Chapter 52 Showing Yourself

How important is editing for movies? Before editing, "movie" is just a life clip. "Factory Gate" films the scene of factory employees entering the gate. "Train Arrival" films a train entering the station, and there is a fixed shot from beginning to end. There is no story. When I passed the initial curiosity, this "trick" was rated as boring. Who would watch how the gardener played with water pipes in "Water Gardener"? It would be better to go directly to your own garden to water it.

Then, "The Train Robbery" appeared. The first real movie consists of 14 different shots. The collision between the shots creates a complete movie content. Without any language and text, people can see clearly that this is a story of a group of robbers robbing on a train and finally being chased and shot by the police.

Only when there are stories and plots, the audience becomes interested and willing to pay for the movie. The development of the movie is a thousand miles a day, with more and more shooting methods of shots, and more and more montage techniques. In the final analysis, editing is so important that it makes the movie take off and makes the movie live.

A Hollywood blockbuster almost costs more than 200 hours of film, and the film spent on "Singing and Dance Youth" also costs nearly 20 hours. Although it is the same story, it can be edited into two completely different versions. If the film of these 20 hours is replaced with frame count, the film will be 24 frames per second, then the basic unit will be "million". It is the order, collision, and combination of these more than one million small grids that form the entire movie.

One more grid or one less grid is a world of difference. With those few frames and seconds, the movie may appear clumsy and drag; with those few frames, the movie will become disorganized, and the characters in the picture may even "drift". What the editor needs to do is arrange these small grids well, not more or less, not only to pay attention to seamless editing, but also to conform to the rhythm of the film, and express the story and emotions of the movie in the best way.

During the filming stage, the director and the photographer are husband and wife; when the editing stage, the director and the editor are husband and wife. Whether their "marriage" is happy directly determines whether the movie is a good or a bad movie. Their temper, tacit understanding, aesthetics and other aspects must be called, otherwise it will probably end up in divorce. The reason for the divorce is domestic violence.

Quentin Tarantino, the director of "Pulp Novel", once said: "When I was shooting my first movie, I only knew one thing, that is, I needed a female editor. The female editors knew how to take better care of the film and take care of me. Their competitive spirit was not that strong, and they would not try their best to defeat me. They would care for me and help me complete the movie."

The teacher who taught Wang Yang's editing class deeply agreed. Wang Yang also felt that it made sense that female editors should be more patient. Moreover, for "Singing and Dance", women should have better grasp of youth and sunshine than men with thick lines.

After a week of constant interviews, Wang Yang finally found a suitable candidate. Margaret Goodstead, a middle-aged white woman in her forties, wearing black-framed glasses. She has had many experience in editing movies, including "Four Rooms". She has a good temper. During the interview conversation, she also knows very well what "Singing and Dance" needs, lightness, youth, sunshine, and actively pursues what she wants to do.

At this time, in the editing room, Margaret looked at the screen of the editing computer. A psychological shot of Troy Burton was playing on the screen. She controlled the mouse in her hand and was about to remove several of the scenes of the set of shots. Wang Yang next to her hurriedly shouted: "no, no, no! Margaret, these scenes cannot be cut off, I need them!"

"You need it anywhere." Margaret smiled slightly and looked at Wang Yang and said, "We have 200 minutes of the first version, and what we have to do now is to cut it to less than 100 minutes." She said, "Young man, I know your mood. The director is always greedy. If possible, they are unwilling to delete a grid. But why does the director need an editor? Because some shots need to be deleted, but the director cannot do it, so let's do it." After that, she clicked into the editing software and removed the few scenes.

Wang Yang sighed helplessly, grabbed his hair and said softly: "Okay." But soon, he widened his eyes and shouted: "No, no, this set of shots must not be deleted! If you cut it like this, there will be nothing left." Seeing that Margaret insisting on cutting it alone, he said heartbrokenly: "You can't do this... Please, Oh my God... It's over!" After a while, he suddenly said: "Margaret, I thought about going back to the previous part, and I can't cut it like that."

Editing is like this. The director and editor keep "bargaining" and try various combinations of shots to arrange frames of pictures, delete them before and put them back, and then delete them again. Therefore, editing is much more tedious and boring than shooting. Especially for directors, they are often mentally tortured. Seeing the satisfactory materials that were finally shot on the set, they are cut off like garbage, and they are naturally not feeling well.

On the set, the director is the biggest; but in the editing room, the editor holds the main voice. Even big directors such as James Cameron and Steven Spielberg will not engage in dictatorship in the editing room. As Margaret said, the director needs help from others when choosing the camera.

At the same time, the promotion of the movie is also underway. Two days ago, the official website of "Singing and Dance Youth" released a release date and plan, and the list of 500 schools for the first week of the screening was also announced. The cinema attendance rate of these schools is very high, which is naturally very beneficial to the box office. However, some students from schools not listed were quite angry and protested on the official website, even saying that "Singing and Dance Youth" was discriminating.

However, Wang Yang and the company were prepared and announced an event to face the American campuses to "show themselves". The event will start in March and end on April 20. As long as you upload your own dancing and singing videos to the event official website, you can participate in the event. Finally, you will vote to select the top ten. They will receive a wealth of prizes and will also go to Los Angeles to attend the premiere of "Singing and Dance" for free. In addition, as long as you participate in the event, you will have the opportunity to become one of the 100 lucky people. There is no prize, but you can also come to Los Angeles for free, participate in the premiere, Hollywood one-day tour, and free return tickets.

