"The former governor of California and a former famous movie star announced his participation in the next presidential election." CBS TV station is reviewing the acting career of this Hollywood star with the same name as Ronald, and his journey after entering politics.
Ronald put down the pen in his hand, stood up, stretched, read the news, and took a rest.
On CBS's political commentary program, two guests were arguing about the prospects of the presidential election. After all, California is a base for the entertainment industry, and neither of them is optimistic that the former California governor can gain popular support outside California and win the Elephant Party's primary election. If a movie star could become the leader, wouldn't the other elites in America be ashamed to death?
One guest is optimistic about the political star of the Elephant Party, the former ambassador to the United Nations and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Another guest was more biased, emphasizing that it was extremely rare for the current leader to lose re-election.
Listening to the political commentary program, Ronald was actually waiting for the old movies from the classic theater. During this period of time, apart from classic movie appreciation, Ronald spent almost no energy on other courses. Anyway, his usual performance was passable.
After watching dozens of classic movies from the golden age of Hollywood, and then borrowing the scripts of several of them from Julia Taylor, Ronald compared the final movies with the content of the scripts one by one, and gained some perceptual understanding of how to write scripts. .
Everything written in the script must be filmed in a way. You can't write "Adam saw the pocket watch left by his father and couldn't help but think of him as a kind man." The camera can only capture Adam's expressions and movements. His thoughts and memories cannot be photographed directly. Even if you use flashbacks to show memories, you can't capture what it means to be a kind person.
There is a golden saying in Hollywood: "Show, don't tell." This is the basic principle of writing scripts. To show a person's kindness, you can film him giving some money to a beggar, or helping an old lady cross the road. These should be written in the script.
In Scorsese's class, Ronald liked Billy Wilder's movies the most. Not only were their plots fascinating, but they often had several twists at the end, making them enjoyable to watch. Unfortunately, his movie was shot early, and the casting studio did not have a script to compare it with, which Ronald deeply regretted.
So after Ronald watched the movie, he started writing a plot summary. Summarize the plot of the entire movie in a few hundred words. This is also a way to train your script writing skills.
Two days ago, Scorsese played Orson Welles' famous work "Citizen Kane." This film has long been forgotten, and it was only in recent years that it was strongly promoted by director Peter Bogdanovich, making people in the film industry realize its value again.
Ronald was very engrossed in watching it. "Citizen Kane" told a suspenseful story. A newspaper tycoon died and said a word "rose stamens" before he died. The movie tried to understand the meaning of this word from different people. true meaning.
It was announced in the newspaper that CBS would be showing another Orson Welles movie "Touch of Evil" tonight. In addition to the scheduled video, Ronald also planned to preview it.
"Ring ring ring ring..." The phone rang.
It was Julia Taylor from the casting studio.
"Ronnie, Endless Love has been taken over by PolyGram. Casablanca Records is completely out. They signed Italian director Franco Zeffirelli to direct. He will come to talk about casting tomorrow. You come too."
The original producer, Keith Barish of Casablanca Records, never got Paul Schrader to direct the film. PolyGram saw that they couldn't even get a new director who was a screenwriter turned director, so they simply invested money to buy the filming rights of Casablanca Records, then kicked them out and became the production company themselves.
PolyGram's idea was very simple and crude. Since this was a Romeo and Juliet-style teenage love story, they hired Franco Zeffirelli, who had directed the 1968 version of "Romeo and Juliet," to film it.
The wealthy PolyGram used money to knock down the Italian director. In addition to directing some movies adapted from classic Shakespeare plays, his main job is to be an opera director. This is my first time directing a modern drama.
Although the story takes place in Chicago, PolyGram plans to use the main shooting locations in a studio in New York and a house in Long Island for on-site shooting. So Julia Taylor's New York casting studio still got this deal.
Ronald promised Julia to come to the casting studio tomorrow morning. When I put down the phone, the CBS commercials just finished and the classic theater program started.
The beginning of "The Beautiful Lady" is very attractive. When the opening music sounds and the subtitles flow upward, the plot is also unfolding. A man placed a time bomb in the trunk of a car and gave a close-up of it set for 3 minutes.
Then the car began to drive slowly among many pedestrians. The protagonist, a Mexican police detective, and his newlywed American wife were also walking around the car. Time passed slowly, the music gradually stopped, and the subtitles came to the end. Suddenly, there was a bang, and the bomb exploded, killing the car owner and the beautiful woman in the car.
