Chatty Hollywood

"Is this a improvised script you created!?"

Looking at the draft of the script that Charlotte handed her, Jodie Foster was a little surprised,

"Did you get kicked out in the past few days?"

"……Yes."

Although this was not the case, Charlotte was not stupid enough to tell her what he had done in the past three days. He nodded.

"After watching "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", I was very interested in the adaptation plan you mentioned, so I rushed out a draft of the script."

"This script of yours..."

Judy pondered for a moment,

"It seems that the adaptation of the original work has been very extensive!"

"This is inevitable!"

Charlotte spread her hands,

"The original work was written by Washington Irving in the early 19th century. Compared with this era, many concepts are very different. To meet the taste of today's audience, large-scale adaptation is necessary!"

"That's true!"

The movie queen was convinced by Charlotte,

"So you introduced a lot of elements from detective movies?"

"That's right!"

Charlotte smiled evilly,

"I actually want to know what a Sherlock Holmes believer who believes in logic and reasoning would look like when he encounters a real monster like the Headless Horseman."

"You are such a wicked person!"

Imagine that scene, the actress also covered her mouth and laughed,

"But I like the idea."

"In my plan, this will be a dark fantasy horror film."

Charlotte went on to state her plan;

"And after incorporating elements of detective films, there may be some funny elements."

"Sounds like fun!"

Jodie Foster nodded,

"Speaking of Sherlock Holmes, I am reminded of a movie that was released more than a year ago, which seems to be called "The Return of Sherlock Holmes"——"

"That movie!"

Charlotte suddenly remembered—he had watched the videotape of that movie with Charlize before.

"It is a story about Sherlock Holmes coming to modern society. Although the box office was not high when it was released, I personally think it is quite interesting."

"Have you seen it too!?"

Judy suddenly became interested,

"I was still secretly... ahem, anyway, is that the feeling you want?"

"It should be different!"

Charlotte frowned and thought for a while,

"What I hope to get is a sense of fantasy and horror, rather than...how should I put it?"

Suddenly his eyes lit up,

"Let me give you a rough demonstration!"

"Demo!?"

Judy was stunned by Charlotte's words, but the next moment, she jumped up when she saw what the other party took out of the handbag.

"Why did you bring this thing again!?"

What Charlotte was holding in her hand was the human-skin book that had confused her for a long time!

"Don't be nervous! The evil god has been destroyed by me!"

Charlotte hurriedly explained,

"Now this book has been transformed by me and has a special purpose."

"Special purpose!?"

Jodie Foster carefully looked at the human skin book in Charlotte's hand, as if it was a beast that would choose people to eat at any time.

"It won't be again-"

"Just take a look!"

After saying that, Charlotte opened the human skin book.

"This is--"

Jodie Foster was stunned for a moment.

What is displayed on the pages of the human skin book is no longer complicated ancient characters, but a yellowing blank.

No, that's not blank!

Judy's eyes were fixed there, and in the yellowed blank space, a black spot could be seen gradually enlarging——

“This is—the Headless Horseman!!?”

Seeing the black spots gradually enlarging, and finally turning into a headless knight, covered in darkness, holding a battle axe, and riding a black horse, the actress's pupils suddenly dilated.

"how did you do it?"

“With some mysterious stuff, of course.

"

Charlotte shrugged.

"After killing the evil god, I studied whether I could reuse this human-skin book. Later, I discovered that I could directly use this book to realize some of the scenes I imagined in my mind."

"like this?"

Judy pointed blankly at the headless horseman in the human skin book,

“It’s really intuitive.”

"That's not all -" Charlotte smiled proudly,

"look!"

Following his words, the picture on the human skin book suddenly changed——

The headless horseman, who was covered in darkness, suddenly moved, and in front of him, a panicked man appeared and was running away.

The headless horseman galloped forward, getting closer and closer to the man, and then——

"puff!"

Blood splatters! Heads fly! !

"ah!!"

Although the pictures on the human skin book were closer to animation, the real texture still made Jodie Foster subconsciously exclaim.

"this thing……"

The movie queen immediately realized the purpose of the human skin book——

"You're not going to use this for pre-production animation, are you?"

"Don't you think it's appropriate?"

Charlotte asked rhetorically.

During the filming process, a problem that often arises is that a good script or a good story cannot make a good movie.

The reasons for this are very complicated, but if you exclude some human factors and consider it from a purely technical level, it is actually a problem in the director's process of converting text scripts into dynamic pictures.

In fact, all directors know that it is very difficult to transform from words to pictures. This is also the reason why split-shot scripts are produced.

Most directors have good painting skills just to visualize the scenes they imagine based on the script in their minds.

However, even so, what can often be realized are only individual static pictures.

Compared to a movie that lasts at least 90 minutes, these few still images are simply a drop in the ocean.

And this is why movies are prone to rhythm problems——

Although directors can imagine the script as shots and pictures, it is too difficult for them to calculate the time-consuming of these pictures during the imagination process.

So, when directors shoot all the shots they imagined in their minds, the problem arises——

Some shots are stinky and long, and some shots are obviously short of time. When put together, it is very easy to have unreasonable distribution of climax points and gentle areas.

At this time, it’s time for the editor to save the world!

However, editing is not a panacea.

Not to mention that some movies are simply hopeless. Even if they can be saved through editing, a new problem often arises——

The narrative is unclear!

After all, editing, as the name suggests, means cutting out parts and then splicing them together. The more that is cut from the original plot, the harder it is to tell the story.

Film production is actually a process of constantly solving problems and then constantly creating problems.

——And when the final problem cannot be solved, the movie is basically not far away from being a blockbuster.

Of course, this is a bit far-reaching. When it comes to the rhythm problems that are easy to occur in movies, the root cause actually lies in the process of transforming the movie from a static script into a dynamic picture.

Will filmmakers just sit back and resign themselves to this issue?

Actually no.

In some large-scale productions, due to sufficient resources, the film crew will often produce some simple animations before shooting to further evaluate issues such as rhythm and special effects scenes.

This is the early animation.

Theoretically, pre-animation can expose at least 60% of the problems in the process of converting static scripts into dynamic images.

However, this is only theoretical. Due to cost and preparation time, even large-scale productions in the 21st century rarely produce pre-animation of the entire script.

This trick can only be used in some clips that the director attaches great importance to.

Now in the 1990s, there are even fewer film crews who can use this trick.

After all, the cost and time of producing preliminary animation are very touching.

However, the human skin book in Charlotte's hands now has the possibility to turn the impossible into possible.

PS1: "The Book of Magic" also has another name, "Inkheart", which is a fantasy film mainly starring Brendan Fisher, the protagonist of "The Mummy". It may be more of a children's story, but it's not bad. PS2: There is a movie called "The Return of Sherlock Holmes". It tells the story of Sherlock Holmes who froze himself and lived until the 1990s. Then he was accidentally thawed and then solved the case. It is a comedy. It was made in 1993. It looks like a domestic movie. Which channel showed it, but it was very early, I wonder if anyone remembers it?