Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1634 Three Ways to Cultivate Talents
"Please follow me. Mr. Ronald Lee will meet with you. Depending on the content of the conversation, you will have about ten minutes to half an hour to chat with him alone."

Yang Yanzi led a white man who was about the same age as Ronald into Ronald's mansion, explaining the key points of the meeting to him as they walked.

"You can talk about your own project, but I advise against it. Mr. Ronald Lee has already included your project in the list of interest of Daydream Pictures. Regarding the production budget, you can talk to Mr. David Simkins, who is in charge of the script of our company.

Ronald mainly wants to know about the current situation of independent film production in Hollywood and other parts of the United States. If you want to leave a deeper impression on him, then I suggest you talk more about what he wants to know, rather than what you want to say...

Of course, the choice is yours..."

"Okay, thank you for letting me know..." The man was Richard Linklater. Last year, he shot an independently produced, low-budget romance film, "Before Sunrise," which won the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival.

The film cost 2.5 million to make, but it grossed 25 million at the box office, making it a successful independent film.

At the end of a dimly lit corridor, the door opened and Richard Linklater saw a study inside. On the unique-style desk were many books and videotapes, as well as a notebook with many notes written by the owner himself.

A tall man, smiling, extended his hand. "Thank you for coming to my house, Mr. Linklater. Can I call you Richard? I watched Before Sunrise, it's a very impressive movie. Romantic love movies do have the feeling of a road movie. I have a lot of questions I want to ask you..."

Richard Linklater felt relieved at once. He could smell a fellow worker from Ronald. Ronald was more like a film director than a producer who didn't know much about movies and wanted to manipulate the director for profit.

The female assistant's words before did not seem like a warning or threat. Instead, they were really for his consideration. Talking openly with Ronald about some details of independent production would be more helpful in financing his future film projects.

This is not a film businessman who haggles with you over projects, but a successful person at the top who wants to understand the situation of the bottom practitioners in the industry. Putting down your attitude, talking to him more as a colleague, and leaving a good impression may be the best way to get help in your career.

The two had a great conversation, and after the scheduled 30-minute time limit, Ronald continued to chat with him for another hour and a half. He gained a lot of knowledge about the current independent film production market.

Compared to the early 1980s when Ronald entered the industry, the threshold for independent production has become much higher. At that time, although not every movie could be released nationwide, there were many limitations that limited the upper limit of a movie's box office.

But the good thing is that the threshold for entering theatrical distribution is not high, and some fledgling directors have the opportunity to learn while working in small projects of 500,000 to 2 million yuan.

As the distribution channels of cinema films are integrated and centralized, the marketing and distribution costs are becoming increasingly high, which in turn forces the production costs to rise. A film with a production cost of less than one million has almost no distribution value.

Because in order to be released in theaters and attract enough audiences to the cinema, it must be accompanied by at least two million in marketing expenses. Low-cost movies are becoming less and less valuable for distribution, and the figure of five million is now the bottom line for low-cost productions.

This also makes the studios tend to play it safe. Whether it is an internal project of the eight major studios or an international project that obtains pre-sale funds from Europe as production costs, they all like to use experienced directors.

Richard Linklater also started making movies in 1990, but it was not until last year that he got this film project, which had no chance of being released in the United States. He and Ronald were born in the same year, but he missed four years of college, so he entered the industry much later.

In addition to the lack of support and opportunities for new directors, another factor that has contributed to the current decline of independent production is that current scripts tend to be conservative.

The eight major film companies prefer to shoot sequels and series of films, which are projects where the return on investment is easier to calculate. For a script that is innovative in terms of drama, genre, story, or structure, many film companies dare not invest unless a star or famous director takes a fancy to it...

This also makes it more difficult for new screenwriters to stand out. In the past, as long as your script was favored by a production company, it could be successfully filmed with a small budget. New screenwriters have more opportunities to write films that require a higher budget to be filmed - such as special effects, period costumes, or big stars...

But now, a new screenwriter may have the pre-sale rights of his first script bought for a few thousand dollars, and then he has to wait for a suitable production studio to invest. It may be three, five, or even ten years before he has the chance to see his script made into a movie.

In that case, the screenwriter will not have the opportunity to work hard on a second script. Even if they write one, they won't be able to sell it at a high price because your script has not been proven.

What's more, at this time, the screenwriter is more likely to charge some cheap fees in order to make a living and modify the script according to the preferences of every producer who likes his first script.

This has also prevented new screenwriters from coming to the fore. To be on the safe side, major film studios can only commission works from already famous screenwriters.

Take Richard Linklater's case. He wrote "Before Sunrise" himself. He also wrote the scripts for the two previous films he directed. But only after this film received box office and critical acclaim did the big Hollywood studios open their doors to him and discuss the possibility of other projects.

The two most important positions in the early stages of a film project have both faced a serious problem of newcomers finding it difficult to make a breakthrough. After entering the second half of the 1990s, new screenwriters and directors no longer had much illusion about shooting theatrical films, and most of them went into the circles of TV dramas, music videos, and various TV commercials to make money.

In addition to relying on veteran actors, Hollywood has also introduced a large number of professionals from Europe.

The innovation of the entire American film industry is facing a great crisis. There are still many new screenwriters and directors who are waiting for the opportunity to shoot their first film. But if things continue like this, the confidence of these people will gradually fade away, and it is hard to say what the future of independent production will be like. Maybe one day, the film industry will be filled with old directors and screenwriters in their seventies and eighties, and the number of newcomers will be even rarer than the old men.

