The camera was focused on a brick wall. The Boogaloo shrimp used a can of spray paint that had been sprayed and pressed the nozzle against the wall.
"Tsk..." The spray paint can with very little internal pressure could not make a loud sound, and the microphone above it continued to move downwards.
"Zoom, zoom," the camera handheld urged the focus operator, slowly zooming the part within the safe area of the red frame of the viewfinder, and gesturing to the recording team again and again, "Your microphone can't be lowered anymore, otherwise you will be in trouble."
"
"cut!"
Director Ronald finally stopped filming. This part is the last shot of the entire movie, which is the opening subtitles. Ronald decided to use a special effects machine in the post-production period and add a layer of artistic handwriting, so that each
The human subtitles look like they were sprayed out of a spray paint can.
"I announce that the filming of 'Break Dance' is packed. Mr. Minahan Golan has arranged a party for you. You can go by bus."
"Ouch..." A group of hip-hop boys heard that there was a party and pressed the dual-card four-speaker tape recorder as a prop on the spot, singing and dancing to Ice T's rap song "reckless".
Ronald ignored them, and several of the main actors in the crew had already left. Boogaloo Prawn and Falcon went to Michael Jackson and began to specially design and improve the moonwalk method for him.
He said goodbye to Minahan, climbed into the editing van, and started working with the two editors.
This work lasted until dawn. Ronald yawned and got up to go home. All the audio and video synchronization and shot segmentation had been completed, and then the formal editing could begin.
After returning home, Ronald fell asleep all day. In the evening, he seemed to suddenly remember something important in his dream and sat up straight.
"I forgot to buy Walter Mersey his special editing tape." Ronald jumped out of bed, found the phone number of Mersey, his editing mentor, and dialed it.
"Going to England? Oh...his 'Return to Oz' has finally started preparations? Congratulations." It was Angie, Mersey's wife, who answered the call. After repeated arguments, Mersey finally got it at the end of last year.
He received the green light from Disney Company. Recently he went to the countryside of England to look for locations.
"Me? I'm calling and I want to buy some Walter's special editing tape. Yes, I want a bit more this time. I have two movies waiting to be edited. Okay, I'll send you a check."
After Ronald hung up the phone, he called Minahan again, and the next Monday he officially started editing "Break Dance" in Cannon's editing room.
Cannon's office was still a mess. Ronald specially chose a larger editing room and occupied it to himself. His two editors, four editing assistants, and Minahan often came to check on the situation.
Cannon Pictures is a European capital, so their equipment is the most advanced horizontal editing machine from West Germany. Different from the locally produced Moviola vertical editing machine in America, this editing machine imported from West Germany is more like
It's a video recorder.
Each roll of film is about ten minutes long. Several editing assistants load it, and then Ronald looks for the necessary shots in it. Sometimes when searching for the necessary shots in front and back, Ronald has another thought in his mind.
New inspirations will appear and another way of editing will come to mind.
Relatively speaking, this kind of editing machine is more conducive to the editor's inspiration. Of course, this requires a person like Ronald who has been trained by a master, and he must stand while editing to have a steady stream of inspiration.
"Just cut it here, Ronald." Minahan looked at it for a while and began to put forward his own opinions.
Ronald turned a deaf ear, his mind now filled with new inspirations.
"Here, here, oh, that place just now was a wonderful editing point, it's the same as the one in Flashdance..."
"Bang..." Ronald pressed the stop button and wrote down the time in his notebook.
The filming of this movie was very hasty, so there was no more material to choose from. In other words, the original film shot, except for the repeated strips, was cut to a length of about ninety minutes. In case that section was shot
It’s not good. If you can’t connect the previous and later parts in the editing, it will be a disaster. You can only continue to cut some content to further shorten the duration.
The main actors have all gone to MJ's place, so it's impossible for them to reshoot the film themselves.
"What does this place mean?" Minahan pointed to the freeze frame on the monitor. It was the first time they danced in the basement. Motor and Tornado were paired up by two men and one woman because they lacked Kelly as their female partner.
When the team is defeated, they leave in frustration.
"This is the stopping point of the whirlwind's emotions," Ronald replied casually without looking at Minahan. This is when the whirlwind's dancing skills are better than those of the other dancers, but no female dancer is forced to fail. This depressed mood changes from
Ice t announced its defeat and started panting violently. After the close-up shot was pushed up, five seconds later the audience's emotions came to the end along with the whirlwind.
"What? Emotional points?" Minahan didn't understand Walter Mersey's modern editing theory at all, and began to argue endlessly, "But I feel that if it were placed later, just when he turned around and left, the explanation would not be more complete.
?"
"No, no matter how long it takes, the audience will blink." Ronald knew what Minahan meant. The classic Hollywood editing theory pursues that every action of the character echoes back and forth. Here he turns around and goes out, and in the next shot he drives away.
Only in this way can the character's actions be explained in a coherent manner.
But after the Chinese New Wave, Hollywood gradually began to learn from European theories. As long as the emotions of the characters are complete, some details in the middle, such as turning around and going out, do not need to be explained at all. The next scene is a whirlwind driving away, and the audience can figure out the middle parts by themselves.
After patching it up, it still feels very smooth.
"Blink? What do you mean?" Minahan blinked and asked.
"That is to say, it is a complete thought. If it lasts another frame, the audience will think about other things and their attention may not be on the movie."
"What? Can you accurately predict the audience's thoughts? Accurate to one frame?" Minahan didn't believe it at all. How could anyone have this ability? Even an experienced editor with many years of experience would not be able to do it, not to mention Ronald's young age...
