Hollywood Road

Ask for monthly tickets and recommended tickets!

After waiting in Los Angeles for a short time, Murphy received the good news from Bill Rosses. He has obtained the support of several important figures such as Walter Robinson, and has started a relationship with the "Boston Globe" newspaper. negotiation.

In general, Bill Rossis' progress is relatively smooth.

On the other hand, Murphy also convinced Gal Gadot that although she still had some opinions, she kept them in her heart, and she will continue to serve as producer and executive producer in this project, and also with the two Tenth Century Fox made contact.

According to Murphy's idea, the investment and scale of the film are not large, and it will be operated as an independent film as much as possible. Now it is late July. If everything goes well, the film will be screened in Los Angeles before the New Year of 2012. , to get the all-important ticket to awards season.

It is impossible for a biographical film like this to have a big market, and the award season is the best place to go.

But in this way, if it is fully planned, the entire film will only take half a year from shooting to operation, which can be said to be very tense.

Murphy has already informed his team that the film will not have a particularly large scene. In terms of the ability of the entire team, as long as they hurry up, the possibility of completion is still very high.

However, this requires the full support of Twentieth Century Fox.

Fortunately, Murphy has established a relatively solid cooperative relationship with 20th Century Fox over the years, and there are powerful figures like Kara Firth echoing him. As long as the script and project proposal are completed, 20th Century Fox will give the green light to the project Not too difficult.

The investment in such a film is not high, and it has a natural topicality. Coupled with Murphy's strong appeal, the risk of investment failure is not great.

Therefore, for Murphy himself, the most important thing at this stage is to complete the script.

In fact, since the conversation with Ross Prison, Murphy has been taking time to write stories about Ross. These are basically derived from Ross’s own narration, and some are Murphy’s own observations. The bald-headed black man who grew up with Rose in the prison, because Rose had told him earlier, the other party also described Rose's growth and later actions to Murphy as objectively as possible.

These are the most basic materials. Murphy can only add them to the script after sorting out the main thread of the story.

To write such a film about the type of personal biography, the first thing is to shape the role of Diego Ross well.

A person has done a lot of things in his life. Ross is now in his forties. If the script covers his entire life history, it will definitely be too long and procrastinated. Murphy doesn't know much about Ross after he was released from prison, so It specifically intercepted the time period from Ross's youth to his imprisonment.

The theme of the film is of course not to describe how sinful Diego Rose is as the protagonist, but to explore why Rose turned from an ordinary and ordinary boy to a later drug lord.

Diego Ross has a real person, and Murphy will definitely shoot based on the facts he knows, but the movie comes from life, but it is higher than life.

The characters are first of all the characters in the story. The play itself tells the story. The characters must first obey the logic of the story before they have the meaning of existence. What the characters do in the story must conform to the setting of the characters and be logical. His actions are believable.

The story and the characters should complement each other. The story gives birth to the characters, the characters promote the plot, the setting of the characters becomes the inevitability of promoting the development of the plot, the development of the plot enriches the image of the characters, and finally helps the characters to establish their image.

Both the story and the characters are the key to an excellent play, and they should be indispensable.

Facing a character like Diego Rose and a series of stories related to him, Murphy's first principle is to stand firm on his own stand, which is the key to a successful personal biographical film.

One of the most important points, Murphy himself must understand, from script writing to filming preparations to post-production,

He's a director first and everything else second.

It is impossible for anyone to be completely neutral, and the director is no exception, but he must be relatively neutral at the very least. Otherwise, wantonly praising or belittling a person in a personal biography film will only make the whole film a laughing stock, and at the same time, it will affect the film's reputation. The protagonist becomes a laughing stock.

Like some biographical movies or TV series he has seen before, they extol a person who always describes the greatness and righteousness. Come on, if you belittle a person, you will definitely cast him down to the 18th floor of hell, and then ruthlessly press down on countless mountains to make the person appear worthless, but falsely make people feel that this is a false accusation.

These two methods are undoubtedly the most low-level methods of shooting biographical films, and Murphy knows very well that as long as he commits any of them, the film will basically be over.

