Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 325 If a Comet Hit the Earth

"Is this object alive?"

"No."

"Bigger than my palm, or smaller?"

"Big."

"Does it use electricity?"

"want."

"Does it glow?"

"meeting."

……

Ronald accompanies Helen to a party with her classmate who majored in acting. Most of the participants in this party are children from wealthy families like Helen.

Instead of playing loud rock music, everyone played a disc of jazz music. With soft music accompaniment, Ronald and Helen's friends played the game of "Twenty Questions".

As the name suggests, this is a quiz game.

The respondent picks an item in the room, and the rest can ask her twenty questions, which the respondent can only answer with "yes or no."If everyone fails to guess what the item is, the answerer wins.

During the filming of the movie "Fame", most of the actors who Ronald met had graduated, and most of Helen's classmates had not participated in the filming at that time.

But they still talked about all kinds of anecdotes and gossips about "famous all over the world".Because Helen's classmate, Erica, is playing the leading role in the TV version of "Fame", the Latino black girl CoCo.

Another partygoer was Juilliard graduate Lori Singer, who also co-stars in the TV version, playing a cellist.

"Is it a TV?" Helen asked.

"No."

"Ah, Helen. You lost. I didn't guess it. It's the desk lamp. It's not just the TV, but also the desk lamp." Lori laughed out loud, and she won this round.

Everyone laughed and started drinking, took a break, and watched TV.

"Lori, are you a real cellist?" Ronald was out of words, chatting with Helen's friend.This kind of music and games are actually not in line with Ronald's appetite.

The TV version of "Fame" aired on the MGM network, and the ratings were relatively dismal.Worrying producer Da Silva lost a lot of hair again.In the original movie, only a few of Ronald's younger brother Leroy participated in the film.

The real big names, such as Irene Cara who played CoCo, have long since left the TV drama circle.

"Yes, I played with the Oregon State Symphony Orchestra when I was 13. I also won the Bergen Philharmonic Competition in [-]." Have been married for two years.

"Oh, that's amazing. Didn't you develop into a professional cellist later? Why did you become an actor later?"

"I really wanted to be a cellist. My father was the conductor of the Portland Symphony Orchestra. This was my childhood dream. But all my dreams were shattered at a music summer camp in New York that year."

"what happened?"

"At that time, Ms. Dupre held a summer camp. At that time, she had quit playing and changed to teaching. There was a boy of Chinese descent who was two years older than me. After listening to his performance, I felt that I could not reach that height. gone."

Ronald shook his head. The careers of these classical music performers are worse than those of film directors.Unlike directors who can make different movies, they can only perform the same piece of music repeatedly.After the popularization of modern recording technology, a well-known piece of classical music often has only one or two performers who can be sought after by the public.

"So you turned into an actor?"

"Yes, my uncle is a TV cameraman, and my brother is also an actor..."

"I've figured it out, it's your turn to ask questions, Ronald." A girl came and interrupted Ronald's chat, and the game continued.

"Okay, let me think about it." Ronald began to think about how he could ask questions to find out the answer as soon as possible.

"Is it alive?"

"no"

"Does it use technology for entertainment, communication, or work?"

"Yes." The girl didn't expect Ronald to ask a stupid question, so she nodded.

"Is it a product for entertainment?"

"Will it shine?"

"It's a TV set."

"You're cheating." Helen came over and rubbed Ronald's face.Everyone laughed together.

"Well, let's play a 'What if' game." Seeing that everyone was not interested, Ronald suggested another game.

"I will give a prerequisite, if something happens, then you tell me with your imagination, what will happen next?"

"Okay, you can ask." The boys and girls gathered around, and they all looked at Ronald with a look of interest.

"If a comet hits the earth, most of the human race is extinct, and you find only a few living people around, what will you do?"

"That's great, we can go to Macy's, and we can pick up those beautiful clothes that we usually can't afford."

"If most people are extinct, then I don't have to compete with other bitches for handsome guys. And handsome guys have no choice but to date me."

"Hahaha……"

Ronald didn't expect the girls' ideas to be so interesting, so he chatted with them more.

Most of them still regard this kind of thing as an opportunity to indulge themselves, to have the opportunity to do things that they usually dare not do.

