[US Entertainment] Superstar

Chapter 189 Let nature take its course

Eve just happened to be a little curious about the production progress of "Almost Famous". The film was completed in early April, but it didn't release until the awards season, and the time in between was too long, so it would be very good.

On the second day of the call, she rushed to Sony Columbia's studio with her photo album.

Today's Eve can also enjoy face-scanning treatment, and the guard opened the bar without even asking her for a pass or a visit pass.

At this time, the post-production center looked deserted, the stairs and corridors were very empty, coupled with the pale lights, it was really a bit like a scene in a horror movie.

After finding the editing room according to the contents of the phone call yesterday, Eve found that Cameron Crowe was chatting with Patrick Fugit, and there were two people who were recording pictures in front of the editing table. editor.

"Patrick? Why are you here too?" Eve said in surprise. She walked in front of the child, and suddenly found that the fourteen or fifteen-year-old boy was actually taller than herself.

Obviously when the film was being prepared, he was only as tall as Eve's forehead, but after three months of filming, he actually grew by six or seven centimeters.

Patrick, who played the leading role in the movie, was as shy as ever, "because yesterday the director asked me to come over to shoot the title content."

"Not bad, it seems that your handwriting must be pretty good." Eve said jokingly, it is always a good thing to see familiar friends, "What have you been up to lately?"

"I learned a lot from studying acting in Los Angeles. It turned out that I didn't know anything when I was filming, but I should have made some progress now."

Cameron Crowe interrupted the two people's greetings. After he hugged Eve, he pointed to the two editors in front and said: "This is Sarah Kenning and Joe Hader who are in charge of our editing. Mori."

Joe Hudson is a very interesting middle-aged man. He wears small black-framed round glasses, and he is clean and tidy, which seems to be different from the sloppy editor.

Maybe it's because "Almost Famous" has a lot of time to make, and they seem to be completely unhurried.

As an editor who has worked with Cameron for a long time, Joe Hudson knows exactly what his partner wants. After he greeted Eve, he continued to edit the material.

"How long is it before the rough cut ends?" Eve had many questions in her head.

Now the movie has not yet confirmed the specific release time, but it is roughly said that it is the awards season, unlike commercial blockbusters, the schedule has been determined early.

Cameron shook his head, "It's not clear yet, the material is just going through the material now, and the first step has not been completed, and there is no time to correct it. Columbia means to release it on the Thanksgiving schedule, and then take the long-term blockbuster route .”

Rough cutting is to combine the actions, language, and communication scenes of the characters in the movie according to the shot script drawn by the director, which may be thousands of miles away from the finished film.

At that time, I will slowly correct and trim slowly, so that the whole movie will become smooth and feel like a coherent one.

There may be conflicts with the script in the middle, some artistic processing will be added, and so on.

"I want to cut it into three hours, but the company only accepts a two-hour movie at most." Cameron sighed, one hour of content was abruptly missing, how much content would have to be deleted!

Three hours is a bit long for a literary film. First of all, it is not conducive to increasing the number of screenings in cinemas, and it is not friendly to the audience.

Not everyone can last that long in the cinema, rhythm is very important.

Eve half-jokingly suggested: "Then your director's cut version can be included in the deluxe DVD. If there are audiences who want to watch it, go buy this version."

A movie may be divided into release version, DVD version, and director's cut version. This is a normal thing in Hollywood.

First release ordinary DVDs to reap part of the leeks, and then release the director's cut version, adding some content for audiences to buy again.

"That's what I planned, as long as I can send it out."

Cameron looked at the bag in her hand and asked, "Have you brought all the photos?"

"Here it is, why don't you take a look?"

"Don't look, let's go directly to the studio next to it to shoot. I just borrowed half a day from there, hoping to finish the shoot as soon as possible."

Eve feels that the two of them are really a bit like spies who are connected, paying the money with one hand and delivering the goods with the other hand.

"Joe, Sal, I'll go out and shoot the opening and closing credits first, and I'll come back when I'm done."

"Ah."

"understood."

Both of them were concise and to the point, without any extra words, they were operating with their hands on the mouse.

Both Eve and Patrick said goodbye to the two editors, and then only greeted two goodbyes, like echoes.

Cameron strode towards the nearest studio in the post-production center, which was not a filming location at all, and it was impossible to set the scene for half a day.

"John, point the camera at the book in Patrick's hand later, it's best to give us a first-person shot."

The chief photographer of the crew, John Toll, the lighting engineer, and the prop artist were all called to the scene. They pointed the camera at the paper and pen tip, and chose to blur the surrounding environment.

