The party was held in an old building in the Tribeca district, and the whole building did not look amazing from the outside, but after entering, Zhang Ran found that it was not a very vulgar clubhouse, and the interior was quietly and elegantly decorated, and it was very stylish. The walls www.biquge.info of the Pen, Fun, and Pavilion are adorned with paintings by New York artists, including a painting by Andy Warhol, which is unknown if it is real or fake.

Zhang Ran looked around, wanting to see what kind of party it was and who was there. There weren't many people present, both men and women, but most of them he hadn't seen before. Since it was a gathering of independent filmmakers in New York, it was normal for Zhang Ran not to admit it, but he soon saw Robert De Niro.

At this moment, Robert De Niro was sitting on the sofa chatting with several men and women, who basically knew each other. Robert De Niro also saw Zhang Ran, immediately put the wine glass in his hand on the table, stood up, said a word to everyone, and walked over with a smile.

Zhang Ran is a disciple of Mary Hill, and in terms of teacher-teacher relationship, he belongs to his master and nephew, so Robert De Niro was particularly enthusiastic about Zhang Ran and gave him a hug directly: "Boy, long time no see! I heard that you booked a seat at the NOBU restaurant, so I left you a note, I thought you wouldn't come!"

"I also belong to independent filmmakers, and I am very interested in this kind of gathering of independent filmmakers!" Zhang Ran tilted his head and looked at it, and said in a low voice, "Don't you have a mask? I thought you were having a masked party?"

When Robert De Niro heard this, he directly gave Zhang Ran: "Stinky boy, what are you talking about? We are having a serious party, just with some friends who are talking, everyone stays together, drinks some wine, and chats casually!"

As an old man in Hollywood, Robert De Niro has never seen any scenes, so he naturally knows that Zhang Ran is ridiculing himself for holding a masked adult party. Masked adult parties are common in Hollywood, especially during awards season, with all sorts of adult parties popping up in the name of celebration, and there are many Hollywood stars, both men and women, who participate.

As long as you have watched Kubrick's movie "Eyes Wide Open", you should be familiar with that kind of masked party.

Zhang Ran laughed: "I thought I could open my eyes!"

Robert De Niro said speechlessly: "I'll introduce you to Leonardo when I have time, he is a frequent guest at all kinds of parties and can open your eyes!"

Zhang Ran hurriedly waved his hand: "I'm joking!" and said: "I came here today to find you, at the beginning of the next year, I have a movie to make, and I want to ask you to play the second male lead, I don't know if you can leave the schedule to me?"

Robert De Niro said cheerfully, "No problem!"

Now Robert De Niro is 65 years old, at this age, there are very few suitable plays in the United States, and he still has to raise the Tribeca Film Festival, and now he is a little undisciplined, not taboo in meat and vegetarian, and has received a lot of bad movies. Zhang Ran is a very high-level director, and he has money, so it must be no problem to take his movie, so Robert De Niro didn't even read the script and agreed directly.

However, Zhang Ran still explained: "It is a science fiction film about the war between humans and robots. Your character is somewhat like Rick, the hero of Blade Runner, and is a very complex character. When I was writing the script, I was thinking that this bastard really looked like Robert De Niro, and I had to find him to play him. By the way, the character is a Russian colonel, and I need a Russian accent!"

Robert De Niro nodded: "No problem, when the movie starts, you will hear a proficient Russian accent!"

After a brief chat with Zhang Ran, Robert De Niro took him to the sofa and introduced him to everyone.

"Robin, this is Darren Aronofsky, his film "The King of Wrestling" just won the Golden Lion in Venice this year;

"Robin, this is Wes Anderson, he is a young director that Martin admires very much, he has directed films like "Crossing Darjeeling", "The Tremenbaums", Wes, this is Zhang Ran, you should know him. ”

Robert De Niro was about to introduce the third place to Zhang Ran, and Zhang Ran called out directly: "Jason, this is a gathering of independent filmmakers in New York, why did you, a USC guy, sneak in?"

"If you can come to ULCA, I can naturally come!" Jason Reitman gave Zhang Ran a middle finger and said, "Robin, when I heard that you were going to be the chief director of the Olympic Games, I felt that your film career was probably going to end, and then I heard that you filmed "Tangshan Earthquake", so I went to the cinema to watch it. ”

Zhang Ran immediately counterattacked: "Your "Juno" is ordinary in terms of technique, and you can hardly see any shining points, and you can get such a big affirmation, completely relying on the theme of underage pregnancy!"

Robert De Niro saw that the two were arguing directly, and said curiously: "You know each other?"

Zhang Ran smiled faintly: "Jason is from USC, I am from UCLA, we fought several times during the battle in the same city, and he was abused by me every time!"

Everyone present was clear about the contradictions between USC and UCLA, as well as the battle in the same city, and when they heard Zhang Ran say this, they all laughed when they knew what was going on.

Next, Robert De Niro introduced Edward Norton and others to Zhang Ran, and Scorsese, Scarlett Johansson, who Zhang Ran knew, also greeted each other.

