Chapter 118: Journey to the West of a Japanese-American Joint Venture
"Hey, he still refuses to marry a girl from our ethnic group..."
On the rooftop of a high-rise building in New York, an old man got off the helicopter, and next to him was the assistant who greeted him. After hearing what Ronald asked his son Michael to say, Kirk Douglas stood on the tarmac in a daze.
After a moment, he waved his hand and dismissed the messenger.
Kirk Douglas is already over seventy, but he is still full of energy and travels everywhere. He came to his room through the exclusive elevator and dialed the number of CAA's Michael Ovitz.
"Michael, your golden boy rejected my offer..."
"I just said that he is not old enough to get married yet." Ovitz was not convinced by this old-school blind date method from the beginning. Today's audience is much more tolerant of men and women living together before marriage than in Hollywood back then.
.
The cohabitation of male and female celebrities today is equivalent to marriage in the Hays Code era. Breaking up now is equivalent to divorce at that time. After President Franklin of the Donkey Party took office, the tax law was very unfriendly to entertainers.
And the social atmosphere is very conservative.
There are even two tabloids in Los Angeles that are famous for discovering the romantic affairs of celebrities, and then colluding with several major studios to blackmail their stars into submission and make movies they don't like.
This trend continued until the 1950s, when Ingrid Bergman had an affair during marriage and was brought to the Senate. However, after the Vietnam War, urbanization intensified, men and women left their families to work in the city, and cohabitation before marriage gradually became normal.
This is also reflected in Hollywood movie plots.
Therefore, after the public's acceptance increases, they will no longer be so harsh on celebrities. As long as they don't openly make other girlfriends or don't get caught during the period when the relationship between men and women is officially disclosed, there will be no problem.
Besides, since the current commander-in-chief took office, the tax burden on people in the entertainment industry has been greatly reduced. Everyone is a wealthy person. After getting married in California, the spouses have joint ownership of half of the property. Under this law, the old age will be used again.
He used a trick to win over Ronald, but in fact, Michael Ovitz was not optimistic about it at all.
"Are there any beautiful girls among our ethnic group?" Kirk Douglas became stubborn as he got older. He didn't think it was because there was something wrong with his strategy, or because he thought Jewish girls were not good-looking.
"No more... Annette Bening has become the best resource in the industry in recent years."
"How about you take a look and see if there are any beautiful girls from other ethnic groups who match his aesthetics. As long as we provide some convenience, it will be the same for her to join Judaism."
"Mr. Douglas, this is too far-fetched. I think Ronald prefers money and awards to beautiful women..." Ovitz was anxious. What's the point of just giving away beautiful women? He still had half a sentence left.
He didn't say it, but perhaps what Ronald valued more was the freedom from being manipulated by others.
"As long as he has pursuits, there will be weaknesses. Give him more conveniences, just like we give Steven (Spielberg) more 'good scripts' to open the door to convenience."
Kirk Douglas consciously found Ronald's weakness and wanted to give him more dramatic and literary scripts just like he did when he guided Spielberg to the "right path". As long as he has the idea of pursuing Oscar awards, then
You must be able to control him to a certain extent (just what Ovitz can do).
Also, it would be better if Ronald's desire to win the Oscar for Best Director is extremely passionate. In the big studios controlled by Jews, many of these seem to be able to obtain critical acclaim, but are commercially risky
Great work.
Feed him more scripts like this. As long as he shoots two money-losing movies in a row, he will definitely have various financing difficulties for his next movies, so much so that he will have to turn to these old Jewish men.
"That sounds good..." Ovitz hung up.
This old man's ideas are stubborn and old-fashioned. It's not like the days when big studios held big-name directors and stars under five-year or even ten-year contracts. He owns the largest agency in Hollywood, and he can't say that it's 100% possible.
Secretly allocate resources and guide these directors to make the movies they want them to make.
Just like Spielberg, I did let him fulfill his wish in many projects and used many actors signed by CAA. However, the agency always has a weakness for directors and stars, and that is the law in the contract.
If you go too far to protect artists, they will most likely go to another agency for the next contract.
However, Kirk Douglas's idea does have merit. Being able to exert influence on the director is always the most convenient shortcut to gain power in Hollywood. And he is a well-funded studio owner who has his own B-movie hair channel.
