Mimi Rogers couldn't help it, she couldn't get a word out about Confucius' teachings.

American society always likes to give some nonsense to Confucius. In fact, the words of this oriental wise man were collected and published by his disciples. If you look up, you will know that many of the words were not said by him.

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The reason why American people like to use "Confucius said" as a joke is because his English translation name "Confucius" sounds homophonic with "Confused". Many specious "famous quotes" have been attributed to Confucius.

On the head.

However, the words quoted by Ronald sounded very ancient. They were similar to the words in the Bible, and the language of that time was simple and rhythmic. Mimi Rogers did not dare to make a mistake, so she had to change the topic and stop talking about it.

What kind of Eastern philosophy can be introduced into the teachings of Scientology to avoid making a fool of yourself?

But Tom Cruise was a little interested in Confucius. He found an opportunity to ask Ronald alone:

“Is there any way through Confucius’ teachings that can improve my ability to read and understand other people’s words?”

"this?"

Ronald was speechless for a moment, so he just found a few ancient classics translated by Gu Hongming and flipped through them casually. Many people in Hollywood admire philosophy and like to say seemingly profound things. They would memorize a few sentences themselves and show off when appropriate.

I never thought about being a life coach?

After thinking for a while, Ronald found a passage that seemed to meet Tom Cruise's requirements.

"When a person has a standard of excellence before him, only then will he have a fixed and clear purpose.

With a fixed and clear purpose, only in this way will he have peace of mind and peace of mind.

With peace of mind, only in this way can he have peace and tranquility of his soul.

With peace and tranquility of soul, only then can he devote himself to deep, serious thinking and reflection.

And only through deep, serious thought and reflection can one achieve true understanding."

"That makes sense..." Tom Cruise snapped, clasping his hands together and exclaiming, "When I signed the contract with Paula, I wrote a list of all the most famous directors in Hollywood that I wanted to work with.

I really set a standard of excellence, and then I have a direction no matter what I do in filming.

It seems that I also need to set a goal for dyslexia."

"Well..." Ronald thought to himself, is this okay?

"Sorry, Tom, I really know too little about dyslexia to give you more guidance. In addition to Scientology, why don't you also find some other experts to talk to?"

"Hmm..." Tom Cruise nodded immediately.

But Mimi Rogers quickly came over and started chatting with Tom again. This woman was very smart and tried to occupy as much of Cruise's time as possible, so that other people's influence on him would be minimized.

"Ronald... let's go inside and have a chat?"

Jerry Bruckheimer came over. He and Don Simpson came to see Ronald not just to celebrate.

"Okay, I'll come as soon as I go, you can have fun here." Ronald told Diane, and went to a small room on the second floor of the room with Bruckheimer and Simpson for a secret conversation.

"This is the Top Gun tape, the latest one."

When Don Simpson pressed the remote control, a 21-inch color TV in the room was turned on, and then he played an unlabeled videotape into the VCR below.

A commercial for a knock-off version of "Top Gun" appeared on television.

A fighter pilot named "Mustang" placed a Pepsi Diet Coke in the cockpit fixed to the cup holder.

In order to drink the Coke, he did the same inverted flight as the Lone Ranger played by Tom Cruise in the opening scene of "Top Gun", scaring away the MiG pilots. In this way, the Coke was smoothly poured into the cup under the influence of gravity.

inside.

"Hahaha, this is an advertisement shot by Kathryn Bigelow for Pepsi. She is very skilled in camera movements."

Ronald recognized it as the Daydream Company, which used the stunt model of the ground cockpit made by Cameron during the filming of Top Gun and hired Kathryn Bigelow to shoot the Pepsi commercial.

"Did they really put the commercial at the top of the video tape?" Ronald looked at the Casio electronic watch and saw that it didn't even show the Paramount title, it was just a minute-long commercial.

"Yes, Paramount agreed. I will talk to you about this later. Let's watch the tape first." Don Simpson motioned for Ronald to continue watching.

"Pepsi, the choice of the new generation!"

After the commercial ended, a text appeared on the TV, warning that it should not be played in for-profit situations without permission. The background was specially made into pink, green, and blue, constantly flashing and changing.

"This is an anti-theft measure, combined with the automatic anti-theft chip of the video recorder, so that consumers cannot make a copy themselves and show it to their friends." Bruckheimer explained the technical details.

Ronald nodded to understand that except for the one he bought, video recorders produced before the Supreme Court's Sony v. Universal case and now American video recorders cannot rip, otherwise they will be like this warning, the background will flicker and cannot be viewed.

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"Dong dong...dong dong..."

The familiar bell rang at the beginning, and the opening credits of Top Gun, telling the origin of Top Gun flight school, appeared on the TV screen. Then came the names of Tom Cruise, Ronald, and the two producers, and finally

In the dim sunrise, the F-14 Tomcat appeared on the deck of the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier.

"This picture..." Ronald turned to Don Simpson and asked.

"Yes, this is a standard recently explored by Hollywood. During the telecine transfer, it is cut manually by the staff." Don Simpson nodded, confirming Ronald's guess.

