director of photography to fill it out.

   "What's the problem?" Ronald stood up and watched.

"Old problem, the machine has an unexplained overheating of the motor, and some types of Kodak film are used, and the fog of the negative will also occur randomly. Fortunately, it is not very serious, only about 20% of the cases, the printed positive film is projected on the screen. , it will be slightly blurry.”

   "Only?" Ronald was too angry to argue.

   This is not a regular problem, you don't know which of the 10 shots will have a problem. It will definitely have a big impact on the shooting situation of "fast-paced Richmond High School".

   "What's the solution?" The director of photography, Matthew, heard Ronald's tone and knew that the director was going to be angry, so he hurriedly asked the UltraCam experts.

"We can provide a backup camera and go back and fix it. But you know, we can't guarantee that the backup camera will work well in your shooting environment. This fogging problem occurs randomly, and we have been unable to find a pattern. "

   "What about the motor card film?"

“That’s a problem with the housing of the motor and the film cassette. In order to pursue a short **** distance and a compact overall size, the reflective lens is also designed to be compact, and the film cassette and the lens group are very close together. We suspect that some At that time, the slight deformation of the outer shell caused the jam."

   "click", the sound of the winder motor stopped abruptly, Alonso pressed the stop switch, and said in English with a slight Spanish accent, "I think I found the reason."

"what is the reason?"

  Alonso didn't explain, but said to the camera assistant, "Go get a Panasonic camera battery made by Dongying."

   then said to Ronald and Matthew, "I think you can just replace the Panasonic brand of batteries and the film winder problem can be solved.

   Ronald, producer Lin Sen and the others looked at each other and doubted what Alonso said.

On the other hand, the technical support staff of UltraCam also said, "This is not a battery problem, but the motor of the film winder cannot drive the film forward. We have reproduced this fault, and the battery indicator lights are always on when there is a problem. "

  Alonso couldn't tell the difference, just picked up the Panasonic-compatible battery that his assistant had just brought, and installed the camera with a bang.

   "That's it, I promise that there will be no problem of film jamming again. As for some film fogging, it is a design fault. I can only reduce the fogging phenomenon, not eradicate it."

  Producer Lin Sen listened to Alonso's Spanish-accented English, and he was not confident. "Let's go get a new Alai or Panavision camera. Let's make use of the film from the previous two days?"

   "No, if you use a different brand of camera, you have to reshoot it, otherwise the film from different cameras will be mixed during editing, and the audience will feel very strange." Director of photography Matthew disagreed with this approach.

   "Or we can shoot with a spare UltraCam and wait for their repairs," said Azov, another producer.

   "I have no confidence in them, and it seems that the backup machine can't avoid this problem." Matthew replied.

  Director of Photography, Producer, Crow, Heckling and others all looked over to Ronald. Everyone in the crew can give their professional or unprofessional opinion on the issue. But in the end, it's up to the director to decide.

   Just like the army is to the general, the officers and soldiers below can express their opinions, but once the general makes a decision, the people below must follow it.

   Similarly, the person who makes the decision must also bear the consequences of the decision. Either way, Ronald must be held accountable for his decision.

If there is a problem with the replacement of the backup camera, or if two versions of the film from a different brand of camera are used for the audience to watch the play, Ronald must find a solution. The resulting delay in shooting time and cost overruns must also be He came forward to explain to the global high-level.

   Ronald didn't make a decision right away, but walked up to Alonso and looked at the battery on the UltraCam. After the battery was installed, the camera's power indicator lighted slightly, and Ronald, following Alonso's example, pressed the on button.

  "Woo..." A low motor sound sounded, and the waste film in the film box was pulled and rotated at an accelerated rate. After a few seconds, the film reached the highest speed and turned into a uniform motion. This is what Ronald called Action! Previously, the DP had to confirm why the motor was running at a constant speed.

   Alonso was like this before, press to open, let the film roll to the end, then stop, put the film in reverse, and press to open. Do it over and over again.

