Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1428 Hide and Seek with Forrest Gump
"Action!"

Robin Wright, left, and Tom Hanks, right, walk toward the camera from behind on a dirt road in the woods in front of Forrest Gump's house.

Forrest Gump wore a blue and white plaid shirt and walked forward side by side with Jenny. This was the first scene where the adult Forrest Gump and Jenny appeared in the script. Ronald took this shot first so that the actors could start with a simple one and get into the mood quickly.

"Bang..." A prop made of light material hit Tom Hanks' head...

Tom Hanks and Robin Wright both turned their heads quickly. Hanks also exaggerated a few movements with the stiff posture he learned from Michael, the actor who played Forrest Gump. He also had a very innocent but hurt expression on his face.

"stop!"

Jenny, played by Robin Wright, has a tomboyish look on her face and she loudly scolds the boy who threw stones to tease Forrest Gump, who has a low IQ.

The supporting actor picked up another stone, said "Didn't you hear it, fool", and threw it in that direction again.

"Run, Gump, run!"

"Cut!"

Ronald called a halt, knowing that there was something wrong with this one. Tom Hanks' performance was a little too stiff.

Although Forrest Gump is a somewhat silly young man and his movements are usually a bit stiff, this is because he has problems with his spine. Later, because he wore corrective leg braces, he became even more inferior after being laughed at by others. His movements would involuntarily slow down because he wanted to make sure that he was not acting so silly to avoid being laughed at by others.

In this scene of Tom Hanks, his movements seem too stiff, as if in addition to his low IQ, Forrest Gump also suffers from some other disease, and the stiffness caused by this goes beyond the psychological scope and becomes a physiological disease.

Ronald didn't point it out to Hanks in person, because Shirley Lansing, a complete amateur pretending to be an expert, was watching him filming next to him wearing sunglasses. He couldn't give her any handle. Even if it was not good, he had to wait until she left before explaining it to Hanks. At worst, he could just reshoot it.

Anyway, with Ronald's current status in the industry, even if someone says the film is not good halfway through and changes actors to reshoot, there is a high probability that someone will pay for it. With a long-term reputation, you can do small things willfully. Past success will make investors feel that they will be as successful as before this time, and if there are any problems, it must be someone else's fault.

Spielberg was like this back then. After the big hits of Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, he would repeat the shooting on the set for a while until he was 1941% satisfied. No one thought he was doing anything wrong. It was not until the box office failure of the comedy that he became more focused on budget balance.

Tom Hanks is also a veteran actor who has been working in the film crew for more than ten years. When he heard Ronald's call for a stop, instead of letting him keep running and leaving a proper editing point, he knew that his performance was not satisfactory to the director. He came over to say a few words to Ronald, but Ronald just gave him a thumbs up and said to continue shooting the next take.

"Cut! This one is also good. Let's make another insurance line, and then move on to the next scene..."

Tom Hanks frowned. Before the filming began, he and Ronald talked about Forrest Gump's performance almost every day. He also knew that Ronald's understanding of the role was complex and he would not easily let go of his mistakes.

But on the set, everything is based on what the director says. Others present, except for Robin Wright and creative director Polly Pratt, who may have some understanding, all felt that Ronald had played his famous directing ability of quickly integrating performances normally.

In the past, Ronald had to deal with so many films that required complex and detailed performances, and he could often get satisfactory results with just a few takes, and then turn them into gold in the editing room, making the ordinary-looking films on the set become eye-catching.

The next shot was the scene where the bad boys were chasing Forrest Gump with their cars. Ronald arranged a track just in front of Tom Hanks to take a close-up shot of him.

"Kakakaka..."

Tom Hanks' face was covered with sweat (the work of the makeup artist, showing that Forrest Gump was now frightened and scared, and had to run at full speed to avoid being hit from behind...), his hands swung back and forth with a large amplitude, almost exceeding his shoulders and parallel to his eyes, and his eyes never blinked once during this period.

"Cut!"

Ronald was quite satisfied with this running shot. Tom Hanks had requested to shoot it live, but Ronald refused because it was too dangerous. He didn't want his leading actor to get hurt on the first day of shooting.

