Volume 2: The crown and the hat are all over the capital, and the spirit is full of energy and enter the foggy city Chapter 6 Three Million
Subtitle of this chapter: Making movies is so “interesting”.
"Oh my God, this script, this script, this script..."
Our Master Yuan was a little bit nervous, after all, this script was his own, and he had no successful experience to draw on. Although he was very satisfied with it, and Lillian Gish, a professional actress, also praised it after reading it, he still cared about the evaluation of David Griffith, the film master.
The great director heaved a sigh of relief and said, "It's really great!"
I am indeed a genius!
Yuan Yan smiled faintly, and before she could say anything, she heard Miss Lillian Gish say happily: "I said David would like this script, because "Orphans of Famine" is so epic!"
Looking at the classic films shot by this film master, such as "The Birth of a Nation", "Partisanship", "Queen of Beresia" and the recent "New England Road" on Pleasant Street, he has a special liking for epic films with grand themes and gorgeous scenes. Griffith himself once said that the film that had the greatest influence on him in his early years was "L'Assassinat du duc Guise" (1908) shot by Frenchman Charles le Bargy, which was also the most popular French film in the United States. This made Griffith also have a strong interest in gorgeous historical themes.
In addition, he is a great artist with both humanistic spirit and humanitarianism, and naturally pays special attention to vulnerable groups.
He made more than 40 films about Indians in his lifetime, including works like "The Redman's View" which looked at the westward movement from the Indians' perspective; he also filmed "A Corner in Wheat" which reflected the ugly side of capitalism, questioning the economic gap between the rich and the poor in modern society with traditional Puritan values.
Well, you can’t be an artist without being left-wing. Actually, Hollywood has always been a little left-wing. After World War II, when McCarthyism was at its peak, the notorious Un-American Activities Committee subpoenaed a large number of people in the Hollywood film industry to investigate the so-called “extent of communist infiltration in Hollywood.” Ten of them refused to testify and were unwilling to reveal anyone’s political background and ideological inclinations, and were convicted of contempt of Congress. This is the famous “Hollywood Ten Case.”
It’s just that a hundred years later, the ones who rule Hollywood are “left in form but right in reality,” and are actually white leftists who are the pioneers of neoclassical liberalism.
Then "Orphans of Famine" is not only an epic film, but also tells the tragic experience of the Irish people. These two points immediately hit the spot of the "Father of Film". In fact, Master Yuan wrote this film tailor-made for him. Apart from Griffith, he didn't think anyone else in the world could make such a film.
Next, the three of them began to discuss the shooting plan in depth, and the first thing was... small money.
Mr. Griffith calculated in his mind and said, "In my opinion, the cost of this film will be at least 800,000 US dollars, and at most no more than 1 million..."
In fact, he exaggerated the numbers. According to his estimate, if they were really more frugal and not so meticulous, the cost of shooting the entire movie would not exceed $500,000.
"No, David." Yuan Yan shook her head and said, "It's three million US dollars!"
The film master took a deep breath and said in surprise, "Neo, I don't think it will take that many . "Orphans of Famine" is not like my "Party Against Dissidents", it doesn't have that many big scenes..."
His film "Party Unity and the Fight against Dissidents" cost nearly two million U.S. dollars to produce, most of which was the magnificent war scenes and the realistic and detailed scene layout.
He mobilized 16,000 actors just to shoot a scene of the Persian army. Yes, that's right, 16,000 actors. This scale can only be compared with war movies , such as "War and Peace" and the three major battles.
According to the existing written script, there will indeed be big scenes in "Orphans of Famine", such as thousands of corpses being buried at the same time, an orphanage that can accommodate tens of thousands of people, and a sailboat fighting a storm, but the scenes will not be so big that there is no need to mobilize so much manpower.
And because it is filming the "modern" Irish folk, there is no need to build an ancient city with a large arena like Griffith did during the filming of "Insects".
"David, you misunderstood me. I meant that when we promote our campaign, we should say that our budget is three million US dollars!"
"This..." The film master's thinking has not changed yet. He still considers the budget from the perspective of a director. So he doesn't understand why our Master Yuan quoted a price of 3 million US dollars that would scare the investors to death.
However, his female disciple Miss Lillian Gish had long been led astray by her Chinese lover. She smiled and said, "David, what are you worried about? We at DreamWorks are the producers. Whether it's one million or three million, we have the final say. Saying it's three million dollars will be very good for our publicity. Think about it, the most expensive movie in history... Isn't this the gimmick that Neo just mentioned?"
Mr. Griffith listened to this, thought about it for a while and nodded. Of course, he was also an old driver in this business. Although Miss Gish had not said something, he also knew that there must be something fishy about the three million dollars.
In fact, when our Master Yuan saw the box office of 30 million US dollars, he regretted it so much that he should have announced 5 million US dollars... well, 10 million US dollars. This will launder all the black money of the Hongmen and the Chinese in New York, and by the way, it can also "avoid" more taxes.
After talking about the budget, the rest can only be described as minor details. They finalized the candidate for the photographer, and naturally it was Mr. Victor Fleming who was already familiar with the sound film shooting equipment. He was originally Griffith's personal photographer. As for the assistant director, props, lighting, fireworks and other crew members , there was nothing to worry about with the film master here.
Then the next step is naturally the actors. But at this time Sister Lian came out and greeted: "Son-in-law, lunch is ready. Today we have your favorite scallion oil noodles."
Uncle Yuan nodded, stood up and said, "Let's eat first. David, you will be able to eat authentic Seres Spaghetti later. In fact, the country of noodles...well, the Italians' pasta is all copied from us Seres. You also know Marco Polo. If he hadn't brought noodles back from our Seres, there would be no Spaghetti in Italy..."
But after sitting at the table, the film master discovered something strange: in front of his female disciple was a bowl of green salad without any meat.
Griffith then noticed that Miss Gish looked very haggard and had lost a lot of weight. He couldn't help but wonder if...
