Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1510 Oscar's Rival Revealed
Ronald's concerns were not unnecessary. Starting from the old director Chen, the Shanghai Film Translation Studio has held to the principle of making the dubbed version restore the original work.

This is not something that can be accomplished simply by translating a few texts. It has to start with the dubbing director and mobilizing the acting skills of each voice actor, which is more or less equivalent to re-performing the original work in Chinese.

In addition, the Shanghai Film Translation Studio strives for perfection, and they want to make sure that the mouth shapes in close-up shots in the film correspond to the degree of opening of the Chinese language after translation. They also want to express some subtexts that are not in the text but are culturally understandable to the audience by using corresponding Chinese idioms, slang, rhymes and other folk culture.

Since the market-oriented reform, the income and remuneration of these dubbing studios, which were originally only responsible for planning work, have shown signs of being out of touch with the remuneration of other film and television work in society. With a budget of 30,000 to 50,000 yuan per film, they can only do very basic text translation and then let the dubbing actors go directly to the dubbing stage.

The old traditions that had been upheld were also abandoned. The situation at Shanghai Film Translation Studio was relatively good, because there were many traditions left by Director Chen. Several other studios, including the team that was originally scheduled to dub Forrest Gump, had not had many dubbing characters in the past ten years, so now all the newcomers were on the scene, and the effect can be imagined.

Before the Forrest Gump project, Liu Guangning retired early and went to Hong Kong to accompany his son to school. Su Xiu was also preparing to file for retirement, while Shen Xiaoqian, Tong Zirong and others were either taking a break or preparing to take unpaid leave to find their own way out.

Fortunately, Xiao Yan was originally a child of the system, and his uncles and aunts called him to complete the lineup designated by Ronald. Several veterans went to the grave of the old director Chen who unfortunately passed away two years ago and cried. This time, with the direct funding from the Hollywood director, they must restore the old practice and translate this movie well, so that the audience can see the strength of the Shanghai Film Translation Studio again.

……

Xiaoyan wrote a report on all these things and faxed it back to Hollywood. Ronald also took time to read it in his busy schedule and gave a "Good Job" reply.
Another purpose of Xiao Yan's return to Xujiahui is to issue a certificate for his father Lao Yan's invention of the lightning lamp.

This year, Ronald is going to apply for an Oscar for his invention. However, China and the United States have not yet reached an agreement on intellectual property rights. Although Ronald has applied for a patent for the lightning lamp in America, Lao Yan's invention rights have not been legally established.

When applying for the award, it was discovered that Lao Yan's invention rights were not confirmed in America. This time when he went back, the new director of Xujiahui Studio also wanted Ronald to give some help to Shanghai Film.

Since Xujiahui has formed an industrial group, it not only produces films, but also allocates many state-owned cinemas in Shanghai to the group. It is very much looking forward to introducing some advanced industrial planning and technological updates from Hollywood.

Ronald knew that these people were keeping a close eye on the cinemas, so he generously sold them some second-hand equipment, introduced some old-fashioned box office statistics methods, and gave them some equipment. As for whether they reported it in the name of introducing international advanced technology or self-development, Ronald didn't mind. As long as the box office statistics and projection system standards of China and the United States remained consistent in the future, it would be the greatest victory.

With Ronald's kindness, the new factory manager readily gave Old Yan the title of advanced worker. The reasons listed above included the invention of the long arc lightning lamp. With the invitation from Daydream and MPAA, there was no obstacle for Old Yan to come to Hollywood to receive the award.

……

"Is it still your dubbed film? Do you want to win that Chinese film award, the gold, the gold or something?"

Ronald was reviewing the document when he was in Daydream's conference room. "Forrest Gump" is expected to stay in theaters until Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, in the second half of the year, movies that aspire to win Oscars this year have gradually begun to be released. Among them, two projects from Miramax are particularly eye-catching.

The first is the new film by the famous New York director Woody Allen, "Bullets Over Broadway". There are many old acquaintances of Ronald in it, such as the male lead John Cusack, who made his debut in Ronald's "Working Girl". And one of the female characters is also an "acquaintance" of Ronald, Jennifer Tilly.

Woody Allen's art films are a relatively safe investment. Although he likes to use big-name actors, the shooting cycle is often overspent, the budget is often overspent, and his own salary is not low, but he can always get many nominations at the Oscars.

