Pittsburgh is in Pennsylvania. Looking down from the plane, two rivers sandwich a delta in the center of the city, which gave Ronald a familiar feeling.
After he agreed to work as an associate producer on the "Flashdance" crew, he was immediately given a plane ticket by Don Simpson. Before he could even read the script, he got on the plane and flew to the location of Pittsburgh.
"From the mouth of the Ohio River, you can sail along this route to Cleveland, Ohio. If you cross Lake Erie to the north, you will reach Detroit, the automobile manufacturing center..." When they were about to reach their destination, Ronald woke up from his sleep and took the
I read the Pittsburgh travel guide on the plane.
This was once the site of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie's Carnegie Steel Works, which once monopolized more than half of the country's steel production. Until now, there are still many steel plants in Pittsburgh. As well as Carnegie Mellon, which he donated after his death
University.
In addition to Carnegie, Pittsburgh also produced power companies Westinghouse and Heinz Food Company, which manufactured a full range of products for Americans' daily necessities, food, housing and transportation.
The crew stayed at Forbes Street, and Ronald left the hotel alone for a walk. There was a slightly acidic smell in the air exhaled by the industrial city, and the color of the sunset was dyed particularly red by the exhaust gas.
The temperature was a bit low in the evening in Pittsburgh in October. Ronald soon couldn't bear the cold and returned to the hotel.
In the hotel lobby, a group of beauties were chattering about where to go to have fun. Ronald looked at them, his young body a little ready to move.
"Hi, Ronald."
The two beauties headed by him greeted him. When they were at the airport, the producer had already announced Ronald's identity as associate producer to the crew, and all the actresses knew him.
"Hi, Cynthia, Sunny."
Ronald is very fond of dancing beauties. These are all colleagues who play the protagonist Alex, and they are dancers who dance in bars.
Sunny Johnson has been working in Hollywood and played many supporting roles. Cynthia Rhodes is a professional dancer from the South. Both of them are actually over twenty-five, but their dance training has made them
Still looks very young.
This is the first time they have got a supporting role with many scenes. Together with them is a Chinese beauty and dancer Malin Jahan who does not speak English well. She will act as a dance double for Jennifer Beals in the movie
.
Ronald invited the three of them to have a drink at the hotel bar. The decoration of the bar in Pittsburgh was very hard, and the guests inside were also dressed very hard-style, with big and exaggerated hairstyles and high shoulder pads, which was also worn by only one woman.
Very masculine.
"You have been rehearsing in Los Angeles for a long time, right?" Ronald ordered a few cocktails and motioned to the three beauties to help themselves.
"No, we came to Pittsburgh without rehearsing after signing the contract with the crew."
Ronald frowned slightly. This was a medium-sized project that Paramount invested US$7 million in. It was not a small production like his own. How could he not rehearse?
"Ronald, what does your associate producer do?" Cynthia Rhodes, a girl from the south, is relatively innocent. If you have any questions, just ask them directly.
"To serve you."
"Hahaha..." The two beauties laughed together, but only the girl from the country, Ma Lin, didn't know why.
Ronald returned to the room and quickly took out the script and started reading it.
There were no rehearsals, the director was changed before filming started, and the heroine was undecided. All signs seemed to indicate that there was a big problem with this movie. When I was in Los Angeles, I thought I was just working casually to earn some extra money, so don’t fall into this trap.
The script of "Flashdance" states that it is adapted from the real experience of Maureen Mader, a female construction worker in Toronto, Canada. This way of writing shows that the producer paid for the adaptation of the prototype character, otherwise the film would be based on an adaptation of a real person.
Taking pictures is an open invitation for the other party to sue.
The plot is very simple. Alex, a girl who works as a welder in a Pittsburgh steel plant, earns money by dancing in bars at night. She dreams of entering a ballet school one day and learning dance. Her friend Jenny, a bartender, wants to be a figure skater.
.
Nick, the boss of her factory, walked into the bar where she danced one day and was attracted to her. Nick secured an interview for Alex at a ballet school, but Alex was unhappy when he saw Nick in the car with another blonde beauty.
In the end, the misunderstanding was solved and she was Nick's ex-wife. Encouraged by his retired ballerina neighbor, friend Jenny and others, Alex finally entered the ballet school.
As director Adrian Lyne said, the script is a bit dull and unqualified as a story for a feature film.
"Isn't it a deliberate project given to Don Simpson? So that he can leave because of the box office failure?" Ronald began to make random guesses about Paramount's intentions.
Big studios can often produce some incredibly bad movies, and the impact of high-level struggles is indispensable.
"But it's none of my business. I just need to complete my work. An insignificant associate producer's signature will not have much impact on my reputation. If it doesn't work, let the agency find a way to remove my signature."
Already."
Ronald threw the script aside, took a shower, warmed his body, and went to bed.
