Chapter 38 Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf

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  The rehearsal went on until about eleven o'clock, and had to end for the time being due to Carey Mulligan having school in the afternoon, and Murphy, having other work to do, greeted the three men and left the warehouse in a hurry, but as he pulled open the door of the warehouse, the rest of his eyes caught keenly that James Franco had come up to Carey Mulligan... ...

  By now, Murphy can naturally see a few points of James Franco's purpose, there is Bill Rossis staring, there is no need for him to intervene, shaking his head out of the warehouse, to go to the Mittens Café to meet up with Jessica Chastain, and drove to the Hollywood area to rush to a company specializing in selling film and television equipment.

  As he drove, he wondered about James Franco, had this guy done the same thing before?

  American laws were quite strict on the protection of minors, and in a place like California, it would be incredibly troublesome to actually have sex and get bitten by a minor.

  Still, thought James Franco was no fool.

  The car turned onto Sunset Boulevard, a road known for its high number of accidents, and Murphy hurriedly shook his head, dispersing these chaotic thoughts and concentrating on driving.

  This time, he came to the Hollywood area, mainly to deliver the deposit for the film, Jessica Chastain on the co-pilot looked over the cargo list, found that there was one more item than before, and couldn't help but ask, "How come there are ten extra reels of Kodak 5222 film? Are you going to shoot a black and white movie?"

  "I'm using it to shoot the opening scene."

  This was added on by Murphy only yesterday, the planned opening of the movie was an underage girl being abused, after a period of consideration and knowledge of the MPAA rating system, he was worried that because this section was too sensitive, it would drag the whole movie into the NC-17 quagmire, so he decided to shoot it on black and white film.

  Ten minutes later, Murphy's second-hand Ford parked near a large film and television equipment store off Sunset Boulevard, he and Jessica Chastain had been here before, and the camera would be rented from here, so it could be said that they were familiar with buying film.

  Reception of them is a middle-aged man, Murphy also no nonsense, directly let Jessica Chastain will film list to him, as long as the deposit is paid, the other side will be able to door-to-door delivery in the afternoon.

  In addition to ten trays of Kodak 5222 film, Murphy also wanted a large number of Kodak color motion picture film.

  This 35MM Kodak color film is the same as Kodak 5222 film, the length of each disk is 122 meters, according to the current specifications for film shooting and projection, in general, the shooting of a minute requires about twenty-seven meters of negative, a disk of film can be shot for about 4.5 minutes.

  Calculated in this way, it seems that 20 reels of color film would be enough.

  But the number Murphy wanted was 240 reels, and that was still a conservative figure; the amount of film consumed in the future would only be more, not less.

  In Hollywood, almost all directors shoot material that is more than ten times or even dozens of times the length of the movie, and for someone like James Cameron, it may even reach hundreds of times.

  The amount of money a crew would spend on film alone was often a significant expense.

  Fortunately, in this era Kodak has not screwed itself to death, Kodak's original 35MM motion picture film prices are not as outrageous as later, after some haggling, Murphy finally cut the price of each disk of film to 150 U.S. dollars.

  "That's a total of 250 reels of Kodak film."

  On the way back to the car, Jessica Chastain reminded Murphy to prepare the money, "It's going to cost $37,500."

  This figure also made Murphy's insides twitch, counting today's film expenses, the preparation of Fruit Hard Candy has thrown out more than $150,000 so far in terms of personnel salaries, renting equipment and venues, making props, purchasing make-up and clothes, and many other items that need to be prepared, adding up to more than $150,000 together.

  He really doubted that he could finish the movie with his $300,000 dollars.

  The pre-preparation is the most costly stage, and the later shooting will seem to have less expenses, but Murphy won't forget that there's also post-production, and he'll have to hire a professional and experienced editor and rent a post-production studio ...

  Just thinking about all this made him feel like his head had turned into two.

  Now Murphy can't help but be glad that, fortunately, when he first followed Kobe Bryant and earned a hundred thousand dollars back from there, or else if he relied solely on the two hundred and thirty thousand dollars from the Bill Road incident, he would not be able to finish the movie at all.

  Even so, Murphy also felt that three hundred thousand dollars may not be enough, after all, he is a complete novice, bound to encounter some unanticipated difficulties.

  Time finally moved into October 2000, after a long period of preparation, after Carey Mulligan and James Franco had gone through all the scenes, the cast of Fruit Loops kicked off filming at Mitton's Cafe in Los Angeles' old Chinatown.

  Early that morning, Mitton Cafe owner Lynch put a sign in front of the store to suspend business, and the two large booths in the left corner of the cafe were wrapped airtight with screens plus cloth curtains, temporarily serving as men's and women's dressing rooms.

  From entering the cafe, Murphy stood in the distance opposite the counter, directing the lighting engineer to arrange the lights according to the plan, the set designer to adjust the store's furnishings in accordance with the sub-shot drawings, the props engineer to check the preparation of the chocolate cake and other props, Jessica Chastain led the three interns to manage the miscellaneous chores ...