Therefore, the whole story is to show the transformation process of the character Diego Ross from an ordinary person to a big drug lord in front of the audience with a suitable film method. As for how to evaluate this character, that is the audience's business.

However, this does not mean that he has to treat the character coldly, but that he has to be full of emotion in the process of writing.

Does the creator have real feelings? Did the creator put himself into the heart of the character? Do creators love their characters? Were the creators emotionally invested in the process? If you don't think about this question well, you will write it wrong in ten out of ten, and you will make those two fatal mistakes, and you will not treat the character as a human being.

In fact, the process of in-depth writing is to cultivate another type of relationship with the character, reveal the life of the character little by little, and show the psychological process of the character little by little.

From scratch, Murphy shaped the character's worldview and way of thinking step by step, and at the same time described his inner obstacles: on the one hand, he felt that he gave up on himself after being violated and unfairly treated, and even made life unsustainable; On the one hand, he can survive tenaciously, but he has to pay a considerable price for it.

This gradual and in-depth cognitive process should also be reflected in the play, so that the audience, like the screenwriter, is curious, confused, understanding, and finally resonates with the characters.

A successful screenwriter, when he has shaped the character to a certain extent, he will feel that he is right in front of him, knowing what the character will do and how to say it. For screenwriters, characters are real. Whether there is a prototype or not, what is created is not a virtual character, but the real you, me, and him in life.

In addition, the experience of a prototype character like Rose is far richer than most people imagine, so the story of the character must be reprocessed on the basis of his experience. The details of such a script are vivid and contagious. It is not something that the screenwriter can imagine out of thin air.

This is not a commercial sci-fi movie, but a biographical film. If a screenwriter puts all his "treasure" on his own talent when writing, the risk will be extremely high. The truly outstanding screenwriters of this theme are reality itself .

Because of the large amount of first-hand information obtained in the early stage, after having a clear position and theme, by the end of July, Murphy had basically completed the first draft of the script, and handed over the project plan that had been formulated long ago, together with the first draft. Kara Firth, for her submission to 20th Century Fox for review.

For a typical niche film like this, Murphy would of course not be able to get paid in a commercial production, and the total investment in the entire project was only 25 million US dollars, which was a typical small project for 20th Century Fox.

However, the goal of the film is very clear. Since it is a personal biographical film and also explores the process of changing mentality, it is natural to make a breakthrough in the awards season.

Twentieth Century Fox will use the fastest time in the program to review the project. Murphy also notified his team that he is ready to gather in Los Angeles at any time, and he himself continues to improve the script.

For a personal biographical film, after finishing the first draft of the script, the most important work of perfection is to continue shaping the protagonist.

Like this kind of movie, the protagonist’s character and world view need to be distinct and full of presence, so that the audience can clearly perceive his position. The ideal effect is that the audience can predict the character’s choice in a specific situation. If Murphy Setting a situation, such as the temptation or threat of a lot of money, the audience does not know how his character will choose after seeing it, which means that the character's worldview is not clear enough.

The most common and most suitable shaping method is to throw the character in front of the choice.

Not only movie characters, but in real life, people often face dilemmas. The final decision reflects the character and thinking. The audience will like the protagonist of the movie, often because the character will do things that they can understand but they cannot do. choose.

Therefore, letting characters face dilemmas is one of the best ways to shape characters.

Then there are the details, including Rose's appearance, which Murphy specifically noted in the script. No matter who the actor is, he must look quite strong.

This is not only in line with Rose's real situation, but also what a big drug lord should look like.

Let me ask, would the audience believe it if a protagonist with a flimsy skin appeared in this kind of movie?

After all this was done, Murphy re-sculpted Ross's childhood scenes. Psychologically, he likes to attribute people's personalities and complexities to childhood; and screenwriters also like to attribute characters' personalities and complexities to " prehistory".

This is a simple causal logic. Something in the past has created the current worldview, so that there are such and such actions and choices.

Generally speaking, the details in the script are not accidental or improvised, but carefully planned.

After Murphy was basically satisfied with the script, 20th Century Fox also received good news. The project was successfully approved, and 20th Century Fox was responsible for the investment and distribution.

At the same time, Robert Downey Jr. and the rest of the Stanton party also found Murphy. .

a