Eric parked his car and walked to the set of "Shock Point", where the cordon had been raised.

This is a neighborhood called Fox Hill in the southwest of Culver City, of course, this Fox has nothing to do with Fox Films, and if you have to worry about it, you can only blame the weak talent of Westerners for naming.

The staff on the set recognized Eric at a glance, greeted him warmly, and pulled the cordon to let Eric walk in.

Ahead is a temporarily cordoned off street, before he gets close to the filming site, Eric can smell the pungent smell of gasoline burning, bypassing a trailer that assembles props, Eric sees that outside a gas station on the street, several cars are still smoking, and several staff members are busy with fire extinguishers.

Glancing around the scene, Eric quickly found Catherine Bigelow, the woman's typical outfit was so recognizable.

A white baseball cap, a close-fitting white long-sleeved T-shirt is covered with a black short-sleeved T-shirt, and a pair of simple washed jeans and a satchel tied around the waist.

At this time, Catherine Bigelow was holding a script in her hand and talking to the two male protagonists, Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, and waved a few times from time to time.

According to the ∞ script, this scene should be Utah discovering the identity of Bowty and others as bank robbers, squatting outside a bank where Potty stepped on a point, and finally evolved into a chase scene.

One of the assistant directors on the set saw Eric appear and ran over and asked, "Mr. Williams, do you need me to call Ms. Bigelow?"

Eric shook his head, "No, how's the filming going?"

"Not bad. Seven shots have been completed today. Then there's the scene where Utah chases Bowty. The assistant director explained.

Eric said satisfied, "Find me a place to rest, I'll come over and take a look, and don't disturb her work." ”

"No problem, please come here," the assistant director led Eric to a specially carved out lounge area, which seemed to be intended for the actors.

A middle-aged man with silver hair was sitting in a chair drinking water when he saw Eric appear, and then stood up: "Mr. Williams." Hello. ”

"Gary, just call me Eric, I should be tired from that scene just now, right?" Eric smiled and shook his hand.

Gary Busse, a silver-haired middle-aged man who plays Angelo Pappas, Utah's boss, in this movie. Eric has seen a lot of movies starring Gary Busse in his previous life, speaking of which, Gary Busse is the same as Virginia's brother Michael Madsen, in the parallel world, both of them are the kind of actors who have participated in dozens of Hollywood films, but their sense of existence has always been extremely weak.

"It's okay, my morning scene is done. Keanu and Pat will only be very tired next, and they have a long chase scene to film. Maybe it won't be the whole day today," Gary Buse said with a smile, pulling out a bottle of water from a nearby box and handing it to Eric.

Eric took it, pulled a folding chair and sat down next to Gary Busse, chatting casually.

As Catherine Bigelow shouted in the set, another shot began.

Eric found out that the place where the two big men were sitting happened to be facing the director's monitor more than ten meters away, Catherine Bigelow still didn't notice Eric at this time, returned to the monitor, and ordered the woman to stand behind the monitor with her shoulders crossed, staring at the Utah played by Keanu and Patrick Swayze with a mask fighting together.

Eric and Gary Bussey stopped chatting and gazed at the back of the woman a dozen meters away with great enjoyment. Some people often say that a white can cover a hundred ugliness, but in fact, a tall person can also cover a hundred ugliness. Of course, Catherine Bigelow is not only not ugly, but also very beautiful, not to mention 1.82 meters tall.

After a while, Gary Bucy turned his head to notice that Eric's gaze was the same as his own, focused on Catherine Bigelow, who was not far away, and the middle-aged man grinned and showed a mouthful of big teeth, and smiled, "It's hot, isn't it?"

Eric and Gary Buse glanced at each other, and the two big men smiled a little lewdly at the same time.

"yes, it's hot. ”

Gary Bussey seemed to have found a soulmate and said bluntly: "It's a cheap bastard Cameron." ”

"Hah, this ......"

Gary Busse turned to Catherine Bigelow not far away, and the scene of Utah and Boudty fighting did not pass Guò, and the woman walked over and discussed with the two male protagonists: "Eric, actually, Kate and I have known each other for more than ten years. ”

"Wow, I don't really know," Eric looked at Gary Buse in surprise.

Gary Bussey said with a bit of nostalgia: "It was 1977, I can't remember the exact time, I was still acting on Broadway at that time, and I only took on a few movies occasionally. I remember one day, a friend of mine introduced me to Kate and said that she wanted to make a short film and was looking for a male lead. I still remember the first time I saw Kate in a café in Soho, Manhattan, when she was wearing a black turtleneck, black jeans, and brown hair, she looked very shy, and she had the intellectual air that is unique to Soho artistic young women. She is not sociable, and she still blushes when she sees strangers. At the first sight of her, I was as obsessed with her as many men around her do. ”

"And then?" asked Eric with interest.

"Later, I participated in her short film, which seems to be called "The Fighter", which tells the story of two men dueling, and I became good friends with her. Over the years, our friends have entered middle age, but she has hardly changed in terms of appearance or figure, which makes many of her female friends crazy with jealousy. ”

Eric asked ambiguously, "Are they just good friends?"

Gary Bussey shrugged: "I got married very early, otherwise I would have pursued her, but it must be very difficult, she is a very independent woman." Very talented. And the self-control is very strong. I'm a feminist at heart. For many years afterward, she remained single, and our friends thought she would remain single, but three years ago, she suddenly married Cameron. ”

"What a heartbreaking result," Eric quipped.

