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Volume 3 Chapter 9 Supervision

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    This meeting on the cruise ship was the first preparatory meeting for the new movie. The main purpose was to let the crew members get to know each other. After all, this movie is a big project.  Shen Chong had been keeping it secret before, keeping John Woo, Sammo Hung and others in the dark. It was not because he was being mysterious - he needed to get permission to shoot outdoor scenes in the Connaught Building first.  Connaught Building is a landmark building in Hong Kong and holds the title of "Asia's tallest building". If you want to shoot a sensational movie in Hong Kong, it is the first choice. And as Luo Weiming said, the tenants of Connaught Building  , most of them are world-class companies and institutions. If they make a messy movie without permission, it may cause business and legal troubles.  Connaught Building is a property of Land Group, and Land Group is a subsidiary of Jardine Matheson & Co., which is the first of the four major British-owned foreign companies in Hong Kong. It has a decisive influence on Hong Kong's politics and economy. This kind of giant  , Shen Chong doesn't want to offend him, and he can't afford it for the time being.  Without permission, the film could not be filmed, so Shen Chong had been tight-lipped before and did not disclose anything. Only after he returned from Taiwan did he finally receive a reply from Jardine Matheson - the interior sets in the film were not allowed to be harmonious.  The internal structure of the building is the same or similar, and a building image usage fee of HKD 1 million is required.  As expected, people are afraid of being famous, and pigs are afraid of being strong. Once famous, people everywhere want to take a bite, but Shen Chong did not hesitate and paid the money quickly - anyway, the Land Group will be in big trouble soon, and then it will add insult to injury.  Take it back twice as much.  In fact, in his memory, there are many big-scene movies, but there is a reason why he chose "Die Hard", which was very troublesome to produce in Hong Kong.  ??For Shen Chong, filming is not just about filming, nor is it about box office. Maximizing the level of the entire Hong Kong film industry, or the Chinese film industry, is the current focus.  The movie "Die Hard" is very creative. It creates an action movie model in which ordinary heroes fight against a group of thugs in a small and enclosed space. This model is particularly suitable for Hong Kong movies.  Hong Kong is too small to shoot big scenes. Flashing around in a small space is the mainstream of Hong Kong movies. At the same time, the smaller the space, the more it can show the charm of Kung Fu movies, the signature of Hong Kong movies.  At this time, Hong Kong action movies were still stuck in the old traditional martial arts movies and Kung Fu Kid movies from the late Qing Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. With the acceleration of the modernization process, these two types of movies have become outdated and become increasingly unpopular in urban areas.  Fashion action movies will be the mainstream in the future, and Hong Kong is seriously lacking in talents for explosions, flying cars, and gunfire props.  "Die Hard" has all the elements of a modern urban action movie, including explosions, gunfights, and high technology. Moreover, the scenes of this movie may seem spectacular, but the cost is not high. The total budget is only over UU million. Bruce Wei  Leith spent 5 million on his salary alone.  The scene is not small and the cost is not much, which shows that there is a mature plan to realize various explosion scenes in the movie in Hollywood. Because it is mature, it is cheap. This plan is what Shen Chong really wants, so he made it.  He spent a lot of money and asked Ovitz to help recruit so many behind-the-scenes staff, and he recruited even more in Hong Kong, more than two hundred people. Only a few of them were the supervisors who attended the meeting on the ship.  Hong Kong movies have always been known for following trends. As long as his movie can be a hit, follow-up works will surely spring up like mushrooms after a spring rain. The large number of filming opportunities will allow various behind-the-scenes staff to quickly improve their skills and narrow the gap with Hollywood.  .  "Die Hard" that Shen Chong is going to shoot only borrows some core ideas. As for the character setting, plot content and specific environment of the movie, they all need to be re-created based on the background of the times and the actual situation in Hong Kong.  Movies are something that is very closely integrated with popular culture. A movie in the RU era may be a box office hit, but in the 1990s, no one may care about it.  For example, the box office success of "Die Hard" is related to the movie environment at that time - tough guy action movies represented by Stallone and Schwarzenegger have been flooding the market for six or seven years. In those movies, the protagonists are covered in muscles.  , omnipotent, invincible, killing enemies like mowing grass, and remaining unscathed in a hail of bullets. They are the same, seriously stereotyped, and lack a sense of reality. The audience is tired of them.  Just at this time, Bruce Willis appeared. He had an ordinary appearance, an average build, a wife and children, and was experiencing a mid-life crisis. Fighting was also an ordinary person's tricks. He would get hurt, bleed, and laugh at himself.  The audience had a sense of involvement and it satisfied their expectations for a change of taste, so it became an instant hit and sold well at the box office.  In 1979, Stallone's "First Blood" hadn't even appeared yet, and Schwarzenegger was still playing small roles and had not yet become famous. At this time, if a down-and-out policeman with a wife and children was cast as the protagonist, would the audience buy it?  So Shen Chong changed the protagonist to a young policeman from the countryside of Lamma Island, and then arranged for him a dream lover who works in the Connaught Building. This kind of fairy tale about a poor boy who saves the beauty and monopolizes the courtesan has been popular at all times and in all over the world.  People like it forever??Outdated.  When "Die Hard" was filmed, it was during the period when Japan's economy was at its strongest. It claimed to buy the entire United States, which made Americans very disgusted. Therefore, in the movie, terrorists robbed Japanese people, and the audience enjoyed watching it.  The important thing about Shen Chong's large investment in "Die Hard" is that this film was co-produced with Golden Harvest - two years ago, Golden Harvest formed a joint venture with Japan's Nikkatsu Film Company to form Japan's largest cinema.  line, with thousands of cinemas.  With the capacity of traditional film markets such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia, it is difficult to recover costs, so the Japanese and American markets must be explored. Otherwise, given the extremely commercial atmosphere of Hong Kong films, let alone anyone who follows suit, they will be laughed to death.   So the person who was robbed by the terrorists in the film was changed to a British person by Shen Chong without hesitation. Anyway, there are many British people in Hong Kong, which makes sense, but the British film market is too far away from him and there is no need to consider it.  In addition to the historical background, Hong Kong¡¯s actual conditions must also be considered.  For example, the emergency response mechanism of the Hong Kong police when encountering an emergency crisis is definitely completely different from that in the United States. The original work¡¯s satirical depiction of bureaucratic police officers and profit-seeking reporters also had to be revised based on the reality of Hong Kong.  For example, if a helicopter cannot dock on the roof of the Hong Le Building, but it faces the sea, the terrorists' escape plan will definitely need to be changed.  There were so many things to consider. Shen Chong was too busy to think about the details and write a script. He only wrote a plot framework, defining the identity of the protagonist, the origin of the terrorists, and the basic context of the story. The whole thing was not mature enough.  So when he was in the meeting, he didn't talk about the script straight to the point. Instead, he first came up with a gimmick of "blowing up the Kangle Building" to scare people, creating an atmosphere of "I want to invest in a big production" and deepening everyone's understanding.  impression.  As for the details of the script, after the meeting, Shen Chong handed over this task to John Woo and Chen Xinjian.  John Woo was involved in RN independent production in the 1960s. Later, he joined Shaw Brothers and became Chang Cheh's favorite and most trusted disciple. He worked as an assistant director for several years, and then went to Jiahe to film. He filmed for seven or eight years.  It is said that the directing skills and shooting experience have been honed to the point that all he lacks is an opportunity to rise to the top.  John Woo is a rare director in Hong Kong who has a sense of big scenes. He has always been praised for his rhythm and scene control in urban action films. He also made "A Better Tomorrow" for the first time in an urban action film. He is extremely talented.  In the future, he also tinkered with the scripts of many movies, such as "Die Hard", which had a similar theme to "Die Hard", and he was one of the screenwriters.  You know he is a great talent, why should you watch him waste his time?  Anyway, if "A Better Tomorrow" was blown away by butterfly wings, it could still be remedied, but John Woo was wasted for six or seven years in his golden age, and the damage to Hong Kong movies would be too great So Shen Chong specially made him this time  He was fished out of Jiahe and served as the director of the movie.  