How important was editing to a film? Before editing, films were simply life fragments. Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory featured employees entering a factory. The Arrival of the Mail Train showed a steaming train arriving at a station. It had been shot with a fixed camera. There was no story in it at all. After the initial curiosity they had poked in the audience, such “tricks” had been called boring and dull. Who would go to see how the gardener from Tables Turned on the Gardener played with a hose? Wouldn’t it be more entertaining to play with a hose yourself in your own garden?
Then, The Great Train Robbery came. It had been the first film that actually told a story, composed of fourteen different shots. The sparks evoked by the continuity of those shots constituted a complete film story. The audience could understand what the story was about perfectly, even without lines or explanations. It told a story wherein some outlaws carried out a robbery on a train and were chased and shot dead by a posse later.
Story and plot were what piqued interest in the audience. That is why they were willing to spend money on movies. The movie industry had developed very fast. There were more and more types of camera shots and more and more ways to format a montage sequence. In a word, editing was extremely important. It had made the movie industry rise and gave life to movies.
Almost all Hollywood blockbusters had more than two hundred hours of footage. Even High School Musical had nearly twenty hours of footages. Through editing, two different versions could be made from the same story. If frames, instead of footage, were calculated for a movie, since one film usually ran at 24 frames per second, there would be millions of frames. It was exactly the sequencing, collision, and combination of those millions of frames that formed a complete movie.
One frame more or one frame less could make a huge difference. Those extra frames or seconds could make a movie clumsy and tedious, and without those necessary frames, the plot of a movie could be illogical. As a result, the switching of scenes could be so abrupt that the characters in the movie popped up somewhere unexpected. Film editors’ jobs were to order these frames in a good sequence, without extra frames and not lacking necessary ones. The editing needed to be seamless and had to fit in the rhythm of the movie so that the story could be told and the emotions could be presented in the ideal manner.
During the shooting of a movie, the director and the cameraman were a couple. When it came to the editing phase, the movie couple would become the director and the film editor. Whether they had a happy “marriage” would decide whether it was a good movie or a terrible one. The couple should have chemistry between them, in terms of character, good collaboration, aesthetics, and so on. Otherwise, the marriage would probably end in divorce—and the cause of the divorce would be domestic violence.
Quentin Tarantino, the director of Pulp Fiction, once said, “When I was doing my first movie, the only thing I knew is that I wanted a female editor because I felt a female editor would be more nurturing to the movie and to me. They wouldn’t be trying to shove their agenda or win their battles with me. They would be nurturing me through this process.”
Apparently, Wang Yang’s editing teacher agreed with him. And as a result, Wang Yang also thought Quentin Tarantino’s remark made sense. Female editors were supposedly more patient. Besides, for High School Musical, women should know the youthful and positive feeling better than careless men.
After non-stop interviews in one week, Wang Yang finally found the right editor for him—Margaret Goodspeed, a middle-aged white woman in her forties, always wearing a pair of black-framed glasses. Very experienced, she had edited many films, including Four Rooms. She was even-tempered. During the interview, she had shown that she knew pretty well what High School Musical needed, which was a light, youthful, warm, positive feeling—an impression that everyone could go for what they wanted.
At the moment, Margaret was looking at the screen of a video editing computer in the editing room. On the screen, a set of shots to present Troy Bolton’s mental activity was being played. Moving the mouse, she was going to delete a few frames from the current set of shots. Wang Yang, next to her, called right away, “No! No! No! Margaret, you can’t delete these frames. I need them!”
“You need all of them.” Smiling gently at Wang Yang, Margaret said, “The movie lasts two hundred minutes after the initial editing. What we need to do now is make it under one hundred minutes.” She comforted him, “Young man, I can relate to you. Directors are always greedy. If possible, they won’t delete a frame. But why does a director need an editor? Because some shots have to be deleted, and directors can’t do it themselves. So, that becomes our job.” Then, she clicked the mouse and deleted those frames.
