The Bed of Proclus is an ancient Greek fable. He was the son of Poseidon, the god of the sea. He opened an inn on the road to Athens.
There was an iron bed in the hotel. If the passenger's height was longer than the iron bed, he would be shortened. If the passenger was shorter than the iron bed, he would be forcibly elongated. When the passengers left the hotel the next day, all the passengers were the same height.
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What Walter Mersey meant was to reverse the current editing process. Instead of subtracting time from the first cut copy, he first set a 90-minute time frame and divided the film into a three-act structure: beginning, middle, and end.
, and then fill it in with materials to fill up the time period.
"That's what George's 'Star Wars' does. If you're lucky, you'll get an exceptionally good story, but there's also a good chance it'll end up being a story that's missing important parts. Like the tall man in the fable.
, his feet were chopped off by the innkeeper.”
Ronald put down the phone and rethought this new method taught by Mersey.
Indeed, this is a completely different idea from the original approach. The original approach is like a fat man doing fitness. Some insignificant fat can be eliminated through surgery.
The advantage of this method is that it does not cut out important plot points and maintains the integrity of the story and the emotions of the entire film.
But here's the disadvantage. It's like a fat person losing weight. The beginning is always fast, but after reaching a certain weight, it will be difficult to lose weight.
The "Bed of Procrusteus" method is like setting a weight loss goal, and if you can't lose weight, you will have surgery to cut off the fat.
Surgical cutting of the film will always achieve the duration target, but if done carelessly, the cutting may not look like the original story.
It seems that some people who have undergone weight loss surgery have had the fat removed from their belly, but the skin is still the same size and wrinkles when pinched.
Ronald thought twice and decided to try the method of The Bed of Proclustes. This kind of fill-in-the-blank editing method has also become a classic. Maybe there are some previously unimagined angles that can make the material more telling.
What about good stories?
What's more, the top management of Universal will send a film director to check the edited film. If it can't be reduced to 90 minutes, they will give someone an excuse.
Ronald has been thinking about how to make full use of the advantages of this method while ensuring the integrity of the story and emotions. After all, this is a story with multiple protagonists, each with their own beginning, middle, and end.
.
I tossed and turned on the bed for a long time, but couldn't find a good way. However, Ronald could not give up on finding a suitable way to edit the movie.
There are really many hurdles to shoot this movie by yourself. From reading Crowe's novel, to preparing the script, to David Lynch declining to direct, and finally competing with Heckerling for the director's position, step by step, I
You won't give in easily.
Suddenly, Ronald, who was half asleep in bed, remembered the card method he used when writing scripts.
At that time, because there were so many characters and plots, I wrote the plots on forty cards and arranged them on a pine board.
Ronald immediately jumped out of bed and found the shoebox where the plot cards were kept. Ronald poured the cards onto the table.
After several months of preparation and filming, these plots have been turned into pieces of film and audio tapes. After the actors' creation, some plots were completely different from their original intentions at the time.
Based on his memory, Ronald took out another stack of cards and wrote on them the plot of the finished product, some of his own feelings, and his evaluation of the performance.
After a busy night, Ronald went to the editing room the next day, brought another whiteboard, and used magnets to attach the new cards to the whiteboard one by one.
"Eric, come here to watch this. I want to use another method of editing. We first define the plot lines of several protagonists, and then fill them in with their plots."
"Oh, you came up with a new method so quickly?" Eric came over, and Ronald marked the names of the characters on the whiteboard with various colored highlighters.
The scenes with Brad were painted green, Stacey's were painted pink...and finally Spicoli's red, and Mr. Hand's blue.
Eric felt that these colors seemed to show a pattern. They would appear slowly at the beginning, then become more dense halfway through, and finally stop abruptly after a scene.
"Have you noticed?" Ronald pointed to these cards and said to the editor Eric, "These colors are like the beginning, development, peak, and end of a character's story. We have to ensure that each character's story
Complete. This makes it very intuitive.”
"Then, we fill these times with footage?" Eric looked at the cards on the wall, which formed a winding track, like racing cars, preparing to sprint on a NASCAR track.
"Yes, if that actor performs well, we will give her a little more time. If her performance fails to impress the audience, we will use editing techniques to supplement the plot. Do you think this is more convenient? At least it is better than running to lose weight.
quick."
"You are such a genius..." Eric said as he looked at the cards on the wall. As he said this, he picked up the snapshot of Romanus walking across the street and entering the mall and pasted it under the first card.
Ronald had previously copied a photo for each shot to represent a shot. There is only one short shot, and there can be two or three long shots. In this way, using a snapshot to represent a shot can match the content on the card.
One-to-one correspondence. It also facilitates subsequent adjustments.
"I have the length of each shot in my notebook, and you write it on the snapshot." Ronald handed his notebook to Eric's editing assistant.
The editing assistant took a look and saw a table on the notebook with the number of each shot and the length of the shot.
"We edited it later, you can count the time again."
After the female assistant agreed, she hurriedly checked the editing record sheet.
Soon, Ronald and Eric were sitting in front of the editing machine, looking at the footage from a new angle one by one.
"Stacy, you are much prettier than those cheerleaders." Linda on the monitor said to her best friend Stacey in the cafeteria.