Chen Xinjian has been a police officer for 9 years and has served as a criminal investigation division, police training school instructor, and detective training school instructor. In 1974, a hostage-taking incident occurred at Po Sang Bank in Mong Kok. He was the on-site commander and had experience in handling actual large-scale scenes.  , after resigning from the position of superintendent, he wrote several scripts, all of which were of good quality, such as "Dancing Ashes", "Coffee", "Inside and Outside the Wall", etc., all of which became very popular and won both box office and word-of-mouth reviews.  .  It is perfect for him to be responsible for writing the story of the police's reaction and internal conflicts after the incident in Hong Lok Building.  As for the martial arts movements, Sammo Hung is naturally responsible for it himself - Shen Chong chose him as the starring role not because of his loyal face and deep sense of loyalty, but because he is one of the most creative martial arts instructors in Hong Kong.  In 1977, Sammo Hung filmed "The Monk of Three Virtues and the Sixth Rice", creating a precedent for kung fu comedy films In 19RU, Sammo Hung filmed "Ghost Fighter", creating a precedent for spiritual comedy films  He directed "Beware of Little Hands" and created a precedent for Hong Kong fashion kung fu movies In addition to creating a new type of Hong Kong action movies, he also made great achievements as a martial arts director. For example, in 1978, "Mr.  Chunquan textbooks, and later "Al+ Plan", "Five Lucky Stars" series, "Ip Man", etc., are all very innovative and contemporary.  Sam Chung wanted to use this "Die Hard" to revolutionize Hong Kong's current one-tap, protracted and lengthy fighting style, so he chose Sammo Hung, who can fight and design, to star - Jackie Chan was working on "Peddy Goes Out", and  Yuan Biao is too young.  Sammo Hung has a simple face, a fat figure, and a rather grassroots atmosphere. And because he comes from an acting family, his acting skills are among the best among a bunch of kung fu stars. He has won the Academy Award and the Best Actor at the Asia Pacific Film Festival. This is also  Give him a lot of points.  Of course, both John Woo and Sammo Hung are still too immature at this time, and there are too many employees from Hollywood, and they will definitely not be able to control them, so Shen Chong specially hired Gary -Woltz joined.  Gary Kurtz is one of George Lucas's regular producers. He participated in the production of "American Graffiti" and "Star Wars". He also worked as an actor in "The Godfather" and the filming of "Star Wars" was completed.  Later, he left Lucas's team and planned to develop alone.  After Shen Chong got the news from Ovitz, he immediately sent him an invitation to serve as the executive producer of the new movie. Many scenes of "Star Wars" were shot in studios, but they were better than "Die Hard".  "Die Hard" is grander and more complex. Shen Chong hopes to use his rich experience to create the atmosphere of big scenes - most of the shots of "Die Hard" were shot indoors on the set. If it is processed  No, it's easy to show off one's abilities or be too petty.  In addition to the film, Gary Kurtz will serve as production manager for Eastern Charm.  Shen Chong plans to use him as his teacher to establish a mature film producer system in Hong Kong.  In the Hong Kong film industry, the profession of production has long existed, but it is very chaotic and irregular. Except for Golden Harvest, the producers of other companies are all pseudo-producers who are trying to sell themselves off.  In Hollywood, the producer is the master of a film and has the right to decide everything about the filming, including what kind of script to shoot, hiring directors, photographers, actors, managing filming funds, reviewing filming expenses and controlling the entire filming process.  After the filming is completed, the producer is also responsible for the film's development, marketing and promotion. In short, the producer's work starts before the movie script and ends after the movie is released.  Because of the outsourcing satellite system, Golden Harvest¡¯s producers have functions similar to those in Hollywood, and are solely responsible for the filming of movies. However, there are very few people with this qualification.  In Shaw Brothers, the producer's job is only to arrange production and location, and control expenditures. As for the film content, budget, director and actor selection, all are decided by the company.  According to a survey by "Movie Times", more than 70% of independent film companies in Hong Kong have the boss himself as the producer, the boss's wife as the accountant, and relatives and friends as script managers and scene notes.  (Note) Generally speaking, in Hong Kong, producers are dispensable and not taken seriously, and their salaries are very low, usually only a few thousand yuan.  And many people don¡¯t understand that the boss can do all the work that a producer can do, so why do you have to hire a producer and waste money on salary?  