Wang Yang sighed helplessly. Pulling his hair, he said in a low voice, “Okay.” But soon, opening his eyes wide, he shouted again, “No. No. You absolutely can’t delete this set of shots! If you keep deleting things like this, there will be nothing left.” Seeing Margaret very insistent, he said, heartbroken, “You can’t do this. Come on. Oh, my God. It’s screwed!” He said again after a few silent moments, “Margaret, go back to where we were. I have thought about it. You can’t edit that part this way.”
That was how editing went on. The director and the editor would never stop their bargain. They would try out all kinds of combinations of shots, arrange frames in different sequences, recover the deleted frames, and then delete them again. Consequently, editing was more tedious than shooting, and less interesting, too, especially for directors. Sometimes, it even felt like mental torture for them. It certainly did not feel good to see great materials that they had made a great effort to get at the shooting site be deleted like trash.
The director was the boss at the shooting site, but in the editing room, it was the editor that made the decision. Even great directors like James Cameron and Steven Spielberg would not work like a dictator in the editing room. As Margaret had said, directors needed help when it came to keeping or deleting frames.
At the same time, the promotion of the film was also in progress. Two days before, the release date and plan were announced on the official website of High School Musical. The five hundred schools where the film would be showed in the first week were also published. These schools’ cinemas had a high rate of attendance, which was naturally beneficial for the film’s box office gross. However, students from schools not on the list were pretty angry. They even protested on the official website, saying what High School Musical was doing was discrimination.
However, Wang Yang and the studio had seen that coming. As a result, they’d announced an event called “Show Your Talent,” targeting schools across the United States. This event would start in March and end on April 20th. Participants just needed to upload their dancing videos or singing videos onto the official website. The top ten places would be decided through voting. Winners would get great prizes and travel to Los Angeles for free to attend the premiere of High School Musical. In addition, as long as you’d participated in the event, you could become one of the one hundred lucky people to win a free trip to Los Angeles for the premiere as well. Although there were no additional prizes, the one-day trip to Hollywood and the return air ticket would also be free.
It was estimated this event would cost around $2,000,000. As a result, the budget for the promotion had risen to $7,000,000. However, these two million dollars would be absolutely worth it. Firstly, the event could calm those angry students down. Secondly, and most importantly, it would involve more students and more schools creating a singing and dancing craze together with the release of High School Musical.
How would they attract students to take part in the event? Prizes were not the most important thing. The focus of the promotion was put to the event’s slogan, “Show your talent. Show your youth and beauty!” However, if you wanted to win a prize, you had to start practicing singing and dancing immediately and not forget to canvass your schoolmates in the voting phase.
Wang Yang had a lot of faith in this event because of his successful experience with Paranormal Activity. That event called “Who is scared the most?” made him realize one thing – in fact, everyone wanted to show themselves and share what was great about them with other people.
When the release date of High School Musical had been announced, the media remained very cold to the news. Only some online media reported it. If it were not due to Wang Yang’s fame, even online media would have ignored the news.
Some people wanted to take advantage of his fame as well. For example, Idle Hands. They seemed to want to make their film topical. The producer, Andrew Licht, said in an interview, “I stick to my opinion. That girl will regret it. Oh, well, stop asking me about that, please. Anyway, I guarantee that Idle Hands will be an outstanding movie. It has a very interesting story.”
The director, Rodman Flender, said, “Our films will be on in the same period? I’m not worried about that. Our films both speak to teenagers, but we are not trying to compete with them. Wang Yang is a very creative young man. I hope he will succeed again this time.” One was playing the bad guy, while the other was playing the good guy. Typical.
Neither Wang Yang nor the studio responded to their comments. This kind of topic would not help with the promotion. What High School Musical needed were healthy and upbeat topics, not some disputes. That being said, if it were Star Wars jumping out to challenge them, declaring, “Let’s compete!” it would be a different story.
However, the most important thing was to implement their own promotion to a satisfying extent, like the school event “Show Your Talent” as a small show to teach people how to dance.
“Yang, no television station will be interested in collaborating with us unless we pay a certain commercial fee,” Mark Strong said very calmly in an I-told-you-so tone. He added, “That is at least fifty million a month.”
Fifty million? In his head, Wang Yang rolled his eyes right at Mark Strong’s face, since the latter was not before him. He got to his feet with his cellphone. Walking toward the balcony of his apartment, he said to the cellphone, “Well, forget about it then. It’s way too expensive. We’ll do Plan B. We will upload the videos onto our official website and play them in those school channels.”
