Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1552 Lao Yan's Technology Award

"Dear audience members, once a year, we are at the headquarters of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, Hollywood, to announce the nominations for the 67th Academy Awards.

I'm Arthur Hiller, and this is Angela Bassett, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress last year, and we're going to announce the nomination together.

The Academy Awards are an award with a long history..."

After the first Screen Actors Guild Awards, nominations for this year's Oscars will also begin to be announced.

The president of the Academy, Arthur Hiller, was still the same, speaking in long official language. And Angela Bassett, who lost to Holly Hunter last year, is a black actress. She played the autobiographical film of legendary singer Tina Turner last year.

Who knew that roles for black actors are much scarcer than those for white actresses? Angela Bassett has a typical black look, so her acting range is even narrower than that of actresses like Halle Berry who have both black and white features.

This made her suffer from Oscar syndrome even though she was nominated. There were no suitable roles for her this year. It was even worse than when she was not nominated.

As the Oscars approached, black and minority groups began to make a fuss again, saying that there were too few nominations for black people each year. In order to prevent Angela Bassett from being used as a bullet to attack the Academy, President Shearer brought her along and gave her a free appearance opportunity, also to shut up those black stars, such as Eddie Murphy, in advance.

The nominations overlapped a lot with the previous series of awards. Forrest Gump once again became the biggest winner, receiving a total of thirteen nominations.

Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Art Direction, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Sound, Best Sound Editing, and Best Original Song.

This number of nominations is tied for the second most nominated film in history, along with "Gone with the Wind" in 1939, "From Here to Here" in 1953, "Mary Poppins Returns" in 1964, and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" in 1966. (The film with the most nominations in the history of the Oscars is "All About Eve" in 1950).

This number is one more than last year's already astonishing 12 nominations for "Schindler's List".

This is indeed a very big surprise. Although the critics and some other awards did not like Forrest Gump very much, in the eyes of the majority of practitioners, it is still the best movie last year. Because, except for the best film, these awards are all nominations selected by the judges of the category of the award.

Pulp Fiction, which received unanimous praise from critics, received seven nominations, tied for second place with The Shawshank Redemption and Bullets Over Broadway.

The gap in the number of nominations has already created a distance between Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction, and industry practitioners clearly have different levels of recognition for the two.

This achievement is so remarkable that immediately after the nomination was announced, the media began to hype that Forrest Gump might surpass Ben-Hur and win 11 Oscars in the same year. Even if this achievement cannot be surpassed, it will challenge the nine Oscars won by The Last Emperor a few years ago.

Of course, since Robin Wright was not nominated for Best Actress, The Silence of the Lambs' feat of sweeping the five most important art awards could not be repeated.

Many reporters used their connections to invite Ronald to interview them, but he declined all of them. Not to mention the difficulty of breaking the record, announcing that he might win several golden statues before the awards ceremony would definitely have a bad omen for the final result. Ronald was unwilling to violate taboos on these mysterious matters, which would reduce his chances of winning.

However, there is one award that even Ronald can't stop them from hyping up: Tom Hanks may win the Best Actor award for the second time in a row.

Winning the Best Actor or Best Actress award consecutively is also very rare in the history of the Oscars. The only actresses who have done this are Louise Rainer (1936 and 1937 Oscar Best Actress) and Katharine Hepburn (1967 and 1968, and she was tied for Best Actress for The Lion in Winter in 1968).

As for male actors, only Spencer Tracy has done it in 1937 and 1938.

It can be seen that with the collapse of the big studios and the establishment of the star system, the competition for various performance awards is related to the box office appeal of the stars and the pay they are offered. The competition has become increasingly fierce, and it is difficult for anyone to achieve this consecutive victory.

Tom Hanks' nomination this time was a rare combination of timing, location and people.

In addition to his own acting skills, which were both excellent in last year's Philadelphia Story and this year's Forrest Gump, the roles he played were also very advantageous.

The patient who fights for his companions in The Philadelphia Story, the fool with low IQ but optimistic attitude in Forrest Gump, these characters are more likely to be regarded by outsiders as the types with excellent acting skills.

Although the mentally retarded character played by Hanks is much more complex than the Rain Man played by Dustin Hoffman, the actors with voting rights obviously don't care much about it.

In fact, movie actors’ appreciation of acting skills is not necessarily much better than that of ordinary audiences. This is mainly because filming a movie is a scattered creation, which is completely different from the stage performance that requires coherent performance and can see the audience’s feedback in real time.

