On Christmas Day, Ronald got up very early. The snow season in New York is in January and February every year, and there are very few white Christmases. This year is the same, the weather is sunny and a little warm, with temperatures above ten degrees Celsius, so wear a
Just a coat.
After breakfast, Ronald followed Aunt Karen's instructions, took Diane and Donna, and the three of them took the ferry and went for a walk in Manhattan.
The slightly humid air was sucked into the lungs. Even though it was a public holiday today, department stores and several shopping streets were still open for business. Ronald was shopping with two girls on the commercial street next to Fifth Avenue.
Some bargains.
The store here is not big, but it is full of wholesale goods, from watches to diamonds, women's clothing to plush toys. Knowledgeable tour guides and hotel concierges will take customers here to shop, which is better than the boutiques on Fifth Avenue.
Much cheaper.
Carrying large and small bags, Ronald held Diane and Donna in each hand, and the three of them started looking for a place to eat.
In addition to the large commercial street, there are many small businessmen open for business in the community. The three of them found an Italian cafe with many customers and ate some meatballs and pasta.
The shop owners are an old couple who live in a nearby community and are playing with their granddaughter holding a cat.
"Are you ready for the social studies class? This time, the teacher will live broadcast the class nationwide, and children all over the country will be with you."
"Ready...hehe", the little girl hugged the cat and happily circled on the ground. Several regular customers praised her cat and beautiful dress.
Ronald had not tasted this kind of life of ordinary people in New York for a long time. The residents of Los Angeles live very scattered, and the atmosphere where neighbors know each other and help each other is not as strong as in New York. Opposite the Italian community is the Irish community.
The other side is connected to the Chinese residential area.
If you look at it from a helicopter, Manhattan looks very much like a colorful platter. Various ethnic groups live together but not mixed. They respect each other's culture and are culturally isolated from each other. In this case, third-generation immigrants are often required.
, only then began to slowly integrate into the mainstream values, and slowly forgot the traditions of their own ethnic group.
For descendants of Chinese ancestors like Ronald, no trace can be seen in appearance or in the circles he interacts with. Only in his heart, there is still a preference for Chinese culture.
After dinner, we walked to Fifth Avenue again. In the afternoon, the two ladies went shopping in boutiques. Sometimes, instead of buying anything, they just looked at the price tags of the good things they bought in the boutiques.
It made Donna happy for a long time. Diane also hugged Donna and laughed. She rarely enjoyed this kind of bargain shopping experience.
"action!"
"Um?"
Ronald, who was waiting as a porter at the door, suddenly heard someone outside calling for instructions for filming a movie.
He called the salesman and asked him to take a look at the pile of things he had bought. Then he took out his credit card and handed it to Donna, asking her to pay after she liked it. He went out to see what crew was filming.
I didn't see the NYPD closing the road. There was only a small crew, diagonally across the road at the entrance of the Plaza Hotel, with a camera and a recording pole, and filming on their side of the road.
"Guerrillas." Ronald smiled.
When he was filming "Night of the Comet", because of tight budget, he did not contact the municipal government but secretly filmed it himself. Unexpectedly, a young man would do this on Fifth Avenue, the most prosperous shopping mall in Manhattan, New York.
To Ronald's left, a young blonde beauty with a black and white patterned silk scarf covering her hair, wearing a dark red V-neck dress, walked quickly to Ronald's right.
"What's going on? Is someone filming a movie?" Donna noticed the movement and came over to watch.
Unlike Los Angeles, it is not very common to shoot film and television dramas on the streets of New York. This was the first time for Donna to see this kind of real-life shooting. She leaned on the door and looked across, completely curious.
"It's probably a small crew filming, and there are no road closures." Dai An was experienced and could tell at a glance that it was a candid filming that had not been registered with the municipal government.
"Don't cross this line and ruin their shot." Ronald reminded. Although it seems that the other party is using a close-up lens, it is unlikely that he will enter the shot, but to be on the safe side, he still stands a little further away.
"Well, she is a beautiful woman. But it seems that I have never seen her play before." Diane commented on the actress.
"It could also be a small production, her debut film."
"Cut!" The director opposite stopped the filming. "Linda, this scene shows Su suddenly discovering who her true love is, and then running to pursue it. So your twist needs to have some... you know what I mean.
?"
Ronald took the opportunity to open the door and prepare to leave with Diana.
"Hey, man, do you want to be in a movie? Can you be a guest actor in our next scene? We need a tall guy."
The male lead of that crew, a man with a strange accent, saw Ronald and suddenly extended an invitation to them.
"Sorry, we have other things to do." Ronald carried the two beauties and prepared to leave.
"Hey, we are making a big-screen movie and it will be released in Australia. Don't you want to see your appearance on the screen?"
The male lead came from Australia, wearing a crocodile leather jacket and a cowboy hat with a ring of crocodile teeth inlaid on his head. They came to New York to reshoot an ending and saw that Ronald's height was just right, so
Invite again and again.
"Oh, my God. That's Ronald, Ronald Lee." The blonde female lead in a red dress was interrupted by the conversation. She looked over and discovered Ronald's identity.
"Paul, this is the famous Hollywood director, Ronald Lee." The heroine named Linda took the hero's hand and asked him to stop entangled.
"Do you know me?" Ronald handed the shopping bag to one hand, then reached out to shake Linda and Paul's hands.
"Who doesn't know you?" Diane added next to it.