This small show could not only create idols but also promote the event “Show Your Talent”. Mark Strong knew that. So, he answered, “Okay. And we should set about preparing for the production.”
After ending the call, looking at the evening sky, Wang Yang made another phone call. Smiling, he said, “Hi, Jessica. Rachel, Zachery, and you have got a new job. Yes, it’s the show I mentioned to you earlier.” Leaning against the rail, he went on, “Oh, no. I won’t be the director. This kind of show doesn’t need a director, does it? I have no idea. I need to focus on the editing of the film. I almost fought Margaret today. Ha! Just kidding…”
They talked for a long time. Wang Yang put the cellphone away after hanging up. He came into the kitchen and opened the fridge to get some soda and food because he wanted to watch an NFL game. Due to a labor dispute, the NBA, his favorite, was still in a lockout. No one knew when the season would start again. However, his fridge was empty. There was nothing stocked in it. Scratching his head, Wang Yang decided to go to a supermarket nearby to do some groceries.
Michael Pitt had moved out of Wang Yang’s place some time ago. He was living with George Harry at the moment. They’d rented a small apartment together. He had also started a part-time job. He would go to auditions whenever such opportunities came up. He was making an effort to advance toward his next role.
Wang Yang went downstairs and walked a little, and he felt as if he were being followed. He looked back warily and saw a blond, middle-aged, white man trailing behind. It was that paparazzo again! Wang Yang shouted at him helplessly, “Hey, man, you have been following me for some time.” Many paparazzi had followed him, but only here and there. However, this guy had been following him almost every day.
Seeing himself exposed, the bearded, white man simply came up to him. He lifted the camera hanging around his neck and took a photo of Wang Yang. Smiling, he said, “This is my job. My name is Cole.”
“Thank you for your hard work,” said Wang Yang. He went on walking. Looking at Cole, who was walking next to him, Wang Yang felt a little bored. He asked Cole, “Why are you following me? I’m not any kind of star.” He had even stopped going to dates with Jessica lately because of this paparazzo. Rolling his eyes at Cole, he said, “You should be following Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, or Tom Welling.”
Still following him, Cole answered, “Yang, you have been very popular lately. You are a star, even if you don’t know it yet. Everyone is paying attention to what you are doing.” Spreading his hands, he said, “Eighteen years old, and almost nineteen. A multi-millionaire without a girlfriend? No one buys that.”
Wang Yang said with a smile, “So, are you trying to take a photo of me spending time with my girlfriend?”
Shrugging his shoulders, Cole said, “Or boyfriend.”
“Of course, it would be better if I could capture something more thrilling,” Cole added.
Wang Yang asked him with interest, “Like what?”
Cole said with a smile, “Like taking two hot girls home, smoking marijuana, peeing in public, or giving someone a beat-down on the street. Such kind of things would be great.”
Wang Yang burst out laughing. He said, “I bet you want me to beat you.”
Nodding, Cole said, “Exactly. I do want you to beat me.”
“Putting aside those photos, you know how much a photo of you and your girlfriend making out is worth?” Cole lifted his camera again and took another photo of Wang Yang.
Wang Yang asked out of curiosity, “How much is it worth?”
Cole said with a smile, “I have no idea, man. It would be the first one, so it must be worth a lot! Maybe I could change my car with the money I get from it.”
“Keep up with the hard work, then.” Wang Yang walked faster after speaking.
Lagging behind, Cole said, “I think I will capture one very soon. It will be your birthday in a few days, won’t it?”
Looking back at him, Wang Yang said unhappily, “Come on. Can’t you just give me a break and let me celebrate my birthday in peace?”
Cole took a photo of his impatient face right away. He said with a satisfied smile, “Finally got something. This one should be worth between $300 and $500.”
Wang Yang could not help but laugh. He thumbed up at Cole. This guy had really shown his talent, though not out of his own free will. However, he was afraid Cole would be disappointed because he was not going to throw a party for his nineteenth birthday. He would only meet up with some good friends to celebrate it in a simple way.