Holly smiled and said, "You can improve your filming skills. As for the others, you can't help now. The system has a special training classroom, which contains theoretical knowledge of outstanding filmmakers in the past and future. You can conduct corresponding training as needed. However, the knowledge you receive will not exceed the next ten years. This year is 2005, and the knowledge you have learned will not be able to learn until 2015 or after 2015."

Xu Zhengdao was overjoyed when he heard this. He could actually learn the film knowledge for the next ten years. If there are any new knowledge and new theories in the next ten years, and after learning them, I will become the first generation of masters to set the trend. He was so excited that he rubbed his hands and couldn't wait to say, "I want to conduct training immediately. What are the main training contents?"

Holly crushed Xu Zhengdao's fantasy: "There is no new breakthrough in film theory in the next ten years. It is impossible to become a master of the generation through film knowledge in the next ten years. The training provided by the system is divided into four types: director, screenwriter, photography, and editing."

Xu Zhengdao was a little disappointed when he heard that there was no new theory in the movies in the next ten years, and he could not become a master of the generation by relying on future knowledge. However, he quickly thought about it. There was no such thing in the next ten years, and there would always be one in the next twenty or thirty years, right? If it doesn’t work now, he will definitely become a master of the generation in the future!

Xu Zhengdao felt that the most important thing now is to follow the system to learn and strive to become an excellent director. He originally wanted to train the system in directors, but when he thought of helping Chen Yimou write the script of "Golden Armor", he changed his mind: "Select a screenwriter."

"Swish!" The green codes around were scrolling, and in just one second, the white room was replaced by a classroom.

Holly looked at Xu Zhengdao and introduced: "The simulation training scene is started. You can choose the course below: Sidd Field, the main lecturer of "The Basics of Movie Script Writing", "Guide to Solve Difficult Problems by Film Player", Robert McGee, the main lecturer of "Stories", and Black Snyder, the main lecturer of "Save Cats"..."

Xu Zhengdao was thundered by "Save Cats" and couldn't help but say, "What is saving a cat?"

Holly explained: "Save Cats is a series of screenwriters written by Hollywood film screenwriter Blake Snyder. It mainly talks about the structure of the script and is known as the screenwriter's Bible. The book collects more than 200 movies from around the world and breaks them down into 15 beats summarized in the book."

When Xu Zhengdao heard that "Save Cats" was the screenwriter, the Bible lit up and immediately said, "I will learn this!"

"Swish", like a momentary movement in the Dragon Ball, a white man in his forties appeared in front of Xu Zhengdao. He looked at Xu Zhengdao and said expressionlessly: "I am Black Snyder, let me talk about "Save Cats" below."

Xu Zhengdao asked: "What is saving a cat?"

Black Snyder said: "In many old movies, there will always be such scenes. A fire or other accident happened, and a cat was trapped in the window, and the situation was very critical. At this moment, our hero stood up and saved the cat, and the audience applauded in unison. This is to save the cat."

Xu Zhengdao nodded. Not only Hollywood movies have such scenes, but also in Xiangjiang movies. For example, in Cheng Long's "Who Am I", when Cheng Long was chased by a bad guy, a cat fell from the upper floor. Cheng Long ignored the danger and rushed over to catch the cat. This is a typical "rescue cats."

Black Snyder continued: "There is a phenomenon that makes me feel uncomfortable in Hollywood. Although it is quite smart from a commercial perspective. This phenomenon is called striving for the first week's box office, nothing else matters, and it has become a trend. Film companies have thrown a lot of money to this goal and try their best to make more than 3,000 theaters in the United States when they schedule films. Then they can make a profit by relying on the box office hits on the first weekend. Who cares about that movie because of its bad reputation, so the box office in the second week immediately dropped by 70,000 to 80,000 yuan.

What puzzles me is that film companies spend a lot of money on celebrity pay, special effects, advertising and marketing, but as long as they are willing to spend US$4 to buy some paper and pen and write scripts well, they can save a lot of money and the movie will be better.

Take the fashionable movie "Tomb Raider 2" as an example. They dare to spend money, but they can't figure out what's wrong with this movie, and why they can't attract the original male audience group? I'm not surprised at all by this result. What went wrong with it? Director, where was the producer wrong? The answer is simple: I don't like the heroine Laura Crawford, who is cold and serious. Such a character setting is fine in the video game world and comics, but it won't make me want to go out to watch a movie.

The production team thought that as long as the protagonist was cool, you would like her, so let Laura drive a cool jeep, which is what they think is the character setting, thinking that this can create a popular hero. Well, everyone, I don’t care whether it is cool or not, this won’t work.

Why? Because, if you want to attract audiences to the world of movies, you can only let them fall in love with the protagonist of this hero journey first, and there is no other way. This is called letting the hero save the cat first!

Save the cat! This is just a metaphor, but it is a very basic truth. When the protagonist debuts, there will be a scene I call saving the cat. In addition to appearing, the protagonist will do something - such as saving the cat - to let the audience know what kind of person he is and fall in love with him because of it.