This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! "So that's it. I thought, how can the 2.35:1 anamorphic wide screen be displayed on a 4:3 TV screen."

Ronald was a little relieved.

In the early days, movies were the same as televisions, with an aspect ratio of 4:3.

In the 1950s, after most of Hollywood's business was taken away by television stations, Hollywood companies found a wide-screen solution to compete with television.

Old movies are all in 1.33:1 format, which is perfect for showing on TV sets. In order to persuade everyone to go to the cinema to watch, Hollywood invented 1.85:1, 2.35:1, etc., different wide screen formats. This wide screen can be watched on TV sets.

The unparalleled large format attracts audiences to go to the cinema to see truly wonderful pictures.

However, since the 1980s, with the popularization of video tapes and cable TV, many people have begun to watch wide-screen blockbusters on their TV sets at home.

There are generally two ways to deal with the 1:85 matte widescreen on TVs, either by deforming the aspect ratio and forcing it into a 4:3 TV. Or by leaving a black border on the top and bottom, so as to maintain the original length.

width ratio.

But "Top Gun" used a 2:35:1 Panavision camera, and the anamorphic wide screen shot had a particularly large aspect ratio, almost equivalent to two 4:3 narrow frames superimposed in parallel.

If the deformation method is used, the character will become very ridiculously thin. Not to mention that the audience will look strange, a star like Tom Cruise will never allow himself to become that ugly.

If the upper and lower edges are cut, then the upper and lower black edges of the entire TV will occupy almost half of the frame.

This is also intolerable. TV sets are inherently small, and most new TVs in people’s homes are around 21 inches. In some central and southern regions, old-fashioned 14-inch and 16-inch TVs are still very common.

If a wide black border is left at the top and bottom, the character will become very small and the expression cannot be clearly seen.

So, in this "Top Gun" video, Paramount seems to be taking a new approach to handling the widescreen conversion.

When converting the film to a magnetically recorded video tape, the staff seemed to use a 4:3 frame on the screen to cut off a section of the original wide screen so that the actors could appear on the TV without distortion.

The disadvantage of this is that the visual impact of the wide screen that the audience can enjoy, and the blank canvas that can accommodate three people talking, have been cancelled.

In the opening shot of the F-14 Tomcat taking off from an aircraft carrier, only the nose of the fighter jet was cut away. The aircraft carriers on the left and right sides of the background, as well as the vast sea and sky, were all cut away.

"At most, some of the visual impact of the wide screen will be lost, but the plot and the actors' performances will be intact."

Don Simpson introduced to Ronald that this was a technical route he carefully selected. Taken together, the audience can restore the plot to the greatest extent.

As for the lack of impact of watching it in the cinema, who stopped them from going to the cinema?

Ronald continued to watch. He wanted to see how the technicians would deal with the later footage of the Lone Ranger returning to the deck and waiting for an interview with another pilot outside the carrier commander's door.

Here, there is a scene of the Lone Ranger, Goose, and another pilot, Jaguar, having a conversation outside the door. The three people are talking side by side, and there is still a blank space to show the environment inside the aircraft carrier.

When the results were transcribed into video tapes, the technicians did a second editing process. When each person spoke, they cut to the front face shot of the actor. Then when the other actor answered, they cut to it again.

They cut a wide-screen frontal medium shot of Ronald into three frontal close-ups.

"Hahaha, so that's what you did, French Open-style editing." Ronald smiled and leaned back. In this way, the originally vast artistic conception became the kind of big heads facing the actors in TV dramas, cutting according to the dialogue.

Editing style of close-ups of people.

This editing method was first used in a TV series called "French Open". Every time a person speaks, he is given a close-up shot. It is easy for the audience to understand, but some carefully arranged scenes are 4:3

The picture frame was cut off.

"Do you agree? We think this is the most effective of the three methods combined." Jerry Bruckheimer happily supported next to him.

"It's good. I think it's relatively the best way." Ronald nodded in agreement with their choice.

"Very good", Don Simpson pressed the pause button. The three of them had watched this movie no less than a hundred times, and they almost vomited. Seeing that Ronald agreed to handle it this way, they stopped the screening.

"One more thing. Pepsi-Cola is very satisfied with your Daydream advertising work. They also proposed to jointly promote the sales of video tapes with Paramount, so... we promised you a change in the 1% share."

"How to change?" Ronald crossed his legs, thinking that this was the most important reason why the two producers came to him today.

"Well, Ronald Pepsi has a proposal. They will spend another eight million dollars to promote this advertisement on TV, and then add a video sales notice at the end of the advertisement. Paramount promised to sell the video

The price is reduced by six dollars, so..."

"Do you want to lower the price?" Ronald was a little unhappy. He received dividends based on the sales of the video tape. For every dollar the price was lowered, he would lose one cent.

"It's like this. Pepsi-Cola has invested a lot of money this time, and Paramount also wants to try a new pricing strategy. We came to you just to see how we can make up for your losses." Bruckheimer said next to him.

One sentence.

Anyway, "Top Gun" was a hit, and Ronald Lee was making a ton of money for himself and his partner Don Simpson. There was no need to deduct his already meager money on the tape.
To be continued...