But if you want to please the audience, strengthen Sean Penn's role, and give him an ending treated as a protagonist, you must first cut out the less outstanding scenes of other people.
For example, after cleaning up the pizza shop, Stacey and Linda took the stairs to the basement parking lot. The two were discussing how to take the initiative to call the handsome audio salesman. At this time, a working girl from another school came and asked Linda.
count.
"Linda, I'm...from high school, and Judy said I could ask you something."
"Yes, you ask." Linda turned to Stacey and said, "I know Judy."
"My boyfriend and I want to..." The girl looked down, as if the question she asked was very embarrassing, "We want to... um..."
Then the girl covered her mouth with her hands and spoke in Linda's ear.
"Okay, are you an adult?"
"Yes."
"You go to a place called a free clinic, and you tell them that you see your boyfriend regularly, two or three times a week. You need those little pills."
"They won't tell my family, right?"
"No, if you are over sixteen, they won't tell your family."
After the film was played on the monitor screen, the editor suggested to Ronald, "This section can actually be deleted without affecting the overall subsequent story. It has a total of fifty-seven seconds."
From the perspective of everyone's story development, the scenes of Stacey and Linda talking are used to explain the background story. In fact, deleting most of them will not affect the development of the plot."
"But the existence of the free clinic is explained here, which foreshadows Stacey's unexpected pregnancy in the future." Ronald hesitated, "If we don't explain it here, and the concept of a free clinic suddenly appears later, will the audience find it awkward?
.”
"Hahaha, Ronald, you finally talk like a movie director." Editor Eric laughed endlessly.
"What's the meaning?"
"I have worked with many directors, and they always come up with various reasons to keep their scenes. Only you feel more like an editor to me, and you don't have a lot of emotional reluctance to delete scenes. But today you finally feel like
The director thought that way."
"Hi. I'm not afraid that the audience won't understand. Not all American viewers are familiar with the concept of free clinics in California. In many conservative states in central and southern China, such clinics are often vandalized, and doctors and nurses will be
Hit by people.
Two days ago, CBS reported on a case in Texas where a free clinic providing contraception and abortion was burned down."
Although the 1973 Supreme Court decision "Roe v. Wade" gave women the right to be responsible for their own bodies according to the Fourteenth Amendment, and their privacy should not be violated.
However, the jurisprudence of America's highest judicial authority does not automatically take effect in each state. Each state needs to enact separate legislation on elder protection. Some conservative states can also use other legislation to offset it.
Southern states with strong religious and conservative forces have tried their best to pass various state laws. In Texas, where the Roe v. Wade case occurred, ordinary teenagers are not familiar with the concept of free clinics.
"Forget it, with just these fifty seconds of footage, can they understand California's concept of freedom and openness?" Editor Eric said.
"It makes sense, let's cut this section out."
Ronald was no longer insisting. In fact, the name "free clinic" implies a lot. Free (free) also means freedom in English. Moreover, although there are no medical fees in free clinics, medicines and other expenses are not cheap.
They chose this name deliberately to use semantic puns to evade state legislative provisions and give women a safe haven.
You should know that in some particularly conservative places, such as the South where Catholicism is prevalent, women cannot even be prescribed simple contraceptives.
If a doctor writes a prescription to someone's wife, it will spread throughout the town in less than half a day. Strong social pressure will make women give up any measures, and the result is to give birth to children one after another.
It is impossible for viewers in these places to have an in-depth understanding of the big city of Los Angeles that they have never been to through a conversation. But the hint of a name is enough to make young women think that Los Angeles is a place where people have freedom over their own bodies.
The place.
This fifty-second shot is actually about the same as the name "Free Clinic" in terms of efficiency in conveying stories and emotions.
Although movies are created by artists, artists must also pay attention to efficiency. If it can be delivered in one second, there is no need to schedule it for one minute.
"Remove this paragraph and remember it." Seeing Ronald's agreement, the editor asked his assistant to record the number of this shot.
"Let's go ahead." Then the editor took a roll of film and loaded it.