You must know that film is a highly professional industry, and most of the bosses who invest in filming come from other industries. They are separated by mountains. Professional producers are needed to coordinate between the boss and the director, so as to ensure that the film can be shot smoothly.  , obtain expected profits.  For example, when a layman invests in a movie, besides saving money, what else does he knowwhether the movie theme is good, how good the director is, how well-known the actors are, how the film market is in Southeast Asia, etc. If he is not a professional, it is very difficult for him to know.  Difficult to figure out.  ??????????????????????????????????????????????????¡­  If investors lose money after investing in one film, a large amount of social funds will be withdrawn, and the film industry will slump. If investors are too strong, do everything possible to save money, and cannot guarantee the quality of the film, the film market will slump.  So a mature film industry should be divided into five modules - investors, producers, directors, actors, and behind-the-scenes personnel.  High-level professional producers are the lubricant in the film business process. They can ensure a return on investment and maintain the quality of the film unaffected. They play a very important role.  However, after the rise of New Arts City, a freak was created in the Hong Kong film industry - the producer.  The producer is a mixture of investors and producers. He has all the power and is the real and only core of a crew.  Everyone knows that the power of any organization should not be too concentrated in one person. In China's Han and Tang dynasties, there were prime ministers, and in the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were cabinets. They were the bridges between the emperor and the officials. The producer combined the emperor and the prime minister into one body, which was huge.  It erodes the rights of the director, so there are constant conflicts between the two. If one is not handled well, the entire film will suffer losses.  In this regard, Tsui Hark is a living example. He first fell out with John Woo, and "A Better Tomorrow" failed miserably at the box office. Then he had a fierce battle with King Hu, and "The Swordsman" also suffered losses.  Of course, the birth and development of producer production is also related to the special environment of Hong Kong movies.  Hong Kong¡¯s market is small and its talents are limited, so the scale of film companies is relatively small. As the saying goes, a small ship is easy to turn around. The producer combines the boss and the producer, so he can quickly respond to the market, catch up with the trend and shoot, and is very efficient.  However, it is precisely because of this that supervisory producers have high requirements for professional quality. If one is not careful, he will lose all his money and lack flexibility. For example, Huang Ying, the "Ghost King" who wrote the "Celestial Silkworm Transformation" and "Shen Shengyi" series, is investing in supervisory production.  The market trend of making zombie movies has passed, but he still persisted in his obsession, and was eventually beaten to death at home by a loan shark.  ¡°And supervision is only suitable for small companies, not large groups.  Shen Chong¡¯s businesses are growing more and more.In the future, it will be impossible to be like now, every drama must be taken care of, and it is imperative to cultivate professional producers who can handle all the work of the crew in one stop.  Not only that, Shen Chong has greater ambitions. He hopes that these professional producers, after they mature, can go out and set up their own businesses and start companies. He does not need to dominate the world. What he needs is a large number of competitors who can conquer the entire world.  , anyway, with the breadth and depth of Chinese culture and the huge capacity of the Chinese film market, no matter how many film companies can afford it, the bigger the cake, the more he will share.  So he reorganized the production department, demoted Zeng Lizhen to ordinary producer, and asked her to study with Gary Kurtz, because for the previous dramas, she was nominally a producer, but actually a senior dramaturg¡ª¡ª  The script was selected by Shen Chong, the budget was set by Shen Chong, and the distribution was planned by Shen Chong. She was just an executor and did not produce a movie completely independently.  However, Gary Kurtz has just arrived and does not understand the market conditions in Asia. Therefore, Shen Chong is the producer of "Die Hard". He is the executive producer, responsible for managing the staff recruited from Hollywood, and working with  Communicate with John Woo and others.  From now on, Shen Chong will gradually let go and only focus on the movies that deserve the most attention. As for ordinary investments, he will leave them to professional producers.  Note numbers come from "A Hundred Years of Light and Shadow in Hong Kong"
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