Exploiting Hollywood 1980

  Chapter 978 Journey to the West of a Japanese-American Joint Venture

   "Hey, he still refuses to marry a girl of our ethnicity..."

On the roof top of a high-rise building in New York, an old man got off the helicopter and was greeted by his assistant next to him. After hearing what Ronald told his son Michael, Kirk Douglas stood on the tarmac in a daze After a moment, he waved his hand to dismiss the messenger.

  Kirk Douglas is over seventy, but still full of energy, traveling everywhere. He came to his room through the exclusive elevator and dialed the number of CAA's Michael Ovitz.

   "Michael, your golden boy turned down my offer..."

   "I'd say he's not old enough to want to get married yet," Ovitz dismissed this old-fashioned blind date at first. Today's audience is much more tolerant of cohabitation before marriage than Hollywood was back then.

  Now the cohabitation of male and female stars is equivalent to marriage in the Hayes Code era. A breakup now is equivalent to a divorce back then. After Franklin, the leader of the Donkey Party, took office, it was a period when the tax law was very unfriendly to entertainers, and the social atmosphere was very conservative.

  There are even two tabloids in Los Angeles, which are famous for discovering the romantic affairs of stars, and then cooperating with several major studios to blackmail the stars under their banners, making them submit obediently and make some movies they don't like.

   This trend lasted until the 1950s, when Ingrid Bergman derailed her marriage and made trouble in the Senate. But after the Vietnam War, urbanization intensified, men and women left their families to work in cities, and cohabitation before marriage gradually became normal, which was also reflected in the plots of Hollywood movies.

  So after the public's acceptance has increased, they are no longer so harsh on celebrities. As long as you don't openly have other girlfriends or get caught while you're officially in the relationship, you're fine.

Besides, since the current leader took office, the tax burden on people in the entertainment industry has been greatly reduced. Everyone is rich. After marriage in California, spouses have half of the property in joint ownership. Routine to win over Ronald, in fact, Michael Ovitz is not optimistic at all.

   "Are there any other beautiful girls in our ethnic group?" Kirk Douglas became stubborn when he was older. He didn't think there was a problem with his strategy, or because he thought Jewish girls were not good-looking.

   "It's gone...Annette Bening has been the most high-quality resource in the industry in recent years."

   "Why don't you see if there are any beautiful girls of other ethnicities that fit his aesthetics. As long as we provide some convenience, it's the same for her to join Judaism."

   "Mr. Douglas, you are too far-fetched. Compared with beautiful women, I think Ronald prefers money and awards..." Ovitz was in a hurry. What is it like to send beautiful women? There was still half a sentence of his words left unsaid. In fact, perhaps what Ronald valued more was the freedom from being manipulated by others.

   "As long as he has pursuits, he has weaknesses. Give him more convenience, just like we give Steven (Spielberg) some 'good scripts' to open the door."

  Kirk Douglas consciously found Ronald's weakness, and wanted to give him more dramatic and literary scripts as he did when he led Spielberg on the "right path". As long as there is the idea of ​​​​pursuing an Oscar, it must be able to control him to a certain extent (just as Ovitz can do).

   Also, it would be better if Ronald's desire to win the best director Oscar was extremely hot. In the big studios controlled by the Jews, there are many such works that seem to be well received by the critics, but are extremely commercially risky.

   Feed him more scripts of this kind. As long as two films that lose money are shot in a row, then his next film will definitely have various financing difficulties, so that he has to ask these old Jewish men in turn.

   "That sounds good..." Ovitz hung up the phone.

This old man's ideas are stubborn and old-fashioned. It's not the time when the big studios held big-name directors and stars for five years, or even ten years. He owns the largest agency company in Hollywood, and he dare not say that he can do it 100% Through the allocation of resources secretly, guide these directors and let them make the movies they want them to make.

Just like Spielberg, I did allow him to fulfill his wishes in many projects, and used many actors signed by CAA, but the agency always has a weakness for directors and stars, that is, the law is in the contract. Protecting artists, if they do too much, they are likely to go to other brokerage companies for the next contract.

  However, Kirk Douglas's idea has merits. Being able to exert influence on the director is always the most convenient shortcut to gain Hollywood power. Compared with a studio owner who has his own hair channel for B-level movies and has abundant funds, Ronald who does not have enough money to make big productions and asks for CAA is much more useful.