  Because there was only one make-up artist, all the actors' make-up work could only come one by one. It was good that there were only two main actors, and old Lynch and his staff just acted as a backdrop and didn't need much delicate make-up.

  All the actors appeared in the camera, never really veiled, people like Murphy were well aware that all the so-called veiled faces were just veiled makeup.

  "When will it be my turn?"

  Looking at the cafe that was pretty much set up, Murphy had just caught his breath, intending to ask for a cup of coffee to refresh himself, when Carey Mulligan walked over, "I'm all waiting for the makeup to get a little anxious."

  She pursed her lips tightly, obviously nervous.

  This was Carey Mulligan's first official role, and she wasn't even sixteen years old, so to say she wasn't nervous was simply impossible.

  "Carey, you're nervous." Murphy took a step back and leaned on a coffee table, "And dark circles under your eyes."

  Carey Mulligan immediately touched under her eyes and forced a smile, "I had insomnia last night."

  This was not a good sign, Murphy frowned slightly and thought for a moment before suddenly changing the subject, "How are you and James getting along?"

  Girls in the rebellious stage of youth have a hard time reversing their first impression of a person, Carey Mulligan's mouth was almost to her ears, "He's been trying to please me, but I think he's got bad intentions, he's playing a bad game, and I still don't like him."

  Murphy couldn't help but shake his head, but Carey Mulligan reached over and tugged on his coat, "Don't worry about it, Murphy. I won't embarrass him on purpose."

  After saying that, she added hatefully, "Why do I still hate him so much?"

  Just as he was about to say something, Murphy saw Jessica Chastain walking head on with someone and hurriedly greeted her.

  "Hi, Kara."

  Walking over to the side, Murphy opened his arms and gave Kara Faith a gentle hug, "What a surprise, I didn't think you'd be here."

  Taking a step back and removing the sunglasses from her face, Kara Faith utters the same sharp words, "I thought I'd come over and see how you failed."

  "You're going to be disappointed." Murphy shrugged and gestured to a nearby booth in the bay, "Make yourself at home."

  Kara Faith put down her handbag and sunglasses first, then pulled out her chair and sat on it, waving her hand at Murphy, "Just go about your business, don't mind me, I'm just here for the show."

  Murphy wanted to reward her with a pair of white eyeballs, but held back, barked a word to Jessica Chastain to ask for coffee for Carla Faith, and no longer cared about her, continuing to busy himself with his own work.

  As the others continued to set up the venue, Murphy walked over to the right side of the counter, where a 35MM camera had been set up in the corner, and another shoulder-mounted camera was placed nearby, making it easy for him to switch from scene to scene.

  Compared to the cameras Murphy used to use across the Pacific Ocean, these can be categorized into the ranks of old antiques, the movie industry is an industry of rapid technological development, the speed of renewal is amazing.

  Before Murphy has carefully studied these two cameras, now just a simple debugging.

  Time passed by, the preparations were gradually ready, and when Carey Mulligan came out of the temporary dressing room, the shooting could begin.

  The first scene Carey Mulligan and James Franco have already rehearsed a few times, Murphy still called the two over and briefly instructed a few words, reminding them that one of them has to perform hypocrisy and the other has to show naivety ...

  At the same time, Murphy also scrutinized the costumes of the two.

  Just like when the set photos were taken, Carey Mulligan was wearing a costume that was a red bodysuit with a hood, and James Franco was wearing a gray jacket coat with a pair of glasses on his face.

  The glasses came from the makeup artist Jack Watson's suggestion, and the effect is also very good, successfully masked James Franco comes with a little gangster temperament, making the whole person looks more kind and elegant.

  From the two dress above, it is not difficult to see Murphy's mind, Carey Mulligan as Haley is a modern Little Red Riding Hood, James Franco as Jeff is naturally the big bad wolf.

  But contrary to the fairy tale, the real danger and control in this version of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf will be the seemingly harmless Little Red Riding Hood.

  The shooting didn't take place immediately, Murphy had Carey Mulligan and James Franco go to the cafe counter and practiced their positions a couple of times, and he also picked up the shoulder-mounted camera and looked for the right camera routes according to the predetermined ideas as well as the changing positions of the two main characters.

  These alone took close to an hour.

  It wasn't until ten in the morning that Murphy officially announced the start of the test shoot.

  Carrying the camera set up on top of the Stanikon, he first aimed a shot at the counter to capture Carey Mulligan's slender and beautiful back, and then quickly adjusted the lens to give Carey Mulligan a large close-up of her face when the cafe door was pushed open and she turned her head to look over.

  "Cut!"

  Seeing the close-up image, Murphy directly shouted to stop, the effect of the shooting was not up to the mark at all.