Anyway, the special effects department had a lot of blue screen effects to deal with, such as Lieutenant Dan's broken leg, Forrest Gump playing table tennis, and various shots of being under fire in Vietnam, and this one wasn't much more.

So they put a blue screen in the back, and let Tom Hanks run alone. The car chasing behind was shot separately later, and then superimposed with computer special effects in post-production.

As for those shots where the car approaches and hits Forrest Gump's butt, and where Forrest Gump runs very fast and the car misses him by just a few inches, they were all shot with close-ups and special effects doubles.

After shooting a few shots, Ronald didn't make any requests and continued shooting the next shot.

This time it was the football coach from the University of Alabama who came to the local area to recruit talents. Just then, Forrest Gump was being chased by the bad boys and had nowhere to escape. He jumped over the railing and entered the stadium, but he ran faster than all the football players...making the coach stand up in surprise.

These shots of running on the field are actually quite technical, using the illusion of perspective, making Tom Hanks, who is closer to the camera, run faster than the football players at the far end.

In fact, Tom Hanks is already 38 years old. No matter how athletic he is, he can't outrun those 20-something extras who are strong and healthy playing football players. But if the extras slow down, the audience will see the flaws, because the human eye is very good at judging the speed of human running. They can clearly see that Hanks has tried his best, while the extras are obviously letting him go.

So, using some perspective illusions, Hanks' speed can be made to appear faster than the football players in the background, without giving the visual feeling that it is obviously fake.

"Cut!"

Ronald didn't say anything again, but just asked Tom Hanks to rest for twenty minutes and then run at full speed again.

Taking advantage of Hanks's break, Ronald pointed the camera at the stands again to film the coach's reaction.

Sonny Shroyer played the University of Alabama football coach, chosen in part because he had played the role in the 1972 football movie "The Longest Yard," so he was familiar with the subject and cheap.

Sonny Shroyer wore a brown coat and a black and white checkered hat called a "houndstooth hat."

This is the most well-known costume of Bear Bryant, the real football coach of the University of Alabama in history. He is a legendary coach in the history of American college football. During his 25 years as the head coach of the University of Alabama, he won six national championships and 13 regional league championships, and his 323 wins are also a national record.

This coach may be one of the few nationally known figures in Alabama (except the current president, William). Any Southerner or college football fan will not mistake his owner when he sees this hat with black and white interlaced like dog teeth.

"Action!"

The legendary coach played by Sonny Schroyer followed the ball from left to right along the route of the pass, observing the performance of local high school players. Suddenly, he discovered something remarkable.

In the next shot, Sonny Shroyer suddenly stood up, and a second later, the attendant next to him also stood up. Everyone's face showed surprise.

Then in a reverse over-the-shoulder shot, from behind the coach, we can see Tom Hanks's stand-in, a young man named Kiefer, wearing the same blue and white plaid shirt and running desperately.

Then the coach asked the people around him, "Who the hell is this?" When asking, the coach was already staring at Forrest Gump's back. It was the first time he saw someone running so fast.

"Ah, that's the local idiot, Forrest, Forrest Gump..."

"Cut!"

After finishing this set of shots, Tom Hanks was almost done with his rest, so we started shooting the second running scene.

Tom Hanks kept running all day, running with that clumsy but firm, all-out attitude, and never blinking when facing the camera while running.

This filming secret has been used by many Hollywood actors since it was made public by British actor Michael Caine in a publicly available movie acting tape.

Because the feeling when people watch movies is different from when they talk to a real person in the real world. The huge screen will magnify blinking dozens of times. When the audience sees that the characters don't blink, they will feel that they are looking at themselves, and a feeling of carefully observing the reactions of the characters in the dialogue will arise spontaneously, which is very immersive.

Actors who blink will be perceived as lacking confidence, being weak, or absent-minded, as if they are thinking about how to deal with the other person while speaking.