“First, when there is nothing…
but a slowly glowing dream
Your fear seems to be hidden in
deep in your soul
I heard music...
Close my eyes and feel the rhythm
Wrapping around, grabbing my heart
what a wonderful feeling
To exist is to believe
I could have it all and now I'm dancing for my life!"
A beautiful woman's singing sounded, and Ronald guessed that he was dreaming again.
The picture jumped out of the darkness. A girl wore a hat with two large ear protection in the morning light, riding a bicycle through the streets and alleys of Pittsburgh, and finally rode on a bridge. The rising sun in the background was red.
Shrouded in a haze, I tried my best to shine.
"It's this kind of opening shot that quickly explains the background of the story." Ronald thought to himself that he had to learn this opening method. The smog looked like an industrial city. Then the iconic image of Pittsburgh appeared in the background.
Architecture Carnegie Mellon University.
This song is also very nice. It seems to be sung by a black singer and has that special black way of vocalizing.
The scene turned to a dark factory, with hazy water vapor in the background. A female worker was welding a workpiece. The name Alex was written on the welding mask. She put down the mask, and it was the starring Jennifer Beals.
"It's really a flash dance. This character appears with great momentum. In one song and a few shots, the living environment, work content, and beauty of the protagonist Alex are clearly explained."
In the cold room temperature, Ronald felt comfortable in bed and wrapped himself in a quilt. This movie was well shot, and it was by no means a coping work as he had just guessed.
The scene seemed to have advanced a lot. On a stage with a black background, a woman wearing male clothing danced on the stage. With the black background and dim lights, only the silhouette of a dancer appeared.
The dancer faced a chair and performed various seductive dance moves. A shot cut to a close-up of the dancer's face. Jennifer Beals was wearing sparkling makeup, which was very seductive.
"Wow..."
She took off her coat, danced sexy, and finally pulled the rope, and a basin of water poured down on her.
The slow motion of the wet body was replayed, and then she began to dance wildly, throwing the water from her hair into the faces of the audience below, causing exclamations and whistles.
"Ah, these shots are really beautiful and the rhythm is very good. Director Ryan really knows how to capture the beauty of women." Ronald was amazed.
However, the editing pace was a bit fast, and Ronald didn't see a few dance moves, nor did he see the camera's full face of Jennifer Beals.
"Are they all dancing as stuntmen?"
The screen fast-forwarded for a long time, and two dances of the two heroines I saw in the bar today appeared on the screen. Cynthia Rhodes danced a dance in the bar, and this time the editing took more care of her panorama.
With a close-up, it is very obvious that Cynthia danced it herself.
"The expressiveness of this dance is very good, but the makeup is too bad, making Cynthia, a beautiful woman, look so ugly." Ronald thought for a while, "Maybe it is to set off the protagonist, otherwise this wonderful dance will steal the show.
."
Sonny Johnson also had a lot of shots, but instead of dancing in a bar, she did a double jump on the ice to the music. A spotlight shone on her body, dancing on the ice to the music.
Sliding is also very beautiful.
"Ah..." Jenny, played by Sunny, couldn't stand still and sat down on the ground.
"This is too hard. In order to set off the protagonist, all the supporting actors are not given a good shot of the dance scene." Ronald continued to look at the scene in a daze.
The scene moved to the street again. Alex and Jenny were blocked by two break dancers on the road. They began to dance the moonwalk that Ronald was familiar with, as well as the "helicopter" lying on the ground and spinning on the back.
action.
"This level is not bad, the moonwalk is better than mine." Ronald thought to himself and tightened the quilt again.
The warm quilt made him sleep comfortably.
"ah……"
Ronald was woken up by another exclamation. On the screen, it seemed to be Alex. She was wearing a black high-slit practice uniform. She seemed to have made a mistake and was lying on the ground. She was taking a dance exam in a large room, and there were people sitting on one side of the room.
There are four referees.
"Can I start over?" A close-up of Jennifer Beals as she gets the referee's permission to reset the record player's probe to the starting position.
Warm sunlight filtered in through the bright large glass windows, and Alex began to dance to his heart's content.
It was the nice song that opened the show, Alex danced to the rhythm.
"It seems like a stand-in again?" Ronald felt that a stand-in was also used in the filming of this solo dance. The actor's hair was deliberately hung down in front of his forehead, and he danced in front of the four judges. The intense dance rhythm made it difficult to see the actor clearly.
's front face.
Then Alex landed on one foot and started spinning.
"Definitely not Jennifer Beals, she couldn't even turn around during the audition."
"oh……"
Alex in the picture started to use the break dance moves that people on the street had just done. She also lay on the ground, landed on her back, hooked her feet, and began to spin quickly.
"Is this stand-in Ma Lin so good? Can she, a native of China, also know these black dance moves?"