"Oh, New York is really a crouching tiger, hidden dragon. You can see great directors on the street." The male protagonist Paul has a tough guy temperament, and he invited Ronald and the others to the Plaza Hotel for a chat.
"Anyway, we have to take a break and don't shoot for a long time, which will attract the attention of the nypd."
"Hahaha..." Ronald was very attracted to these people. He had no money to apply for filming, so he secretly filmed it like a guerrilla. This style of doing it first and then making sure to make the movie made him want to talk to them.
chat.
"Great, let me help you get your things."
The heroine Linda was also very happy to have the opportunity to meet the big shots in Hollywood, and quickly helped Diane and Donna pick up the shopping bags.
"Are you Diane? Diane Lane?"
Arriving at the Plaza Hotel, Linda recognized Diane again who had taken off her sunglasses.
"It's me. I didn't expect anyone to remember me."
Linda burst out laughing, "I've known you for a long time. I saw your show when you were performing on Off-Broadway. I performed 'Death of a Salesman' on Off-Broadway two years ago."
Turns out he was a Broadway actor.
A few people sat down in the lobby bar, and Linda Kozlowski, the girl in red, told Ronald the story of their crew.
It turned out that this was an Australian film crew. They came to film an Australian country bumpkin who came to New York, and the various cultural conflicts that occurred were interesting.
The actor Paul Hogan is also the screenwriter and financier of the film.
Paul Hogan has a complicated experience. He once worked as a construction worker and later made his comedy debut on a Sydney TV station. When he was young, he once came to New York. It was like coming to an alien world. In a metropolis with millions of people,
He said hello to everyone in the morning because he thought they would go to a bar to drink in the evening.
"Will your movie be shown in America?" Ronald asked them.
"Not necessarily," Paul Hogan replied.
"Australia has not made a proper movie, like the commercial movies you are used to seeing in Hollywood. No one has made a real, popular, successful, entertaining movie."
"After I finish filming, I plan to release it in Australia first, and then try my luck at film festivals to see if it can be sold overseas. I feel that if I'm lucky, I can earn millions of Australian dollars."
"Oh? What's the story of your movie?"
"It's about a hunter in the great swamps of northern Australia. He was raised by the indigenous people. Once in a critical moment, he killed a large crocodile alone. He was then interviewed by Sue Charlton, a newspaper reporter from New York." Paul.
Hogan gave actress Linda Kozlowski a hug.
"Then Su had a sudden idea and asked the Australian savage to come to New York to experience life in the center of the universe. This is a story of great contrast. The female reporter in New York went to the primitive wilderness, and then the savage went to the most prosperous city."
"It sounds very interesting." Ronald felt that the angle of the movie was very clever, like the first half of Tarzan and the second half of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
"After your movie is finished, you can come to me and I'll help you see if it's possible to distribute it in America." Ronald thought the story was good and worth trying.
"That's great." Paul Hogan and Linda Kozlowski were overjoyed and quickly exchanged business cards.
"Since you haven't identified a Hollywood distributor, you must not have obtained the production investment in Hollywood?" Ronald thought of something.
"Yes, we raised the funds." Paul Hogan said proudly.
"Raising funds?" Ronald expressed confusion.
Hogan explained. It turns out that in Australia, the tax law allows funds invested in movies and other literary and artistic undertakings to receive 200% of the tax payable as a tax refund. Although Australia does not have any famous film companies, there are many rock stars.
They also speak English and share a single language and cultural market in the world with Britain, America, Canada, etc.
A rock band, INXS, believed in Paul Hogan and took the lead in investing hundreds of thousands of Australian dollars. This led many singers to invest in crowdfunding, hoping that the film could make a return. At the same time, they enjoyed a tax exemption of twice the amount of investment, which was a great addition to their income.
Tall rock stars are especially attractive.
They finally raised 8 million Australian dollars and started filming. The investment was limited and the entire crew was made up of talents from the Australian television industry. Only the heroine Linda Kozlowski was imported from America.
After chatting for more than half an hour, the assistant from the production crew came in and announced that it was calm outside now and the crowd of onlookers had dispersed. It was time to take another candid photo.
"Do you think there is anything that can be improved in my performance in this scene?"
Linda Kozlowski was a little blind to Hollywood directors like Ronald. Whenever she had the opportunity, she asked him for acting skills.
Ronald is actually not good at directing performances, but he also knows how to talk to hide his weaknesses.
"Su suddenly discovered that she was not deeply in love with the general manager of the newspaper, but this wild man from Australia. So she must be very anxious in her heart. You can consider using a small prop to express this sudden discovery that her true love has run away.
, feeling anxious in my heart."
"Well..." Linda Kozlowski felt it made sense.
When the filming started, after running for a while, she decisively threw her two high heels aside and ran forward with bare feet.
When leaving the set, Diane always looked at Ronald secretly and said nothing.
Ronald knew that she still wanted to be an actor, so he comforted her, "My current wealth is not enough to make movies by myself. After I return to Los Angeles, I will help you see if there are any suitable opportunities. But if you are willing to start from a low-cost
If the movie starts again, there will be many more opportunities."
Diane hugged Ronald's arm tightly and said nothing. She was once a much-anticipated child star, and she almost broke into the forefront of Hollywood's teenage stars. She also experienced strikeouts and was cheated when selling nutritional supplements... She had seen too many
She knows that she doesn't need to say too much at times like this, just let Ronald keep it in mind.