In the movie Forrest Gump, the meaning of not blinking goes beyond that. Forrest Gump is a child whose IQ is much lower than the average, so he listened to his mother's advice to do things seriously, so when he was concentrating, he never blinked.

"Today's progress seems good?"

At night, when the actors and crew went to bed, Shirley Lansing went to Ronald's room to get some information.

Lansing does not have much experience in filming movies. Although she is an actress, most of her so-called "experience" is just passing on some of Jaffe's ideas to her partner and boss Jaffe.

So she couldn't tell whether the movie was good or bad. She had to hear Ronald tell her in person before she could have an idea.

"Not bad. For a movie that has just started shooting, it's very good. You can see that my requirements have been basically met, and Tom and Robin's performances are simply great, especially Robin. Can you tell that she just gave birth a few weeks ago?"

Ronald knew that the woman was superficial, so he immediately filled her with some insignificant details that sounded interesting to the layman.

"That's great. How did you feel their performance level from the live performance?" Shirley Lansing pretended to ask. Although she didn't understand, as a smart woman, she did feel something between Ronald and Tom Hanks.

She didn't understand or comprehend this kind of thing, but there was indeed something in the eyes of the two people that no one else could understand, something that Ronald and Hanks could convey with just a glance.

"You are also an expert in movies, Shirley. I am no different from other directors. I just use my naked eyes to see and feel as an audience. When the sample film comes out tomorrow, we can watch it together to make the final decision..."

Ronald shrugged, deliberately showing an expression that said, "I'm not a genius."

"Don't say that. In my eyes, you are a genius..." Lansing was overjoyed by the words "you are also an expert" and they immediately started to flatter each other.

After Shirley Lansing left, Tom Hanks, who was worried, also sneaked over to Ronald's place.

"What did I do wrong? I can't find the feeling..."

"You did nothing wrong, Tom. You just need some time to find Forrest. He's in your heart..." Ronald pointed to Hanks' chest.

"I don't think so. I feel like I've lost him a little bit. Forrest Gump is getting away from me..." Tom Hanks sat on the sofa in distress and sighed deeply. Forrest Gump is indeed a very difficult role to play.

This fool is different from the idiot genius played by Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man". He is a little below the dividing line between normal people and low IQ idiots...

Therefore, in many cases, Forrest Gump is not a fool forever. He has a clear sense of the contempt, teasing and rejection of others.

His always positive attitude towards other people's contempt for him was not because he was stupid and could not feel it, but a fulfillment of his promise to his mother and Jenny, two people who loved him.

The mother told Forrest Gump that only those who do stupid things are fools. A person with a low IQ does not mean that he will always do stupid things. As long as he remembers the methods taught by those who love him, he will not become a fool.

Jenny is Forrest Gump's only friend of the same age. She protects Forrest Gump's only spiritual peace when he is despised by many people around him. With Jenny, Forrest Gump does not feel that his IQ is inferior to others. This is why Jenny told him to run away if the momentum is not right, and Forrest Gump remembered it so clearly.

Therefore, Forrest Gump sometimes reacts normally to others (things he often experiences or encounters), sometimes reacts slowly (being joked about by acquaintances), and sometimes is completely unclear about the situation (encountering unfamiliar places, people, and things). How to make all three appear normal to the audience and to faithfully convey this reaction to the audience is the ultimate challenge for an actor.

Rain Man is different. He is autistic and cannot communicate normally with others. He screams and shouts when he leaves his familiar environment. The only time he is superhuman is when he does math problems... This very clear and demarcated performance is also very good-looking, but the difficulty is actually not high.

"It's okay, Tom. I'll give you time to find the right feeling. You know, sometimes it's just a matter of measure. Once you find it, you've found it. Before you find the feeling, I'll just treat it as a test shot. It doesn't matter. When you find the right size, we can shoot it again."

"This, this is really a relief..." Hanks regained his courage when he saw Ronald downplaying it and being very confident in himself.

"It's okay. I've never lost money making movies. I have plenty of time to waste. Don't think about anything. Shirley Lansing is an idiot and doesn't understand the importance of this movie. You just need to play hide-and-seek with Forrest Gump slowly..."