Chapter 579: Why didn’t Shirley Lansing come looking for trouble?
Since the combination of real-life and special effects shooting in "Forrest Gump" was the first time in Hollywood history that it was implemented on a large scale in a film, various unexpected problems all fell on Ronald's head.
Slowly modifying the plan and testing repeatedly. After watching the sample the next day, if the requirements are not met, the shooting schedule will be greatly postponed. What Ronald is shooting now is after Lieutenant Dan broke his leg.
All shots.
These scenes were all performed by actor Gary Sinise himself. Because the shots in various scenes are of different lengths, it is not possible to have a disabled person play the role of liquid like when Cameron directed "Terminator 2"
Footage of a robot breaking its leg after being frozen.
All the shots had to be completed within a limited time and budget by Gary Sinise himself wrapping blue cloth below the knees and then using computer special effects to delete that part.
However, when shooting such special effects on a large scale, many problems arise that were not thought of before.
For example, Ronald's original idea was to simply wrap a blue cloth around the actor's knees, and then pretend that he had an amputation below the knees. A normal performance would be able to achieve the goal. However, this idea proved to be completely unfeasible.
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For example, the first amputation that appears in the film is followed by Lieutenant Dan, who meets Forrest Gump again in the hospital on the front line.
Lieutenant Dan was depressed because he did not die on the battlefield. He did not want to talk to anyone. A male nurse came to take care of him, bathed him, picked him up, and then transferred him to another bed. He was a smart and capable profession.
Lieutenant Dan, a soldier, has now become a complete useless person.
During the first filming, they asked actor Gary Sinise to stretch his legs straight on the bed, and then asked the actor who played the black nurse to carry him to another bed.
The filming went smoothly. However, when everyone watched the samples the next day, they found a very unnatural situation. This was because there were still two calves on the bed, and when the nurse picked him up, the actor would
Posing unnaturally and forcefully, the existence of those two calves cannot be ignored.
Because when a person is lying down, if he wants to straighten his calves, the force on his thighs and buttocks will be obviously different from when he does not need to straighten his calves. And the posture of the human body is very important to the audience.
Very sensitive, even the most obtuse audience will find this scene a bit strange.
"If you shoot like this, there is no other way. You don't have to think of other tricks." Ronald watched this footage carefully a dozen times, and finally reluctantly issued an order to the special effects team.
"How about we dig a hole in the bed? This way, the actor's calf can hang directly under the bed through the hole. When the nurse picks him up, he won't feel the force on his calf." said the coordinator of the special effects shooting.
Ken Ralston, who now knows the most about both sides of shooting special effects, thought about it and came up with a plan.
"I don't know. What I originally thought was to use traditional stunts to dig a hole in the mattress, hide his legs inside the bed, or fold his calves back. But I'm worried that if that happens, it will
There is unnatural muscle exertion, let the audience notice it." Ronald has no experience in this, so he can only put forward his own opinions.
"We have post-production special effects. We don't need to hide the actor's calves on the mattress. We only need to dig a hole. As for the hole in the bed, we can use post-production computer special effects to fill up both the sheets and the mattress." Ken
·Ralston knew the most about special effects among the people shooting on set, and he knew the most about shooting among the special effects people. Ronald valued his opinion and adopted it after some discussion.
After digging the hole, the filming went relatively smoothly. Actor Gary Sinise also felt that being picked up like this was much more natural than when his legs were straightened.
But when I looked at the printed samples the next day, I found something wrong again. The hole in the bed restricted the actor's movements. When Gary Sinise was picked up, the two lower legs hanging down were still in the hole.
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Therefore, the black actor who played the nurse had to lift Lieutenant Dan several tens of centimeters higher before he could lift his legs out of the hole. This shot made the audience very confused. It was clear that halfway through the hug, he
You can put it on another bed, why do you have to hold it up like this?
"Ah, just a little bit close. It seems that we have to dig a gap on the edge of the hole so that the two legs can naturally turn out of the middle." Ken Ralston slapped his head and immediately talked to director Rona
Virtue apologizes.
They had been fiddling with the supporting actor for so long, and finally they had to reshoot it because of a small flaw.
