Chapter 274 How did you do it?

   Ronald spent half a day watching all the shots. The sound and picture synchronization was done very well, and Ronald thanked Eric and his two assistants.

   "Shall we start editing, Ronald?" The two producers next to him, Lin Sen and Azoff, were already a little impatient.

  Ronald often pauses when looking at a shot with sound and picture sync, and then takes out his notebook to write down the number of a certain frame on the film. He often looked at a film several times over and over again, and he didn't know what he was doing.

   It doesn't seem to take that long if it's just checking Eric's work.

   "Where do we start? Ronald." Eric has worked with many directors and knows that each director has his own method. Ronald is not particularly out of the ordinary.

  Some old-school Hollywood directors have their own quirks. For example, the old director Fred Kinneman who filmed "High Noon", he is particularly disgusted with the main camera.

  In addition to shooting the main shot as little as possible when shooting the scene, the first thing in the editing room is to throw away the film of the main shot.

   Perhaps Ronald has a similar quirk of cutting out shots he doesn't like before using the scissors?

"You have to wait for me. I'm going to turn these numbered positives into negative copies and take them to Kodak's laboratory for printing. It will probably take a few hours. After I get the photos, we can start. up.

   After speaking, Ronald apologized to everyone, and then hurried away with the number in his hand.

  Lin Sen and Azoff looked at each other, not knowing, so Lin Sen asked the editor Eric: "What is this method, I have never seen a director do this before?"

   "It's the first time I saw it too." Eric shrugged and replied to the two producers, "Maybe it's Ronald's habit?"

  A few people couldn't figure it out, so they went out to have lunch first, and came back after Ronald was done.

  Ronald is on the equipment on the other side of the editing room, looking for film according to the shot number.

  He spent one noon to select the most representative decisive moment for each camera position and each shot. For some longer shots, I also selected two or three shots.

   Then based on these numbers, he remakes a negative with only ISO 2 for each decisive moment. Ronald reprinted all the shots according to the appropriate exposure time that Walter Murch had figured out.

   Then he took the negatives and drove to a Kodak one-hour photo lab where he had all the photos developed. Looking at the finished film, Ronald was quite satisfied. Using the parameters given by Merch, the color balance and contrast of the photo were close to the effect of film.

   When the two producers and several editors returned to the editing room, Ronald had already pasted all the photos on the whiteboard on the wall.

   "Aha, this method is much more intuitive." Eric in the editing room couldn't help but admire the photos on the whiteboard on the wall.

"This method is really good. I have to learn it. I can use it when I am a director in the future." Lin Sen was also very pleasantly surprised. He had directed a movie before, and he knew that when editing, he had to find his ideal in many shots. The one you want is a waste of time.

  Many times when you find it, the inspiration in your heart is gone. This makes it easier to capture inspiration and make editing more efficient.

  Azoff has no experience in filming, but he also thinks this method is very intuitive. He looked at the photo of Spiccoli taking Vans shoes and hitting his head hard after he got high from smoking. Immediately, the scene I saw in the morning jumped out of my mind.

  He couldn't help thinking, "This young man named Ronald has some ideas."

  Ronald is numbering each photo and transcribing the duration of the shot into a form in his notebook. "Fast-paced Richmond High School" is a group drama with six protagonists. How to balance the roles of many people is the key to film editing.

  So the arrangement and combination of various lenses requires trial and error. In this way, a photo can be used to represent a segment of a shot, which can be arranged and combined conveniently.

   "I have already transcribed it, if you don't mind, you can start."

  Ronald asked the two producers Linsen and Azoff to sit next to the editor Eric, and then stood behind them himself.

   "Hey, Ronald, sit down, you are the director."

  Lin Sen and Azoff saw him standing, they stood up and offered their seats to him. It is good for a young man to respect his elders. However, according to the rules of Hollywood, the producer only gives opinions on the edited results, and cannot completely substitute for the director to issue editing instructions.

   At least not until the director's cut of the first cut is bad, the producer's approval is not approved, and the studio strips him of the editing rights.

   "You're welcome, I'm just used to editing standing up." Ronald took two steps to the side, standing next to the editor Eric and said.

He tore a piece of paper from his notebook, cut it in half, and then folded two sitting figures. Based on the length and width of the editing machine monitor, he calculated the size ratio of the screen to him, and compared the ratio Shrunk down to the height of the little man.

Ronald folded the little figure representing the female audience again to make her shorter, and then put the two figures in front of the monitor and said to the two producers, "This is our audience, Look at a standard screen with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, sitting at the approximate distance of the prime position.

  In this way, we can refer to the general picture that the audience sees on the screen, and will not fail to take care of the diversion of the audience's attention because of the too small monitor.

   "You are well prepared." Azoff's heart was completely relieved, and Ronald seemed to be an expert in editing.

   "I don't know what is the level of editing?" Lin Sen saw that Ronald was doing well, and became curious about his actual level of editing.

The opening shot in the movie storyboard happened to be the first shot of Ronald's first day of shooting. It was that Robert Romanus entered the picture from behind the camera, then dodged two cars, ran across the road, and finally turned to A shot of walking through the door of a department store.

   "The first one is better, and the actors' performances are more natural." After watching a few films, the editor Eric expressed his opinion.

