Chapter Thirty-Three The First Test Screening
"Who told you to come here today?" I smiled.
"Boss!" James came to me, choked, pointed to the people in the corridor, and shouted: "They are like us. After doing what they have done in these days, they don't go anywhere. The first place to come is this corridor. You cut it day and night inside, and everyone is waiting outside day and night! The office will never be cut off for twenty-four hours a day. Everyone says that this small room is full of hope for all of us. For this hope, we are willing to wait for death even if we are exhausted. Boss, look!"
James pulled me down on the balcony and pointed outside and shouted.
The moment I opened my eyes, tears gushed out!
The yard was filled with dark crowds! Old people, children, shop owners, women... The crowd stretched from the yard to Harvey Street. They looked at me in the strong wind, looking at my office, like a cold man looking at heaven with hope, praying that there would be light coming out there, even a little light could make them feel warm.
"Since they knew you started editing, they have gathered here spontaneously. There are old people with gray hair and children who can't speak in the middle. In order to protect the film from being stolen, they specially set up a patrol. They can see them around DreamWorks, whether it is day or night. Boss, I, James, have been in Hollywood for so many years, and have never seen any movie that will make the people so moved! Boss!"
James choked and couldn't continue talking anymore.
My tears blurred my eyes. Looking at the Harvey Street people downstairs whose hair was blown in the wind, looking at the children who were learning to speak, and looking at the elderly whose teeth were almost falling out, I grabbed the guardrail on the balcony, and my heart seemed to be stirring in the waves!
Looking at these cute Harvey Street people and looking at the employees behind me with red eyes, what can I do? The only thing I can do is to try my best to complete this movie, which will be their greatest relief.
"Employees! The people of Harvey Street! I have finished the movie! It's been successfully cut! The next thing you do is to go back and have a good sleep, and then wait for the day it will be released. On the day of its premiere, Harvey Street people will enter the cinema for free!" I shouted loudly.
The crowd surged violently like the sea when the storm came, and smiles climbed up everyone's faces. They looked at me with a smile and waved at me.
"Long live Dreamworks!" I don't know who shouted.
"Long live Dreamworks!"
"Long live Dreamworks!"
The shouts of the crowd made my eardrums buzz.
At 8 o'clock in the evening, the gate of DreamWorks closed early. The yard was empty, and more than 40 people were crowded in a small room in the factory shed and stared at the screen in front of them, silent. The first trial of "Lust and Caution" was held in this room.
In the center of the room, there is a projector, and I personally acted as the projectionist.
"Boss, will you start now?" Berg glanced at me.
"Start." Although I have edited this movie for a week, I have never watched the full version myself, so I feel a little nervous, my palms are covered in sweat.
The fat man took out the film from his suitcase and placed it on the projector. After fiddling for a while, he solemnly said to me: "Boss, okay!"
"Off the light!" I waved to Gans next to me, and Gans quickly shut the only headlight in the room.
The darkness immediately swallowed every corner. I seemed to be alone in the depths of the dark forest. There was silence around me, so silence made me panic. Even the hand holding the projector switch trembled slightly.
Bang! After a subtle sound, a beam of light projected onto the top of the screen. Under the faint light, there were more than 40 heads close together.
The screen was snow-white, and then a dot of ink appeared in the middle. The dot of ink expanded little by little, and finally expanded to the entire screen. A red dragon roared out and circled and landed in the center of the screen. The big characters of DreamWorks rose like flames under its sharp claws.
This is the opening of DreamWorks.
Then there are subtitles.
Screenwriter: Andre Corleon, Photography: Berger, Starring: James, Julie, Actors: Howard, Tim, Valente, Catherine, Director: Andre Corleon... (Proposed by James, except for me using my full name, everyone only uses their own name instead of their last name. They said this is respect for me.)
The projector made a whirring sound, and as the subtitles emerged, a smile appeared on the faces of those who saw their name.
After the subtitles were finished, the screen was pitch black and a passage appeared, which generally meant to introduce the history of the Civil War and then tell the audience that George is not very identifiable.
The first shot. The sky. The clear sky is vast. The camera slowly moves down, the flying flag, and then the medium shot of two armies (I didn't use the panoramic view stupidly, after all, there are only 400 extras, and I can't show the momentum of a war in any way.) A close-up of the generals on both sides in the team. Grasping the hand of the commander's knife, wide eyes, sweat and smoke on the cheeks.
A soldier shouted in his mouth. In the middle of the scene, two troops began to charge, the second camera and the third and fourth cameras reproduced at the same time, the explosion of loess and smoke, the moment when the two teams collided together, the fallen soldiers and the little flowers stained with blood.
The camera pulled apart from a soldier's chopped face and stretched to the middle scene. Then a war horse ran on the left side of the camera. The people sitting immediately were just fine. They appeared from the hillside. When they shot the camera upwards, there were no one people appearing on the arc of the hillside, then a few men, and then a team of people. The last team all appeared.
The subjective shot is a force from the north and the south fighting against each other under the hillside, showing a rare vision. It is not bad to pull out the command knife to lead the troops from the top of the slope to the southern army (in this shot "Lord of the Rings"), and the army swept towards the enemy like a flood breaking through the dike. Three groups of people and horses finally merged together, people were overturned and horses were overturned, and artillery fire was everywhere.
Everyone in the room was shocked. There were 400 people in the filming, which was sparse and it was finished without realizing it. But there was no battle with only 400 people on the Silver Tomb. It was so heart-wrenching that the fat man and Gans were next to me, with their eyes wide open, and their mouths wide open than the basin. Even the starring James couldn't believe that this movie was the one we were fiddling with.
"Boss... your editing is amazing! Shocking! I have never seen such editing techniques!" James gave me two thumbs up exaggeratedly.
Howard, Valente, Catherine, Tim, these people were also as stupid as a chicken. In the fifth show, the concierge played by Gith appeared. The old man's true performance in it was extremely outstanding, which made everyone laugh.
"Mr. Corleon! That's me! That's me! I didn't expect that I, Gith, was about to meet God's man, and could still be on the movie!" Gith pulled the corner of my clothes and jumped up like a child, extremely excited.
In the bed scene between Julie and James, some people were stunned at first, and some even screamed, and some even covered their eyes. But as the plot progressed, they gradually realized that the bed scenes seemed not only to be physical stimulation they imagined, but something that could not be said. This kind of thing made all seemingly erotic shots extremely heavy. They began to sympathize with them and began to worry about the ending of Dietley and Nothing. Several women actually held each other's hands tightly, trembling with nervousness.
The whole movie is 63 minutes long. When the scene ends, there seems to be a magical atmosphere in the air in the room. Under this breath, everyone forgets where they are. They forget that they are watching the movie, but think that they are Dietry or James in the movie. They listen to the screen with blurred eyes, sometimes smiling and sometimes crying. When Dietry chose to die with Wuji, they did not feel sad, but a satisfied and gratified smile appeared on their faces. After "theend" appeared, the room was as quiet as death. People looked at the snow-white screen and could not wake up from the movie for a long time, standing alone, as if sleepwalking.
Chapter completed!