Jason Reitman was very dissatisfied with Zhang Ran's shameless claim every time he abused himself, and after Zhang Ran sat down, he retorted: "What do you mean that I am abused by you every time?

Zhang Ran rolled his eyes and said: "At that time, I will only learn to be a director for a short time, and my understanding of audio-visual language is not thorough enough, if it is now, I will beat you every minute!"

Jason Reitman retorted, "At that time my understanding of cinema was also limited, and as you improved, I also improved. If you're not convinced, we'll find a chance to compare again!"

Zhang Ran responded: "Okay, how can you compare?"

Jason Reitman groaned and said: "We have all been nominated for the Oscar for Best Director, and the Best Director nomination is voted for by the directors, representing the recognition of the industry, so that's it, whoever gets the second nomination first is the winner, what do you think?"

Zhang Ran said speechlessly: "You are too shameless! I basically make Chinese-language films, and the possibility of winning the Oscar for Best Director nomination is very small, which is unfair." If we want to compare, let's compare the awards of the three major film festivals, the best director or the best film in Cannes, Berlin, and Venice, and whoever wins one of them first is the winner. If you lose, put a full-page ad on "Variety" and read, "Mr. Zhang Ran, victory will always be yours!" Do you dare?"

The success of "Juno" made Jason Reitman full of confidence in himself, and Zhang Ran fell into a bottleneck after "The Aviator", he felt that he had a great chance of winning, and said with a relaxed face: "Then we have made up our minds, Mr. Scorsese and they are our witnesses." But if you lose, you also have to run a full-page ad in the newspaper Variety, writing, Mr. Jason Reitman, congratulations on your victory. Signed, loser Zhang Ran!"

Zhang Ran grinned and said, "Then we'll make a decision!"

Everyone present watched with great interest as Zhang Ran and Jason made a bet, and the scene in front of them reminded everyone of Spielberg and Lucas's bet in the early 80s to see whose movie would be the best, and after that, Spielberg and Lucas would place advertisements in newspapers to congratulate them once their box office records were surpassed by their rivals, which has become a good story in American cinema.

Zhang Ran and Jason Reitman are both young and talented, and their bet could be the new story.

Scorsese looked at the two of them and said with a smile: "It seems that you are all very confident in your new film, are you ready to shoot something?"

Jason Reitman took a sip of his glass and said lightly: "I was going to make a movie of Walter Ken's novel "In the Clouds", which I had been in love with in '02, but I was working on my debut novel, "Thank You for Smoking." After filming this film, he filmed "Juno" non-stop. It wasn't until the beginning of this year that the script of "In the Clouds" was picked up again. Now the cast has been finalized, starring George Clooney and Vera Farmiga, and it is expected to start shooting in February next year!"

Hearing "In the Clouds", Zhang Ran was slightly stunned, he remembered that this movie seemed to have won several Oscar nominations, and he couldn't remember whether he won the award or not. However, being able to get multiple Oscar nominations shows that the quality of the film is very high, and if it is sent to the Three Points Film Festival, it is easy to win the award.

In fact, this kind of movie with the participation of Hollywood stars, if the quality is good, it is easier to win awards in the Big Three, after all, the Big Three need big stars to support the stage. If you don't give a prize, then they may not come next time!

Zhang Ran suddenly felt like he was falling into a pit!

Scorsese looked at Zhang Ran and asked, "What about your new film?"

Zhang Ran smiled and said indifferently: "In the past two years, I have been busy with the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, which is a kind of practice for me. It was not only a tempering of will, but more importantly, it gave me a new understanding of the picture, space, music, scheduling, etc. For me, participating in the opening ceremony may be more effective than studying hard in school for five years, and then I will make two films, a drama film and a science fiction film, and I hope to apply my feelings over the past two years to the film, and I will try different techniques. ”

The directors present all knew that Zhang Ran liked to try audio-visual language, and everyone was a little curious about his next attempt. Darren Aronofsky asked, "I don't know, what are you going to try?"

Zhang Ran smiled indifferently: "I plan to try multi-part montage and overall scene scheduling!"

Scarlett Johansson, Edward Norton, these actors don't know much about audio-visual language, so they didn't think anything about it, but several directors present showed shocked expressions when they heard Zhang Ran's words.

Multi-part montage is a theory put forward by the film master Eisenstein, that is, the rhythm montage, vertical montage, polyphonic montage and other montages between the shots and the outside of the camera montage are jointly implemented, this technique is extremely demanding for the director, so far only two people have shown this technique well in the film, one is Eisenstein himself, the other is Francis Coppola; Wells and others used it a lot, because the scheduling was too complicated, and then few people used it, and the last one who could work this technique well was also Francis Coppola.

In the '80s, Francis Coppola was saddled with huge debts due to box office fiascos, and his exploration of cinematic language came to a halt, and multi-part montage and monolithic scene scheduling disappeared from his work, and since then, these two techniques have never been seen on the screen again.

In a way, these two techniques are almost lost!

Now hearing that Zhang Ran wanted to reproduce these two techniques, all the directors present were taken aback.

Jason Reitman couldn't help but say, "You're such a madman!"