As a drama actor, if you cannot follow up on the scenes thrown by your opponent, and the audience does not respond to the parts that should have been outstanding, then even if your acting skills are terrible, you will know that you have not performed well.

However, when movie actors perform, a scene is divided into several takes, and each shot is shot many times. What is finally presented on the screen is the result of editing. The actors themselves cannot figure out which performance was finally put on the screen.

In addition, there is often a gap of several months or even a year between the performance and the final release. By the time the positive or negative comments of the audience on the performance reach the actor's ears, he may have forgotten the feeling at the time of filming.

People always deceive themselves and think that they acted well. In short, when the film is released and feedback is received, the actors often cannot figure out the details of their performance, what they did right and what they did wrong.

This means that there are still a large number of movie actors who have a very average appreciation of acting skills. For them, when they see Hanks' two roles on the screen, they can feel that his performance is excellent. These two roles require high acting skills, and you don't need any special appreciation ability to feel it. I don't seem to be able to do such performances.

The actors who competed with him also had shortcomings. Paul Newman had already won the Best Actor award, and this time, "Nobody's Idiot" was not a strong movie in itself, nor did it have a great influence.

Another nominee is Nigel Hawthorne, who plays King George in "Mad King George". His most memorable role is Sir Humphrey Appleby, the permanent undersecretary of the Department of Administrative Affairs and later the cabinet secretary in the BBC TV series "Yes, Minister" in the 1980s. Compared with the popularity of the TV role, this movie has no box office success and social influence.

As for the remaining John Travolta and Morgan Freeman, not to mention the labels on them, Tom Hanks also has a slight advantage in previous awards.

All the local media in Los Angeles started to speculate on who would win the award, and Tom Hanks also refused to accept any interviews. This humble attitude made his fellow actors feel more comfortable.

Most movie actors are narcissists, and the advantage such an actor, who is so humble that he doesn't look like a Hollywood star, gets in the voting is huge.

As for the Best Director Award, the media also believes that Ronald Lee is the most likely to win.

Oscars have always had a tradition of honoring the elderly. Many people won the Oscar after being nominated twice or three times. Robert Redford and Woody Allen have both won the Oscar for Best Director. Compared with Forrest Gump, their films this time are obviously not as important.

The only real threat to him is Quentin Tarantino and a dark horse, Krzysztof Kieslowski from Poland. Kieslowski was nominated for Red, one of the three films in the Red, White and Blue trilogy. This French film, which was mainly invested by the British, did not compete for the Best Foreign Language Film, but was nominated for the Best Director Award. It can be said that it is coming with great momentum.

……

Ronald also did not accept media interviews to discuss his prospects for winning the award for Forrest Gump. He felt that this behavior of predetermining that he would win the award would ruin his luck.

Ronald is still trying to help with other things at this awards ceremony, such as being the host this year.

"David, do you want me to call the CBS people again?"

"It's okay. I've already talked to them and asked them to sign a waiver..."

I hope to find a suitable host for this year's Oscars. Whoopi Goldberg hosted the show last time, but the ratings were not good because there were too many jokes about black culture and too vulgar jokes.

But when they wanted to bring Billy Crystal back, they were worried that he had been the host too many times and there would be no freshness.

So this time the Academy wants to find David Letterman, the host of the CBS late-night talk show with the highest ratings, to be the host of the Oscars.

In addition to telling jokes that are more in line with the tastes of mainstream white families, this man is also a celebrity, and his show is the number one late night talk show. It is hard to guarantee that there will not be some of his die-hard viewers who come to watch the Oscars.

However, since David Letterman has signed a long-term contract with CBS, and it was CBS that extended an olive branch to him when he was kicked out by NBC, CBS is not very willing to let him host the Oscars night.

This is because ABC holds the broadcasting rights for the Oscars, and CBS executives don't want to be the scapegoat by giving up their own mainstay to help their competitor increase ratings.

But being able to host the Oscars is a very good career development for the host himself. If the Oscars hosted by David Letterman received a very good ratings, then everyone would think that the host Letterman was the most important factor leading to the ratings change.

When he wants to renew his contract and make an offer, this will be very convincing evidence.

Moreover, male program hosts have always been the mainstay of TV ratings. There are also many precedents of cross-channel hosting. After Ronald secretly mediated and called the two major TV stations, CBS agreed to let him go, but they made a request, hoping that David Letterman would mention at the show that it was CBS's goodwill that let him go.