This event will cost about 2 million yuan, and the total promotion budget for the movie has also increased to 7 million yuan. But the 2 million yuan is absolutely worth it. This event can calm the anger of students; on the other hand, it will allow more students and more schools to participate, and cooperate with the release of "Singing and Dance Youth" to set off a craze for singing and dancing. This is the most important thing.

How can students become interested in participating in activities? Prizes are just secondly. The focus of publicity lies in the activity slogan: "Show yourself and show your youthful and beautiful side!" However, if you want to win the award, you must start practicing singing and dancing well from now on; and when you are also selected, remember to canvass votes from your classmates.

Wang Yang was very confident in this publicity campaign because the success of "Spiritual - Ghost Records" was the first. The event "Who was scared the most miserable?" made him realize that everyone was actually eager to "show" and eager to share their own excitement with everyone.

The release date of "Singing and Dance" has been announced, and the media still reacted coldly to this. Only some online media reported it. If it weren't for Wang Yang's popularity, I'm afraid there wouldn't be even these.

His popularity has also attracted some covetousness. "The Hand of Leisure" has set its sights on it. They seem to want to create some topics. Producer Andrew Richard said in an interview with the media: "I haven't changed my point of view, that girl will regret it. Oh, don't ask me this again. In short, I promise that "The Hand of Leisure" will be an excellent film, and its story is so interesting." Director Rodman Fred said: "The same period? I don't worry about this. Although our movies are all facing teenagers, I don't mean to fight. Wang Yang is a very thoughtful young man. I wish him success this time." One sings blackface and the other sings blackface.

Neither Wang Yang nor the company responded. This kind of topic is not a good publicity opportunity. "Singing and Dance" requires a healthy and upward topic, not a dispute. Of course, if "Star Wars-Phantom Crisis" jumped out and said, "Let's Phantom Crisis", that's another matter.

However, the most important thing is to do your own publicity work, such as "showing yourself" campus activities, such as the small program that teaches people to dance.

"Yang, no TV station is willing to work with us unless we pay a certain advertising fee." Mark Slunt's tone was calm, with a tone of "this is what I expected", and he said: "It costs at least 50 million a month."

Fifty million? Wang Yang rolled his eyes. He stood up with his cell phone, walked to the balcony of the apartment, and said to the cell phone: "Since it's so expensive, let's just upload it to the official website according to the plan B, and we can also play it on those campus TV stations." This small program can not only create idols, but also promote the "Show yourself" activity. Mark Slunt knew this and replied: "Okay, then we need to prepare for the production."

After finishing the call, looking at the night sky, Wang Yang dialed another number and chatted with a smile: "Hi, Jessica. You and Rachel, Zachary and the others have new jobs. Yes, the show I told you before." He leaned against the railing and continued to chat: "Oh, it's not me who is the director. This kind of show doesn't require a director, right? I don't know, I'm still busy with editing. Today, Margaret and I almost started fighting, ha, just joking..."

After chatting for a long time, Wang Yang put down his cell phone and went to the kitchen to open the refrigerator. He wanted to get some soda and food to prepare to watch an NFL game. Due to labor disputes, his favorite NBA was still shut down and he didn't know when the season would be restarted. However, the refrigerator was empty and there was no inventory. Wang Yang scratched his head and prepared to go to a nearby supermarket to scan some goods.

Michael Pitt had moved out long ago and shared a small apartment with George Harry. He now found a part-time job and attended the audition opportunity, and worked hard to move towards his next role.

When he arrived at the street below the apartment, Wang Yang walked a short distance and felt someone following him. He looked back vigilantly and saw a blond middle-aged white man following behind, and the paparazzi again! Wang Yang shouted to the paparazzi helplessly: "Brother, you have been following me for a while." Many paparazzi followed him, but only once or twice, and this guy was following him almost every day.

Seeing that he was exposed, the bearded white man simply walked up, picked up the camera on his neck and took a "click" at Wang Yang, and smiled and said, "This is my job. My name is Cole."

"Thank you for your hard work." Wang Yang said, and walked for a while. Looking at Cole who was always following closely, Wang Yang felt a little bored and asked, "Why do you have to follow me all the time? I'm not a big star." Because of the paparazzi, he and Jessica dare not date recently. He rolled his eyes and said, "You should follow Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, or Tom Willing."

Cole followed his footsteps and replied, "Yang, you are very popular recently. You are a star. Everyone is paying attention to you." He spread his hands and said, "Age 18, almost 19; a millionaire, don't have a girlfriend? Who believes it?" Wang Yang smiled and said, "So you want to take a photo of me and my girlfriend?" Cole shrugged and said, "Actually, boyfriend can do it too."

"Of course, it would be better if you could take a more explosive one." Cole added. Wang Yang said with interest: "What about?" Cole smiled: "For example, go home with two hot girls, smoke marijuana, urinate everywhere, or hit people in the street, these are all good." Wang Yang laughed and said: "Then you must want me to hit you." Cole nodded and said: "Yes, I do think so."

"If you don't talk about that kind of photo, do you know how much it is if you can take a photo of you and your girlfriend intimately?" Cole pointed the camera lens at Wang Yang and took a picture. Wang Yang said curiously: "How much?" Cole smiled and said, "I don't know, man, this is the first one, it is absolutely worth a thousand gold! Maybe I can rely on it and replace a good car."

"Then come on." After Wang Yang said, his feet speeded up. Cole, who was behind him, said: "I think I will take a picture soon. A few days will be your birthday, right?" Wang Yang looked back at him and said angrily: "Please, can't you let me have a good birthday?" Cole immediately took his impatient expression and smiled satisfiedly: "I finally got some gains. This picture should be worth $300-500."
Chapter completed!