After receiving Ronald's invitation, Corey Yuen flew from Hong Kong to Los Angeles as quickly as possible. As soon as he got off the plane, he was taken to Ronald's office in Daydream.
"I'm sorry for not letting you rest first. I have a lot of things to do here, so I have to trouble you to come over and talk about 'Boxing World' first." Ronald apologized to Corey Yuen first.
"It doesn't matter. I slept very well on the plane. We who have martial arts backgrounds are not afraid of this hardship." Corey Yuen took out a folder from his luggage and handed it to Ronald.
"This is Qiao Hong. He competed with Bruce Lee back then. Now that he is older, his figure is still very good, and he looks very stylish in Tang suits and Japanese Ronin kimonos."
The folder contains audition photos of several actors named by Ronald. The actor named Qiao Hong, born in 1927, has a beard, but his face is a bit elegant like a high-level intellectual. There is also a picture of him wearing Japanese clothes.
The audition photo is very suitable for playing the role of the protagonist’s mentor.
Qiao Hong has returned to Hong Kong to work as a film and television actor after the death of Bruce Lee, and his role is not an action actor, but more of a role with a lot of content. He is also very good at English, and in Spielberg's
He played the role of a tycoon in Indiana Jones: The Lost Boys.
Such a choice eliminates the trouble of post-dubbing, and Ronald is very satisfied with Corey Yuen's preparation.
"This is Jet Li, a domestic martial arts champion. His photo of Shaolin Temple is well-known and he is a big star." Corey Yuen took out another photo, "He recently switched to a director. If you hire him, the salary will be relatively high, but in
It has great box office appeal in China and Southeast Asia."
"Does he speak English?" Ronald was not interested in the so-called domestic box office appeal at all. After being deceived last time, he already knew that the box office in China and Southeast Asia was mainly based on buying out copies. A Hollywood
Small companies, don't expect a box office share that even the Big Seven can't achieve.
"Not really. I heard that he is studying and preparing to immigrate with his wife and children."
"This Pass", Ronald was not very interested in actors who needed post-dubbing, "Are there any other martial arts champions in the country? Preferably one with better English."
"None of them speak English very well. Except for Jet Li who has already arrived in Xiangjiang, all other organizational connections are in the martial arts team. Filming requires the permission of the leader and the remuneration must be given to the martial arts team."
"That's it..." Ronald is even less interested in inviting people from the martial arts team to film. Many martial arts practitioners in China are not good at studying, and their English proficiency can be imagined. And this movie will be released in America.
, it would have to be registered with major labor unions. This kind of salary arrangement probably conflicts with the regulations of the labor union, and Ronald is not sure whether it will cause trouble.
"If you must record live, you can consider this. He has also participated in domestic martial arts competitions and won the routine championship. He was born in America, so his English is not a problem."
"Oh, this guy looks pretty good and can play the son of the protagonist's master. The martial artist who participated in the martial arts conference and was killed by the villain can just lead to the protagonist's reason for participating in the martial arts conference to avenge his brother."
Ronald looked at the long-haired martial arts champion in the photo, who was quite photogenic. He turned the photo over and looked at his resume, which read his name and date of birth: Qiu Yunbo – 1960.
…
After settling Corey Yuen in the hotel and letting him get off the jet lag, Ronald began filling out ballots for the 1987 film awards from the major unions.
The awards from the two major writers' unions, Eastern and Western, are jointly awarded. They are divided into two categories: film and TV series. There are three awards under the film category, Best Original Screenplay, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Documentary Screenplay. Western
The Writers Guild mainly consists of film screenwriters, and Ronald joined the union as a film screenwriter, so he has the right to vote on film awards.
Ronald filled in John Patrick Shanley's role in "Moonlight" and Bertolucci's role in "The Last Emperor" respectively. The other roles are temporarily vacant. After the ballots are sent out, the nominations will be announced in early January next year.