When this message was conveyed, David Letterman was also very happy. Not only was he the CBS host hosting a large-scale evening party on ABC, but he could also speak well of CBS during the live broadcast of ABC TV station. Maybe it would become a record.

The two chatted for a while and decided on this matter. When he thought that it might be his good friend David Letterman who gave him... Pah, Ronald quickly drove this thought out of his mind. He couldn't celebrate in advance, otherwise it would ruin his luck.

"Honey, does this dress look good on me today?" Diane wore a black dress with diamond-studded ripples on it, which was very eye-catching. The two diamond earrings were low-key but just visible, and the bag in her hand was also a diamond-studded switch. The whole person could be said to be quite sexy and eye-catching.

"Honey, you look really beautiful today..." Ronald put on his bow tie and stretched out his arm for Diane to hold.

Today is the Academy Awards ceremony for the Science and Technology Awards. In the past two years, it has become a regular practice to present the winners of the Science and Technology Awards with golden statues one month before the actual Oscars ceremony. Diane and Jamie Lee Curtis once again served as the hosts of this awards ceremony.

Jamie Lee Curtis is a second-generation star in Hollywood and knows many of these old award winners. Diane's husband Ronald has a very good relationship with the two most important winners this year, Old Yan, the inventor of the lightning lamp. It is most appropriate for the two of them to be the hosts to introduce the awards.

"Old Yan..."

At the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel where the award ceremony was held, Ronald saw Yan Zhongfang, whose hair was already gray. Next to him were his son Xiaoyan and his girlfriend. Xiaoyan now worked for Ronald and traveled frequently between China and the United States. He was considered a promising child that the old employees at Xujiahui Studios always talked about.

In addition, he is in love with an actor from the former Xujiahui Studio who went to Hollywood to develop his career. Now, whether he is living a simple life in America or has face when he returns to his hometown, Old Yan is very proud and happy.

This time, he was able to accept the science and technology award on behalf of Xujiahui Film Studio. He can be said to be the second Chinese to win an Oscar after director Yimou Zhang.

"Director Ronald..." Yan Zhongfang saw Ronald and couldn't stop smiling.

"You call me Xiao Luo, how come we are so distant..." Ronald pretended to be dissatisfied and joked with Old Yan. This time, Coppola and Spielberg were both the recommenders of Yan Zhongfang's Lightning Award, and Old Yan was also one of the protagonists of this award ceremony.

"Okay, I'll just call you Ronaldo out of bragging..." Old Yan is now successful and famous, and he also owns some shares of Ronald's lightning lamp factory in Minhang. He is looking forward to his son Xiaoyan getting married soon so that he can have a grandson.

"Francis, this is this year's winner, the real inventor of the lightning lamp, and my partner, Mr. Yan Zhongfang... Old Yan, this is director Coppola. He used your lightning lamp in his Bram Stoker's Dracula, the XL model, the one that broke through the brightness barrier for the first time."

"Oh, I've heard a lot about you..." Old Yan was listening to Little Yan's translation. When he heard that it was the director of The Godfather, he was in awe.

"Steven, this is Mr. Yan Zhongfang, the inventor of the lightning lamp..." Ronald continued to introduce Spielberg, the person who recommended Mr. Yan.

"Yan, thank you for your flashlight. I enjoyed it very much and was satisfied with it..."

"This is Spielberg's meal. The one used in Jurassic Park is our XXL flashlight, which can also flash during the day."

After years of upgrades and iterations, Yan Zhongfang's lightning lamp can now be captured on film under direct sunlight. It is popular in Hollywood and Broadway, and whenever there is a scene involving lightning, one will be rented.

"Thank you, thank you for liking my little invention. Thank you also to Director Ronald Lee. When he came to Xujiahui, he saw my invention and brought it to Hollywood. It is my honor to contribute a little to your great director's film."

Yan Zhongfang took the little golden man from Coppola, and then gave a brief acceptance speech, which was translated by Yan. His typical Chinese humility won great favor from the audience, who applauded and celebrated for him.

Another major technology award that night went to Pietro and Paul Vlahos, father and son, for their conception and development of blue screen compositing technology, which was the technological basis for the filming of movies like Forrest Gump.

Ronald also had the opportunity to present the awards to father and son in person.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you..." The scientific and technological talents, who were not very good at speaking, said thank you several times in a row, expressing their satisfaction and gratitude that their inventions could be used so perfectly by Ronald.

In the real world, Lao Yan won the 1996 Science and Technology Award. One year later, the Science and Technology Award no longer awards a golden statue, but only a certificate of award.