"The subtitles are not very good. They just finished playing and the time bomb is about to explode. The audience actually received the hint that the subtitles finished playing and the background music stopped. They already knew that the bomb was about to explode. It lacked suspense and fright. "Ronald wrote down his analysis in his notebook.
After watching "The Beautiful Lady", Ronald was ready to take a rest. This movie is indeed a bit strange. The plot and editing are skipped in some places, and it seems that many scenes have been cut out.
Ronald had heard Scorsese’s anecdote. In Hollywood back then, studios had editing rights, and directors were often not allowed into the editing room. Artistry is not considered at all. The studio boss wants speed and commercial value. Once it's cut, it will be released immediately. If it doesn't work, I'll switch to the next one. The boss of Warner Bros. famously said "I don't want a good movie, I want it to come out next Tuesday."
Fortunately, these old studio managers are all old and dead, including Francis Coppola, and new directors such as Martin Scorsese, Spielberg, and George Lucas. Fortunately, Hollywood now has great respect for the artistic pursuits of directors. Who makes the movies produced by these directors who value art very popular?
…
Franco Zeffirelli is a little old man. He wears a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. Thin gold chains are used on the temples and wrapped around the scarf behind his neck, making it easy to take them off and hang them on his chest. It will not be lost before.
With his charming personality and artistic achievements, Franco Zeffirelli also has many fans in America.
In addition to "Romeo and Juliet", his work that American audiences are most familiar with is Shakespeare's masterpiece "The Taming of the Shrew" starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.
However, Ronald discovered that this little old man had a strange vision. When he looked at the photos of actors prepared for him by Julia Taylor, he treated the actresses quite normally. But when he saw the photos of the male actors, his eyes lit up and he even I will slowly rub the photo with my hand.
This kind of behavior regardless of the occasion made Ronald feel a chill and he couldn't help but stay away from him.
"What do you think of the casting of the heroine?" Franco Zeffirelli seemed not to notice Ronald's little move, took some photos and asked everyone what they thought.
Italians speak English very well and there is no accent. Franco Zeffirelli himself said that he learned English from an English nun when he was a child, and he also served as a translator for the American army during World War II.
Before the person in the casting studio could answer, another woman who came with her took the lead and said: "Please Franco, we can't choose Brooke Esquire to play the heroine Jade. Her acting skills are not enough to play the role." For such a complex role, there is no shortage of good young actors in Hollywood."
The woman who spoke was the first supporting actress decided, Shirley Knight. In the movie "Endless Love", she will play the heroine Jade's mother Ann. This character is a complete liberal. In addition to approving her daughter's relationship with her boyfriend David when she was a minor, she also tried to seduce David in the end. .
Shirley Knight is a veteran actress who has performed in films, TV series, and Broadway, and has served as a producer for many television and Broadway projects.
She was the first person PolyGram finalized this time, and they also intended to use her rich production and performance experience to help the producers monitor the director.
After all, Polygram was an outsider. They entered the film industry and were more or less seduced by Peter Gubel, the former director of the film department of Casablanca Records. And Peter Guber and Shirley Knight had a good relationship.
"What do you recommend? Shirley?" Franco Zeffirelli actually had his own considerations about the casting of the heroine, but compared to the male lead, he was not as insistent.
"I think there are many girls in Hollywood now who have superb acting skills, such as Jodie Foster who plays Taxi Driver, Bo Derek who plays Perfect, Carrie Fisher who plays Star Wars, and TV series Deborah Winger and Jennifer Jason Leigh can all be hired to audition."
In fact, this is not the first time Jodie Foster, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Ronald have heard their names. In the last film "The Blue Lagoon", they were also considered as the heroines, but later gave up because the director insisted on starring naked, and finally got the advantage of Brooke Shields.
Although Hollywood is very big, big productions often pursue stable roles, so these are the people who compete for the roles of young girls.
"We will send out audition invitations to them as soon as possible." Julia Taylor agreed, then hesitated and asked, "Brooke Shields, do you need to send out audition invitations?"
"Send it too," Franco Zeffirelli ignored Shirley Knight's complaints about her acting skills and decided to ask Brooke Shields to audition as well.
"As for the male protagonist, I plan to..." Franco Zeffirelli put on his glasses, found the direction of Ronald, deliberately looked him up and down a few times, and then said:
"It is better to conduct a selection audition for the society. This is the publicity strategy proposed by CEO Gubel of PolyGram Pictures. Before the audition for the movie has begun, let the audience know that the film adapted from Endless Love is about to start filming. "
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