……

Ronald spent more than a week chatting every day with directors and screenwriters who had shot independent productions but had not yet obtained contracts with mainstream Hollywood studios. Ronald gradually realized the difficulty of establishing an independent production label to provide opportunities for these people.

There are many people in Hollywood who can see the crisis of newcomers. Ronald is not the only one who can see the future crisis. However, the number of studios focusing on small and medium-cost film production is still far less than in the 1980s.

The main problem lies in the training of talents.

Movies are one-time creations. Directors and screenwriters who were successful in the past may not be successful now. Those who are successful in one genre may not be successful in another.

Even within the same genre, if the first film is of very good quality and the director or screenwriter shows potential, the second film of the same genre may fail at the box office.

If the control of creation is too strict, the director will lose the freedom of creation, and the film will become dull and clichéd. If the control of creation is too loose, the director will let himself go, and the strong desire to express will destroy the ability to sell box office.

Not to mention, the problem of a morally corrupt director like Michael Cimino, who embezzles money or takes the opportunity to pick up girls, is still possible for any film director. Without effective supervision, making a movie is a classic agency dilemma.

In order to effectively supervise the shooting progress and budget while ensuring the director's creative freedom, the most important thing is talent. It is necessary to be familiar with film production, understand the meaning behind all the actions of the director during filming, and be able to identify and stop the director's misbehavior in time.

This requires a lot of experience accumulation.

Even if there is a self-taught production genius, after successfully producing one or two films, he will be noticed by big studios or big capital to supervise the production of big projects.

So compared to directors and screenwriters, producers may be a more scarce position. After all, in a coffee shop in West Hollywood, all the customers are screenwriters. In a restaurant in Beverly Hills, all the waiters are actors. Everyone on the campus of USC is a director, but there are far fewer people who call themselves producers.

Ronald has only a handful of producers who can independently produce small and medium-budget films. And the only two who can take charge of big productions are probably himself and veteran Madavoy.

If Ronald relied solely on his own investment, due to the lack of qualified producers, the final result might be to make one or two excellent films in three years, about five films with a small win or break even, and then lose money on most of the other films.

Even if a department to support independent production is not established, similar results can be achieved by relying on Ronald and several producers to work naturally.

Wanting to provide a better way out for newcomers and discover new blood for the entire Hollywood, Ronald realized that it was useless to rely on himself. He had to rely on the power of those who were ambitious, capable or had potential in the entire industry, and rely on a mechanism to unite their power to achieve this.

Soon, the Daydream label issued several new policies.

The first is for independent studios. If your project has obtained pre-sale financing in Europe and is seeking recognition from celebrities to facilitate bridge loans secured by celebrities from banks to fill the gap in filming funds, you can apply for the Daydream program.

Daydream guarantees that if the film is approved by the review team, it can invest a proportion of money to reduce or even fill the gap in production costs. If the script is particularly good, even if no star agrees to star in it, it can be downgraded to a production without stars, and Daydream will fill the production gap (because there is no star salary, the money required is greatly reduced) and sign a distribution agreement so that the film can be released in the United States.

On the other hand, Daydream will also sign agreements with many Wall Street funds to open up investment quotas for projects that Daydream has approved, so that the funds of these funds can get priority investment shares in some high-quality projects.

In terms of supporting directors, in addition to the original college student director support program, a new low-cost TV film project has been added for young directors who have not received college education but have experience in directing short films, MVs, TV commercials and other projects in Hollywood.

As long as you are under 90 years old and have experience in directing the above projects, you can pass several rounds of written tests and interviews to qualify for a -minute TV movie project.

In cooperation with DDH's local TV stations and PBS TV stations, DDH develops some low-cost TV movie shooting projects every year, allowing these ambitious new directors to gain the first feature film directing experience on their resumes.

You have to know that cinema movies are like a self-circulating closed system. You have to have experience in directing movies to be qualified to direct cinema movies.

There are a lot of MV, commercial, short film and TV series directors in the market who have the ability to try directing movies, but it is difficult for them to get the first opportunity. Ronald's DDH is here to do this kind of work.

Anyway, this kind of project is also a low-end project in the TV movie track. For each movie, the local TV station will pay $50 to $150 million for the acquisition price, and the production cost will be basically the same as the acquisition price. DDH basically breaks even on this kind of project.

This type of TV movie focuses on themes related to local culture, festivals, and traditions. TV stations have some budget every year to promote this kind of movie. Some local companies also sponsor it as a form of paid advertising.

However, the quality of these directors varies greatly, so Daydream has a special group that works with local TV stations to form a selection committee to screen the technical and artistic requirements of the director candidates.

The most difficult part is the support for screenwriters.

After all, if your script is not made into a movie, it is impossible for the screenwriter to write a line of experience on his resume that will be recognized by agents and clients.

Compared to directors who can shoot music videos and commercials and producers who can do low-level work on a film crew to accumulate experience and qualifications, screenwriters are the profession most affected by the shrinking production of small and medium-cost films.

Moreover, there is no objective assessment standard in this industry. Only experienced producers and directors can evaluate the quality of the script. And they are the group of people with the most scarce time.

Opening up more opportunities for them is the most difficult part of Ronald's operation.

Just when he didn't come up with many good ideas, David Simkins, who had been daydreaming about being in charge of script review, found him.

Due to well-known reasons, my work has been greatly affected in the past few weeks. Clients are quite crazy, my work pressure has increased, and I have stopped updating. Now the momentum has turned bad, and many clients have given up. From today on, I will resume updating. I will increase the update volume according to the situation, hoping to make up for it.