In a high-rise building in Downtown Los Angeles, near Santa Monica Expressway, a 500 meters long street was blocked not allowing any external vehicles to enter . Starting from eight o'clock in the morning, only the vehicles that transported the shooting equipment's, and the and the men responsible for unloading the equipment's were allowed to enter .
The nearby residents quickly got accustomed to the presence of the crew, because in Los Angeles there was countless movie crew on the roads . And because this wasn't a busy road, every few months a new movie crew will come to their street, most of the times they didn't even feel their presence because by the time they come back from work they find them gone .
But this time because the film contained two famous superstars Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks, And because of Eric, the young director, who made great achievements before he has even reached the age of nineteen, many people come, in hopes of getting to meet their favorite superstars .
The onlookers crowded around the streets with cameras just like the paparazzi, expecting to shoot some valuable photos, although the crew was doing everything in their power to prevent them from taking the pictures, but some of them still slipped by them and were able to take some shots .
"Three actors are in place, right?" standing next to three identical taxis, Eric asked his assistant as he watched the photographers install the cameras on the vehicles .
"Fifty people are in place, and Royce asked me to ask you, when will you like to start?"
"Let's do it according to plan, have them familiarize themselves with the path they need to walk, as we take a few street scenes . "
"Ok," Alan replied and said: "By the way, the community agency stated that we will have to open the road for an hour at noon . And the reason they give was that at that time, the traffic will be relatively large, and some people will need to pass from this street . "
Noon wasn't the time people commute from work to home, so he was sure the traffic wouldn't increase too much, and the crew also need to eat at noon .
"Tell them, there is no problem, from twelve 'clock to one o'clock, we will stop filming, and we evacuate the street . "
After Alan left, Eric turned his attention to the three identical taxis, they also had exactly the same license plate number . This was done so that after filming no loopholes will appear in the details of this scene . Once the shoot is complete, the crew will change the taxis license plates to the original ones .
The inside of the taxis was also identical, one car didn't require any processing, because the photographer will shoot from the copilot seat, and the other two cars were fitted with cameras, one was installed on the hood of the car, and one had the camera installed in the backseat .
Today they will shoot the scene where Sean will drive Andy to the police station, this scene should last less than two minutes . But if things go smoothly, Eric was expecting this scene to take them the entire day, and he will probably end up with close to one hour of lens material to work with .
After all the cameras were installed on the taxi, Eric picked up his walkie-talkie and began giving orders to all the crew .
As Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks got off the trailers they were staying in, the paparazzi who were nearby waiting for them started frantically pressing the camera shutter . The two weren't dressed in anything special, Cruise wore black casual clothes, while Hanks was dressed like delivery courier, a cap on his head, and a plain white work suit .
After Eric briefed them on what to do, the two men got into the taxi that had no modifications .
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After the short briefing, Eric went to look at the wireless monitor, to determine if the lighting and angle of the lens are correct, after determining that everything is alright he asked his assistance using the walkie-talkie: "Alan, is the shooting area clear of outsiders?"
"Clear, the only ones left are our actors . " Alan's voice sounded from the walkie-talkie, mixed with the sound of static .
Eric had to confirm again because if after the production is finished, someone who isn't one of the actors he hired appeared on the screen, he will have a huge problem in his hands .
Most of the crowds you see in movies these days are actors, and they are very expensive to hire . It was a known thing in the industry that you can't have any scenes in your movie with real people in the background, even if you tell the crowds about it, and they agreed to cooperate, you shouldn't do it . Because once they find themselves appearing in a movie, the first thing they will do is contact their lawyers, to sue you for reasons such as infringement on their rights .
Usually, those kinds of lawsuits result in film companies paying at least eighty thousand dollars as reimbursement, and in worst cases, your movie may be removed from the cinemas, until you edit the film, which can result in millions of dollars in losses .
So even though he confirmed that no one is in the background, he was going to do a detailed screening of all the people who appeared in the shoot, to make sure that there are no "outsiders" mixing with the actors .
So, when you see a scene in a Hollywood movie where the protagonist is walking or driving in a crowded street, know that every one of them is a paid actor .
After Hanks who was acting as the taxi driver familiarized himself with the road he had to take, Eric gave the order to start the tedious filming process that was gonna last the entire day.
Staring at the monitor, Eric watched the performance of two men inside the car and listened to their dialogue using headphones, although the sound wasn't clear, and the noise of the car engine was creating some disturbance, he could still hear what they were saying. Later he will have to re-dubb this scene, and he will use this soundtrack as reference material, to synchronize their speech and their lips movements.
By the end of the day, Eric couldn't remember how many times he had to reshoot this scene, and by the afternoon, he was so tired of sitting he had to ask the staff to deliberately elevated the monitor so he can watch the monitor while standing. Although Eric was feeling a bit tired, he had to keep going.
Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks had plenty of time to rest because every hour they spent filming, the two had a break, to ensure they stayed in good shape, so they didn't end up looking tired.
But when they rest, he had to work on arranging other shots, because he promised the community agency to take only one day today on this street. Because of that, he had to make sure everything went smoothly so he can accumulate enough materials, just in case a problem comes up in the future.
On the small monitor, Andy slowly zipped down his coat, pulled out his pistol, and casually asked: "Where do you want to go?"
"To the nearest police station." Sean calmly glanced at the rear-view mirror and looked at Andy who was slowly screwing the silencer to the pistol.
Andy looked out the window and smiled: "You alone?"
Sean shrugged and said indifferently: "Yep!"
"You're not armed. Aren't you afraid that I might kill you?"
"If you shoot." Sean turned his head and said calmly: "The care will crash over."