The Directors Guild's awards include categories such as Best Theatrical Film, Best Short Film, Best Director's Debut, Best Documentary, and Best TV Series Director. Ronald has five voting places in each category. By mid-January next year
, the nomination list will be opened.
Of course, my own "Moonlight" must have a vote. Then there is Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor", Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun", and then old friend Adrian Lyne's "Fatal Attraction"
, for the last vote, Ronald thought for a while and voted for the newly acquainted Bob Reiner's "The Princess Bride".
Ronald went to see this movie afterwards, and it was unexpected in its structure. The movie starts with a grandfather telling his sick grandson a story from a storybook. It starts with a very cliched princess falling in love with a handsome young man herding horses.
But unlike the classic princess and knight story, every turning point will flash back to the scene where the grandfather and grandson are telling stories. The grandson doesn't want to listen to the same old story. At such times, he always asks his grandfather to lead the story to something unexpected.
direction.
Then the camera flashes back to the story itself, just like a child using his imagination to make up and modify many phone call stories and string them together.
This kind of storytelling technique is very difficult to handle, and the actors, Robin White who plays the princess, Cary Elwes who plays the horse, and Billy Crystal who plays the pirate, all chose
The role is superb and the performance is superb.
From a purely technical perspective, Ronald deserves his vote.
After filling out the nomination votes for various awards, Richard also came to Ronald's office to collect the voting sheets.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! "Aha, your votes for the Directors Guild Award are all full."
"Haha, yes, this is my profession, so I took it upon myself to write down all five places." Ronald laughed.
"It doesn't matter. Generally speaking, we respect the client's choice for the union award list." Richard picked up the Screenwriters Guild voting sheet again, "I will use these last three to exchange resources."
"Excuse me, actually I haven't written a script for a long time. I'm almost no longer a professional screenwriter." Ronald was a little embarrassed. Although he paid his membership fee every year, he really hadn't participated in an event organized by the Western Writers Guild for a long time.
Already.
"On the Screen Actors Guild side, Niceta and I will use some resources to exchange the votes of Olympia Dukakis and Cher..." Richard and the others got Ovitz's promise to be nominated for the Oscar for Best Director this year.
, the two of them, plus Paula, wanted to mobilize all the resources they could and give Ronald a little more hope.
Nominations for the Academy Awards, and nominations for each special award, can only be voted by people in that special category. Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Technology are all senior industry insiders, and their memberships indicate their majors.
of.
For example, Ronald, although he is a member of two unions, is an Academy member and when voting for Oscar nominations, he can only choose five films to be nominated as a director. He does not vote for the Best Screenplay nomination.
share.
This is why the nominations for the Oscars every year largely overlap with the awards of each union. The two groups of voters are basically the same group.
Of course, among the Oscar awards, there is one exception, and that is the Best Picture Award. This award is theoretically for producers to receive, but his nomination is not voted on by the Producers Alliance.
Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Technology and Arts, regardless of their status as producers, directors, screenwriters, or actors, have the right to nominate best films.
Moreover, for the Best Picture nomination voting, a member can select ten films instead of five for other awards.
"Which ones are you voting for for the best film?" Richard took out a big notebook and started to write down. For the best director nomination vote, Ronald must have chosen the five films from the Directors Guild.
"I would like to add another film called 'Wall Street' and remove the film 'The Princess Bride'. You can decide on the rest."
Ronald: From an overall movie perspective, "The Princess Bride" is not that great, and "Wall Street" starring Michael Douglas, although the acting and directing levels are not high, the overall presentation is better than other movies.
There is power.
"Wall Street" was also an award-winning film released in December. After Ronald saw it, he felt that the audience's reaction was absolutely unusual.
This movie was originally about Oliver Stone exposing the ugly side of Wall Street tycoons. In it, Gekko, played by Michael Douglas, took advantage of the rules and did everything he could. Instead, he was played by the conscientious Charlie Sheen.