Compared to Ronald, who still doesn't have enough money to make big productions and relies on CAA, it's much more useful.
However, there are operational problems with Old Kirk's method. This year, Ronald has been shown a little bit of CAA's influence on Oscar nominations, and he should be given a stronger shock next.
As for Jewish people controlling Hollywood, that is all unrealistic and delusional. If they really have that ability, it would be better to control Hollywood themselves...
No matter what religion or ethnicity, they are just excuses to hide their shame. Kirk Douglas himself, not for his own purpose, is now able to accept non-Jewish beauties to influence the director?
…
Ronald knew nothing about this. He anxiously went to George Lucas' ranch, in the house built by his ex-wife Martha, and met the employees of Industrial Light and Magic, Pixar Studio, and those who
Computer with Pixar logo written on it.
"Is this a computer that can render particles?" Ronald touched the computer with a dark green arc shell, curious in his heart.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Each of these computers is larger and heavier than the IBM I use. Pixar engineers call it a workstation (WorkStation). The computer screen has the following features:
It looks like a well-calibrated color screen, several times larger than an office monitor.
There is also a computer without a monitor, and the host computer is as big as a double-door refrigerator. There are also the words "Renderman" on it. According to the engineer, it is specially used to render the final picture results, those lightning, fireballs, etc.
Waiting for special effects, it is here that the zeros and ones in the program are transformed into realistic pictures that the audience can see.
"Let me show you something good..." Alvi Ray Smith, executive vice president of Pixar, smiled and opened a file on a "Pixar Special Effects Workstation".
"Luxo Jr", Ronald looked at the title text and read it out.
Sure enough, a white desk lamp appeared on the monitor of the workstation, and a colorful ball rolled over on the ground. The desk lamp shook its lampshade and stared at the ball, just like a person shaking his head and staring at the ball when he is curious.
"Are these all computer-generated? No real shots?" Ronald saw something was wrong. Whether it was a desk lamp or a ball, the tones were very consistent. They were not at all like real-life objects, which always had inconsistent colors.
The place.
"Yes, our slogan at Pixar is that everything is rendered." Alvi Ray Smith replied with a smile. Many directors would be surprised when they see the small desk lamp they demonstrated for the first time.
However, some people enthusiastically asked if it could be made into a feature film, and some people were defensive and found fault with Pixar. Like Ronald, who could see the key at a glance and was interested in many technical details, only Lucas besides Lucas
Just one or two people.
There was also a child, and the little desk lamp started to play like a father and son playing with a ball. In the end, the little desk lamp was naughty and jumped on the ball, crushing it. Although it was two desk lamps, it was
The coordination of movements and the emotions conveyed are no different from real-life performances.
Ronald was lying on the table, looking at the monitor intently. This thing felt a bit familiar, and the demonstration was very fascinating. In the future, he would be able to shoot a movie without actors, just by relying on the computer.
A movie?
"We can..." Vice President Alvey came over to introduce Ronald. Unexpectedly, Ronald was faster than him and pressed the shortcut key combination to restart the animation.
"Um, have you seen this computer before? Have you been to last year's Computer Graphics Exhibition?" Alvey felt that Ronald's movements were more skillful than his own, almost as good as those of his animation engineers who worked every day.
"Ah... that's not important..." Ronald didn't quite understand why he felt this way. He pointed at the small desk lamp on the screen. How did you model it? How did you calculate these light and shadow relationships?
The magic of this animation is not only that all the characters were created by computer engineers, but there is also no mistake in the lighting.
The desk lamps will emit light, and the two desk lamps are still twisting the lampshades like people, the two spotlight light sources, the diffuse reflection caused by the table wall, and the differences in brightness and saturation of the colors on the colored balls caused by the lights,
Ronald, who was a photographer, could see clearly, and there was no mistake in the logical relationship.
"This is all made possible by our engineers developing software from scratch bit by bit."
"Can you take me to see it?" Ronald asked.
"Of course, we have a team next door working on George's new film. We can go and see how they work." Vice President Alvey Ray Smith was very happy to see Ronald being so interested.
Steve Jobs, the retired CEO of Apple, was a big talker and didn't take kindly to employees who had different opinions from him. He offered five million to acquire part of the shares and another five million to inject capital, but in this purely money-burning industry, he couldn't be excited.
