Johnny To is one of Eric's few favorite Hong Kong film directors, if Bai Ge Wu because of the great success of the year, accidentally groping to form his own set of violent aesthetics, then To Qifeng has formed a mature and distinctive personal style after dozens of film exploration and experience. His films have their own set of black philosophies that combine elements of coldness, violence, fatalism and pathos.

It is a rare film in Johnny To's works with free and easy comfort, if you evaluate this movie from the perspective of ordinary audiences, then the word that appears the most must be one word: cool! That's the main reason Eric chose this movie.

It was also a bold attempt by Eric to see if such a film, which does not exist in the history of Hollywood, would be a success.

In my memory, in the next ten years, many Hollywood blockbuster movies are now owned by the copyrights, and it is not ordinarily difficult for Eric to snatch food from those giants, especially after others know that he is optimistic about a movie. And there are not many big-selling movies that have no copyright ownership, and if you work hard at the current pace, you may be able to finish it in two or three years.

Of course, this is also a fairly safe attempt, first of all, the story is very exciting, and it has been recognized by the two big names Cruise and Hanks, which shows that this story does not have the problem of the difference in tastes between Eastern and Western audiences.

Secondly, the two leading actors used by Eric are now very box office guaranteed, Tom Cruise has just experienced success, and his popularity has once again reached a small peak, and Tom Hanks has just won an Oscar nomination for Best Actor with last year's film. Coupled with the box office appeal accumulated by Eric's own previous films, as well as this cool script, according to the analysis of the Colombian Department of Mathematics, it is easy for this film to win $100 million at the box office in the summer file.

On April 5, in a large studio at Columbia Pictures, the official start was to shoot a series of indoor scenes, and this time Eric did not plan to shoot in chronological order like last time.

The images of the two protagonists are very distinct, there is no change before and after, one is shrewd and capable, and the other is evil and wise. As long as you can get into the scene along the way, you won't have much of a problem shooting from that scene. That's why Eric decided to move from simple to complex, inside-out to the outside world.

In the hospital room, Andy, played by Cruise, learns that his condition has deteriorated, and he still gets off the hospital bed without changing his face and begins to dress slowly.

"How much longer?"

"Four weeks, if you bleed internally, you could die at any time." The spirited doctor sat behind his desk and replied in a hoarse voice.

Andy's dressing didn't stop at the slightest when he heard the bad news, and after fastening his belt, he handed a dozen bills to the doctor: "It doesn't matter, just give me painkillers for four weeks." ”

After taking the painkillers, Andy finally put on his coat and prepared to leave, and the doctor, who seemed to be a little emotional, said, "I don't think we will meet again." ”

"It's just this life," Andy replied with a calm expression.

"Cards!"

When the shot was complete, Eric called a pause, neither saying 'good' nor 'no-good', and sat behind the monitor, frowning slightly as if thinking about something. Although he has been discharged from the hospital, Eric still has bandages on his head and occasionally has headaches, but after several repeated examinations, no problems were found, and Eric is no longer nervous.

There is nothing peculiar about Cruise's performance, which can be easily completed with his acting skills, and the later scene will be combined with Andy's shot on the rooftop, using montage techniques for mixed editing, and will also use fast and slow motion processing techniques, and there will be two fast and slow motion switches in just two shots.

The reason why this is done, and the tense dubbing is also mixed with the clicking sound of the second hand, is to imperceptibly hint to the audience that Andy only has four weeks to live, and after just a few shots of language expression, it will cause the audience to be nervous and curious, what will he do in the remaining four weeks?

The staff present are all veterans of Eric's work with several times, so they have seen Eric fall into this kind of thinking during the filming process more than once, so everyone has a tacit understanding not to bother him, lightly tidying up the equipment, and patiently waiting for Eric to come back to his senses.

But Cruise, who had waited for a minute, finally got a little impatient, he felt that there was nothing wrong with his performance just now, if he could, then he would pass guò, if not, Cruise felt that he didn't mind doing it all over again, what was the situation now?

"Hey, Eric, how was the footage, do you need to do it all over again?" Cruise finally couldn't help but walk up to Eric and nudge him gently.

Eric felt a figure suddenly appear next to him, because he was in the studio, all the lights were artificial, and Cruise appeared next to Eric just blocking a headlight behind him, forming a faint shadow in front of Eric.

Shadow!