Gary Busseha laughed a few times and nodded honestly, "Of course, I saw that the goddess in my heart married another man. How could it not be heartbroken. ”

The two of them laughed a few times, and looked at Kathryn Bigelow on the shooting site again, and the woman was negotiating with the gaffer of the crew at this time, and also made gestures from time to time, and the gaffer seemed to have a different opinion, dancing and arguing with the woman.

Seeing this scene, Gary Buse sighed: "In Hollywood, it is really difficult for a woman to be a director, if I had quit a long time ago, it would be difficult for her to persist for so long without giving up." ”

Eric didn't bother to come forward to help. He believed that with Catherine Bigelow's strong personality, he would not want to interfere with it. Looking at the dispute between the woman and the gaffer, Eric nodded: "That's true, as a director, in addition to personal professionalism, not only does he require strong control, but even has high requirements for his body. High-intensity work is difficult for most women to bear, so whether it is Hollywood or other film circles, female directors are not too prolific. ”

The two chatted casually, and after more than an hour, close to noon, the crew also temporarily stopped work and began to rest and have lunch.

Kathryn Bigelow was finally notified that Eric was on the set.

"Hey, Eric, why are you here?" asked Catherine Bigelow as she walked over warmly, hugged Eric, and asked.

Eric greeted the two male protagonists who were with Catherine Bigelow one by one before replying, "I was passing by, and I happened to come and have a look." ”

Catherine stuck out her finger in disbelief and drew a large circle in the air: "You mean, you went from Malibu to Burbank, 'passing by' here?"

Eric rolled his eyes, pointed to the west and said, "Who told you and I went to Burbank, the Firefly's team is on a field trip in the Preavista area about three kilometers to the west, and the Firefly plans to build a studio base there, and I came here from the group." ”

Kathryn Bigelow nodded and looked to the west, and asked, "Aren't you there for you?"

"Of course, professional things are left to professional people, and I can't help much when I'm there, just look at the results they give in the end. ”

Gary Bussey interjected at this point: "Eric, Catherine, lunch is ready, let's talk while we eat." ”

The place where the crew dined was in a large restaurant not far away, which can be seen The difference from the crew on the other side of the ocean, when Eric participated in some movie shoots in his previous life, most of the time he ate lunch was picked up at the logistics office, and he found a random place to make do with things.

This way of eating also means that the crew has more expenses, but these small details are detailed into the contract under the supervision of various Hollywood unions, and as long as you want to make a good movie in Hollywood, you have to compromise with the union.

Of course, there are also people who can specifically sign an affiliate contract to change these rules.

However, this requires enough strength and confidence, there are very few people in Hollywood who can do this, as far as Eric knows, Spielberg is one, he can even ask actors to sign a contract to give up the union pay standard, and give actors extremely low salaries, but in order to be able to work with Spielberg, most actors often choose to compromise.

With Eric's current strength in Hollywood, he also has the confidence to break the rules, but he hasn't yet reached the point where he needs to do so.

After taking some lunch, Eric and Catherine Bigelow chose a table to sit down, probably thinking that the director and producer had something to discuss, and the few leading actors present were not very lively, and Gary Busse, although he wanted to come over, was pulled to their table by Patrick Swayze.

"Little one, I thought you weren't going to come to the set again," and when no one was around, Catherine Bigelow immediately changed her name to something that made Eric very depressed.

"Isn't it reasonable for me to be here as a producer?"

"Of course, but when it was time for you to show up, you went to New York for more than a month, and when you came back, the movie was on. Catherine said without complaint.

"That's because I have very important things to do, don't worry, I'll be coming to the crew often for the next period of time. ”

Catherine Bigelow was clearly out of the circle, so she didn't ask Eric how much money he was making, as everyone else did, and the woman didn't even ask what he was doing in New York, but said, "Don't you need to prepare your own movie?"

Eric swallowed the food in his mouth, wiped his mouth and said, "I decided to take it slow, I have to give other film companies a way to live." ”

"Really...... "Catherine Bigelow laughed, but thinking of Eric's previous film results, the woman suddenly found that Eric's exaggerated words seemed to be very reasonable, according to the box office prediction agency, the summer file "Ghost Love" is the only film so far this year that may break $200 million.

"By the way, aren't you going to direct Home Alone again this year?"

Eric shook his head and said: "I have completely handed over this project to others, and I will not interfere in the future, at most I will only have the title of producer." ”

"I've watched the second part, and it's quite interesting. ”

"Thank you for the recognition," Eric said.

"But I found that your previous films were too lacking in substance. I think that when making a film, I should convey something to the audience, and this is also the purpose of my choice to be a director. Originally, I studied painting, but then someone told me that film can more easily convey my ideas to others, unlike painting, which requires a certain amount of accumulation to understand the meaning. ”

Eric shook his head: "Catherine, I don't agree with you, my films have been conveying all kinds of messages to the audience, but these things are more subtle, and I think this is the right way to convey them."

The audience will often only see what they want to see, just as there are a thousand Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand readers, and they will only accept the 'Hamlet' in their own ideas. So, if you want to convey your point to your audience, you have to empathize with them so that you don't have to say it and they can understand what you're trying to convey from your video. Otherwise, even the most clever preaching will often only have the opposite effect. Like "Shocking Point" that you're working on right now, I've read the script several times, and you know what I saw in your script?" (To be continued......)