  However, old Kirk’s method has operational problems. This year, he has shown Ronald a little of the influence of CAA on Oscar nominations. Next, he should be given a stronger shock.

  As for the Jewish people controlling Hollywood, that is an unrealistic delusion. If you really have that ability, why not control Hollywood yourself...

  Regarding religion and ethnicity are just excuses to hide shame. Kirk Douglas himself, not for the purpose, is now able to accept non-Jewish beauties to influence the director?

  …

Ronald didn't know anything about it. He hurried to George Lucas's ranch. In the house built by his ex-wife Martha, he met Industrial Light and Magic, the employees of Pixar Studios, and those A computer with the Pixar logo on it.

   "This is a computer that can render particles?" Ronald touched the computer with a dark green curved shell, curious in his heart.

   Each of these computers is larger and heavier than the IBM I use. Pixar engineers called him Workstation (WorkStation). The computer screen has a color screen that looks well calibrated and is several times larger than an office monitor.

   There is also a computer without a monitor, and the host is as big as a large double-door refrigerator. There are also the words "Renderman" on it. According to the engineer, it is specially used to render the final picture result. Those special effects such as lightning and fireball are here to change from zero and one in the program to the viewer can see. to the realistic picture.

   "I'll show you a good thing..." Pixar's executive vice president, Alvi Ray Smith, smiled and opened a file on a "Pixar special effects workstation".

   "Little Desk Lamp (LuxoJr, Ronald looked at the title text and read it out.

   Sure enough, a white desk lamp appeared on the monitor of the workstation, and a colored ball rolled over on the ground. The desk lamp shook its lampshade and stared at the ball, just like a person staring at the ball while shaking his head when he is curious.

"Is this all computer-generated? There is no real shot?" Ronald saw that something was wrong. Whether it was a desk lamp or a ball, the color tones were all very consistent, not at all like objects in real life, where there are always inconsistent colors. The place.

   "Yes, our Pixar slogan is that everything is rendered." Alvi Ray Smith replied with a smile. Many directors will be surprised when they see the small desk lamp they demonstrated for the first time.

However, some people enthusiastically asked if they could make a feature film, while others were defensive and found fault with Pixar. Like Ronald, who saw the key at a glance and was interested in many technical details, only Lucas Just one or two people.

  There is a child in the small table lamp, the small table lamp, like a father and son playing with a ball, started playing. In the end, the little table lamp was naughty, jumped on the ball, and crushed the ball. Although there are two table lamps, the coordination of the movements and the emotions conveyed are no different from a live performance.

Ronald was lying on the table, staring at the monitor intently. This thing is really familiar, and this demonstration is very fascinating. Will it be possible to shoot a movie with a computer instead of actors in the future? movie?

   "We can..." Vice President Alvi came over to introduce Ronald. Unexpectedly, Ronald was faster than him, and he pressed the shortcut key combination to make the animation play again.

   "Uh, have you seen this computer before? Did you go to last year's computer graphics exhibition?" Alvi felt that Ronald's movements were more skillful than himself, and they were almost the same as those animation engineers who worked every day.

   "Ah...that's not important..." Ronald didn't quite understand why he felt this way, he pointed to the small desk lamp on the screen, how did you model it? How to calculate these light and shadow relations?

  The magic of this animation is not only that all the characters are created by computer engineers. And there's nothing wrong with the light either.

The table lamp emits light, and the two table lamps are still twisting the lampshade like a human being. The two spotlight sources, the diffuse reflection caused by the wall of the table, and the brightness and saturation differences of the colors on the colored **** illuminated by the light, Ronald, who was a photographer, saw it clearly, and there was nothing wrong with the logical relationship.

   "This is all made by our engineers, developing software from scratch little by little."

   "Can you show me?" Ronald asked.

   "Of course, we have a team next door working on George's new film. We can go and see how they work." Vice President Alvi Ray Smith was very happy to see Ronald so interested.

  The retired president of Apple, Jobs, is a big talker, and he doesn't have a good face to employees who disagree with him. He said 5 million to buy some shares and 5 million to inject capital, but in this purely money-burning industry, it can't stir up a few splashes.