"Yes, it's dangerous." Andy's slowly rolled down the window and said: "You will win if you take me to the police station."
Poking his silenced pistol out of the window Andy said: "l don't always aim accurately," and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
When the scene progressed up to here, Eric shouted: "Cut!"
Hearing Eric's voice, the taxi stopped and Cruise and Hanks got out of the car at the same time, with Nicole who was in the co-pilot seat getting out last while carrying the camera in his hand.
After the three people left the taxi, a staff member quickly approached the taxi and drove it back to its original location.
Many props and vehicles on the road also had to be transferred back to the starting point in an Orderly manner, to Wait for the start of another shot.
Eric told the three people about the flaws he noticed in the shot. When everything was transferred back to the starting point, Cruise and Hanks go back in the taxi, followed by Nicole who was carrying the camera.
Soon after that, the shooting started again.
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"Running Out of Time" isn't a movie with too much depth, it's a movie about a seventy-two hours contest between a policeman and a robber. When he makes the movie trailer, he will certainly use the plot ups and downs to market the film to the general audience.
Action movies don't need to have deep plots to succeed, sometimes people just want to watch a film full of action scenes, and he was gonna give them just that, a cool film filled with commercials.
A film like this doesn't even need the actors to have hight acting skills, as long as the actors have decent acting skills, the film can succeed. That's why having Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks the two superstars on board is such a good thing because as long as he makes a decent movie, the film was guaranteed to succeed.
From mid-April to mid-May, The cast spent most of their time on the streets of downtown Los Angeles, sometimes they stayed on a street for two or three days, and sometimes it took them just half a day to complete the shots. To make a long story short, the process can only be described as boring.
After a few days with the crew of "The others" in England, Jeffrey went back to Los Angeles, then a few days after that, he flew to New York to meet the crew of "Scent of a Woman" . As for the rest of the Firefly staff, most of them basically followed Eric, only the security men and the employees responsible for processing the daily affairs of the building and the clerks responsible for sending and receiving Mail stayed in the company headquarters . If you ignore the scary earnings from the movies, you will find that the company is no different than the other small independent film companies in Los Angeles .
Although filming "Running Out of Time" was a very tedious and complicated process, he didn't encounter too many problems when filming, but it was hard keeping up with the filming schedule .
It was expected that he will be able to officially finish filming around May 15th, so Columbia decided to start a small-scale publicity early, to create some hype for the film and to spread the message .
Since the start of the negotiations with the wealthy Sony consortium, Columbia's market value has jumped up to $3 . 5 billion .
seeing Columbia stock price rise day by day, the Japanese were going crazy, they weren't expecting this huge acquisition was going to cost them this much money .
The final contract between Sony and Columbia was gonna be signed in September, and even if they succeed in signing the purchase contract, it will take them at least one year to complete handover the company .
As a result, this summer box office results is the last chance time Columbia can push up the stock price .
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Warner had two big productions to be released, namely "Batman" and "Lethal Weapon 2", but because "Running Out of Time" was scheduled to be released on the 7th of July . Warner who initially also prepared to release "Lethal Weapon 2" at the start of July, choose to postpone the film release until the end of the year .
In 1987 the first "Lethal Weapon" film made more than $60 million at the box office, and because the first film sold well, the cost of the second film has doubled, so to recover the cost, the film had to earn at least $100 million at the box office . Under this pressure, Warner executives didn't want to compete against Eric, Tom Cruise, and Tom Hanks the three superstars, so they took the initiative to delayed "Lethal Weapon 2" until the end of the year .
So Columbia became the only film gaint to have two blockbuster films released in this summer file, the second film is "Ghostbusters 2", a film that has a huge fan base that was looking forward to seeing the long-awaited sequel . "Ghostbusters" was first released in the year 1984, five years in the past, the reason why Columbia suddenly decided to release the film is that they wanted to boost their stock price .
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In late April, Jeffrey finished his tour, and come back to Los Angles, this was the first time they meet each other in close to a month . The first thing they did after greeting each other and some small talk, is going to the conference room to update each other on what happened on their end .
"Eric, do you need to hire a few more people?"
When Jeffrey asked the question, Eric was reading the files brought by Jeffrey, that explains the production progress of "Scent of a Woman" and "The Others", so without lifting his head, Eric answered: "No, after the completion of "Scent of a Woman" and "The Others" . I'll ask Jonathanand Martin to recommend some of the crew members working with them now to join the fireflies . "
"Well, then, what about the TV series, The one you named . . . . . . "Friends" was it, the time is getting tight, and Fox executives have been contacting nonstop for the last week . They want to know when you will provide the script, they are even willing to help with the preliminary preparations . "
Eric laughed, He had already made it clear to Barry Diller before, that "friends" will only be produced by the Fireflies, but FOX still didn't give up on the chance to get a piece of the pie .
That's understandable, After all, this is a sitcom, the production cost is very small, and if you can co-own the copyright with the Fireflies, and the Tv show become successful, then FOX can have a bargaining chip against Eric, and even if the Tv show fails . Then they will only lose a few million dollars .
"Reject their offer, you see, they come looking for you instead of me, because they know I will refuse . "
Jeffrey hesitated for a moment, then said: "Eric, you . . . you really should think about it . "
Eric finally raised his head, and said: "Hmm?"
"You! . . . . . . you are independent in everything you do, you won't allow others to partner with you in your films, and you also don't want to allow others to partner with you in this TV series, this won't work in Hollywood . Nowadays, even a lot of small budget movies will have a lot of investors sharing the risk and profits, this is one of the orthodox rules of Hollywood, even the big six movie studios do it . Although the competition between them is fierce, they always cross-share projects between them, so why are you so against it . "