"What's the matter with you? What are you thinking?"

Seeing that Ronald was lost in thought, Helen came over to ask him.

"Your friend's answers are so good, I wonder if I should use them to write a screenplay."

"Oh, Ronald, don't forget about us when the time comes, I want to play the leading role." Lori began to boo.

"Who knows? If the studio likes my idea, you'll have to audition."

"The director of ET, Spielberg, was accused of plagiarizing the script written by the Indian director Satyajit Ray..."

There was a burst of entertainment news broadcast on the TV.

Surprised, Ronald looked up at the TV.

Everyone's voices immediately quieted down, and a girl walked over to help turn up the TV's volume.

"Indian-Bengali director Satyajit Ray claimed that ET copied his 1967 script "The Alien" (The Alien). Ray said through reporters that without his script, "ET Aliens simply cannot exist."

"Is this true, Ronald?" Helen's classmates and actors asked Ronald, the director who was most familiar with Spielberg and Hollywood.

"I can't say. The script and the final movie are not necessarily the same thing. And I haven't seen the movie Rey mentioned, so I can't answer this question."

Ronald fooled the past with a few words.

Screenplay plagiarism is a serious allegation, and in such cases, it is illegal to do so without first contacting the original author.Not only do you have to compensate the original author for the loss in court, but it will also have a great impact on the reputation of the plagiarist in the circle.

Once upon a time in America, director Sergio León, the biggest budget movie being shot in Hollywood, was once a plagiarist.

His famous work "A Fistful of Dollars" is Clint Eastwood's famous work, telling the story of a western cowboy who saves the town from villains.

In fact, every scene and every shot of this movie is copied from Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's black-and-white Japanese movie, "with great care".

Leon's movie just changed the story from the ancient Japan to a western town.The main character's weapon has changed from a katana sword to a revolver.Such plagiarism is of course untenable in court. After Akira Kurosawa sued, Leon lost money.

Of course, the situation of ET aliens is probably not like this.The script that Rey mentioned has not been made into a movie, but is still in the state of a script.As Ronald said, the script is far from finished.

This kind of movie with many special effects scenes, coupled with Spielberg's unique brushwork, uses light and shadow to draw a children's fairy tale. The effect of the finished film is not what can be seen in the script.Ronald was less convinced that Spielberg had to copy.

Ronald estimated that there may be some similarities in creativity and plot. This kind of thing is all about aliens, and it is inevitable to crash.

After returning home, Ronald hung up a call to his agent Richard and asked about the situation of ET aliens.

"This Rey is not here to touch porcelain, is he?"

"No, Ronald. Rey is a famous director of Indian origin, he is also a famous screenwriter and composer.

The "Song of the Great Road" directed by him won the Cannes award, and later he made two other films "Song of the Great River" and "Song of the Big Tree" as the protagonist of the film, A Pu, and won the Venice Golden Lion Award, and West Berlin Golden Bear. "

"Uh...I want to ask about the accusation of script plagiarism, did Steven really plagiarize his script?"

Ronald knew that he was weak in non-English movies and movies from third world countries. He didn't watch many of these movies. Compared with Spike Lee, an alumnus of New York University, he was ignorant.

"I heard he will make a statement tomorrow."

Despite all the contingencies of these ET box-office hits, Ronald sat down at his keyboard, trying to write a rough outline of the script.

He wanted to seize inspiration and write a script by himself without the help of dreams.

Dreaming about movies has no rules and is difficult to reproduce.If I want to go on in the film industry, I am afraid that sooner or later I will have to return to being a screenwriter and writing scripts.

"The comet hit the earth, a catastrophe that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs in the Cretaceous period came to the earth. New York and Los Angeles were destroyed...

Several young valley girls survived because they visited the nuclear war protection facilities.How did they use the ideas of the valley girls to solve a series of survival problems after the catastrophe. "

Ronald wrote on and off, with no references to the original book, and no movie in his dream to guide the direction, and he wrote very slowly.

The screen made by the TV was a bit harsh, and Ronald soon felt dry eyes and wanted to cry.

It seems that I still have to buy a computer like SE Xinton, which has a dedicated typing screen.

"Ask the dealer tomorrow to see how much it costs."

(End of this chapter)