Chapter 47: Tyrant on the Set

When Su Yun and Lin Jingying returned to the cabin together, Tom's parents, who had heard the news, were sitting in the living room with looks of disbelief on their faces, looking confused.

Who could have imagined it?

I originally thought that the person was just temporarily living in the town for a while, but it turned out to be a staff member of the crew of the great director Kubrick.

"Excuse me, is it the Stanley Kubrick I was thinking of?" Tom's mother Mary asked tentatively.

"Yes, that's right. It's the director of 2001: A Space Odyssey that our family watched!" Tom shouted happily, and then as if he had thought of something, his cheerful voice gradually lowered, "They want to find me to play a role."

"Yes, we think Tom's image is very suitable for the role of 'Martin', and he has passed our first round of auditions. If nothing unexpected happens, we will wait for Mr. Kubrick to come back for another round of auditions. If all goes well, Tom will be an actor." Su Yun followed up.

So the worried parents couldn't help but look at Su Yun with complicated eyes. Finally, Mary spoke again: "I also know that Tom likes acting - when he lived in New York, he once participated in the local drama troupe..."

"From that time on, he had already shown his talent for acting, and I was his most loyal audience."

"I've always been interested in the theater since I was a kid, but I never tried it because it was considered immoral to go to Hollywood when I was growing up."

"That's great, let Tom help you make your dream come true!" Vivian said, clapping her hands.

"But the road to a career in show business is very difficult. I don't know if Tom is just interested for a while, or..." It was OK to participate in stage plays at school. After the performance, he could go home and be looked after by his family.

Once he entered the Hollywood entertainment industry, he would have to travel all over the country with the crew to make movies. Maybe Tom would lose his normal childhood... Mary, who loved children, felt palpitations when she thought of this.

"I think we should respect Tom's opinion." Seth, as stepfather, looked at Tom gently, "Tom, tell me, what is your choice?"

"I, I haven't thought about it yet..." His mother's obvious resistance made Tom, who was originally happy, become a little hesitant.

"Just follow your own ideas. Don't worry too much. We will all support you." Seth touched his hair and turned to look at Su Yun. "I'm sorry, this happened a little suddenly. Can you give us some time to think about it?"

"No problem, but please do it as soon as possible, because we will interview a group of people next. If there are more suitable young actors, we will sign the contract as soon as possible and start filming the movie." Su Yun put his arm around Vivian's shoulder and pretended to go over and chat with Zhuang Long, Lin Jingying and the nanny, three people who looked like adults, and then spoke in a tone of announcement that the discussion was over.

They looked like insignificant children who had come with their parents to see the world; but in reality, the only ones who had the power to make decisions in this living room were probably these two "children".

After politely seeing off Tom and his family of three, Su Yun quickly called Kubrick.

"Oh, everything is going smoothly on my end. Your remuneration has been negotiated to 6% of the box office share, and the investment in the film has also been negotiated to more than 5 million US dollars. Together with the remaining funds, the total investment amount will probably be 6 million US dollars - that is to say, the production cost of "Artificial Intelligence" will be 6 million US dollars for the time being." Kubrick said on the phone.

This number is not much for him now, but considering that the most important minor protagonist and an important second male lead are both Chinese - then, it is really Kubrick's ability to get this number for this movie.

You have to know that Lu Shaolong's "Dragon Fight" was said to have an investment of 800,000 US dollars, and including those scattered expenses, the total production cost was only 850,000 US dollars.

Not to mention that Lu Shaolong had already gained some reputation in Hollywood before this and had a foundation.

The foundation of Su Yun's upcoming film "Artificial Intelligence" is based on Kubrick's banner.

"Don't worry about me. When I was preparing for the release of A Clockwork Orange, I studied the algorithm for tracking box office data, and later developed a computer system for tracking box office data. After I told the process to Variety magazine editor Green, Variety recently released a box office statistics summary..." Kubrick even had a hint of pride in his tone when he said this, as if giving such a statistical system directly to someone else was not something worth feeling sorry about...

My goodness, it turns out that the modern box office statistics algorithm that has become the norm in the film industry was actually thought up by this "little" clever guy who mainly works as a director but actually serves as a screenwriter, photographer, composer, producer and other multi-tasking roles, and wants to get involved in everything from early preparation to mid-term shooting to post-production special effects.

This reminded Su Yun of the "joke" that Kubrick had with the cinematographer because of his desire for control. It is said that Kubrick, who was ordered to take over the directorship of the movie "Spartacus" in a critical moment, was very dissatisfied when he was told during the filming that he could not change the script as he pleased as before. He turned around and started a confrontation with the film's cinematographer Metty.

At that time, Kubrick was still a young man in his early thirties, while photographer Matty was already a well-known veteran photographer.

Because he was harassed by the producers and couldn't do anything about it, Kubrick, who used to be a photographer, turned his tyrannical eyes to the photographers, wanting to "instruct" the old photographer Matty to shoot according to his own ideas.

Veteran cinematographer Matty felt that Kubrick's "pointing and criticizing" interfered with his work, and he got so angry that he quit the filming midway.

Generally speaking, if a cinematographer leaves during the filming process, the filming of the crew will at least be delayed or even temporarily stopped; but since Kubrick was a cinematographer by training, he happily took on both the director and cinematographer roles. He completed most of the filming work by doing both.

It was a perfect counter to the attitude of "If you can do it, go for it", and a neat and arrogant rebuttal of "I'll do it, and I can also win you an award" - because the film called "Spartacus" still had Mati's name on the cinematographer list, so when the Oscar for Best Cinematography was presented the following year, Mati, an old cinematographer who had not done much work, inexplicably won his first and only Oscar for Best Cinematography in his life...

