Exploiting Hollywood 1980

  Chapter 665 Movie Guerrilla from Australia

   On Christmas Day, Ronald got up very early. New York's snow season is in January and February every year, and there are few white Christmases. This year is the same, the weather is sunny and a little warm, it is more than ten degrees Celsius, just wear a coat.

  After breakfast, Ronald followed Aunt Karen's instructions and took Diane and Donna, the three of them on the ferry together, and went for a walk in Manhattan.

  The slightly humid air was sucked into the lungs. Although today is a public holiday, department stores and several shopping streets are still open for business. On the commercial street next to Fifth Avenue, Ronald accompanied the two girls to find some bargains.

The store here is not big, but it is full of wholesale goods, from famous watches to diamonds, women's clothing to plush toys, and knowledgeable tour guides and hotel concierges will bring guests here for shopping, which is better than the boutiques on Fifth Avenue. Much cheaper.

   Carrying a large bag and a small bag, Ronald carried Diane and Donna in his left and right hands, and the three began to look for a place to eat.

  In addition to the big commercial street, there are many small businessmen in the community who are opening their doors to do business. The trio found an Italian cafe with a lot of customers and had some meatballs and pasta.

  The owner, an elderly couple living in a nearby community, is teasing a granddaughter with a cat.

   "Are you ready to take social class? This time, the teacher will broadcast the class live across the country, and children from all over the country will be with you."

   "Ready...hehe", the little girl hugged the cat and circled the ground happily. Several regulars are complimenting her **** and dress.

   This kind of taste of ordinary New York life, Ronald has not tasted for a long time. The residents of Los Angeles live very scattered, and the atmosphere that the neighbors know each other and help each other is not as strong as New York. Opposite the Italian-inhabited area is the Irish-inhabited area, and on the other side is the Chinese-inhabited area.

   If you look at it from a high-altitude helicopter, Manhattan is very much like a colorful platter, where various ethnic groups live together without mixing. Respect each other's culture, and culturally isolate from each other. In this situation, it often takes the third generation of immigrants to slowly integrate into mainstream values ​​and gradually forget their own ethnic traditions.

  The descendants of the great ancestors of Chinese descent like Ronald, no matter from the appearance or the circle of communication, there is no trace of it, only there is still a preference for Chinese culture in the heart.

   After eating, we walked to Fifth Avenue again. In the afternoon, the two ladies still went to the boutique to shop. Sometimes she doesn't buy anything, but just looking at the price tags of the good things she buys in boutiques can keep Donna entertained for hours. Diane also hugged Donna and laughed. She seldom enjoyed the experience of buying cheap goods.

   "Action!"

"Um?"

   Ronald, who was waiting at the door as a porter, suddenly heard someone calling for the password for the filming outside.

   He called the salesman, asked him to look at a bunch of purchased items, and then took out his credit card and handed it to Donna, asking her to settle the bill if she liked it. Go out for yourself and see what crew is filming.

  I didn't see the NYPD closing the road. There was only a small crew at the entrance of the Plaza Hotel diagonally across the road. They clipped a camera and a recording rod and filmed on their side of the road.

   "Guerrilla." Ronald smiled.

  When he was filming "Night of the Comet", he also secretly filmed by himself instead of contacting the municipality because of the tight budget. Unexpectedly, in the most prosperous shopping mall in Manhattan, New York, on Fifth Avenue, there are also Leng Touqing doing this.

  On Ronald's left, a young blond beauty with a black and white silk scarf covering her hair, wearing a dark red V-neck dress, walked quickly to Ronald's right.

   "What's the matter? Is someone making a movie?" Donna noticed the movement and came to see it.

   Unlike Los Angeles, filming film and television dramas on the streets of New York is not very common. It was the first time Donna saw this kind of live-action shooting. She leaned on the door and looked across the room, full of curiosity.

   "It is estimated that a small crew is filming, and the road is not blocked." Di An has rich experience, and at a glance it can be seen that it is a candid filming that has not been recorded in the municipality.

   "Don't cross the line and ruin their shot," Ronald reminded. Although it seems that the other party is using a close-up lens, it is unlikely that he will enter the lens, but to be on the safe side, stand a little bit.

   "Well, she's a big beauty. But I don't seem to have seen her play before." Diane commented on the actress.

   "It could also be a small production, her debut."

   "Cut!" The director on the opposite side stopped filming. "Linda, this scene is about Su suddenly discovering who her true love is, and then running to find it. So you need to have some twists... Do you understand what I mean?"

   Ronald took the opportunity to open the door with Diane Donna, ready to leave.

   "Yo, I said dude, do you want to make a movie? Can we have a cameo in our next scene, we need a tall guy."

   The male lead of the cast, a man with a strange accent, saw Ronald and suddenly invited them.

   "Sorry, we have other business." Ronald was about to leave with two beauties on his back.

   "Hey, we're making a big screen movie and it's going to be released in Australia, don't you want to see your face on the screen?"

  The male protagonist is from Australia, wearing a crocodile leather jacket and a cowboy hat with a ring of crocodile teeth inlaid. They came to New York to make up for the ending, and saw Ronald's height was just right, so they invited him again and again.

   "Oh, my God. That's Ronald, Ronald Lee." The blond female lead in a red dress, interrupted by the conversation here, looked over and found Ronald's identity.

   "Paul, this is a famous Hollywood director, Ronald Lee." The heroine named Linda took the male lead's hand and told him not to pester him any more.

