America 1987

Chapter 23 Film Coloring

After this key scene was filmed, the crew had basically finished shooting the scenes in New York. All that was left was to return to the Los Angeles studio to shoot some scattered, peripheral shots.

and so……

"What?" David Ovitz exclaimed incredulously, "Industrial Light & Magic hasn't been taking on any special effects outsourcing lately?"

"It's not that we won't accept your requests, it's just that we won't be accepting requests from people with very high standards like you for the time being."

Michael Ovitz said very casually, "Anyway, you're not in a hurry to release it. Christmas is still a long way off this year, so it'll be ready in time."

This is the chairman's office at CAA's headquarters, and it has become noticeably more luxurious than before.

The black rosewood tabletop was clearly refurbished. Even the ashtray used to extinguish cigars had been replaced with a platinum base and a thick layer of rhodium plating on the inside.

This change, along with a noticeably more pleasant and relaxed tone compared to the last time they met, is evident.

David concluded that his uncle had either been promoted or made a fortune.

In fact, he was right. With his original partners—Bob and Perkins—retiring due to age and leaving their positions, Michael Ovitz had become the absolute leader of CAA.

When the two men left, they transferred their shares to Ovitz, which brought his shareholding to an astonishing 55%, meaning he had veto power on the board of directors. This was undoubtedly good news for Ovitz, a dictator who liked to monopolize power.

However, these things have little to do with David.

His purpose in coming here was to see if he could use his uncle's connections to get in touch with Industrial Light & Magic. The special effects in "Ghost" were nothing special in his time, but they are top-notch by today's standards.

For characters like the protagonist Sam, who can pass through walls and appear and disappear at will, simple post-production erasing is not enough. It requires precise control of exposure layering in optical compositing techniques, along with post-production green screen keying, to achieve the desired effect.

To achieve this effect without making it seem fake to the audience, the technical difficulty, while not comparable to James Cameron's "The Abyss" in 89, is still far greater than that of ordinary drama films.

David thought about it for a long time and still felt more at ease entrusting this crucial task to Industrial Light & Magic.

While the post-production special effects for the original film were completed by multiple companies, Industrial Light & Magic was undoubtedly one of the core participants.

and so……

"Why?" Sensing the relaxed tone in the other person's voice, David stopped making a fuss and sat back down in his chair. "There has to be a reason. It's not even summer vacation yet. Are their company's benefits that good, starting earlier than elementary school students' holidays?"

"It's all because of that Turner," Michael Ovitz said, though he didn't show much personal emotion. "It seems like he's going to colorize a hundred black and white films in the library so he can reapply for copyright protection and make another GG fee."

"and then?"

"Then the directors went ballistic."

At this point, Michael Ovitz's tone revealed some confusion, "Even Spielberg, Scorsese, and Woody Allen joined that opposing camp."

Michael Ovitz is talking about a culture war over the controversy surrounding Turner's coloring.

The whole thing started in September 1986 when Turner Broadcasting announced that it would colorize about one hundred classic black and white films in its library, including Casablanca, The Maltese Eagle, and King Kong.

Turner's business logic was actually quite simple: color content had a higher GG rate, colorized versions could be re-applied for copyright protection, and the audience was five to ten times that of black-and-white originals. Adhering to the principle that it's a fool not to make money, he announced this decision.

However, Hollywood creators reacted strongly, viewing the issue as a matter of life and death for film as an art form.

The opposition was impressive—John Houston, in a wheelchair, condemned the coloring of his work; Billy Wilder, Frank Capra, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, and all the other living masters, including George Lucas, the founder of Industrial Light & Magic.

In May of this year, James Stewart wrote to Congress, using his signature rhetoric to harshly criticize Turner Broadcasting for colorizing his classic film "The Big Man," comparing the process to "dipping a movie into a bucket of Easter egg fuel," calling it "completely wrong and an insulting practice."

If you ask me, this guy is probably too old to be alive now. Otherwise, seeing AI face-swapping and AI-generated movie videos, he'd probably be so angry he'd lie in his coffin first and then climb out of it.

It's entirely understandable that brokerage owners like Michael Ovitz are puzzled by this.

After all, in the eyes of agents, all celebrities are seen as commodities. What makes a celebrity marketable is the first question every agent considers when facing a new client.

If even living, breathing people like celebrities are being objectified like this, what about movies that have been released for many years?

"But none of that matters," Michael Ovitz said, expressing only slight confusion, as it wasn't really related to his agency. He quickly changed the subject, "How's your movie going? Is it progressing smoothly?"

"It's alright, there's hope it will surpass 'Bond's' 'The Untouchables'," David joked.

"Bond" refers to Sean Connery, the star of the first 007 film. He is also an artist under CAA agency, and the upcoming film "The Untouchables" is the result of CAA's "carefully selected scripts" strategy for him.

If all goes well, this film will help this most handsome "Bond" win his first Best Supporting Actor award at next year's Oscars.

He officially signed with CAA in 1979. At that time, CAA had only been established for four years and was not particularly strong. The fact that they were able to secure this superstar was entirely due to Michael Ovitz's keen eye for choosing scripts.

And the old Bond was also the company's first heavyweight client, which made Michael Ovitz very proud, and he valued the old Bond highly.

He personally selected the script for "The Untouchables," and he was also the one who spearheaded the project, clearly aiming for an Oscar.

When David Ovitz said that, Michael Ovitz certainly didn't believe him. He had read the script for "Ghost" and thought it had the foundation of an excellent commercial film, but that it was wishful thinking to expect it to win an Oscar.

For a typical commercial film like this, unless the box office is ridiculously high, it generally has little hope of winning an Oscar.

and so……