The next scene shows that after some time, the handsome guy from the audio sales department stopped asking Stacey out. The distressed Stacey talked to Linda again.
"My 'stupid' mother answered his call and told her I was still in high school, and he never called me again. What should I do? Should I go to the audio store to find him?"
"Don't be stupid, Stacey. He's just a stereo salesman. What do you want to do? Marry him and give him children?"
"From now on, I have to say that I am eighteen years old. If I am still in high school, it will not be easy for me to cheat."
After reading this section, the editor said to Ronald, "Let's delete this section too. Stacey was dumped by the handsome guy. You can guess it from the subsequent story."
"No, this section cannot be cut." Ronald shook his head.
"The audience just saw Stacey dating a handsome guy from the audio store, and the handsome guy even sent flowers to Stacey's house. If we don't explain it, the audience will find it strange later."
"But then didn't Stacey date nerdy Mark again? Viewers would have guessed that she and the handsome guy from the audio store didn't move on."
"Yes, this is why I want to keep this scene. The audience agrees that Stacey is a girl who values emotions more than men and women. There must be an explanation here, otherwise Stacey and the bold girls of the cheerleading team
What's the difference? How can she justify her ending up with Mark?"
"But isn't that superfluous?"
"No, you, like me, have read the story a dozen times. We all already know exactly what kind of person Stacey is. But those viewers who have not read the original novel will know Stacey from the screen for the first time.
Tessie, they are the people the movie wants to please.
I didn’t want them to think Stacey was weird and reduce their interest in the story.”
"Okay, you're the boss. This section only lasts ten seconds anyway. Just keep it."
Decisions like these lasted for several days. When the entire movie was finally assembled, Ronald discovered that about 20% of the shots had been cut out unknowingly. There were only ninety-six minutes left on the set of the movie.
Ronald and the editor completely watched the ninety-six minutes of film through a horizontal editing machine.
"Do you feel it? The rhythm of the six characters' appearances is a bit unsmooth." Editor Eric took the initiative to start the conversation.
"Yes, you are right. Moreover, the actor's performance lacks the foreshadowing of other scenes, and the intensity of the emotion is a bit inconsistent." Ronald also agreed with the editor's view.
This "Bed of Proclus" style editing method is very efficient in cutting shots. It took only two days to complete the cutting time that originally took twenty days.
But at the same time, it also brought many side effects.
An important side effect is that the proportion of appearances of each character is a bit messed up.
For example, the nerd Mark had a crush on Stacey because he was shy by nature. The first time he went on a date with Stacey, he went to her house. After kissing Stacey, Mark was very uncomfortable with the progress of his relationship with the goddess of his crush.
Tessie's family ran away.
After that, it took a long time for Mark to appear again. This was Stacey and his good friend Mike, the scalper, who had an unexpected pregnancy. When the biology class visited the hospital, Stacey remembered her surgery.
, ran out and vomited.
Mark went up to comfort her. His gentlemanly behavior made Stacey understand that what she wanted more was a stable and mutually supportive relationship.
But for several minutes in the middle, Mark did not appear in the plot. His sudden disappearance and reappearance would make the audience forget about the plot of this character.
"We have to add a little drama to Mark. Or cut out the early plot between him and scalper Mike and move it a little to the middle."
Ronald fully understood what editor Eric was thinking, walked to the whiteboard on the wall, and started looking for it.
But he found nothing. The scenes of the six protagonists were crammed into a ninety-minute scene, and everyone's plot was reduced to a very small amount.
There is a scene in the early part where the nerdy Mark forgets his wallet on a date with Stacey and asks Mark to send money. Later there is a scene where he learns that Mike stole his girl and fights with him in the locker room.
However, the logic of these shots and the plot before and after is very strong, and it is impossible to cut and move the part in the middle where Mark does not appear.
"What do you think of this?" Eric watched the opening scene over and over on the editing machine, and finally found a shot of Mark being embarrassed.
