Chapter 036

Simon looked at the situation in front of him and wondered why the first production meeting of butterfly effect fell into such an awkward situation of tit for tat.

However, considering the attitude of David giller and Brian De Palma, Simon is not too worried about the progress of things. These two Hollywood celebrities, who have no lack of voice, obviously share the same position with themselves.

To confirm this, Simon was relieved and began to analyze the situation.

Hollywood also has a very complex power structure. But usually, it's very simple to determine a person's authority in Hollywood. It only depends on his subordinate relationship, that is, to which class of Hollywood the person is responsible.

From what David giller just said, Simon realized that the other party should be directly responsible to Ronald Goldberg, the president of fox pictures, and not under the control of Peter Sanders, the vice president of fox.

Even from the momentum of their communication, Simon noticed that David giller had the upper hand.

Since we are going to cooperate in the butterfly effect project, Simon naturally did some homework in advance.

David giller, who is in his fifties this year, is the producer of fox's "alien 2", which Simon knows very well. So, combined with the deliberate contrast in David giller's words, Simon realizes that Peter Sanders is probably related to Fox's "space station" project, which failed in the summer box office.

With a budget of 18 million US dollars and the best time in early June, the box office is only over 9 million, which is not a big drop.

It was as Simon expected.

With David giller's last words, Peter Sanders's face was a little ugly, and the corners of his mouth twitched slightly. Then he said, "David, I'm only responsible for the company's $10 million investment, and I don't mean to target anyone."

David giller felt Peter Sanders' momentum softened, and he stopped chasing and beating, saying, "of course, it's your responsibility. But, Peter, what you need to make sure is that the film investment is used in the right place, not in the right direction. It's my job and Brian's

Peter Sanders felt David giller's uncompromising voice, hesitated for a moment, then shrugged: "well, I hope you don't screw up this movie."

Failure to seize power.

Simon came to such a conclusion in his heart. He took another look at Peter sanders and realized that he was a very good bully.

Peter Sanders' attempt to take the lead in the creation of the butterfly effect was blocked by David giller, and the following meeting was obviously much more normal.

However, even so, David giller and Brian De Palma still put forward a lot of opinions on the revision of the script.

David giller's comments mainly focus on the title of the film and the ending of the story, which is similar to what he just wrote in the memo.

As a producer who needs to consider the film's future business prospects, David giller also hopes that the film can have a more popular name. At the same time, David also hopes Simon can rewrite a more gentle ending, rather than ending with the hero strangling himself in the womb.

This is no doubt back to the original ending.

Bryan De Palma's opinion is that he hopes to reduce the protagonist's childhood scenes to less than 20 minutes, so as to avoid too much preparation.

Compared with the original memo, they both had very professional opinions at this time. Although Simon could not fully agree with it, he also dealt with it very seriously.

Peter Sanders, who had been left to one side, still stayed in the conference room and occasionally got in a few words. So it wasn't until lunchtime that Peter Sanders got up to leave and said he had other work in the afternoon and would not come back.

In the internal restaurant of Fox Studios, after several contacts, David giller and Brian De Palma are very fond of Simon, a promising young man. After ordering lunch, David giller also took the initiative to reveal some secrets to Simon.

It turns out that the space station, which failed at the box office in the summer, is a project that Peter Sanders has teamed up with. Fox has not only given the film a high-level production budget of 18 million US dollars, but also the best film schedule. Ronald Goldberg, President of fox pictures, has also personally become the executive producer.

It's all because the heroine of space station, Kate Capshaw, is Steven Spielberg's fiancee.

Hearing this, Simon immediately understood what fox had done.

In the original time and space, it is no exaggeration to say that in the last 30 years of the 20th century, Hollywood was almost Spielberg's world.

With the great success of "great white shark", "et", "Raider", "Jurassic Park" and other films, Spielberg is a Hollywood star. Although Spielberg belongs to Warner, universal and Paramount's direct directors, other than the three, every other company is trying to have a relationship with Spielberg.In addition to the space station, Simon recently saw on Hollywood Reporter that Disney has just approved an animated live action movie called "Who Framed Roger the rabbit" in collaboration with Spielberg's amberlin pictures.

In order to be a member of the Spielberg camp, Disney has a budget of up to $45 million for the film. You know, in the 1980s, the budget cost of big Hollywood movies was generally controlled within $20 million. Only films related to Spielberg can easily break through this heavy budget limit and even increase the average budget cost several times.

In the dining room, I noticed the faint admiration and fascination on Simon's face, and two middle-aged people, both 40 and 50 years old, looked at each other and laughed.

Every year, there are countless young people in Hollywood who dream of becoming the second Spielberg, but few of them can achieve anything in the end.

However, the young people in front of us, less than two months after entering Hollywood, have attracted a lot of attention. Coupled with Simon's undoubted talent, David giller and Brian De Palma realize that Simon will definitely be able to make a breakthrough in Hollywood in the future.

Therefore, at this time, the two Hollywood celebrities, who are both middle-aged and successful, do not mind pushing this young man.