"Don't worry, this is the price you should pay for groping. From now on, we will just follow this when shooting Lieutenant Dan in other scenes." Ronald said that it doesn't matter. In the second half of the film, Lieutenant Dan does not have legs.
There are a lot of scenes. If you don’t understand them clearly, you won’t be able to film them well.
"Hey, it's finally possible now."
When watching the samples the next day, Ronald finally felt that shooting like this was natural enough. He also summed up some experience. In fact, 90% of this kind of special effects shooting is relatively simple. But the last 5%
It is very difficult to achieve 10% of the special effects shots.
This is not to say that the special effects are very difficult, but because the audience's eyes are very picky about special effects related to the human body. If there is something unnatural, they will easily think that it is fake, which will cause drama.
The last 5% can only be polished slowly by the filming team and the special effects team. Apart from that, there is no better way. Fortunately, the movie is a one-time production process, and it can be polished slowly by piling up manpower.
It works.
The next shot was of Lieutenant Dan challenging God during the hurricane. From then on, he reached reconciliation with God and found inner peace. He also truly thanked Forrest Gump for saving his life on the Vietnam War battlefield.
He jumped from the boat into the sea and began to swim in the calm sea. This shot represents the appearance of inner activities. But at the same time, his two legs also have to pass over the side of the boat, and then he pushes with both hands to throw himself
Go to sea.
In the special effects room, facing a blue background, a section of the ship's side covered by a close-up shot was created. The props also sawed a gap in the ship's side to facilitate the actor's legs to pass through. Then in the later special effects, the
This section of the ship's side is patched up.
“I didn’t expect that taking such a shot would be so troublesome.”
A few days later, Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise were going to shoot another scene at the back door of the TV station. After Forrest Gump's talk show with John Lennon, he ran into Lieutenant Dan, whom he hadn't seen for many years.
At this time, Lieutenant Dan had already sat up in a wheelchair. He and Forrest were walking through the streets of New York, and then when they arrived at the hotel, Lieutenant Dan called two street girls to share with Forrest, but one woman laughed and scolded them for not understanding.
The charming Forrest Gump is mentally retarded.
Lieutenant Dan was scolded for Forrest Gump, which touched his inner resentment of being discriminated against by people in China because of his disability, and scolded them away.
For the entire scene, Lieutenant Dan, played by Gary Sinise, had to perform in a wheelchair. At this time, if he still wrapped his calf with blue cloth and used post-production special effects to solve it, the workload would become a lot more.
In order to reduce the workload, Ronald found the top magicians and prop masters in the Hollywood industry and customized a special wheelchair for Lieutenant Dan.
Under the seat cushion of this wheelchair, there is a small space where his calves can be folded back and hidden under the seat.
This trick was originally a technique used by stage magicians when performing large-scale magic, and was introduced to Hollywood. However, if such a device is used for more than 10 minutes, it will have a negative impact on the health of the actor's legs.
Generally speaking, stage magic, and some original movies about amputees, only take a few seconds of footage. Like Lieutenant Dan, which involves a long time of shooting, Hollywood rarely attempts it.
Therefore, there was a special assistant in the crew who was holding a countdown stopwatch. Once Lieutenant Dan's continuous shooting time exceeded six minutes, he would come over to remind him and let his legs free and rest for a while.
Tom Hanks also lamented that the filming of this movie was not easy. From the oldest stage magic special effects to the most advanced computer special effects, it can be said that all means allowed by current technology have been exhausted to achieve satisfactory results.
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"By the way, we've been overtime for a long time, right? Has Paramount expressed dissatisfaction with this?"
During a break in filming, Tom Hanks asked Ronald quietly. He turned his remuneration into an investment in the film, so he was actually one of the investors. He also felt a little bit about the serious overtime and cost overruns of the film.
It means troublesome.
"Probably for some reason, Shirley Lansing didn't come to trouble me after she put pressure on her last time..."
Ronald didn't know why Paramount didn't come to harass him again. Anyway, he wouldn't take the initiative to ask if they didn't come. The right thing to do was to seize the time to shoot while they didn't come.
Although he said this, Ronald felt a little confused about what had happened. He found Richard and asked him to find out the news. But there was no explanation that sounded reasonable.
