Exploiting Hollywood 1980

   Chapter 276 Bariatric Surgery

   The bed of Proclustes is an ancient Greek fable, the son of Poseidon, the **** of the sea. Opened a hotel on the road leading to Athens.

   There is an iron bed in the inn, and any traveler whose height is longer than the iron bed will be cut short. If it is shorter than the iron bed, it will be forcibly elongated. The passengers who left the hotel the next day were all the same height.

  Walter Murkey meant to reverse the current editing process. Instead of reducing the time from the first cut copy, first set a time frame of 90 minutes, divide the film into a three-act play structure, the beginning, the middle, and the end, and then fill in the material with the material to fill the time slot.

"George's 'Star Wars,' that's what it did, and if you're lucky, you'll get an exceptionally good story, but there's a good chance it's going to be a story that's missing important parts. Like the tall men in the fable , was cut off by the innkeeper."

  Ronald put down the phone and reconsidered this new method taught by Merzy.

   Indeed, this is a completely different idea from the original approach. The original method is like a fat man exercising, and some irrelevant fat can be eliminated through surgery.

   The advantage of this method is that it does not cut out important plots, and keeps the story integrity and mood of the whole film in place.

   But that's the downside. Like a fat man losing weight. The first part is always quick, but once you get to a certain weight, it can be difficult to go down.

The method of    "Proctor's Bed" is like setting a weight loss goal. If the predetermined goal is not reduced, surgery is performed to cut the fat.

   Cutting the film with surgery will always achieve the goal of length, but if the operation is not careful, it will not cut like the original story.

   It seems that some people who have undergone bariatric surgery have removed the fat from their stomachs, but the skin is still the same size, and wrinkled when squeezed.

   Ronald considered it again and again, but decided to try the method of Proclustes' bed. This filling-in-the-blank editing method has also made classic works. Maybe there are some angles that were not thought of before, which can make the material tell a better story?

   And what is imminent is that Universal executives will send a film director to check the edited film, and if the time is less than 90 minutes, they will give another excuse.

  Ronald has been thinking about how to take full advantage of this approach while keeping the story and mood intact. After all, this is a multi-protagonist story, and everyone has their own beginning, middle, and end of the three-act play.

   Tossed and turned on the bed for a long time, but couldn't find a good solution. But Ronald couldn't give up finding the right way to edit the movie.

  This movie was shot by myself, and there are really many levels. From reading Crow's novel, to preparing the script, to David Lynch's resignation as the director, and finally to competing with Heckling for the directorship, step by step, he will not give in easily.

  Suddenly, Ronald, who was half asleep in bed, remembered the card method he used when writing the script.

   At that time, because of the large number of characters and plots, I wrote the plots on forty cards and arranged the plots on the pine board.

   immediately jumped out of bed and found the shoebox where the plot cards were placed. Ronald poured the cards down on the table.

   After several months of preparation and shooting, these episodes have been turned into sections of film and tape. After the actors' creation, some plots are completely different from their original intentions at that time.

   Ronald took out another stack of cards based on his memory, and wrote on it the plot of the finished film, some of his own feelings, and his evaluation of the performance.

   After working all night, Ronald went to the editing room the next day, brought another whiteboard, and used magnets to attract new cards to the whiteboard one by one.

   "Eric, look at this, I want to edit it in another way. We'll start with a few plotlines for the main characters, and then fill them in with their plots."

   "Oh, you came up with a new solution so quickly?" Eric leaned over, and the character names on the whiteboard were marked by Ronald with various colored highlighters.

  There is a scene with Brad, just green, Stacey's pink... and finally Spiccoli's red, and Mr. Hand's blue.

  Eric thinks that these colors seem to show a pattern. They always appear slowly at the beginning, then become denser in the middle, and finally stop abruptly after a scene.

"Did you find it?" Ronald said to editor Eric, pointing to the cards. "These colors are like the beginning, development, peak, and end of a character's story. We want to ensure that each character's story is Complete. That's intuitive."

   "Then, we fill in the time with footage?" Eric looked at a winding track made of cards on the wall, like racing cars, ready to sprint on the NASCAR track.

"Yes, if the actor performs well, we will give her a little more time. If the performance can't impress the audience, we will use editing techniques to supplement the plot. Do you think this is much more convenient? At least it comes from running and losing weight as before. quick."

   "You are such a genius..." Eric said looking at the card on the wall, and he picked up the snapshot of Romanus walking into the mall at the beginning and pasted it under the first card.

   Ronald had previously reproduced a photo of each shot to represent a shot. There is only one short shot, and two or three long shots. In this way, a snapshot is used to represent a shot, and it can correspond one-to-one with the content on the card. It is also easy to adjust afterwards.

   "I have the length of each shot in my notebook, and you write it down on the snapshot." Ronald handed his notebook to Eric's editing assistant.

  The editing assistant took a look, and there was a table in the notebook with the number of each shot and the length of the shot.

   "We edited it later, you count the time again."

After    the female assistant agreed, she hurriedly went to check the editing record sheet.

   Soon, Ronald and Eric were sitting in front of the editor, looking at the camera from a new angle one by one.

   "Stacey, you are much prettier than those cheerleaders." Linda on the monitor said to her best friend Stacey in the cafeteria.

