Chapter 163: Inspiration brought by the election of the Grand Commander
After thinking about it all night and having a long-distance phone call with his main agent Richard, Ronald finally agreed to give up the screenwriting job for the sequel to "Grease" and instead adapt the screenplay for "Fast-paced Richmond High."
The reality of Hollywood is the main objective reason. But after Ronald was kicked out of the crew twice, he knew more deeply the importance of the power to participate in filming. If his dream is just to write a few movie scripts, then of course he must embrace it.
A sequel to Grease with a tight production and big stars.
But my dream is to make a classic and even leave a name in film history. So truly participating in the filming and post-editing from beginning to end is the most important path to take at the moment.
However, he was cautious and asked CAA to specify in the new contract that the plots he wrote in the two versions of the Grease sequels must not be used in the final revised version requested by Timothy Hutton.
If the script "borrowing" limit set by the Writers Guild is exceeded, Ronald has the right to pursue liability and require attribution.
A few days later, the contract reviewed by attorney Lindsay Dole was sent back, and Ronald and Cameron Crowe had a phone call to officially start revising the script.
The first job is to kill the character.
There are many characters in Cameron Crowe's original novel, but the movie cannot accommodate so many people. As a typical youth exploitation film, Ronald asked Universal's executives and knew that the studio would only give 90
Minutes of movie duration.
This kind of exploitation film does not require much marketing investment. When young audiences go to the cinema, they see the posters and decide to watch it temporarily, which is the main source of the audience for the exploitation film. Compressing the length of the film allows the cinema to schedule one more show every day.
This is a more beneficial way for box office growth.
This is different from blockbusters with big stars and big productions, or sequel movies. For those movies, audiences will go to the cinema specifically to watch the blockbusters. Those movies are usually 120 minutes long, which is too short for the audience to enjoy.
Based on experience, Ronald calculated that each character needs at least 20 minutes to have a complete story. In addition, the scenes between different characters are in the same frame, so the movie can only accommodate up to 6 characters.
Main characters.
Ronald starts with the two central characters.
Brad and his sister Stacey are the opening characters and the ending characters of the novel. The scenes of many other characters are linked together by him, and they are characters that cannot be omitted.
Brad Hamilton is an 18-year-old 12th-year-old student at Richmond Middle School in Southern California. He usually works at a Burger King fast food restaurant. Because he is serious and responsible, he became the foreman and earns a good salary.
He used a mortgage to buy a 1958 Buick Saber. This old-fashioned car has soft shock absorbers, a full-size length, and a high-horsepower engine. It attracts the attention of girls when it is driven.
He has a girlfriend Lisa, but he wants to break up with Lisa, enjoy the "freedom" of his last year of high school, and try a life with different girls.
Unexpectedly, he got into a conflict with an annoying customer who thought the breakfast hamburger was not delicious but refused to fill out the form and demanded a refund, and was eventually fired by his boss.
In order to ensure the last few installments of the car mortgage, Brad had to join the "Captain Hook" fried fish fast food and put on a ridiculous pirate costume and hat to deliver food...
...In the end, Brad found a job as a cashier in a convenience store. When he was robbed during a night shift, he cleverly picked up hot coffee and poured it on the robber and subdued him. This made him appear in the newspaper.
, was appreciated by the boss and promoted to store manager.
Ronald started writing a synopsis of Brad's character plot on the typewriter. A short synopsis would become a 2-3 minute long scene in the finished film. Ronald wrote more than 30 paragraphs in one go, and the plot greatly exceeded the budget.
Not knowing which plots should be cut, Ronald simply went to CAA's New York office and faxed these pages of Brad's plot to Los Angeles and asked the novel's author, Cameron Crowe, for reference.
Along the way, various cheering signs for the upcoming election came into view. Ronald had watched the debate video and had already decided to support the former California governor. He calculated that according to the governor's tax reduction method, he could pay about half of the tax.
.
“Please cast your vote. Let’s work together to make America great again. Let’s MAGA!”
There were many canvassing volunteers along the way, taking advantage of the last few days of canvassing opportunities to win over a few more voters. In addition to door-to-door calls and door-to-door visits, there were also volunteers canvassing on the streets in some lively neighborhoods.
.
Ronald looked at it and found that in addition to the volunteers for the general election, there were also some volunteers for the New York State Senate election and some volunteers for the House of Representatives election. This year, one of the New York State senators needed to be re-elected. The old senator refused to submit to California
The governor's values are close to each other, while his challenger always calls himself governor.
"I won't vote for you if I don't support tax cuts," Ronald thought to himself.
Cameron Crowe called quickly, and the two argued on the phone for a long time. The author of the novel was even more unwilling to delete his beloved characters. He was also unwilling to delete any plot of the characters.
"Cameron, the length of the film is only 90 minutes. Don't delete this or that. We can only make a TV series. Only then can we accommodate all the plots in your novel." Ronald joked.
"Ronald, you know, I wrote this novel undercover for a whole year. All the character prototypes are my friends in life. I don't know how to delete them. It's up to you to decide."