David giller slightly inspired Simon's ambition, and Brian De Palma, who also sat opposite Simon, also asked, "Simon, listen to Jonathan, you are going to make an experimental film, can you tell me? Maybe David and I can give you some advice. "

Simon didn't realize that the two middle-aged people in front of him were helping each other intentionally or unintentionally. Even if he knew, he would only appreciate each other's kindness. In his previous life, he had been wandering in a similar circle for more than ten years. Simon knew the importance of networking in this circle.

"In fact, I wanted to talk about it in the morning meeting," Simon heard Brian De Palma's question. He took out the script of "Lola Run" from his backpack on the next chair and handed it to David giller and Brian De Palma respectively. He said, "David, and Brian, I don't think we need to revise the butterfly The name of the movie. Some time ago, due to many media reports, many people have actually noticed the word "Butterfly Effect". What's more, this experimental movie named "Lola Run" I plan to make can also explain the concept of "Butterfly Effect" very vividly. At that time, if fox can provide some media resources, the concept of "Butterfly Effect" will spread more widely through this film. In the end, even if some people don't understand the meaning of this word, as long as the overall popularity of the film is put into operation, this group of words can also become a suspense to attract the audience into the cinema. "

Although he realized that Simon wanted to use fox to help promote his film, Simon's words with unique personal opinions on film marketing still made David giller, who just opened the script of "Lola Run", nod slightly. Next to David giller, Brian De Palma was attracted by Simon's highly professional split shot paintings.

Simon saw that both of them were interested, so he naturally shifted the topic to "Lola Run", and continued: "about" Lola Run ", this is an experimental film with parallel three paragraph structure. The story is very simple. Lola's boyfriend Manny accidentally lost $100000. In order to avoid her boyfriend being killed by her boss, Lola has to raise $100000 in 20 minutes and get to Manny's place. However, I want to show this story through the breakthrough mode of video games. In order to raise $100000 and get to her boyfriend, Lola made three different attempts in the same scene, according to the backfile setting of the video game. The results of these three attempts are different. At the same time, each time Lola runs, it also has a very subtle impact on the lives of some people she meets on the road. These effects continue to magnify, and eventually lead to a completely different life direction for these people. This is the butterfly effect. "

The script of "Lola Run" is not long. David giller, listening to Simon's explanation, has quickly read the plot of Lola bumping into a woman pushing a baby carriage at the first intersection. Bryan De Palma was attracted by Simon's split shot painting, but he didn't ignore Simon's explanation. At this time, he looked up and asked, "Simon, how do you plan to show this" Butterfly Effect "

"Photo montage," Simon simply replied, "every time Laura meets a clue person, she can insert a quick photo montage to show their future life."

Hearing Simon's explanation, Bryan De Palma thought for a moment, and gradually showed an expression of appreciation on his face. He couldn't help but raise his hand and tap on the table, saying, "amazing idea."

Although he had seen this form of expression in the script ahead of time, David giller still nodded in agreement and said, "it's great."

David giller and Brian De Palma have been in Hollywood for decades, and the longer they stay together, the more they realize how difficult it is to innovate in this circle.

As Simon continues to explain, they even feel vaguely that Simon's film, if well done, will definitely become a learning and imitating object for many Hollywood filmmakers in the future.The waiters in the restaurant had already brought up lunch, but none of them had any intention of eating.

After chatting for more than half an hour, David giller said, "so, Simon, do you mean you're going to finish this movie with your own" Butterfly Effect "

Simon nodded and said, "yes."

David giller thought for a moment and said, "your total contract payment is $200000. Excluding the brokerage commission and reserved tax, there is only $150000 left at most. It may be enough to shoot with a 16mm camera, but it's a waste of your script. Why not make a standard 35mm film

Simon stopped and said, "David, I was going to shoot on 35mm film."

David giller also hesitated this time and said, "you mean, 150000 dollars, 35mm film shooting? Simon, you have to understand that although it seems that there are only two shooting modes with different specifications, 16mm film and 35mm film are absolutely two completely different production specifications. Your film also involves a lot of location scenes. It's very difficult to shoot without the support of a complete professional crew. So, 150000 dollars, it's impossible to complete the movie. "

Hearing David giller, a well-known Hollywood producer with decades of experience in production, Simon finally confirmed some of the doubts that have been lingering in his mind since then.

The original version of "Lola Run", all aspects of the production level, whether it is the screen, soundtrack, lighting, set or even editing, are not too many signs of low-cost films. Simon had always thought that this might be due to the genius of director Tom tikeway. The production cost of the film industry has always been very flexible.

What's more, Simon doesn't know much about the general norms of German film making.

The 350000 German marks in my memory, converted into US dollars, is about 180000. Converted into RMB, that's about 1.5 million. 1.5 million yuan. In 1998, it was more than enough to make a movie.

However, with the in-depth preparation of all aspects of "Lola Run" these days, Simon increasingly feels that he has too much money to complete the film. Simon even begins to subconsciously simplify the shooting specifications of some scenes.

Now, with David giller's criticism, Simon has finally confirmed that he may have miscalculated the budget size of "Lola Run.".

Perhaps, in the original time and space, the production cost of "Lola Run" is not 350000 German marks at all. I should have forgotten a zero!