This was originally the scene where Mark was introduced to the role at the beginning. Mark awkwardly avoided the two girls.
"We add that to the prep screen for the Central Prep and Lincoln High football game?" Ronald asked.
"Yeah, there's also a scene where Linda and Stacey are talking about Mark running away in the middle of the date, so we'll add that too."
On the monitor, Linda and Stacey are applying facial masks to themselves.
"For boys like Mark, you have to take the initiative and take the first step." Linda said.
"I took the initiative. Not only did I take the first step, but I also took the second and third steps." Stacey complained, "Mark doesn't like my type at all."
"If we add this section, it will add more than one minute. Moreover, Stacey's role in these ten minutes is too heavy, so we have to delete other scenes."
Editing is like this. It moves the whole body. If you move the weight to one side of the scale, the other balance will be destroyed. Ronald and the editor Eric are playing this delicate balancing game.
After playing with permutations and combinations in the editing room for several days, the two finally cut out a version with a relatively balanced character and story.
Ronald moved the position of the camera on the whiteboard, and used a colored highlighter to paint over the intensely emotional character scenes to make the color appear darker.
Then he took a few steps back and looked at the various cards on the whiteboard that formed a picture. Just like Mondrian's paintings, they were just line segments composed of lines of various colors.
However, the color represented by the emotional intensity of the character can be dark or light, and the number of colors represented by the character's appearance is more or less. Each character starts from light colors appearing occasionally at the beginning of his own story, to dark colors appearing intensively, and finally has his own
An ending.
The pattern of their appearance on more than forty cards is also evenly distributed.
The six main characters represented by the six colors are Brad, Stacey, Linda, Mark, Mike, and Spicoli, plus an American history teacher Mr. Hand.
Ronald picked up the primary imaging camera and took a picture of it at the whiteboard. The Polaroid spit out a black photo. Ronald pulled off the photo and shook it in the air. After a while, a picture appeared on the photo.
photo
The colors on the whiteboard cards are arranged into a modernist painting. The colors represented by each character are like musical instruments with different timbres, telling their own stories.
There's the nerdy Mark and his crush Stacey who finally become a couple.
Brad was fired from his job as foreman at All-American Burger, and was promoted to store manager because he accidentally captured a robber.
There is scalper Mike who borrowed money everywhere to pay for Stacey's surgery, so someone spray-painted the word "liar" on his car.
Because Linda couldn't become the "perfect boyfriend" she imagined, she had no choice but to cry to her best friend at the dance that her boyfriend dumped her.
There was also the scene where Stacey finally found out that she liked Mark after having sex with several men, and the two returned to the normal high school love relationship.
Of course, Teacher Hand, who had a battle of wits and courage with Spicoli, finally relented and went to Spicoli's house to tutor him in history, letting him go and allowing him to graduate.
There is also the confused Spicoli. His car was destroyed but he showed off his power to defeat Jefferson, the black football star of Lincoln High School. He was almost dumped by Brad and finally dumped Brad's girlfriend Lisa...etc.
More than a dozen vivid supporting characters.
The various colors represented by the stories of these supporting characters and protagonists are scattered and scattered, and finally converge into a grand symphony in the photos.
Editor Eric also came over and looked at the snapshot in Ronald's hand, "This is really a beautiful picture. I think we can connect the working films together and give the producer a complete screening."
"Yes, how long has it been?"
"The total length now is eighty-seven minutes and thirty-four seconds." The editing assistant reported to Ronald with a notebook.
"Please pick up the working copy." Ronald tapped the photo with his hand. The red part representing Spicoli is still a little missing. Are you considering reshooting some scenes? Give him an ending?
At the end of the novel, Spicoli saved the life of Brooke Shields, an award guest who accidentally fell into the sea at a surfing competition, and received a large bounty. He also spent the money on inviting the rock band Van Halen to celebrate his birthday.
Well, in the end he was still a pauper.
"If we want to film these, we have to increase the budget. We should let the producers take a look first. If they are satisfied, we can start lobbying." Ronald thought.