Bud was taken away by the police as a scapegoat for insider trading.
But when the audience heard Gekko's famous line "Greed is Good", they clearly sided with Gekko, and some young viewers even clapped and shouted.
This kind of reaction that went against the director's original intention made Ronald very emotional.
The people of America are not very disgusted with the tycoons who make huge amounts of money legally but unreasonably. The puritanical moral principles of the baby boomers have now been replaced by this kind of money worship as long as they make money legally.
It has been replaced by ism and has become the general consensus among young people.
Since everyone has a positive attitude towards making money legally through loopholes, Ronald also discussed with Kevin Wade, the screenwriter of "Working Girl", to add some plot points to Tess's project so that she could accidentally discover it.
Legal loopholes can give the clients of the listed company owner a magic weapon to resist mergers and acquisitions by Japanese capital.
After all, Ronald is not the kind of screenwriter or director with a Broadway background who uses drama theory to plan the direction of characters and plots.
What he really values is what the audience likes to watch. If what the audience likes to watch conflicts with the so-called Puritan moral principles, or the likes and dislikes of drama theorists and film critics, Ronald will always stand in the moment without hesitation.
That side of the audience's taste.
In the end, Oliver Stone arranged a reversal at the end, asking Bud to cooperate with the police, wear a recording device in the park, and induce Gekko to reveal the content of his crime. In the end, Gekko was prosecuted, and Bard
De was sentenced lightly.
However, the direction and ending of the whole story are not in line with each other. It seems that the director deliberately did it. The story itself is already complete when Bud is caught and sentenced and Gekko is at large.
attitude, deliberately adding a Billy Wilder-style "ending after the ending".
The Billy Wilder-style false ending is a reversal in the aftermath of the climax of the story, which is completely unexpected by the audience. But this kind of reversal needs to be done in the first act and the second act.
The plot was foreshadowed at the end, and the audience regretted the false ending, but the final twist was satisfying.
The movie "Wall Street" had an accident at this point. The director thought that the audience would be dissatisfied with the fake ending, but in fact, in their hearts, they agreed with the philosophy of "bad guy" Gekko, which made this reversal look...
It looks awkward.
But this is what Ronald likes about this movie. After the director finished editing the movie, he actually only completed 90% of the creation of the movie, and the final 10% or so had to be completed by the audience's participation. This kind of audience's appreciation of the director
Do not recognize the original intention of the creation, and understand the plot according to your own ideas, which is often an indispensable part of high-box office classics.
"Okay, just vote according to this, I'm leaving first." Richard took the voting sheets from the Writers Guild and the Directors Guild, and then took the Ronald Oscar nomination ballot sheet, and rushed to CAA to discuss with Niceta.
How to combine vertically and horizontally, and with whom to trade, in order to get the most Ronald supporters.
After Richard left, Kevin Wade, the screenwriter of "Working Girl", came to discuss with Ronald the direction of revising the script.
"In the final ending, the male protagonist Jack Traynor did not side with Tess, but instead supported Tess's boss, ex-girlfriend Catherine. In the end, Tess was recognized by the client, and she was proud at work, but frustrated emotionally. In this way
Will the ending make the audience dissatisfied?"
Kevin Wade asked. He and Ronald had been talking about the improvement of the script. On the one hand, Ronald asked Bannon to check it and added a lot of professional content about Wall Street mergers and acquisitions, so that the script, at least in the eyes of professionals, was not
Big mistake.
On the other hand, Ronald and Kevin Wade had a lot of discussions about the emotional line of the protagonist Tess.
"Nowadays, the age of marriage and childbirth for working women in America is being pushed back year by year. I'm not sure that today's female audiences still expect the heroine to live happily with the hero when watching movies.
Look at the hit movie "The Princess Bride". It didn't follow the old fairy tale formula at all, but it did well at the box office. I doubt that today's urban female audiences will be interested in seeing Tess transform from secretary to manager.