"I know, but they know a lot of tricks, and I'm afraid boys will dislike me."
"What tricks? You can't do it?" Linda asked.
"That's it, use your mouth..."
"What's so rare about this? Put the carrot in your mouth..." Linda taught boldly on the spot in the cafeteria.
"Good job!" The male students on the other side saw Stacey imitating Linda, put the carrot in her mouth, started applauding, and whistled to cheer her up.
"Oh..." Stacey herself laughed so much that she collapsed on the dining table, and then covered her head with her hands in embarrassment.
"Put this section up?" Eric asked Ronald.
"Yes, there is Linda and Stacey here. The development of their plot to this point is actually a small second act, if you only look at Stacey's plot."
In fact, Jennifer Jason Leigh's Stacey was more skilled in the performance of this plot, and she could see the ups and downs of Stacey's emotions. However, compared with Linda, played by Phoebe Cates, she lacked
The skillful Phoebe Cates is even more brilliant.
"Maybe Phoebe and Linda have similar personalities? Or maybe Phoebe has less experience, so the newcomer's reactions are less clichéd, which makes the audience like them more?"
Ronald thought to himself that he was still lacking in directing actors' performances. He posted this snapshot on the whiteboard.
Next is Linda's story.
In Brad's imagination, Linda, played by Phoebe Cates, wooed him under the sun and rain, making him intoxicated in an illusory world and unable to extricate himself.
Linda was swimming in the swimming pool and got water in her ears. She went to the bathroom to get a cotton swab. When she opened the door, she suddenly found Brad who was imagining her and comforting himself.
Phoebe's face showed a mixture of surprise, disgust, and fear, and she quickly escaped from the bathroom.
"How did you direct this scene? The actress's facial expressions are so real." Eric asked, pointing to Phoebe on the monitor.
"Haha, I asked Judge Reinfield, who plays Brad, to go buy fake toys, and he jumped on the biggest one. Phoebe didn't know he had a toy hidden in his waist. That expression was completely real."
"It's really yours." Eric posted a snapshot of this footage.
Then there's the drama of Brad and his girlfriend who wants to get rid of him.
Brad saw a newspaper at home with lines on how to break up with his girlfriend. He recited it several times. When he asked his girlfriend to come home at night, he was rejected by his girlfriend who also worked in All-American Hamburg. He wanted to
I made this breakup declaration, but I didn’t say it out loud when I saw my beautiful girlfriend.
Later, Brad was fired by his boss because of a conflict with an annoying customer. He wanted to seek comfort from his girlfriend, but he didn't expect her to tell her the breakup declaration intact. It turned out that she also read the newspaper and thought
Break up with Brad.
"These two paragraphs are very good, and they create Brad's image of a good old man who follows the rules." Ronald said to Eric.
"Yes, he is a typical type who has more book knowledge than street knowledge." Eric nodded in agreement.
"Then keep it." Ronald reached out and pasted the snapshots of the plot at both ends on the whiteboard, "Let's continue."
Brad quit his job at "Captain Hook's Fish and Chips" and came to work at the Seven-Eleven convenience store. Today it is his turn to work the night shift.
Spicoli came to buy something. He took out a few coins, just enough to buy some candies.
"Why don't you work like me?" Brad looked at Spicoli. Now he didn't have the same sense of superiority toward Spicoli as he did when he was the foreman at All-American Hamburg. Now he is just an ordinary clerk.
"I don't need it," Spicoli replied, "I just want to be able to surf! Do you have a restroom here? I'd like to borrow it."
Brad pointed upstairs. Then a car stopped in front of the convenience store. A young man got out of the car and suddenly took out a gun and pointed it at Brad, "Give me the money in the cash register."
,hurry up!"
"Okay, right away." Brad turned back to get the key.
"Brad!" Spicoli came out of the bathroom, "Do you have any tissues here?"
When the robber turned around, Brad picked up a pot of hot coffee from the heater and poured it over the robber's head.
Then he rushed out of the counter, picked up the pistol that the robber had thrown away in pain, "You son of a bitch, are you pointing a gun at me again?"
"You're so awesome, Brad." Spicoli called from the side.
"This is the end of Brad and the end of all character development." Editor Eric posted a snapshot of this footage under the sixth card from the bottom.
"Yes, after that it's the end of all the characters." Ronald nodded, "One, two, three, four, five... and there are five more characters."
"Brad, Stacey, Mark the nerd, Mike the scalper, Linda, Stacey's best friend, why isn't Spicoli?"
"He is a supporting character, just like the black football star, he does not have his own ending." Ronald explained.
"But I always feel that Spicoli is the protagonist. He has a lot of scenes."
"Yes, Sean Penn's acting skills are very good. I gave him a chance on the scene, and he can perform different surprises every time, so I added some temporary scenes."
"Ronald, to be honest, I think Spicoli deserves an ending. His performance is very eye-catching. If there is no ending, the audience will not agree."
"Really?" Ronald walked to the whiteboard and carefully read the passages marked in red. Sean Penn's performance was indeed very real. He played this silly surfer very well and kept it for himself.
There are many scenes with him, so if you calculate the proportion, he should be a protagonist.
"It seems necessary to add an ending to him." Ronald thought.