In the thriller "Midnight Love", Al Pacino plays a police detective. At the beginning of the movie, there is a trapping operation, and a group of parole prisoners who violated the rules are designed to participate in the New York Yankees fan event. They thought they could meet the players, but they did not expect that Al and his police brothers were waiting on the scene to arrest them.

Al looks cool in this scene because his trapping plan is cool, but he did something even more serious before leaving. Another criminal came to participate in the event with his son, but he was late. Al saw that the father had taken care of the child, so he deliberately lit up the police badge, nodded to the convenience and knew how to leave quickly. Al let him go because the guy was still with a young child. But in order to let you know that he was not a woman's kindness, he took the opportunity to say to the other party, and come and catch you later.

I don't know what you think, but I'm starting to like Al, and I'll be willing to follow him anywhere to fight crime. And you know? I'll want to see him win. It's all thanks to Al's interaction with the father who has the son of a baseball fan.

What would you think if the creators of Tomb Raider 2 spent $4 to create a scene to save a cat instead of spending $2.5 million to make a rubber coat for Angelina Julie? Their box office results might be much better.

Letting the hero save the cat first symbolizes all the common sense of screenwriters that I hope you can understand. For some filmmakers, this is also a law that must be followed for all good stories. These are valuable lessons that my screenwriter and I have learned in the harsh environment of Hollywood all year round…”

Hearing this, Xu Zhengdao nodded slightly. Isn’t this the case with Chen Yimou’s “Golden Armor in the City”? The male and female protagonists in it are all cold and cruel characters, and they can hardly see the glory of human nature in them. If the male and female protagonists of the story are too cruel, dark, and without the glory of human nature, it is difficult to impress the audience, and it is difficult to truly enter the audience’s hearts. Such a video is also difficult to gain the recognition of the audience.

Xu Zhengdao realized that his judgment on the script of "Golden Armor" was correct. The biggest problem with "Golden Armor" was that the male and female protagonists were too dark and they were not liked by the audience. If you want to make "Golden Armor" into a movie that the audience likes, the easiest way is to change the Second Prince to the protagonist, add more humane details to the Second Prince and shoot it from the perspective of the Second Prince.

Unfortunately, Chen Yimou didn’t listen, so the reputation of "Golden Armor" must be unhealthy!

Xu Zhengdao likes Hollywood movies and knows the power of Hollywood movies, but has not systematically learned the knowledge of Hollywood movies. At this time, after listening to Black Snyder's explanation, he truly felt the power of Hollywood and listened to the class with concentration.

After finishing his first lesson, Black Snyder left a homework for Xu Zhengdao, asking Xu Zhengdao to change Hitchcock's classic thriller "The Back Window" into a comedy. He told Xu Zhengdao: "In addition to changing the drama, thriller or horror movie into a comedy, you can also change the comedy into a serious drama; in short, changing the movie from one genre to another can quickly improve your ability to conceive the film."

Xu Zhengdao nodded and began to think about how to change "The Back Window" into a comedy. "The Back Window" is a classic Hitchcock movie, which mainly tells the story of photographer Jeffries' broken leg and resting at home. The bored Jeffries can only watch the daily lives of their neighbors in front of the window to pass the time. In this process, he witnessed a murder case and triggered a series of events.

"The Back Window" is a typical thriller, about murder without any funny elements. It is indeed difficult for Xu Zhengdao to transform such a story into a comedy. He thought for a long time and finally decided to transform "The Back Window" into a spoof comedy like "Shocking Scream".

Xu Zhengdao's male lead Zhuo Wei is not a sports photographer, but a paparazzi. His legs were not broken by a racing car, but were secretly photographed by Xiang Huaqiang dating a female star and being interrupted by Xiang Huaqiang. The movie opens with Zhuo Wei holding a telescope to observe the opposite building and seeing Gao Yuanyuan changing clothes as the opening.

While changing the script, Xu Zhengdao laughed and said sorry to Hitchcock in his heart. He felt that if Hitchcock knew that "The Back Window" was changed to this ghostly appearance by himself, he would definitely jump out of the tomb and beat him up.

He was busy until six o'clock in the morning. Holly reminded Xu Zhengdao to get up and go to the playground to exercise. Going to the school playground every morning to exercise is a compulsory course for Xu Zhengdao, because he knew very well that it would be impossible to be a director without a good health.

In the eyes of many people, director is a very glorious, a profession that can spend money and drink and sleep with beauties. Of course, this is true, but at the same time, directors are also a very hard job. Foreign directors, especially Hollywood directors, need to be much easier. Other jobs can be handed over to others, and the director is only responsible for art. There is no such condition in Haitang Kingdom, and the director has to take care of everything in the crew, which is similar to the aunts in the neighborhood committee. If something happens to the crew, the staff always like to find a director. During the filming of the film, they have to work fifteen or sixteen hours a day, which lasts up to two or three months. No good body can handle it.

Polish film master Kieslowsky once said that making movies does not mean audiences, film festivals, visits, it means getting up at six o'clock every morning, it means severe cold, rain, mud, and carrying heavy lighting equipment. This is a mentally debilitating industry.
Chapter completed!