Eric suddenly looked up consciously, saw Cruise's expression, and explained, "Sorry, Tom, I'm thinking about some problems. ”

"It's okay," Cruise smiled generously, "How was that shot just now, do you need to do it all over again?" ”

"I'm afraid we'll have to do it again," Eric replied, "can you wait a minute?" ”

Cruise shrugged and stepped back, watching Eric call out to the gaffer, and then the lights on the scene began to be slowly dimmed, no longer the scene that had just simulated sunlight, Eric stared at the monitor, and waited until the lights were turned to his satisfaction, and then the gaffer stopped.

"Okay, all the personnel ready, let's do it again," Eric commanded loudly.

Moments later, the reporter stepped forward and knocked down the scoreboard, and the shooting began again.

Eric stared earnestly at the screen of Andy and the doctor on the monitor, secretly comparing the shot with the rooftop shot in his mind.

This shot is used to illustrate Andy's current situation in the movie, and it is very similar to Andy's memories on the rooftop, and the audience will even have a misunderstanding that Andy wants to jump off the building after watching this paragraph, and even think that this may be a flashback movie, Andy used four weeks to fulfill all his wishes, and then had nothing to love, climbed to the roof of the building, and jumped down.

Since it is used for illustration and reminiscence, Eric feels that the light in the original version is too bright, exactly the same as Andy's light on a sunny rooftop, and it cannot give the audience any sense of difference, so the expression effect is much worse.

It's not Eric complaining, the use of lighting in Johnny To's movies is like the three-plate axe of the white pigeon Wu, except for the common high contrast and staging, there are not too many tricks, this aspect is strong with the same personal style, but the use of lighting and color is not comparable to the master Wong Kar-wai, of course, Wong Kar-wai is taking the route of art films, and the movies of the two must not be compared.

Solving the lighting problem, Eric began to focus on the performance with Cruise, this small scene really has no place to play, Eric has no intention of picking on it, if Cruise's performance can bring unexpected surprises, then of course he is happy, if not, he will not be disappointed, as long as it meets his personal standards.

Anyway, the opportunity has already been given to Cruise, whether he can rely on this movie to get nominations, and even win some acting awards, still requires Cruise's own efforts, and Eric values the box office of this movie more.

As for the prospect of the Oscars previously portrayed in order to convince Cruise to agree to the plot of the man dressing as a woman, huh...... Didn't all the directors and producers say that when they fooled the actors into the group, Eric didn't feel guilty at all, he was more concerned about the box office of the movie, after all, he is so young now, and his desire for the Oscar award is not very strong, and burying his head to make money is the last word.

The novelty of the theme of this movie is certain, but whether it can please the Oscar judges or not, only God knows. Andy won the first Hong Kong Film Awards in the previous life, if you think about it carefully, maybe there are more public relations components, plus in 1999, Hong Kong films have been in full decline, and there are not many excellent films, Andy was able to realize his long-cherished wish to be the emperor of the Academy Awards.

It only took two or three times for the shot to pass through, and the crew began to move to another room in the studio, which took more than half an hour, and the time that a movie really spent on shooting the lens was not too much, most of the time was spent on the long scene layout.

Most of the footage in these two days is Cruise's one-man show, and he will complete the scenes in his room to examine Hanks's Sean, make Zuò women's clothes, vomit blood while drinking, and disguise himself as Andy's father Peter to fight the villain.

Although he had the original movie in his mind, Eric still designed some additional scenes so that he would have enough material for the post-production of Zuò, after all, this is already a new Hollywood movie, and Eric could not have made Zuò exactly like the one he remembered.

According to the filming plan, this process will last three days, and after the fourth day, there will be a group scene of Hanks and others, and then there will be an indoor rivalry between Cruise and Hanks.

Because of the abundant shooting time of this movie, the whole crew called it a day after eight hours, and instructed the assistant director to send the shot material to the editing room, and Eric left in a hurry, he had more things to do than anyone else besides the movie. The post-production will also need to wait for the film to be completely closed.

The initial casting work has been completed, and he still needs to make the final decision on the actors, and he has to pay attention to the filming in Louisiana from time to time.

It's been a month since filming started, but with the ink of Herbert Ross, an older Hollywood film director, the filming progress of the film is less than halfway completed, and it will take at least a month to close the film, and the post-production will take at least a month.

Moreover, the film may even have the risk of overspending, and Eric is happy about it, not because Firefly is investing alone, and there are three million funds brought by Herbert Ross alone.

So Eric doesn't mind putting another one or two million into the movie to expand the Firefly's share, and Eric is now waiting for Herbert Ross to ask for money.

"Hey, Eric, how is the wound on your head?"

Back in Firefly's office, Eric met Jonathan Demmy, who was already waiting there, and Jonathan's face was visibly tired, but his tone was still full of energy.

