Chapter 514 Amateur Performance
“Here’s the thing.”
“Gus is preparing to shoot a movie about Columbine for the cable TV station. The project has been basically negotiated. Gus We also started preparing for filming. "
"It just so happened that at this time, the documentary landed in Cannes. Due to the widespread discussion, it once again brought the Columbine incident to the forefront. The recent discussions and controversies basically stopped. Not coming down."
"The TV station executives realized that the situation may be slightly different than they imagined."
"Firstly, the impact of the Columbine incident is still far greater than expected; secondly, it may not be appropriate to show such naked and bloody violence on the TV screen."
"They are worried about pushing themselves to the forefront. position, causing controversy, and then backed down, causing Gus to press the pause button. "After learning about the situation, HBO expressed its willingness to take over, but they needed to make some changes." >
“It cannot be said to be the Columbine incident, but to create a fictional script based on the incident.”
Sure enough, it was the “elephant”.
call.
Darren's long breathing came from the phone receiver, and he could feel the heaviness behind his words through the phone, which made Anson chuckle.
"Uncle Darren, this phone call has made you ten years older."
A joke made Darren shake his head slightly, "You are only three years old at most, how can you be ten years old?" , Every year I get older is extremely difficult at my current age, don’t talk nonsense.”
“Haha,” Ansen laughed.
Darren's tense nerves relaxed a little.
"Gus' idea is that he is going to start shooting in Portland..."
"That Portland?" There is more than one city in North America called Portland.
"The one in Oregon. Just next to Salem."
So that's it, Anson understood it at once——
Between Oregon, California and Washington, and not far from Colorado, it was clear that Gus was trying to find a town similar to Columbine High School, at least with a similar temperament.
Although the city is in Portland, it should choose the suburbs. Columbine Middle School is located in the suburbs of Denver; at the same time, southwest of Portland is Salem.
Historically, the "Salem Witches" case is famous, which has had a profound impact in different fields such as journalism, communication, psychology, etc.; but that Salem is located in Massachusetts, that is, On the east coast of the North American continent, the New England region is still one of the most conservative regions in North America.
The Salem in front of me is located in Oregon, on the west coast.
Obviously, these are two things.
But judging from the details, Gus is vaguely playing a word game, using Portland to correspond to Denver, Salem to Salem, and a fictional high school to Columbine High School.
This is a movie——
Ordinary viewers may be curious as to why many filmmakers always insist on real shooting and don’t like studio green screen shooting so much?
The reason is that the streets, buildings, and environment of a city often deposit the texture of time, and the images shown in the camera often have a certain temperament.
Before the movie is put into shooting, the director needs to choose shooting locations. This preparation is the first step in forming the unique temperament of the movie.
In the past, watching movies was just about watching a lively story, watching special effects, and watching emotions; but now that you have entered the film industry and become an actor, you can enjoy movies from a different angle, and you will slowly be able to see the different elements that make up an excellent movie.
With all the back and forth, questions and answers, Darren himself didn’t even realize that the words were already blurting out. After a slight pause, Darren's eyes showed a touch of relief, "It seems that you have indeed learned a lot from working with Steven Spielberg."
This is Good thing, it seems that Anson did make the right choice to become an actor.
“At the same time, Gus hopes to go to local high schools to cast and use non-professional actors to truly create the daily atmosphere of a high school campus.”
"However, Gus is considering that for one or two of the characters to play the key role, real actors are still needed to complete the connection."
"Among the current batch of seventeen and eighteen-year-old actors in Hollywood , it is not easy to find an actor with the right temperament to play a special role in such a special work; the important thing is that the film project has a limited budget, and Gus has no way to conduct open auditions, no time and no money."
“And among the actors Gus is familiar with, the youngest Casey Affleck is already twenty-seven years old.”
“For God’s sake, Gus will never He hopes that a 27-year-old actor will play a middle school student. He thinks this is an act of destroying the quality of the film and making a commercial compromise. "So, HBO needs a little help, and I think maybe you can give it a try."
After going around in circles, Darren dialed Anson's number.
And, made a little joke.
"Now the whole of Hollywood knows that Anson Wood is a professional middle school student."
Anson immediately heard the ridicule in Darren's words, "Sorry, it's my first time on the small screen. The image has been ruined, that’s obviously not a middle school student.”
“Haha,” Darren burst into laughter.
If you look closely at mainstream Hollywood movies, whether they are commercial films or independent artistic projects, the protagonists are often in the age range of thirty to fifty.
The reason is very simple and intuitive, because the target audience and the mainstream market are this age group, so film companies and producers continue to explore more projects, tell their stories, explore their current situation, even super Heroes are often of this age group.
On the other hand, the target audience of campus movies are girls - chick movies. Those romantic and beautiful fantasies are more likely to impress girls. Naturally, energetic young girls can also get many roles, but Boys of the same age can only play supporting roles.
As a result, the actor structure of Hollywood presents an interesting phenomenon. Male actors are usually around thirty-five years old, with this age as the core; actresses are usually around twenty-five years old. , forever young, always beautiful, always energetic.
Of course, this is not absolute, but it is indeed the mainstream situation.
This also leads to a strange phenomenon: actresses over forty-five may not be able to act, and actors under twenty-five may not be able to find projects.
This is the case with Gus in front of him. He hoped to find a seventeen-year-old or eighteen-year-old to play the role of "Elephant", but all he saw was a group of vases.
Including Anson is no exception. "Princess Diaries" is a vase, and "Spider-Man" is a special case.
Obviously, Darren recommended Anson to join the "Elephant" crew not only to help HBO, but also to open up Anson's career as an actor.
In Darren’s opinion, working with Gus may be able to open up Anson’s career as an actor——
After all, they are also young and attractive middle school students. Anson can't keep playing the role of a flower vase, right? Even if he is still a young middle school student, Anson can open up the situation and show his different colors.
However, Darren also knows that things are not that simple.
"There is a problem. This movie is indeed a sensitive topic. I can understand if you refuse because you are worried about being involved in controversy."
(End of Chapter)