I’m in Hollywood

(TN Note: Sorry guys I"m sick, for the last two days I have constantly been throwing up, but after taking some pills I"m getting better.)

Johnnie To is one of the few Hongkong film directors who Eric likes the most, because of the big success of 《A Better Tomorrow》 a film made by John Woo in the year 1986. Most people only think of John Woo when they see Chinese action films with that kind of violent aesthetics, but Eric prefers Johnnie To distinctive personal style, his movies have their own blend of cold, violent, tragedy, philosophy and other elements that evoke pity or sadness.

《Running Out of Time》is one of the few films made by Johnnie To that impressed Eric the most, if you Judged the film from the perspective of the ordinary audience, then the word that will appear the most is definitely the word: Cool! That"s the main reason why Eric chose this movie.

This was a bold attempt by Eric, he wanted to see if a movie that didn"t exist in Hollywood history can succeed.

From his memories, he found that the copyrights for most of the films that were able to succeed in the next ten years were already sold to other studios, taking those films from the hands of those big giants is almost impossible. Especially if they know that Eric himself is looking for those movies, and the film that hasn"t been sold yet are hard to find, if he keeps shooting films at his current pace, in a year or two he wouldn"t find any thing to shoot.

Of course, this is a fairly safe attempt, first of all, 《Running Out of Time》 have a very exciting story, and the film also received Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks recognition, which shows that there is no difference in the taste of the eastern and the Western tastes audience.

Second, The name recognition of the two Toms and Eric, can guaranty that the film will do good at the box office, at least at the start there won"t be any problems. According to the Columbia data Department, with Tom Cruise popularity once again reaching a higher peak after experiencing the success of 《Rain Man》, and Tom Hanks just getting nominated for the best actor at the Oscar for his role in 《Big》. Plus the box office appeal of Eric"s name, it was very easy for the film to get more than $100 million dollars at the box office.

On April 5, in a large studio owned by Columbia, Eric

officially started shooting 《Running Out of Time》, the first things he was going to shoot is a series of indoor scenes, but this time Eric wasn"t going to shoot the scenes in a chronological order like he did in 《Pretty Woman》.

In 《Running Out of Time》 the image of the two protagonists is very clear, so he decided not to add any changes. As long as the actors can successfully do their role, no matter from which scene he began shooting he wouldn"t have any problems. So Eric decided to start from the simplest to the most complex.

---- ----

In an examination room, Cruise who plays Andy learned that his condition has gotten worse, so as he slowly wore his clothes he asked the doctor.

"How long?"

"Four weeks, if you start bleeding, you will die at any time." The fat doctor who was sitting behind a desk replied with a hoa.r.s.e voice.

Andy didn"t stop dressing when he heard the bad news, and after he fastened his belt, he handed a dozen banknotes to the doctor and said: "It does not matter, just give me four weeks of painkillers."

Taking the bottle of painkillers, Andy put on his coat and decided to leave, as he opened the door the doctor who seemed sad said: "I don"t think we"ll meet again."

"Maybe in the next life," Andy calmly replied.

"Pause!"

This scene was completely finished, when Eric shouted pause, he didn"t say "good" which means that something wasn"t right, sitting behind the monitor, a slight frown appeared on his face as he was thinking about something. Although he has been discharged from the hospital, Eric still had bandages wrapped around him, and he will occasionally get a headache, but after getting inspected several times, the doctor found no problems, so he wasn"t nervous about it.

Cruise acting was perfect, so Eric can easily combine the footage from this scene to the footage of Andy"s on the rooftop, and with some montage to slow some shots, he was sure this part of the film can achieve the desired result.

The staff who worked with him several times in other movies, have a tactical understanding not to disturb Eric once he gets caught in thinking, so they all started cautiously sorting the instruments without making any noise, waiting patiently for Eric to recover.

But after waiting for a minute Cruise got impatient, he felt that there was nothing wrong with his performance, and he really didn"t mind repeating this scene several times, but this silence was driving him crazy.

"Hey, Eric, how was that shot, do you need me to do it again?" Cruise finally could not help but walk to Eric side, and gently say to him

Eric who quickly come back to himself, raised and said to Cruise: "Sorry, Tom, I was thinking about something, so I got distracted."

"It doesn"t matter," Cruise showed a generous smile: "How was to shot, do you need me to start over?"

"I"m afraid we"ll have to do it again," Eric answered, "Can you wait for a moment?"

Shrugging Cruise retreated, and watched as Eric called the light engineer and ordered him to do something, then a few moments later all the lights in the studio began to dim, Eric who was staring at the monitor, and only told the light-engineer to stop when he was satisfied with the tuning.

---- ----

"OK, everyone ready, let"s do it again," Eric shouted.

A moment later, with everyone in his place, they started shooting again.

Eric carefully stared at the monitor, this picture of Andy and the doctors was perfect, much better than the one at the start.

This scene is used to ill.u.s.trate the status of Andy and why he was in a hurry, Eric was gonna combine this shot with the shot on the roof to demonstrate to the audience that this was a memory, and create a misunderstanding in the mind of the audience that Andy was gonna commit suicide by jumping from the roof top, and in the montage he was gonna make it look like this was a flashback.

Since this scene was gonna be used as a flashback, Eric felt the original lighting in the original film was too bright, the light was exactly the same as the light in the sunny rooftop, so this scene wasn"t able to give the audience a sense of difference, so the effect was much worse.

Eric wasn"t going to just remake the film while making the same mistakes, he was going to add his own touch. Johnnie To used the same light tricks John Woo used in his films, but unfortunately, he wasn"t a master in using light and color like John Woo,

Solving the light problem, Eric began focusing on Cruise performance, although this small scene doesn"t require too much acting, he wouldn"t let things slide. If Cruise performance can bring unexpected surprises, then he will be happy, and if not, then he wouldn"t hesitate to make him do it again until he meets his personal standards.