Text | Susheng
In 2011, David Finch was nominated for best director at the 83rd Academy Awards for "The Social Network", and a few years later, when the special edition was produced, everyone knew how to make "Social Network".
From the rehearsal after the script was finalized, "Social Network" was different from the current "fast food production".
The creators of "Social Network" began to study the script from the first three weeks of filming, which made everyone who clicked on this documentary feel excited, to put it bluntly, this is what they think of filmmaking as it should be.
The director, screenwriter, and lead actor sit together to rehearse each line to be uttered, trying to use each word accurately and close to the character's own personality, which makes sense for a biopic based on a live-action adaptation.
This has also created an amazing speed of speech that countless people can't help but pause.
The continuous rehearsal not only focuses on the dialogue of each scene, but also brings the status of the position and performance. This allows the director to understand what the performance status of the set is, and the screenwriter sitting on the sidelines can also give the first reaction and modify it as appropriate.
It can be seen that Hollywood's respect for screenwriters is indeed not just a version of the Chinese screenwriters, and the depth of this cooperation should be the normal appearance of film production.
In this process, not only the director will tell his own ideas, but more importantly, the actors are familiar with the psychology of the character, and why the screenwriter is writing here. The whole process is an open and free discussion, and the discussion means that the actors, directors, and screenwriters all start from their own perspectives and make reasonable adjustments, rather than saying a word.
In the process, Jesse Eisenberg says his favorite thing to do is watch the director figure out what every sentence means and figure out why they're here.
Although in my personal opinion, this is what an actor should do, but no matter who does it, it is clear to everyone after all, and this is why in the 70-80 days of post-shooting, the script has basically not changed.
If all of the above content is well known as "should be done", then the director who talks about the drama later is relatively industry dry goods.
"As soon as anything is willing to damage his ego, [he] has to extinguish it immediately, like a quick fire extinguisher," is David Finch's description of Zack Burke's character's state in the opening scene.
The opening lines of the film are tight bar dialogue, and the script alone is written on ten pages. The dense lines and jumping content made this passage often used to pull film material later, and regarded it as an example of character appearance introduction.
Compared with many current film and television works, in order to save trouble, the actors are asked to describe their own life and personality. It is obviously much smarter to show a smart boy being dumped by a girl and then let him protect himself in his own way.
Of course, this clever approach was achieved after 99 shots. At the end of the day, David Finch joked that it was a pity that he did not shoot 100 pieces, we only shot 99 pieces, which was already very economical!
There are many other little secrets like this, and if you don't look at it, you wouldn't think that some of the costumes in the film were custom-made at the Armani shop in Beverly Hills.
Justin Timberlake plays Sean Parker in the film, and the shirt that is praised by the people in the play is one of them. This Armani became a "treasure" in justin Timberlake's mouth that allowed him to better understand the state of the character.
After all, after wearing the same costume as the character, you can feel the state of the character more, which is quite cute.
And the props don't stop there, when David Finch wants the characters in the show to actually eat. The crew prepared crab tongs, raw salmon sauce and other dishes for them. These actually do not look very professional, at best they are careful in detail.
But the choice of details is the most practical dry goods of David Finch in the whole documentary, and the pursuit of details does not mean that all places are pursued, but that the most appropriate details are selected to be sculpted. Movies based on live-action events naturally require attention to different details and other genre films.
To make the character as close as possible to the real and the most superficial is "like", and many times people in life will not have the same high score as the actor's appearance, which requires working hard from habits and small actions, so that the details completely serve the character.
The mannerisms of the characters when enjoying the food, the choice of viewpoints in thinking about the problem, and the use of "I" or "we" in the chat all add information to the characters to a certain extent.
In the play, it is two actors who play twin brothers, and when they auditioned, they watched "Twin Brothers", which allowed them to distinguish the differences between the two roles and the focus. In Twin Brothers, when The British actor Jeremy Irons plays one of the twins, he will put the weight of his body on the heel, and when he plays the other, he will move the center forward, close to the soles of his feet, so that the one who leans forward will feel aggressive.
The biggest challenge for Amy Hammer and Josh Pintz is not to make the behavior seem deliberate. By the way, the mainland translation of Twin Brothers is "Iniquity Buckle" and is directed by David Cornenberg.
People who have seen "Social Network" actually have a deep impression of the twins, although the two are different people in the film, but later made a face change, giving Josh Pintz the appearance of Amy Hammer. I have to say that when "Green Book" stirred up this technology again, it was not new in Hollywood.
This actually means that Amy Hammer has twice the amount of work, but can't get twice as much happiness ~ as an actor of David Finch, you have to accept repetition over and over again, from the first shot of the film 99 times to see the director's perfectionist attributes, and then 40, 50 times is normal.
In the face of this kind of high-intensity work, Jesse Eisenberg's mentality is that the tension will naturally disappear after performing over and over again, and there will be no worry about the more than 100 people in the whole crew waiting for you, because everyone knows that it is normal to come dozens of times.
Near the end of the show, David Finch pulled the screenwriter to his side and said that after filming the penultimate scene, he would drive home. The screenwriter couldn't laugh enough, and felt the director's sense of humor explode. When it was time to rehearse the final scene, the assistant director asked the screenwriter to choose the background, and when the costumes let him determine the dress of the scene, he learned that David Finch had actually driven home.
Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin directed the final scene of less than 2 seconds. After shooting two, he felt that it was ok and decided to finish the work. The first conductor came up to him and said that if we only gave David two mirrors he would kill me. Aaron Sorkin "So let's shoot a few more, exactly how about following those two shots?" ”
As a result, the movie was completed.
"I don't test everyone's preferences, ask everyone's opinions, and then go for what they like. I don't know what people want, but I do know people don't want the same thing. ”
- Alan Sorkin
Screenwriter of The Social Network