Chapter 236 The audience's reaction to the preview
Diane Lane and Laura Dern were dubious about Ronald's claim that he could cut the film "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Magic Band" and release it.
"Do you think he can really cut it? Diane?" Laura and Diane went to the hotel booked by the Golden Globe Awards organizing committee to play together, still thinking about whether her first movie would be released.
The ratings of the Golden Globe Awards last year were 15%, and the annual broadcast costs are millions of dollars. Compared with less than 100 judges, the organizing committee has a lot of money. Therefore, the "Golden Globe Awards"
Laura of "Miss" also opened a large room in a five-star hotel, the Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel where the event was held.
"I don't know, but you see Jane Fonda respects him very much and even invited him to her home for a talk. Maybe he is really a bit of a genius?" Diane didn't know much about Ronald's directing and editing skills, she only knew
He won an Oscar for his lyrics.
"It makes sense, artists can't use common sense to infer." Laura thought.
Coming from an acting family, she knows that the level of a film artist does not depend on time and experience. It often happens in the film industry that young people who are just starting out can defeat their old masters with one punch.
Among the series of film director biographies on her father's bookshelf, there was one by the young genius Orson Welles. At the age of 23, Orson Welles directed the radio drama "Martians Invasion of the Earth" and made half of the film director biographies.
Everyone in America was deceived into believing it.
"I have to call my mom and ask her to help me ask." Laura Dern said. Unlike Diane, she has already worked in several movies. Laura is still looking forward to the early release of her first movie.
.
A week later, Ronald finally waited for the test screening audience that Universal paid to pay. At a Hollywood movie theater, more than a hundred people who were invited by the theater phone to participate in the test screening of an anonymous "teen comedy"
reflect.
"Go to the women's restroom later and listen to what the female audience members think." Before the show started, Ronald hid at the door at the back of the theater and whispered to his manager Paula Wagner.
"Ladies' bathroom?" Paula nodded in agreement.
"Can you help me go to the men's bathroom and see what they are saying?" Then Ronald assigned a task to Richard Lovett, the youngest of the three.
"What job are you giving me?" Rick Niceta, who has the highest status in CAA, looked at Ronald and asked with a smile.
"Don't you have something to talk to me about? Oh oh..." Ronald reacted and quickly thanked Paula and Richard, "Please help me, I really don't have anyone who can help. Wait a minute
I'm going to go to the foyer to listen to the audience's reaction. Thank you, thank you!"
Niceta smiled and pulled Ronald out of the screening room.
"Do you think Ronald is getting a little..." Richard said to Paula Wagner, who rarely appeared.
"Confident, sensitive, aggressive?" Paula smiled.
"Artists treat their creative works like this. They are full of confidence, but also afraid of criticism. This is Ronald's first directorial work, and it is considered to be his film launch. It would be abnormal not to have this kind of ambivalence. How many of you
You know it when you deal with artists.”
With a "wow" sound, the theater's automatic door shook twice, and finally stopped in the closed position. A globe logo appeared on the screen, and the preview of Universal's "Fast-paced Richmond High" began.
The brisk opening music quickly brought the audience into an ordinary department store in Southern California...
Richard and Paula stopped talking, found a place to sit down, and started reading.
Niceta was talking to Ronald outside the door. He wanted to see Ronald for something.
"Paramount executives personally called and asked if you could help watch their movie 'The Amazing Dirt Band.' The ending of the movie has never been cut. If it can't tell a story, it has to be abandoned."
It’s locked in the film library.”
"Ah? Are they really looking for you?" Ronald was surprised. Laura and Diane passed on what they said?
"Yes, but I don't recommend that you take over editing. It's okay to help look at the copy. But Lou Adler is not a simple director, he is also the boss of the record industry. We don't know what he thinks."
"Then you will arrange for me to meet with him? If he really wants help from others, then it won't be too late for me to take action. Otherwise, just look at other people's works."
"Don't you take a vacation? There are still six months until the release. You can take a long vacation and then start preparing for a new project. I know your hands are quick. Six months is enough to write the script of the next movie.
." Niceta replied.
"Write a script?" Ronald repeated the sentence, "I don't know, Rick. I've been very nervous recently. I can't write any quality scripts, and I have no inspiration at all. On the other hand, I can't completely
Stop to rest and always look for something to do.
I seem to have become accustomed to the fast-paced life of sleeping less than five hours a day, filming, watching samples, editing, rewinding... This movie has accelerated the pace of my own life, and I feel uncomfortable as soon as I stop.
Comfortable, but not in the mood to write screenplays."
"Why don't you travel abroad, Ronald? Many directors will fall into such anxiety after completing a work. What they need is to find a girl and go to a resort with them for two months.
I don’t want you to waste time during the holidays, but timely rest and adjustment are needed. If you need it, I can also give you a few party invitations, as long as you don’t indulge in it..."
Niceta saw that Ronald had a tendency to be anxious, and became concerned about the client's mental health.
"I don't need to pay to find a girl to accompany me, hahaha." Ronald laughed and said haha. He didn't really like the kind of parties that Niceta said. Drinking and having fun can easily make people lose their minds.
Moreover, there is also a lack of real high-quality beauties there, they are all those who want to enter the entertainment industry but cannot get in.
He continued, "Hey, I also know that I may have ordinary life syndrome. The fast and dramatic pace of the story in the movie assimilated me, but the ordinary pace of life made me feel abnormal."
Ronald also vaguely felt that his mental state was a bit too excited, eager to work but unable to calm down to write a script that required forward and backward planning.
As for the girls, I couldn’t find a suitable partner for a short-term vacation for a while. After filming the movie, all the beauties on the crew scattered to find new jobs. At the moment, the prosecutor who could skip the trial and communicate directly was far away in New York, and I wanted to
The girl I dated was also auditioning non-stop in New York and had no time to come to Los Angeles.