Therefore, Harvey Weinstein's goal is not entirely box office results, reviews and awards are also an important assessment indicator for Miramax, which has been acquired. After all, Disney itself has made a lot of money from cartoons such as The Lion King, and it is unlikely to win important key awards through cartoons.

Therefore, this film, which cost more than 20 million yuan, also invited Woody Allen's long-term collaborator Dianne Wiest, the famous director Rob Reiner, and a group of supporting actors who had appeared in gangster movies directed by Italian-Americans to join the crew, hoping to present an epic Broadway historical drama.

European critics also like him very much. Although he has not participated in the competition unit many times, he has participated in it many times in the name of screening. This "Bullets Over Broadway" also participated in the Venice Film Festival in early September.

However, what made Weinstein very upset was that Woody Allen's masterpiece did not pass the preliminary selection and did not enter the main competition unit. In this way, "Bullets Over Broadway" even missed the secondary competition unit, and finally only made its world premiere in Venice, where it was screened for a few days as a very ordinary movie to sell films.

Miramax's move is very puzzling, because the chairman of the jury for the main competition unit this year is David Lynch, who has just been involved in a scandal, and on the jury is also actress Uma Thurman.

If these two American artists enter the jury of the three major European film festivals, there will be a strong tendency that American films are likely to win major awards.

However, in the end, Gianni Rodolini, the artistic director in charge of film selection, excluded Woody Allen's film from the main competition unit, and the two American judges could only sigh helplessly.

The films that replaced "Bullets Over Broadway" and entered the main competition included "Sunny Days" from China, which was the directorial debut of Xiao Jiang, an actor whom Ronald admired very much and gave him a camera.

The other film submitted for selection is "Long Live Love" by Tsai Ming-liang. He is actually a Malaysian Chinese who is currently filming a movie there.

Hong Kong gave Wong Kar-Wai's "Ashes of Time", a movie that valued stars more than Woody Allen, with several of the main actors being the hottest stars in Hong Kong and the Chinese film industry.

It seems that the reason why Venice's artistic director dislikes Woody Allen is mainly because he doesn't like Hollywood productions, and it has little to do with whether there are stars in the film.

However, this arrangement did not benefit the other two Hollywood films participating in the main competition, Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers" and Alexander Rockwell's "Dangerous Men and Women".

Malay director Tsai Ming-liang's "Long Live Love" won the Golden Lion Award, and Xia Yu, the lead actor in the autobiographical film "Sunny Days", also won the Best Actor Award.

"Bullets Over Broadway", the plan to return to America to gain box office success through the performance in Venice, has failed. It is highly likely that this film will be released in the local market as a typical award-winning film, with a small preview to gain some reputation, and then quickly screened for a few weeks before being taken offline and re-screened after the Oscar nominations next year.

There is no way. The movies invested by Miramax are not high-concept movies with simple stories. It is extremely difficult to get box office success through usual marketing methods.

However, another low-budget film invested by Miramax was a huge success after participating in European film festivals and then returning to America.

This is Pulp Fiction, the second feature film by Quentin Tarantino, the new cinephile director who had previously met with Ronald to discuss contemporary film techniques.

At this year's Cannes Film Festival, this film won the highest award, the Palme d'Or, which made Hollywood very proud. We can discover new directors and make films that win awards at film festivals.

European film festivals are now facing great challenges. On the surface, they are art awards, but in fact they are still aimed at distribution in the three major European markets: French (radiating to Africa), Italian (radiating to Latin America), and German (radiating to Eastern Europe).

As Hollywood conquered the market with Jurassic Park in 1993, these markets and local art theaters all suffered from box office slumps. So this year's three major European film festivals all invited American stars to serve as jury chairmen.

Cannes went a step further than Venice. Instead of inviting an "artistic" filmmaker like David Lynch, it simply invited Clint Eastwood, who has regained fame in Europe in recent years.

The power of the Cannes jury president is relatively large among the three major film festivals. In addition to the local star of the United States, another judge, Catherine Deneuve, who has a good relationship with Eastwood, the two dominated the entire award, and finally Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" won the Palme d'Or.

This also caused two Chinese directors, Edward Yang and Yimou Zhang, who are both on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and lack the director of the Cannes Palme d'Or, the most important of the three major film festivals, to once again fail in this seaside town.