A few water splashes appeared.
Jobs also refused to continue investing. He also had a new company to develop a so-called NeXT computer to compete with Apple, his old employer that kicked him out. So for Pixar, he just asked them not to update more hardware.
It is to combine the software that has been created with the latest graphics workstation and sell it together to make some money to sustain it.
Jobs was a computer businessman, while Ronald was a film artist. In comparison, the artist must be more willing to invest in a distant dream.
"This is the modeling engineer." A bearded employee sat in front of the computer, using the mouse and keyboard to rotate and scale a colorless three-dimensional model that looked like a ceramic cup.
Every time you drag and zoom, the monitor has to stand still for a moment before the zoomed image is displayed. Refreshing frame by frame seems like the computing power of the workstation is not enough.
"Shxt", the bearded man yelled. When he was demonstrating it to Ronald, the entire software crashed because he was dragging and dropping too fast, and a window popped up on the screen with error messages in it.
"I haven't saved it yet, damn it."
"Well, we can take a look at that. After the modeling is done, we can add various special effects there." Vice President Alvi quickly covered up and took Ronald to see the subsequent processes, and finally arrived at the refrigerator-like machine.
In front of the same computer, "the final model was added with various special effects equations, and it was rendered here to look like what you see."
"Interesting..." Ronald looked at each one and felt familiar, as if he could also use those softwares.
"Are you selling these computers?" Ronald asked.
"Ah, yes, yes, we not only sell hardware, but we also sell software, including teaching and training, and we can also provide training on the entire process. You can hire some animators, computer engineers, and programmers, and you can do it yourself in half a year.
Make a small desk lamp.”
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! "Then give me one." Ronald pointed to the different computers used in the process, scrolled around, and finally pointed to the "refrigerator"
, give me one too, how much does it cost?
"That one is not for sale. We only have two available for use. If you have the files you have prepared, you can burn them on a CD and bring them to our office here or in Los Angeles. For customers who buy computers, the rendering time is eight times
There is a discounted fee.”
Ronald was deeply shocked when he heard that the computer used for rendering was quoted at tens of thousands of dollars per second. However, what they said made sense. Rendering is not a success at one time. People have to debug the parameters repeatedly and finally use the generated results.
The price is already very cheap.
It seems that it is not that simple to make a movie that can be shown in theaters in a short period of time. In addition to various R&D and engineers, we also need to cultivate various process management talents ourselves. I bought some this time as if I was familiar with those flames and
To invest in lightning special effects, try hiring people yourself.
After writing a check, Ronald did not mention the investment, but ordered a few workstations first.
"Ronald, are you interested in learning more about our Pixar..." Vice President Alvey was still there to promote. Buying a computer would be good, but investing in shares was what he wanted most.
"Hmm... um..." Ronald agreed absentmindedly. He was not stupid. Obviously these softwares were not stable enough. He had no idea whether it was possible to use computers to shoot movies. He would buy some and do a feasibility study first.
"What are you talking about?" Ronald saw a corner of the office, pasted with several animation original paintings and a storyboard. On it was a laughing monkey with a very vivid anthropomorphic expression.
"This is a cooperative project between us and Japan's Shogakukan Publishing House. They will provide the story and original paintings, and we will provide the technical strength to prepare a co-production of 'Journey to the West.'"
"Huh?", Ronald thought to himself, don't lie to me, isn't this the story of Journey to the West? He was even treated to a cartoon produced by the Art Film Studio in Xujiahui.
"This monkey is a circus master and magician. Starting from China, he went all the way west to learn knowledge from the masters in northern India."
Vice President Alvi also introduced there, "This is the first animated film jointly produced by Japan and the United States. It was shot using the latest technology. We made some storyboards. Are you interested in taking a look?"
Because technology has not developed enough and computers are not fast enough to watch, this Japanese-American joint venture movie has been delayed for three years, and Japan is about to withdraw. If Ronald can inject money into this project, it will also be greatly improved.
Ease Pixar's current predicament.
"I still have to study it first..." Ronald declined. He just took the two original paintings of "Journey to the West" given by the vice president and went back to think about it.
"You still want to lie to me. Journey to the West is obviously a story about China. There have been several movies and TV series made. The Sino-US joint venture is pretty much the same."