"I think I'd better use work to adjust my status. Do you have any short-term job offers?" Ronald asked.
“Except for Paramount’s ‘Stain Band’ asking you to see if there was any way to remedy the editing, there were only a few sporadic script offers, but you said you couldn’t calm down and write the script.
I actually don’t recommend that you immediately invest in writing scripts commissioned by studios. After your new film is released and gets some good reviews, the asking price for commissioned scripts will be higher.”
“What about jobs other than screenwriting?”
"There is a vacancy for a trainee director position for Coppola's new film... But that requires competing with many people from the Directors Guild. Based on your qualifications, it is actually a bit too strong. You have already directed a feature film, so you don't need to compete with other directors.
Learn from others to increase your qualifications."
“Isn’t Coppola’s new movie not released yet? That ‘Old Love, New Love’ starring Natasha Kinski? A new movie is going to be released so soon?”
"It's a long story. Originally, Paramount was preparing to release his new film, but Coppola screened his own edited version in Los Angeles without Paramount's consent, and was terminated from the distribution contract.
Columbia, which was acquired by Coca-Cola, took over distribution at the last minute. But because of this, Coppola also shouldered a heavy financial burden. He signed a gambling agreement with Columbia...
Now he can only continue to take on new jobs to solve his bankruptcy crisis."
Ronald nodded. If he had this opportunity at the beginning of last year, he would definitely fight for it. "How is the quality of Old Love and New Love? Have you seen it?"
"No, but it will premiere soon. You can go and see it for yourself. I heard that it is a breakthrough in technology, but the format is a bit old and it is an old-fashioned musical."
"Also, director Peter Bogdanovich would like to meet with you."
"What is he looking for me for? I don't know him?" asked Ronald curiously. This famous director who made "Paper Moon" frightened him after his girlfriend Dorothy Stratten was killed some time ago.
It was so annoying that he disappeared from the circle for a long time.
"Maybe it's about his dead girlfriend Stratten. You used her poster in the movie. I heard that the copyright of many of Stratten's portraits is now in his hands."
"Then let him talk to the producer, I'm not interested." Ronald had seen Bogdanovich's movies, but he didn't have a strong desire to communicate with him.
"Why don't you go in and watch your own movie?"
"To tell you the truth, I've watched it hundreds of times in the editing room. Now I can't feel the charm of the movie itself at all. It's all about the scenes when I was shooting and editing. And it's so dark inside that I can't even feel the charm of the movie itself.
I don’t know the expressions of the audience, so I’m here waiting for them to come out and give their ratings.”
"Okay, then I'll go in and watch." Niceta carefully pushed away the people in the screening room to prevent him from making a sound, and then got in.
Today is the first time that Ronald's client's film will be screened in front of an audience, so all three of his agents are here.
The name is help, but it actually also means evaluation. Look at Ronald's performance and potential, and then consider how much resources to invest in him and what kind of opportunities we will strive for.
Ronald waited at the door for the party to end, bought a bag of popcorn and a glass of Coke, and started eating and drinking by himself.
In the past six months, it has been really hard for me to do nothing and just wait. Every day I think about how the movie will do at the box office after it is released. Just like a defendant waiting for the judge's decision, only when the gavel falls can the decision be made.
Stop being on tenterhooks.
"If I don't have a job, I can go back to New York and help my aunt sell leg warmers. It might be better to spend time with my family." Ronald thought while eating.
More than an hour later, the door of the screening room was pushed open with a bang from inside, and many viewers who had finished watching the movie walked out one after another.
Universal staff set up a stall at the entrance. There was paper on it for viewers to write ratings and comments.
Ronald stepped in to help with distribution and collection, and listened to the audience's feedback.
"The scene that impressed me the most? It was Linda at the swimming pool...haha."
"What do you think the filming is not good enough? I think the love story between Stacey and Mark is not very good. Why does Stacey fall in love with him?"
"Am I willing to accept a return interview by phone? Yes, I'll leave my number."
…
Ronald looked at a lot of audience ratings, and many people gave them relatively high scores. The average score might be between b and a-.
"What do you think?" When the two agents came back from the bathroom after listening to the feedback, Ronald quickly asked them about the feedback they heard. There is a queue in the bathroom, which is often the moment when the audience reveals the truth.
"Girls generally admire the daydream episode played by Phoebe Cates. Although it is a nude scene, they don't find it objectionable." Paula Wagner said. "Maybe they also have a fantasy complex, Ronald.
You happened to make the actor who played Brad look very handsome in the dream sequence."
“What did they say about Stacey’s scene?”
"I didn't mention that scene. Maybe it was too real?"
Ronald nodded, and in the scene with Stacey, scalper Mike became a fast shooter, and finally Stacey became pregnant. The ending of this plot was not very good. The audience may have selectively forgotten it.
"What did you say?" Ronald turned to Richard.
"A lot of people like Spicoli. The male audience members are talking about how he ended up dating Brooke Shields, was on Letterman's talk show, and invited Van Halen to sing for his birthday." Richard replied, "Maybe.
Everyone wants to be Spicoli, play all day long and get a high school diploma and become a winner in life.”
"He is the only character who received applause when the ending of the character was revealed at the end of the movie." Niceta added.
"Can I keep a copy of the phone numbers of the viewers who left their phone numbers so they can call back?" After Ronald watched the audience leave, the Universal staff member who was sorting out the scoring and evaluation papers asked.
"I need to organize these first and discuss them with the company's senior management. Then I can send a copy to you, Director Ronald."
"Can I leave you your phone number? I am his agent and will contact you then." Richard quickly took out a pen and wrote down his phone number.