"Thank you for the relationship, Jonathan, much better, did you bring the information?"

"Here, according to your requirements, I have screened out a list of dozens of alternative actors, but I am exhausted." Jonathan said with a smile.

He is indeed the most tired person these days, and because there are two young actors in the script, stimulated by Stuart Runkel, Firefly has received more than 5,000 files of young actors.

Many of the children who sent the files did not have any acting experience at all, but many parents sent their children's files with the illusion of becoming rich overnight like the Runkel family.

And there are also fake files, some unscrupulous parents deliberately make up lies that their children have made cameos in a certain movie or TV series, and the staff has to spend a lot of time to confirm the authenticity of these files.

Eric didn't think about relying on the memories in his mind and directly asking people to find those potential children to come out.

However, the difficulty of this kind of thing is estimated to be greater than screening potential young actors among 5,000 people.

Although Eric completely copied the memories of his previous life in his mind, he still didn't know a lot of information that he didn't know, if he randomly said the name of a famous Hollywood star in the future, maybe the staff could find hundreds of children with the same name and surname in this country, and Westerners are notoriously uncreative in naming names.

took a dozen thick bags handed over by Jonathan Demi, which not only included the list of candidates for the two middle school children, but also three servants, the real-life Victor family, Grace's husband and other actors.

Although there are a few less important supporting roles, Eric has let Jonathan decide for himself, but he still has to see it for himself after all.

The first thing to open was the information of the two more important young actors, and Eric glanced at the list of ten young boys, and was surprised to see the name of Macaulay Culkin, while the other nine boys did not know each other.

Turning directly to Culkin's information, although it is gone, the boy still has experience in two films, which also explains why the other party appears in this list. Directly pulling out Culkin's information, Jonathan glanced at it curiously: "Eric, you have a crush on this boy?" ”

Eric shook his head directly: "No, this one is eliminated." ”

"Well, I think this boy named Macaulay Culkin is the most exciting of the ten children......"

Eric couldn't have sued Jonathan, he didn't want Macaulay Culkin to be as famous as he was in his previous life, as famous, but certainly not too influential.

It's best to keep Macaulay Culkin in the same state that he does from time to time in one or two not-so-stellar films, and when the boy is an adult, he can choose his own path in the future.

Pick up the boy now, and his strange parents will surely destroy the poor boy for the sake of money, just like in their previous life.

"Jonathan, you forgot, the boy in Nicholas has a more wooden personality, and looking at the big eyes of this boy in the photo, it makes me feel too clever, so I can't do it."

Jonathan glanced at Eric's train of thought a few times, and found that it was indeed the case: "Well, I did ignore that. ”

Eric continued to look through the information of the remaining nine boys, suddenly raised his head, stared at Jonathan Demmy sitting across from him, and asked, "Jonathan, are there any of these children that you know?" ”

Jonathan Demmy's eyes dodged a few times, his face flushed slightly, and finally nodded, got up and pulled out a boy's information: "This ...... This Brian Baker is the youngest son of an actor friend I've worked with before, sorry, Eric, I shouldn't have done that, but I swear, I carefully interviewed this kid to make sure the little guy was qualified. ”

Jonathan said, and was about to crumple the boy's information into a ball and throw it into the garbage basket, but was stopped by Eric, who took the information and examined it carefully, Eric nodded with satisfaction: "Jonathan, just him." ”

"Well, I'm really sorry...... Uh, Eric, what do you say? Jonathan came back to his senses and looked up at Eric incredulously.

Eric smiled, "I mean, it's just him, you know, I don't have time for an interview right now." And, I'm sure you're not going to joke about this movie, right? ”

"When...... Of course," Jonathan nodded affirmatively, this movie is related to his future in Hollywood, and whether he can jump into the dragon gate depends on it.

"So, is there anyone else?" Eric asked again.

This time Jonathan shook his head firmly: "Absolutely not, Eric, all the remaining candidates have nothing to do with me." ”

Eric also made a temporary move and sold Jonathan a small favor, although because he had already given a big opportunity to the other party, Eric didn't mind giving a little more without having to pay anything. Jonathan Demmi is a good potential stock, and Eric has decided to bring it under his wing, except for the future, Hanks' first Oscar-winning film is directed by him.

Now that the boy has been decided, there is no need to look at the following anymore, and he directly took the bag containing the little girl's candidate actor and opened it.

Hollywood is actually very small, and it seems that it is really true, and this time there are two actresses who know each other.

Kirsten Dunst and Sarah Michel Gaeira.