Hollywood Production - Chapter 6

Time gradually came to the middle of May in 1991, Santa Monica was also shrouded in the scorching sun in the sky. Only at night, the cool wind from the sea could slightly dispel the heat and dryness of the day, making people feel a little more comfortable.

Duke was sitting on a balcony on the second floor of the villa, surrounded by white lights. In the center of the balcony was a small, round plastic table, and Duke was sitting in a rattan chair next to it, engrossed in thought. He was so deep in thought that he didn’t even notice the occasional mosquito that landed on him. The cool sea breeze blew from the west, the hands he placed in front of the typewriter slowly lifted and landed on the typewriter keys.

—

The first scene, the first act.

The security door to the elevator room on the ground floor was pushed open from the outside. A security guard with a walkie-talkie walked in and followed the vague sound until he found an elderly maintenance worker repairing something.

“Hey, you’re not supposed to be here!” He walked over and asked routinely.

“I know,” said the elderly maintenance worker, only showing half of his figure. “I was called to repair the wiring.”

“Why didn’t you notify me?” The security guard asked in a curious manner, “Show me your maintenance order.”

“Wait a minute.” The maintenance worker bent over to look for the receipt in the bag. His left hand had no thumb and was obviously disabled. “I found it.”

He slowly stood up, concealing the knife in his right hand behind the document. When the security guard’s attention was focused on the document, the knife in his right hand pierced the security guard’s ear.

“This is not personal!”

Duke’s writing has greatly improved with the use of the template. Many of the scenes in the film are borrowed from other films, but they are given new meaning with the addition of “Speed” plot. Duke is able to reference many of these scenes from the videotapes he has watched in recent years.

Writing is not a smooth process. Even though he has long-term learning and accumulation, he also has things he is not good at, such as emotional dramas.

Fortunately, this film does not need to highlight emotional dramas, and the male and female protagonists are just going through hardships and don’t have time to get together.

For several weeks in a row, Duke basically stayed at home. He had no good friends at all. Only when his mother was not busy, he would occasionally spend time with her.

“You don’t know how to write emotional dramas?”

At the dinner table, Mrs. Leah narrowed her eyes and looked at Duke and said. “It seems to me that you’ve had a lot of girlfriends since you were fifteen?”

“Mom, my time is precious, I don’t want to waste my time and energy on love.”

Probably because of the lack of communication with other people during this time, Duke has been talking a lot with his mother recently, some words jumped out without much thought, “I was just having fun with them.”

As soon as the words came out, Duke immediately noticed that his mother’s eyes had changed, and quickly said, “I’m full and I’m going to continue working.”

Going back upstairs and reading the finished script, Duke began to wrap it up. Including the outline and character setting, he has spent six full weeks, and the script for “Speed” is about to be completed.

The main plot of the script has not changed much, but he re-added most of the minor details. In addition, he also added a rough estimate of his own estimated budget to the back of the script. Although he is not a professional, he has been on many studios, and is no stranger to today’s Hollywood. Even if the estimated numbers are inaccurate, they will not be much worse then what a professional accountant will give.

According to Duke’s idea, a lot of unnecessary plots were removed, most of the props will be rented, and some expensive scenes will be shot with reduced-scale models. Which will reduce the cost from between 14 million and 15 million. to about 10 million dollars.

However, that is still a large and scary budget.

“No studio would put such a large sum of money on a new director.”

After the script was completed, Mrs. Leah naturally became the first reader. she first gave her opinion on the budget figures and said, “Even though Hollywood production companies have multiple financing channels, a lot of the money lost is Investor’s money, but…”

She paused, as if she was thinking about something, but finally shook her head and sighed, “A rational person wouldn’t make such a big gamble.”

“Then…” Sitting across from his mother, Duke asked earnestly, “Mom, do you think any film company would adopt this script?”

“Apart from limiting the danger to enclosed spaces like elevators and buses, the race against time is a bit creative.” She shook her head and said a bit bluntly, “Frankly speaking, Duke, I’ve seen a lot of movies and commercial scripts, this is at best average.”