After Matty, who had won the award for free, went on stage to receive the award in a daze, the crew realized that they had forgotten to remove his name from the staff list...

This one dared to come forward (to catch the shot), and the other one also dared to come forward (to receive the award on the stage). This is truly a grand prize for confusing human behavior.

I don’t know how those Oscar complainers with the Li and Bao names who tortured themselves to death just for a little golden man felt when they heard the confusing news that “you can actually win the golden man for free”…

Of course, it was also because the film did not go as planned, but was instead watched by the producers and had various restrictions. In order to achieve maximum freedom in filming in the future, Kubrick left the legendary free America and settled in Britain.

If it weren't for Vivian's illness, he probably would never have returned to this hometown that was said to be free but was actually not free.

The next day, Kubrick and his assistant Drake returned with a new contract, and also brought back a candidate for the leading role - Dustin Hoffman, who played Henry, the adoptive father who brought a little robot girl back for an experiment in order to heal his wife's pain of losing a child, but finally decided to abandon the adopted robot daughter after his biological son woke up.

Come to think of it, Tom really does look a bit like this actor: in the movie "Rain Man" that Su Yun had watched, he played the autistic brother and Tom played the normal brother, and he won an Oscar again for his role as an autistic patient.

It's quite a coincidence. Now they play father and son, and in a few years they will play brothers...

Of course, Hoffman at that moment was not yet the actor who won two Best Actor awards later on, but just a half-super newcomer who won the Best Newcomer Award and an Oscar nomination for the movie "The Graduate".

However, Su Yun has also watched the classic movie "The Graduate" and really liked the two songs in it, "The Sound of Silence" and "Scarborough Fair". Therefore, she has no other opinions about this person being her future collaborator.

After returning the photo of Hoffman to assistant Drake, Su Yun went to Kubrick to report the progress: "We have not yet been able to successfully negotiate with Jane Fonda, the actress who plays the foster mother..."

"Don't worry, she will come." Kubrick said confidently.

Facing Su Yun's puzzled look, Kubrick explained: "Her husband Hayden has been planning activities recently, but he is too idealistic and can't get much money for the activities."

"Then, if she wants to continue, Jane Fonda must go back to work..."

Perhaps the title of God was not given for nothing, because that night, Su Yun received a call from Jane Fonda.

On the phone, she said very sincerely that she needed a job and could even reduce her salary a little bit...

"Does your husband agree with you going out to work?" Su Yun couldn't help but ask.

"Of course I agreed. He is actually a very easy-going person and he loves me very much. Even though he doesn't like it, he respects my work and ideas..." Her words easily revealed her admiration and love for her husband, and Su Yun almost got goosebumps when she heard it.

After informing Jane Fonda of the address and asking her to come for an audition tomorrow, Su Yun received another call from Tom.

"Because of Seth's support and funding, you were able to convince your mother, right? That's great!" Su Yun was delighted from the bottom of her heart when she heard Tom happily say that he could come to participate in the runoff.

Well, now that everyone is here, this movie can be shot quickly and smoothly!

However, it turned out that she was overthinking it.

She got away with it with her youthful acting skills honed when she made her debut film in Hong Kong, thanks to the special effects of matte painting, her age advantage, and the low requirements of commercial films.

Now she has fallen into the hands of Kubrick, who is known as the tyrant on the set. Even though her acting skills have been trained in the small dark room and have been improved by several levels compared to when she filmed "The Perfect Match", when facing talented and hardworking movie actors and actresses, it is more than just a little unsatisfactory.

Because it was so "stunning" at first, even Kubrick didn't think of it at first.

It is true that comparing people will make you miserable, and comparing goods will lead to throwing them away.

Throughout the entire set, the best performance was by Jane Fonda, who had the best value for money. However, the one who had the most scenes with Jane Fonda was Su Yun, who was dragged down by the overall performance.

"Again."

"Again."

"Again."

The God who once favored her basically said nothing, nor did he directly point out the areas he thought were not good enough. He just spent a lot of money to let Su Yun do it again and again.

Su Yun: So love will disappear, right? #tearscathead

Tom, who was even worse than her, was overly energetic because of his excessive admiration for Kubrick and his love of performing. He was not as exhausted and exhausted as Su Yun.

"Are you okay?" During the rare break between filming, Tom sat next to her and asked with concern.

"Nothing, just a little tired..." Su Yun replied weakly, "I feel like I'm about to turn into a robot that can't cry or laugh..."

Tom blinked his eyes, and as if an idea had suddenly occurred to him, he patted the chair: "I'll tell you a joke to relax you!"

"Come on." Su Yun finally became interested and sat up straight: I really want to see what jokes were like in the 1970s.

"Once upon a time, there was a man... Hahaha, he went out in the morning... Ahahahaha, that's so funny..." Tom didn't finish a few words before he started laughing.

How did a person like him who tells jokes but ends up laughing so hard that he can't continue talking survive to this day? !

"You have a low sense of humor, so don't force yourself, okay?" Seeing that he was about to choke from laughing, Su Yun couldn't help but tactically lean back a little.

"No, hahahaha..." Tom finally stopped laughing, but when he saw Su Yun walking away from him with a cautious look on her face, he suddenly felt a little aggrieved.

"I have another special skill - I can imitate Donald Duck's sneeze!" Knowing that he had just made a fool of himself, Tom was very careful this time and did not wait for Su Yun to react. He pinched her neck a few times and sneezed with a quacking sound that was exactly the same as Donald Duck's sneeze in the cartoon.

"See, I didn't lie to you. Ann, Cathy, and Marian all said they looked very similar!" Tom was so proud of himself after successfully performing the trick. "What are you trying to say to me with that look?"

Su Yun: A look of care for the mentally retarded.