"Let's make a bet. If I can stop on the same square every time, you won't talk any more."
"What if you can't?"
"Then I will refer to your opinion."
"Okay!" Minahan himself is the one who personally edits the movies he directed. How could he believe this? If Ronald hadn't been a better director than him, he would have squeezed him away with his big butt and shouted "cut"
Snip!"
Ronald found a marker, marked the box, then turned the knob to rewind the film. He pressed the play button again.
Xuanfeng looked at the trio of opponents who were in high spirits, and felt uncomfortable in his chest. He only had Kelly on his side, but firstly Kelly couldn't break dance, and secondly she looked down on herself a little and turned a blind eye to her own hints.
Various emotions surged up, his chest rose and fell gradually, and his eyes were full of unwillingness.
Gu He
"Now!" Ronald pressed the stop button again with a snap.
Minahan rushed up to check the gap that exposed the film. The mark on that piece of film was the letter V that Ronald had just drawn, his middle initial.
"How did you do that?" Minahan muttered. "Coincidence?"
Ronald glanced at him, rewinding the tape again, and bang, he pressed the button without checking. This time it felt very good, it was definitely on the same grid.
This time the two editors went up to check first. They looked at each other as if they had seen a ghost. I have never heard of this technique. Who knows it?
"Every old editor in Hollywood knows it. I trained with Walter Mersey." Ronald explained lightly, "Believe me, Minahan, I won't cheat you."
"Hahaha, I'll make you some coffee." Minahan laughed. He had found a treasure. He quickly turned around and headed to the coffee machine.
"I just want espresso, double." Ronald's voice came from behind.
The editing work continued smoothly. Ronald's inspiration was endless, and the editing progress was very fast. The four editing assistants were moving the film and making editing records. Seeing that the pile of unedited film was getting less and less, the editing was completed.
The pile of film is getting taller and taller.
"Have some lunch." Minahan knew that Ronald didn't like the Chinese food packaged in pagodas and thought it was too greasy. Every time, he would buy a sandwich or pizza in person and bring it to the editing room.
"What, are you having trouble?" Minahan asked the editor next to him, seeing Ronald frowning and looking at the monitor.
"It wasn't a technical issue, but Ronald was hesitant to keep Kelly and Tornado's hug and kiss scene."
Ronald cut to the end when the threesome won the championship, and the three people's emotions reached a climax. There should have been a scene that hinted at the ending, so that Kelly and Tornado finally recognized each other's good feelings, hugged warmly and then made a kiss.
of.
"What's wrong, Ronald?" Minahan asked him.
"I'm not sure how receptive the current audience is to this interracial love." Ronald looked at the camera repeatedly.
"America seems to be a lot more tolerant of these things now. I heard that the laws prohibiting interracial marriages have been repealed."
"No, America is a country with outstanding state rights." Ronald knew that the Israeli was using Los Angeles to represent the entire country. "Each place has a different view. Some southern states even prohibit dancing."
Ronald thought of "Full of Energy" that he almost directed, which was adapted from a real event a few years ago.
"There is another place where Kelly's friend introduces him to Eton from Tornado and Motor. He is a great guy." An editor also put forward his own opinion.
"If you think interracial love is too much, then same-sex intimacy is even more controversial. Especially, it is now said that the super... is spread among men and is a violation of immoral behavior.
God’s punishment.”
"What disease?" Ronald couldn't understand.
"It's what they call male...disease."
"Oh, then let's delete them all." Minahan heard that it might affect the minds of some viewers, and urged that all these scenes be deleted.
"But this way, there will be no emotional climax." Ronald stroked the short beard on his chin and thought about it.
"Let's not leave any positive results at all, just some hints. In this way, the audience who can accept it can naturally see it, and the audience who doesn't accept it will feel that it didn't work in the end."
"That's great!" Minahan now thinks whatever Ronald says is an advanced move.
In the end, Ronald's love affair with Kelly and Tornado only left some room for ambiguity, allowing viewers who sensed his hint to retain a sense of hope, while those who were not aware of it slipped away quietly.
After the editing, I added ice and some music with a strong rhythm as the soundtrack. Anyway, their music licensing is not expensive, and Ronald took care of it one by one.
In the final working copy, some ambiguous plots were deleted, leaving only eighty-seven minutes.
"Just right. With the end credits, we can make up ninety minutes. It just meets the theater requirements." Ronald stretched.
"The subtitles take more than a minute? Why? Isn't one minute enough?" Minahan didn't understand.
"How can you finish it in one minute?" Ronald didn't understand either.
"Producer, director, starring, then the main technical work director of photography, art director..., and the main supporting roles." Minahan counted with his fat fingers.
"What about the casting director, the members of the various technical teams, and the extras? For example, the hand man Eddie Rodriguez..." Ronald also felt strange that none of these people were needed.
After communicating for a while, Ronald finally understood that unlike the situation in Hollywood where there are many labor unions, Israeli and European films generally only list the main creative personnel, and ordinary staff members are not included in the list.
"That's not okay." Ronald insisted on putting everyone's names on the list. He remembered the mood when he saw his name on the subtitles for the first time. All these staff members would watch the movie intently.
With subtitles.
"Also, I would like to express special thanks to MJ. He is not an actor, so his friendly guest appearance can only be included in the special thank you gift. The hand man must also be on the list. Without him, I would not have proposed filming this movie."
"It's all up to you." Minahan agreed to all the conditions.
The low-cost production did not have the money to hold a preview event, so film critics from all over the country were invited to watch an internal preview. Ronald simply asked Minahan to recruit a group of students from universities in Los Angeles to directly preview the results as an audience.