"I also think so. The car is driven by a stuntman, and there are certain rules. The first one Romanus's reaction is more natural, and the next few, when he knows the rules of the car, it will have a psychological impact. Prepare, not as compact as the first one."

  Ronald pointed to the movement of Romanus on the monitor. Before he spotted the coming Toyota Corolla, he had already slowed down and turned his shoulders to look to the left.

   "What do you think?" Ronald turned to ask the opinions of the two producers.

   "Not bad, I also think the first one is good."

   "Follow your order."

   Seeing that the two producers agreed, Eric turned around and asked Ronald, "Where is the cut?"

   "Wait a minute." Ronald turned the turntable of the horizontal editing machine to rewind the film to the beginning at double speed.

   Then he turns the turntable back to normal speed and Romanus on the monitor crosses the road again.

"Snap." Ronald pressed the stop button, then he picked up a pen, found the middle frame of the film on the specially vacated space in front of the editing machine, and drew lightly. A V sign.

   "It's not bad here, just half a second of black screen, cut into the picture inside the mall." Eric also agreed.

   "I'll try again." Ronald turned the control dial again.

  Eric expressed understanding that the director was often hesitant when editing. Especially at the end, there is an open shot where the actors continue to move, and there is no definite end point for the action, which makes different people feel that it should be cut here.

  Just like the scene where the scalper Mike enters the mall, how close does the actor Romanus go to the gate and cut the scissors? In fact, it can be cut, and then cut into the next shot. What do you think is the best place to cut it? There is no conclusion.

   Ronald rewinds the film to the beginning and starts playing at 24 frames per second. When the scalper Mike played by Romanus walked around the second Volkswagen Beetle that pulled over and walked towards the main entrance of the mall, Ronald pressed the stop button again.

"Snapped!"

  Eric leaned forward, looked at the film in the middle, and wanted to write down the number this time. After seeing the number clearly, he suddenly said "HolyShxt!"

   "What's wrong?" Producers Lin Sen and Azoff looked over, afraid that something might go wrong with the feature film.

  Eric pointed to the gap in the middle of the editing machine. On the film in the middle, there was the V mark that Ronald had just drawn with a water pen.

"How did you do it?" Eric became very curious. There are 24 frames of film per second, and a frame of film only appears here for 1/24th of a second. The probability of stopping at the same frame twice very small.

   "Is it a coincidence?" A question appeared in the hearts of the three people present.

   "Is it the same frame?" Ronald asked, and then rewound the film. "It seems that I have gradually mastered the rhythm of this movie while watching it in the morning."

   Ronald said, and glanced at the reproductions of Mondrian's paintings on the editing table against the wall.

  Sometimes things like rhythm are hard to describe in words, but if you catch it, you catch it. Your body will replace your brain and use your intuition to make decisions for you.

"Snapped!"

   Ronald pressed the stop button for the third time, and his intuition did not disappoint him, the film stopped firmly at the same frame.

   Neither producer believed that Ronald would be able to stay on the same grid. They stood up at the same time and looked at the gap exposed by the editing machine.

   Sure enough, under the light, a small yellow V-shaped mark was on the most central frame of film.

   The two of them looked at each other in disbelief. In Universal's production, I have never heard of anyone with such skill.

   "How did you do it?" The two asked Ronald.

  Ronald opened the thermos cup he brought, poured a cup of black tea and tasted it slowly, "I said it was intuition, do you believe it?"

  The two producers, Lin Sen and Azoff, looked in disbelief and did not continue to ask. Maybe this is Ronald's unique secret?

   "I seem to have heard that there was an editor who could do it before." Eric seemed to remember something.

"Yes, it was taught to me by Walter Murch of Diorama Films. You should have heard of him, and I didn't lie to you, it was really based on intuition, otherwise it would be impossible for people to react so quickly and stop several times. On the same grid." Ronald said the name of the master.

   "It turned out to be him." The two producers and editor Eric suddenly realized that they had heard the name of Walter Murzi, an expert in film editing and sound processing.

  He is an Oscar-award-recognized expert in editing and sound design for Francis Coppola's two "Godfathers" and "Apocalypse Now"

  So they nodded and stopped asking Ronald how he did it. As if he could do it for granted.

  Eric asked the editing assistant to come over and write down the number on the grid of the working feature. As an editing point for the first shot, and then waiting for Ronald to order.

   "Let's continue." Ronald said softly.

   After a while, the two producers were very satisfied with the progress of the editing, and they left the table first, expressing that they would come back to see the progress tomorrow.

   Ronald smiled and continued to edit the film with Eric.

  He knew in his heart that the reason why he was able to stop on the same frame several times was because he spent a lot of time in the morning looking at the shots repeatedly, and then picked a decisive frame in each shot.

  In this way, the lens grammar of the director of photography Matthew has been slowly implanted in his subconscious mind. In fact, the subconscious mind helped him make the decision of where to stop. Coupled with standing up and editing, it is possible to make full use of the intuition that humans have evolved over millions of years to achieve this effect.

  As the editing continues, his subconscious mind digests and absorbs more shots, and his own editing can be made more accurate and reasonable.

  (end of this chapter)