  Jobs also refused to continue to invest. He still has a new company to develop a so-called NeXT computer to compete with Apple, the old club that swept him out. So for Pixar, he just asked them not to update more hardware, but to sell the software that has already been built with the latest graphics workstation, and earn some money to maintain it.

  Jobs is a computer businessman, and Ronald is a film artist. In comparison, the artist must be more willing to invest in a distant dream.

   "This is a modeling engineer", a bearded employee, sitting in front of the computer, using the mouse and keyboard to rotate and zoom a three-dimensional model without color, which looks like a ceramic cup.

   Every time you drag and zoom, the monitor has to freeze for a moment, and then the zoomed image can be displayed. Refreshing frame by frame, it seems that the computing power of the workstation is not enough.

   "Shxt", the bearded man cursed loudly. When he was demonstrating to Ronald, because the drag and drop was too fast, the whole software crashed, and a window popped up on the screen, which was full of error messages.

   "I haven't saved yet, **** it."

"Well, we can take a look at that. After the modeling is completed, we will add various special effects there." Alvi, the vice president, quickly covered it up, and took Ronald to see the follow-up process, and finally arrived at the refrigerator-like In front of the same computer, "The final model is added with various special effect equations, and it is rendered here as what you see."

   "Interesting...", Ronald looked at each of them, and they all felt familiar, as if he would use those software himself.

   "Are you selling these computers?" Ronald asked.

"Ah, yes, yes, we not only sell hardware, but also sell software, and we can also provide training for the entire process. You can recruit some animators, computer engineers, and programmers, and you can also do it yourself in half a year. Make a small lamp."

   "Then give me one of them all." Ronald pointed to the different computers used in the process, scratched around, and finally pointed to the "refrigerator", and gave me one of those too. How much is it?

"That one is not for sale, and we only have two available. If you have a finished file, you can burn it on a CD and bring it here or to the office in Los Angeles. For customers who bought a computer, the rendering time is 80% It's discounted."

  Hearing the quotation of tens of thousands of dollars per second for the computer used for rendering, Ronald was deeply shocked. But what people say is also reasonable. The rendering is not a one-time success. They have to repeatedly debug the parameters, and finally charge according to the generated results. This price is already very cheap.

  It seems that it is not that simple to make a movie that can be released in theaters in a short period of time. In addition to various R&D and engineers, we also need to cultivate various process management talents by ourselves. This time, when we buy some back, it will be regarded as an investment to familiarize ourselves with those few flame and lightning special effects, and try to recruit people ourselves.

   A check was issued, Ronald did not mention the investment, but ordered a few workstations first.

   "Ronald, are you interested in learning more about us at Pixar..." Vice President Alvi was still selling there. Of course it would be good to buy a computer, but investing in shares was what he wanted most.

   "Um...um..." Ronald echoed absent-mindedly. He is not stupid. Obviously, the software is not stable enough. He has no idea whether he can use a computer to make movies. Buy some and go back to do a feasibility study.

   "What are you?" Ronald saw a corner of the office, with a few animation original paintings and a storyboard posted. Above is an open-mouthed laugh and a monkey with vivid anthropomorphic expressions.

   "This is a cooperative project between us and Dongying Xiaoxiaoguan Publishing House. They produce stories and original paintings, and we provide technical strength. We are preparing to co-produce a 'Journey to the West'."

   "Huh?" Ronald thought, don't lie to me, isn't this the story of Journey to the West? In Xujiahui, I was entertained to watch cartoons made by art film studios.

   "This monkey is a circus master and a magician. He started from Huaguo and went all the way west to learn knowledge from the masters in northern India."

  Vice President Alvi was still there to introduce, "This is the first cartoon of a Japanese-American joint venture, and it was filmed with the latest technology. We have made some storyboards. Are you interested in seeing it?"

Because the development of technology is not enough, and the running speed of the computer is not enough to watch, this Japanese-American joint venture movie has been delayed for three years, and the Japanese side is about to withdraw. If Ronald can inject capital into this project, it can also be greatly improved. Ease Pixar's current predicament.

   "I still have to do some research..." Ronald shied away, and just took the two original paintings of "Journey to the West" sent by the vice president, and went back to think about it.

   "You still want to lie to me. Journey to the West is obviously a story of Huaguo. They have made several movies and TV series. The Sino-US joint venture is almost the same."

  (end of this chapter)