   Then… he pointed out that the problem was with the battery.

  Ronald's heart flashed a hint of enlightenment, pointed to the indicator light and said, "What's the problem here?"

  Alonso smiled, "Yes, the indicator light reads the battery level incorrectly. The battery has fallen below a certain level, and the film can not be run at full speed, but the indicator light is still on normally."

   "Why are Panasonic batteries okay?"

   "The Dongying people are very serious, the voltage and current drop curves of the battery are very stable, and a basic flat line can be guaranteed before the battery is completely dead. When the battery is dead, it will drop rapidly. At this time, the indicator light will jump to the warning state.

  Our manufacturing in America is not as diligent as those from Dongying. Companies like Panavision can also customize batteries. UltraCam can only use standard battery packs on the market. "

   "I see, what about the fogging of the film?"

   "That's a design flaw. As the manufacturer's expert said, in order to open up the market, this model of camera has specially designed a viewfinder to match the zoom lens, which can clearly see the depth of field changes during the zooming process of the lens.

However, in this way, a very long viewfinder is required, which compresses the distance between the lens and the exposure plane inside the camera, so that their mirrors are compressed in a too short **** distance, and the lens tilt angle is too large, which is easy to be damaged. The resonance caused by the undervoltage motor scratches the surface.

  If your crew uses some Kodak films that require high light transmission, there will be a slight fogging state. As you shoot, when the battery is low, the resonance is greater and the fogging is more severe.

  To completely solve this problem, the camera design must be changed. Now, with the stable voltage battery of Panasonic, there is basically no serious fogging. Of course, the picture is slightly blurrier than Panasonic, which is inevitable.

   If it is not a professional, the general audience should not find it. "

   "Why can't an expert like you be in charge of the technical department?" Ronald completely understood Alonso's logic. He just idled with waste film repeatedly, trying to reproduce the shooting scene, how could there be a card film.

   "I like to shoot on set, and my accent..."

   Ronald knew in his heart that there was a hierarchy among the white people in America. Anglo-Saxon-dominated Europeans have always discriminated against Latinos. In the early years southern European immigrants were also said to be half black.

  The descendants of immigrants from Mexico like John Alonso are even lower than those of southern Europeans.

  Ronald reached out and gave him a firm shake. "Thank you, Mr. Alonso. You are such a skilled photographer. Hope to have the opportunity to work with you, Amigo."

   "I also hope to work with young directors like you. My master likes to work with young directors. He said that young people are not limited by the so-called industry conventions, but can make good movies instead."

   "Who is your master?" Ronald did not understand the inheritance between photographers.

   "is Chinese photographer James Huang, he is the greatest master of low-key photography. He is also the first photographer to use hand-held photography, and he also invented the velvet method, so that blue-eyed actors are no longer discriminated against in the era of black and white films.

   In fact, he is still deep-focus photography, and the inventor of the first lamp available in the audio age, but like me, many of his achievements are not recognized by the mainstream Hollywood photography community because of his ethnicity. "

   I didn’t expect that there was such a Chinese photographer in Hollywood. Ronald also heard it for the first time, “Then he is now?”

   "He's been dead for a few years. Greylisted for reasons of Chinese Exclusion and McCarthy, and he doesn't do much in the Color Age. But he's been nominated for multiple Oscars for Best Cinematography and won twice."

   "Oh," Ronald nodded. When he watched old movies, he paid more attention to the director and actors, but not the name of this master photographer.

  Thanks to Alonso, Ronald decided to use the solution provided by him, using Panasonic batteries produced by Toyo, and the other things remained unchanged, and it continued to operate as usual.

   "Go buy a few more batteries for the Panasonic camera, we'll still use this camera." Ronald instructed the camera assistant to run errands.

   "Are you sure?" both producers Lin Sen and Azov asked.

   "This is the best solution right now."

  Everything was normal for the shooting that night. With the efficient lighting system and the cameras that had no problems, the shooting progress was advanced again.

   (end of this chapter)