When the main special effects shot of Lieutenant Dan was completed, the remaining big special effects shot was the scene when Forrest Gump represented the University of Alabama in the College Football League finals.
The shooting of this scene is similar to the scene under the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. It is also more complicated.
What Ronald found was the University of Long Beach in Los Angeles, which he sponsored, and they had a small outdoor stadium for their college football team.
This stadium has only one level of spectator stands, and the Long Beach University football team is not a strong team and can only participate in low-level leagues.
To this end, Ronald also hired hundreds of extras to serve as the audience. He asked them to occupy a section of the audience stand in turn, where they put up various slogans to cheer for the University of Alabama, where Forrest Gump was.
After each section of the stands was filmed, the special effects team combined it into a large scene. It seemed like a stadium with tens of thousands of people was full.
In addition, the special effects team will also copy these spectators, and then use special effects to create a second-story stand on top of the first-floor stand.
In America, large stadiums with two-story stands are generally occupied by local universities and professional football teams. It would cost a lot of money to rent such a venue to shoot football scenes.
When Ronald was filming "When Harry Met Sally", he rented a professional baseball stadium in New York. Not only was the price very expensive, but it also had many restrictions. Now with the convenience of computer special effects, Ronald
De decided to take his time filming in this very small and shabby football field at Long Beach University, trying to make the best of the scene.
While the filming of the football scene was in progress, Ed Bastian, the CEO of the New York Daily News Group owned by Ronald, flew from New York to see him.
"Really? How credible is your news?"
"The credibility is very high. Many media outlets in my network in Wall Street and New York have received the news. I estimate it will be published in the newspaper the day after tomorrow. I feel that I have a great relationship with you, so I flew here to discuss countermeasures with you...
…”
The news Ed Bastian brought was the news that the second-generation Jewish rich man, Samo Redstone, the boss of Viacom, was planning to spend huge sums of money to acquire Paramount Group.
"No wonder even Shirley Lansing doesn't give me any trouble..."
Ronald immediately understood. Stanley Jaffe, Shirley Lansing’s ally in Paramount Communications (the parent company of Paramount Pictures), must have known the news. This immediately made Paramount
The operating logic of Meng Film Industry has changed.
Now that Redstone is investing billions of dollars to acquire the entire group, all the projects that are currently being filmed and have filming rights in Paramount Pictures have changed from big holes and bottomless pits that require investment, to film and television.
An extremely valuable asset to the industry.
At this time, it is not a matter of controlling the budget and limiting the shooting cycle. Those at the top may be eager for Ronald's Forrest Gump. The higher the budget, the better. This way, more assets can be counted when being acquired.
income.
A director with a good track record like Ronald and a box-office guarantee like Tom Hanks is definitely a good card to attract Redstone when bargaining. This is why they paid Ronald
Reasons for indifference to late deadlines and over budgets.
"How much do you expect the acquisition price to be?" Ronald felt it. It seemed that after two waves of multinational companies acquiring Hollywood studios and foreign capital taking over Hollywood studios many years ago, now it is the turn of media groups like Viacom.
Come and take over.
"The number I calculated here is 70 to 9 billion. The rumored figure is that Redstone will provide 7.5 billion US dollars." Ed Bastian reported a number to Ronald.
"Is it so valuable?" Ronald was surprised. Sony acquired Columbia Pictures with a bid of 3.5 billion, plus the debt of about 1 billion, for a total valuation of 4.65 billion. Panasonic acquired Universal Pictures and the parent company of Records.
The company's MCA only raised US$6.85 billion.
This time, Redstone's Viacom was priced at US$7.5 billion. Is Paramount really worth more than the first two companies?
Ronald expressed some doubts. Even if the film warehouse accumulated by Paramount Pictures over the years is included, it may not actually be comparable to the two previous film studios acquired by Japanese companies.
"Is there any opportunity we can take advantage of?" Ronald knew that Ed Bastian would not fly over for an interview just to remind him of making a movie.
"Yes, I think cable television networks, well-rated TV shows, and historically accumulated movie warehouses can achieve very high valuations on Wall Street...and we all have these..."