Well, Cameron Crowe has left this difficult job back to Ronald.
Ronald's adaptation work has encountered a bottleneck. The characters and plot are not a single unit drama, but an organically connected group. Eliminating the plot of this character will affect the growth of that character.
If more time is spent on this character, the character he plays opposite will be underdeveloped and inconsistent.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! This kind of group drama is adapted on the basis of other people's novels. Ronald feels that he is tied up everywhere and does not have the pleasure of his own creation. It is the first time to write such a group drama.
, the difficulty exceeded Ronald’s imagination.
Strictly speaking, "Famous" is also a group drama. But at that time, Ronald only focused on improving the lines of certain segments and making certain character plots more reasonable. He was modifying the structure of the original screenwriter.
But this time, we need to coordinate and plan the story development of the six protagonists from an overall perspective. Building the skeleton and developing the details are completely different things.
Not only should everyone have a beginning, middle, and end, but also the other six or seven supporting characters in the original work should be inserted into every detail.
Ronald wrote many times at the typewriter, and every time he wrote the length of the characters and plots by a large margin.
In the early morning of this morning, Ronald had to interrupt the slow progress of the script adaptation because it was already November 4th, the day of the general election in America every four years.
Because the voters were registered in Staten Island, Ronald picked up Aunt Karen early in the morning and went out together to vote in the town of Toteville, Staten Island. In addition to the general, there was also a New York State Senator and the representative of the district.
election.
His aunt taught him how to check the candidates, and after the two marked their votes, they lined up and put their votes into the box.
"Are you really not going to ask me who I picked?" Ronald asked Aunt Karen.
"Citizens should have the right to make their own choices, unless you want to tell me."
"I chose the former actor from The Elephant Party."
"Me too, the Elephant Party advocated ending the Vietnam War. If the impeached liar had come to power earlier, there might not have been that war." Aunt Karen said.
The two returned to their apartment in Manhattan and began to watch NBC's live program. The results usually came out in the evening. Aunt Karen cooked some steak and waited for Donna to come back to eat together.
"Oh my gosh, even Massachusetts is turning red," Aunt Karen exclaimed, as the northeastern New England states were the first to announce results.
Massachusetts has always been a stronghold of the Donkey Party, but unexpectedly it turned into a red state this time.
"There are only more than 3,000 votes left, and a recount is needed." Ronald pointed to the subtitles and said, but this may no longer be relevant to the overall situation. The Northeastern New England states where the Donkey Party has been operating for decades have all chosen the governor of California.
The leader is expected to lose the election.
In New York State, where they are located, the Elephant Party candidate won 2.67%, or more than 160,000 votes.
On the map in the NBC studio, each square is filled with red. Among the final 538 electoral votes, the governor of California is estimated to have almost passed the majority.
At around 8 p.m., NBC took the lead in using exit poll data and declared the Elephant Party candidate, the 69-year-old former California governor, the winner.
Aunt Karen switched to CBS and ABC, which were still waiting for official data and had not announced it. However, their hosts also knew the exit poll data used by NBC and began to keep up with the talk about the upcoming new leader.
Ronald looked at the map. There is no direct election in America. The candidate who wins each state will get all the electoral votes given by the state based on the population. Then the candidate wins with more than half of the 538 total electoral votes.
.
Ronald's heart moved, as if he had found some inspiration that could solve the problem of too many characters and plots.
If I can't start with the plot, I might as well start with the total length. Like an election, the plot that can fill the total length will win and stay.
Ronald took out a piece of paper and began to write and draw.
Before 10 o'clock in the evening, the current commander-in-chief announced his defeat and congratulated his opponent for winning the election. He only won 5 states, including his and the deputy commander-in-chief's hometowns, and the DC Capital District. No current commander-in-chief has ever been so defeated.
Too miserable.
"Is there a big stationery store here?" Ronald suddenly asked his aunt.
"There is one near our school." Donna answered Ronald's question without sleeping, watching TV.
I'll check the phone number and ask them to deliver the goods to my door tomorrow. Ronald thought to himself.
The next day, Ronald wrote the characters in the novel on the cards one by one. Then he also wrote the summary of each plot on the cards.
"Ring ring ring ring..."
The doorbell rang, Ronald took off the intercom, and there were two delivery workers at the door of the apartment downstairs. The secret weapon he ordered had arrived.
Two workers carried up a large pine board. After paying, Ronald found a location, drove nails into the wall, and installed the large pine board on the wall.
Then he took out a box of thumbtacks and pressed the character cards of Brad Hamilton and others on the top of the pine board.
Then he took out a ruler and used a pencil to draw four horizontal lines on the pine board that ran through the board. He placed the plot cards in the gaps marked by the four horizontal lines.
The cards are like racing cars, and the horizontal lines on the pine boards are like race tracks. Each track can hold 10-12 cards.
The scenes and plots of each card last about 2-3 minutes after being edited into a movie. So to fill up the 90 minutes, Ronald can only fill in about 40 plot cards at most.
This way you can adjust the plot and characters.
With this intuitive feeling, Ronald really felt that the job of cutting characters became easier.