   "I know, but they have a lot of tricks. I'm afraid boys will dislike me."

   "What tricks? Can't you?" Linda asked.

   "That is, with your mouth..."

   "What's so difficult, put a carrot in your mouth..." Linda taught live in the cafeteria boldly.

   "Good job!" The male student on the other side saw Stacey imitating Linda, put the carrot in his mouth, and started clapping and whistling to cheer her on.

   "Oh..." Stacey herself collapsed on the dining table with laughter, and then covered her head with an embarrassed hand.

   "Put this part on?" Eric asked Ronald.

   "Yes, there are Linda and Stacey here. The plot of the two has developed here, it is actually a small second act, if you only watch Stacey's plot."

   In fact, in the performance of this plot, Stacey played by Jennifer Jason Leigh is more skillful, and it can be seen that Stacey's emotions are changing. However, compared with Linda played by Phoebe Cates, Phoebe Cates, who lacks skill, is more brilliant.

   "Perhaps Phoebe and Linda have more similar personalities? Or maybe Phoebe has less experience, so the newcomer's reaction is less routine and more appealing to the audience?"

   Ronald thought to himself that he was still a shortcoming in directing actors' performances. He posted the snapshot on the whiteboard.

   Next is Linda's plot.

  In Brad's imagination, Linda played by Phoebe Cates woos herself under the sun, leaving him intoxicated in an unreal world.

  Linda was swimming in the pool and got water in her ears. She went to the bathroom to get a cotton swab. After opening the door, she suddenly found that she was fantasizing about her and comforting Brad.

   Phoebe's face showed a mixed emotion of surprise, disgust, and fear, and quickly escaped from the bathroom.

   "How did you direct this scene? The actress's facial expressions are so real." Eric asked, pointing to Phoebe on the monitor.

   "Haha, I asked Jazzy Rhinefield who played Brad to buy a fake toy and he picked the biggest one. Phoebe didn't know he had a toy hidden at his waist, that look was totally real."

   "It's really yours." Eric posted a snapshot of the shot.

   Then there is the plot of Brad and trying to get rid of his girlfriend.

  Brad saw a newspaper at home with lines on how to break up with his girlfriend. He recited it several times. When he wanted to ask his girlfriend to come home at night, he was rejected by his girlfriend who also worked in Hamburg across the United States. He wanted to say this parting declaration, but he didn't say it when he saw his beautiful girlfriend.

   Brad was fired by his boss after a conflict with a nasty customer. He wanted to seek comfort from his girlfriend, but he didn't expect her to say the parting statement intact. It turned out that she also read the newspaper and wanted to break up with Brad.

   "Both of those episodes are great, and they portray Brad as a good guy who's doing the right thing," Ronald said to Eric.

   "Yes, he's typically the type with more book knowledge than street knowledge." Eric nodded in agreement.

   "Then keep it." Ronald reached out and pasted the snapshots of the scenes at both ends on the whiteboard, "Let's continue."

  Brad himself quit his job at "Captain Hook's Fish and Chips" and came to work at the Seventy-One convenience store. Today it's his turn to work the night shift.

   Spiccoli came to buy something, he took out a few coins, just enough to buy some sweets.

   "Why don't you work like me?" Brad looked at Spiccoli. Now he doesn't have the same superiority to Spiccoli as he was when he was a foreman in Hamburg. Now he is just an ordinary clerk.

   "I don't need it," Spiccoli replied. "I just need to be able to surf! Do you have a bathroom here? I'd like to borrow it."

  Brad pointed upstairs. Next, a car stopped in front of the convenience store. A young man stepped out of the car and suddenly took out a gun and pointed it at Brad, "Give me the money in the cash register, hurry up!"

   "Okay, right now." Brad turned to get the key.

   "Brad!" Spiccoli came out of the bathroom, "Do you have any tissues here?"

   While the robber turned around, Brad picked up a pot of hot coffee from the heater and splashed it on the robber's head.

  Then he rushed out of the counter and picked up the pistol that the robber had thrown away from the pain, "You son of a bitch, compare your gun to me?"

   "You're amazing, Brad." Spiccoli called from the side.

   "This is the end of Brad, and the end of all character development." Editor Eric posted a snapshot of the shot below the sixth-to-last card.

   "Yes, then it's the end of all the characters." Ronald nodded, "One, two, three, four, five... and the end of five characters."

   "Brad, Stacey, Mark the nerd, Mike the scalper, Stacey's best friend Linda, why not Spiccoli?"

   "He's a supporting role, like the black football star, who doesn't have his own ending," Ronald explained.

   "But I always thought Spiccoli was the protagonist. He had a lot of shots."

   "Yes, Sean Penn's acting skills are very good. I gave him a chance at the scene. He can perform a different surprise every time, so I added some scenes temporarily."

   "Ronald, seriously, I think Spiccoli deserves an ending. His performance is like a star, very eye-catching. If you don't give an ending, the audience will not agree."

   "Really?" Ronald walked to the whiteboard and carefully looked at the paragraphs marked in red. Sean Penn's performance is indeed very real. He played this stupid surfer very well, and he retained a lot of his role in the scene. According to the proportion, he should be a protagonist.

   "It seems necessary to add an ending to him," thought Ronald.

   (end of this chapter)