William Miller in the original movie is a young film critic who likes to record various interviews and interesting things by hand. It is very suitable to introduce the movie in this way.

John set up the camera above the desk, and the lens seemed to be seeing the content through William Miller's eyes.

"Patrick, don't worry about the quality of the font, you just need to write it smoothly with a pencil. I need to record the rustling sound of writing."

Eve stood quietly behind the monitor not far away. She could see Patrick's thumb and the tip of the pencil. She couldn't see everything around her, and the entire screen was occupied by notebook paper.

Next to Patrick was the text he needed to write on each page, and he offered to propose: "Mr. Crowe, can I try to write it first?"

"Of course, you can write it yourself. Let's take a look at the effect of this recording first, and then carefully adjust the camera position later."

Cameron signaled the others to leave, leaving only the cameraman and lighting engineer by his side. He returned to the director's exclusive chair to finish, and focused on the content of the monitor.

Columbia Pictures, DreamWorks, and Cameron Crowe's own VinylFilms have been written one after another, and then it is emphasized that this is the work of director Cameron Crowe.

Immediately after that, in the cast list, Eve was really not surprised to see Keanu's name appearing first.

Rosol, played by Keanu, is actually the core of this rock movie. In addition, he is very famous, so of course there is no problem in placing it first.

It's just that Eve was a little distracted. She was thinking about this year's Golden Globe Awards or other award ceremonies. Is Keanu's role a leading role or a supporting role?

The difficulty and level of attention of the best actor and the best movie star cannot be generalized. The competition for the best actor is very difficult, and it is extremely difficult to squeeze into the nomination list every year.

Followed by Francesca McDormand's name, but Patrick accidentally wrote two letters wrong when writing this name, so he turned the pencil upside down without haste, and erased the wrong letter with the eraser at the top. The letters are erased and rewritten with the correct content.

He was very relaxed at the moment. It was practice anyway. If he made a mistake, he could just correct it. He didn't take it seriously, and his movements were quite natural, just like ordinary people encountering such things.

But Cameron Crowe behind the monitor had his eyes glowing, and was completely surprised by this sudden episode. Just now he felt that this way of writing the credits list was relatively rigid and needed to be edited to make it coherent. writing becomes less coherent.

A small mistake makes the rigid writing picture vivid and close to life.

Patrick in front of the camera didn't pay attention at all. It was interesting for him to shoot this kind of faceless content for the first time. When he wrote Eve's name, he lightly underlined it, as if to emphasize generally.

Eve really didn't expect that she would be ranked third in the movie, higher than William Miller, the main character with the most roles!

"When the time comes, let me compete for the heroine?"

Over there, Patrick wrote the names of four people, and the rest of the actors can only appear together at the end of the film, and will not appear in the main list at the beginning of the film.

"Okay, that's it!" Cameron Crowe said suddenly, "Eve, get ready and shoot you right away."

The whole set was a little confused.

Let alone Patrick, a rookie actor, even the well-informed cameraman and lighting engineer couldn't keep up with the director's rhythm.

What name?

Don't you mean test and practice?

How did it pass?

As a bystander, Eve could barely understand the meaning of the director, and knew that what she wanted was such a natural picture, not a deliberate performance.

Now it's her turn. She sat down in front of the camera and took out the stack of photos in the bag. Most of the time, they were taken by the group of people wearing the costumes in the movie during the break. It was more like a sideshow of the movie. down-to-earth.

There was no makeup artist at all, and Eve also changed from short hair to long hair. Fortunately, the camera only needs to focus on the stack of photos in her hand, and everything outside is not important.

"Ready? Let's start filming."

There is no scene record, Cameron patted the camera with his hands for a while, and then quickly left Eve's side.

She knew from the shooting just now that the director wanted to be natural, so she seemed very casual in this scene, as if she was sitting on the sofa and picking photos, holding the stack of photos in her hand, and taking them one by one. walk aside.

Her hands trembled a little, but she didn't try to control it deliberately, and each photo was taken for a long time or a short time. The photos she thought were interesting stayed longer, and even held them closer to the camera to get a bigger close-up picture.

These photos were all selected by Eve, and they were all actors in the movie. Any photos involving staff members or deceptive backgrounds were not brought.

The purpose is nostalgia, if there are traces of the present in the photos, it will definitely make the audience feel very dramatic.

One after another, I don't know how long it has passed. The last photo is Patrick's big face, which was accidentally captured by the Polaroid camera in Eve's hand.

Eve held the photo in her hand, and the cameraman over there also knew how to cooperate, silently zooming in on Patrick's face in the photo, and then turning it into a cloud of fog!

The movie ends with the protagonist's surprised smile, which is quite beautiful.