Among them, Yimou's film To Live won the Grand Jury Prize, which is equivalent to an official second place. Another winner of the Grand Jury Prize was Nikita Mikhalkov from Russia, who also has some connection with Ronald because he is the brother of director Andrei Konchalovsky, who Ronald has worked with.

Unlike his brother Konchalovsky who went to Europe and Hollywood, Mikhalkov stayed in the country to make films, and achieved greater international recognition than his brother who went to Hollywood to make "commercial films full of money".

To Live also won another award, and the lead actor Ge You won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival. Among the three major European film festivals this year, except for the first Best Actor award in Berlin, which was given to Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, the other two were won by Chinese. Some critics believe that this is the beginning of Chinese-language films moving onto a bigger stage...

With the blessing of Cannes, Pulp Fiction has gained more confidence and Miramax has invested more money to make a distribution plan for ordinary commercial films. They are ambitious to release this film simultaneously in more than 1,300 theaters in October.

This is a huge success for a movie that cost only $8 million to make. After Miramax was acquired by Disney, the Weinstein brothers made a lot of ambitious works. This may be the first one that can really achieve universal success at the box office and make back its investment without relying on re-releases after Oscar nominations.

This made Harvey Weinstein extremely happy, and he dragged director Quentin Tarantino around Hollywood.

If it were really possible to tie up a commercial blockbuster director, such as Universal and Warner Bros. distributing Spielberg's films, or Columbia and Paramount distributing Ronald Lee's films, who would go to great lengths to show movies to the Oscar judges in nursing homes?
Hollywood is also very fond of Quentin, the new director.

Not long after its debut, it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and it also had the prospect of domestic box office success and a successful distribution in Europe. This is something that cannot be achieved by just an ordinary commercial film or art film director.

There are very few young directors in Hollywood today, as there were in the past 15 to 25 years, when there was an endless stream of talented people. Due to the decline of drive-in theaters, there is a lack of new directors who can break into the big studios.

In addition to recruiting potential directors from Europe to test the waters in Hollywood, Hollywood also organizes many independent film festivals, such as the Sundance Film Festival in Utah and the Palm Springs Film Festival in Palm Springs.

Even several emerging directors in Asia, such as the Chinese-language directors who have won awards consecutively in the past two years, are contacting them, hoping that they can overcome the language barrier and try their hand in Hollywood.

Now, Hollywood itself has produced a promising newcomer, who has made a great start by winning the Palme d'Or, a award that even veteran directors like Woody Allen have never won. Many people want to spend money to try their luck with him.

In order to keep this lucky asset, Harvey Weinstein kept a close watch on Quentin and would never let him talk to other film producers alone for more than three sentences.

Ronald was also invited to attend a so-called movie viewing event, which was mainly used to obtain public relations resources. Ronald didn't want to go at first, but because he liked Tarantino's previous film, Reservoir Dogs, he made an exception and went to watch it.

However, Ronald did not give any particularly good comments that the other party could use for marketing. Instead, he lowered his evaluation of Quentin.

The second work is often more difficult than the first, and it can also better reflect the director's talent and potential.

A debut film is often a work used by a director to tell his own story, while the second film has to tell someone else's story, which tests the director's ability even more.

The main reason why Pulp Fiction is praised is that it is different from ordinary gangster films. The gangsters are no longer as powerful as those in Martin Scorsese or Coppola's films. Their every move and gesture exudes gangster style.

On the contrary, in pulp novels, these people have the same worries as ordinary people, just like white-collar workers working in offices, with emotions, families, and even worries like doing some home repairs to distract them.

But as another director who has seen a lot of previous works, Ronald saw a lot of borrowing from other classics. So much so that Quentin lost his voice slightly.

Unlike Reservoir Dogs, where Quentin's voice was very clear and unmistakable, in Pulp Fiction, Ronald saw scenes after scenes of Quentin imitating his favorite directors. In it, you can see this classic scene of this director, that classic camera movement of that director, but there is no Quentin's own voice.

Such films may be appreciated by some Europeans, but for awards like the Oscars, the actor judges may not be able to see the borrowings and may instead feel that the structure is a bit loose.

So, although Ronald is optimistic about the box office of this movie, he is not most worried about his Oscar competition.

What worries him most is another film that looks to have a bad box office outlook, "The Shawshank Redemption," produced by Castle Rock and now owned by Turner Media Group along with the company.