Do you think she deserves a better man?"
Through Donna's introduction, Ronald also met many elite women on Wall Street, communicated with them on the phone a lot, and also negotiated for Demi Moore and Joan Cusack to follow them as interns for two weeks.
When talking about this relationship drama, these elite women working on Wall Street all looked down upon the character of Jack Traynor. In the end, he did not trust Tess to come up with the legal loophole to counter the Japanese Capital's merger.
On Wall Street, loyalty is the most valuable quality.
"Okay, I'll listen to you and write another version of the ending where Jack Traynor was fired because he didn't trust Tess. In the end, he and Tess met at the ferry terminal in lower Manhattan, giving them an open ending.
.”
"Yeah, that's a good idea." Ronald nodded in agreement. Elite women don't like Jack Traynor's disloyalty, but after all, they want romance in the work environment. Such an open ending may
It satisfies both urban professional women and small-town housewives. Both types of female audiences can interpret it according to their own preferences.
This is how Ronald's time is filled up every day, and all kinds of things fill up his time slot.
After Corey Yuen got over the time difference, the two actors recommended by Chaoli also came from San Francisco and other places to accept the joint audition between Corey Yuen and Ronald.
"Oh, your muscles are really similar to Schwarzenegger's."
In the audition room, Youngs took off his shirt and posed in a bodybuilding pose for the two of them to see. His muscle lines are very good, and the definition of his upper body muscles is also very high. Apart from their different races, he and Schwarzenegger are probably the biggest
His weakness is that he doesn't look like a good person.
Yang Si has a fleshy face, a bit bald eyebrows, and a ferocious look when he smiles. He is a born villain actor.
"How was it?" Ronald asked Corey Yuen.
"I didn't expect you to invite him here. He also made a few movies in Hong Kong, where villains can't get high salaries. He returned to America to open a bodybuilding agency. I thought he quit the film industry. Yang Si
He is the best choice for the villain in this movie."
Then, it was Bruce Lee’s eldest son who came to audition.
"Hi, my name is Brandon Lee."
Brandon is tall and tall, which was inherited from his white mother's genes. His long parted hair and distinctive American accent gave Ronald a good impression of the son of a legendary kung fu superstar.
"Your uncles in Xiangjiang missed you very much after you went to film last time. If there is a chance this time, they can see you again." Corey Yuen said the last word to Brandon in Cantonese.
Corey Yuen is also quite satisfied with Brandon's audition. His appearance is not very photogenic, but kung fu movies are mainly about action scenes, and the appearance of the male protagonist is not as particular as other types of movies.
Ronald looked over and Corey Yuen explained to him. Brandon Lee has always wanted to enter the film industry, but there were not many opportunities in Hollywood. Last year he returned to Hong Kong and filmed a Cantonese action movie, but it did not cause any box office response.
.
However, many of the martial arts in Xiangjiang were started by his father, Bruce. When the eldest son returned, they all came to help him. Youngs, who was brought into the film industry by Bruce, took the initiative to play supporting roles for Brandon.
, making him the male protagonist.
"What I'm saying is, this way, eight will advance to four in the arena, and there will be two major events in the semi-finals. We can give Brandon a little more footage." Ronald and Corey Yuen decided to give Brandon Lee an important supporting role. He just
Representing his father's Jeet Kune Do style of martial arts in martial arts tournaments.
…
"What? You don't want to participate? Why?" Surprisingly, Brandon Lee's agent called the next day and declined the invitation for a second audition. Ronald received a call from Corey Yuen and was a little surprised, "He
Dislike the lack of appearance?"
"They said on the phone that they didn't want to go back to Hong Kong to film. The last time they went to film a movie, they gave Brandon a very bad impression. They worked very long hours and couldn't get used to the food. But it may be the reason you mentioned.
There are less dramas.”
"Okay," Ronald thought to himself. It seems that someone else has given him a chance. "Then it's up to you."