   "You know me?" Ronald handed the shopping bag to one hand, then reached out and shook hands with Linda and Paul.

   "Who doesn't know you." Diane added next to it.

   "Oh, you guys in New York are really crouching tigers, hidden dragons, you can see big directors anywhere on the street." The male protagonist Paul is very tough, and he invited Ronald and the others to the Plaza Hotel to chat.

   "Anyway, we have to take a break and don't shoot for a long time, which attracted the attention of NYPD."

"Hahaha..." Ronald had a very good appetite with these people. He had no money to apply for filming, so he took guerrilla-style secret filming. This kind of style of doing it first and making the film into a film made him want to chat with them too. chat.

   "That's great, I'll help you get something."

  The heroine Linda was also very happy to have the opportunity to meet big Hollywood figures, and quickly helped Diane and Donna pick up shopping bags.

   "Are you Diane? Diane Lane?"

   Inside the Plaza Hotel, Linda recognized Diane who took off her sunglasses.

   "It's me, I didn't expect anyone to remember me."

  Linda burst into laughter, "I've known you for a long time. When you were acting on Off-Broadway, I also watched your performance. I was also performing 'Death of a Salesman' on Off-Broadway two years ago."

   turned out to be a Broadway actor.

   Several people sat down in the lobby bar, and Linda Kozlowski, the girl in red, told Ronald the story of their crew.

   It turned out to be an Australian film crew. They came to film an interesting story of an Australian hillbilly coming to New York and the various cultural conflicts that occurred.

  The actor Paul Hogan is also the screenwriter and financier of the film.

  Paul Hogan has a complicated life, working as a construction worker before making his comedy debut on Sydney TV. He had been to New York when he was young, like he was in an alien world, in a metropolis of millions, saying hello to everyone in the morning because he thought they were going to drink in a bar at night.

   "Will your movie be shown in America?" Ronald asked them.

   "Not necessarily," replied Paul Hogan.

   "Australia hasn't made a formal film, like your usual commercial in Hollywood. No one has made a real, popular, successful, entertaining film."

   "I plan to release it in Australia after the filming, and then go to the film festival to try my luck and see if I can sell it overseas. If I feel lucky, I can make millions of Australian dollars."

   "Oh? What's your movie about?"

"It's about a hunter in the Great Swamp in northern Australia. He was raised by aboriginal people and killed a large crocodile alone in a critical time. Then he was interviewed by Sue Charlton, a newspaper reporter from New York." Paul Hogan gave the heroine Linda Kozlowski a hug.

   "Afterwards, Su came up with a whim and asked this Australian savage to come to New York to experience life at the center of the universe. This is a story with great contrasts. The female reporter in New York went to the pristine wilderness, and then the savage went to the most prosperous city."

   "It sounds interesting", Ronald felt that the angle of the movie was very clever, like the first half of Tarzan the Apes, plus the second half of Mr. Smith's trip to Washington.

   "After your film is finished, you can come to me, and I'll help you see if it is possible to release it in America." Ronald thought the story was good and worth trying.

   "That's great." Paul Hogan and Linda Kozlowski were overjoyed and hurriedly exchanged business cards.

   "Since you haven't identified a Hollywood distributor, it must not have been a production investment in Hollywood?" Ronald remembered something.

   "Yes, we raised the money," said Paul Hogan triumphantly.

   "Fundraising?" Ronald expressed his confusion.

   Hogan explained. It turns out that in Australia, the tax law allows the funds invested in films and other literary and artistic undertakings to get 200% of the tax payable for tax refund. Although Australia does not have any famous film companies, there are many rock stars.

   They also speak English and share a monolingual cultural market in the world with Britain, America, Canada, etc.

   A rock band INXS believed in Paul Hogan and took the lead in investing hundreds of thousands of Australian dollars. This has led many singers to invest in crowdfunding, hoping that the film will pay off. At the same time enjoy the tax exemption of twice the investment amount, which is especially attractive to rock stars with high incomes.

   They ended up raising A$8 million, and they started shooting. Investment was limited, the entire crew was Australian television talent, and only the heroine, Linda Kozlowski, was brought in from America.

   After chatting for more than half an hour, the assistant of the crew came in to report, and now the weather is calm outside.

   "Do you think there is anything I can improve on this scene?"

  Linda Kozlowski is a little blind to a Hollywood director like Ronald. Ask him about acting skills whenever you have the chance.

   Ronald isn't really good at directing performances, but he also knows how to cover up his weaknesses.

"Su suddenly found out that she was not in love with the general manager of the newspaper, but the wild man from Australia. So she must be very anxious in her heart. You can consider using a small prop to express this kind of sudden discovery that true love has run away. , anxious mood in my heart."

   "Um..." Linda Kozlowski thought it made sense.

   When it was time to start filming, after running for a while, she decisively threw her two high heels aside and ran after her barefooted.

When    left the set, Diane kept secretly watching Ronald without speaking.

Ronald knew that she still wanted to be an actress, so he comforted, "I'm not rich enough to make movies by myself. I'll help you see if there are suitable opportunities when I go back to Los Angeles. But if you're willing to start from low-cost There will be a lot more opportunities if the movie starts again.”

Diane hugged Ronald's arm tightly and didn't speak. She used to be a much-anticipated child star, and she almost made it to the forefront of Hollywood girl stars. She experienced strikeouts and was deceived by selling nutritional supplements... I have seen too much. She knows that she doesn't have to say too much at such a time, just let Ronald take it to heart.

   (end of this chapter)