In the early morning, Beverly Hills had already begun a busy day. The mansions along Oak Road exuded incredible warmth and charm. In one of the mansions, spanning 80,000 square feet, James Franco woke up from his sleep. As soon as he opened his eyes, he saw a huge framed photo of a magician opposite his bed.
"A crazy day begins!"
James Franco mumbled a few words, quickly transitioning from being himself to getting into the character of the magician. He grabbed the black costume provided by the crew, put it on, swiftly finished his morning routine, and took the iconic magic ball as he walked out of the bedroom and into the adjacent rehearsal room.
The rehearsal room was quite large, and in the center was a huge model sand table that gave a complete view of Manhattan.
Standing in front of the sand table, James Franco stared at the Brooklyn Bridge for a while and muttered to himself, "Cut off all transportation to Manhattan, create a reason for people to leave, then plant bombs on the ships…"
"Hahaha…" He let out a strange laugh, hoarse and piercing, "Blow them all up! Turn everyone into villains!"
James Franco's face twisted into a bizarre smile as if he were truly plotting an attack on Manhattan.
Suddenly, he felt a buzzing sound in his head, "Buzz… buzz…" The noise grew louder, turning into a deafening roar. It felt as if something was squeezing out of his blood vessels, nearly bursting his body. All surrounding sounds became muffled and distorted as if filtered through a soundproof layer. His vision wavered and twisted.
His skin started to feel cold, and he sensed it twitching involuntarily. It felt as if a small cat was clawing at the goosebumps on his skin, the itching and pain penetrating his bones. He tried to scratch but couldn't reach the source of the discomfort, only able to sway his body to try and rub his bones to relieve the itch.
Since he had started delving deeply into the magician character, capturing the emotions of the role, he had been experiencing these strange sensations.
James Franco closed his eyes, shook his head forcefully, and stood quietly for a few minutes until he completely broke free from the magician's state.
It seemed like a psychological suggestion, as all the odd sensations in his body and mind suddenly vanished, making him feel refreshed.
Gradually, James Franco returned to his normal state.
"I wonder how the crew is preparing?"
With this thought, he left the rehearsal room, intending to visit the warehouse set in Venice, "Or maybe I should meet Murphy."
At the Venice warehouse set, Murphy was discussing Chris Dane's action design with the action director. In the last film, Chris Dane had set himself up as a captor rather than a judge, establishing a non-negotiable bottom line to prevent himself from slipping into darkness. This decision meant he wouldn't use a lot of weapons but would focus on close combat. To meet Murphy's realistic and intense requirements, the action director and his team had specially designed a set of integrated fighting techniques for Henry Cavill, adaptable to his own conditions and those of his opponents.
This close-quarters combat also meant that Henry Cavill needed to undergo extensive physical training.
Murphy was well aware that action scenes were crucial to making the film appealing.
While the previous film was a classic, its action scenes were rather mediocre. If it hadn't been for the strong industrial system supporting it, the action scenes wouldn't have even been considered passable. Especially the fight scenes between Batman and the thugs, some parts were really hard to watch, not to mention the level of action, it didn't even align with normal human logic.
After the discussion, as the action director had just left, James Franco knocked on the door and walked in.
"Hey, Murphy." James Franco didn't stand on ceremony, pulling over a chair and sitting across from Murphy with his legs crossed. He casually asked, "Is everything going well?"
"Everything is going smoothly." Murphy looked at him and frowned slightly, "Where have you been this past month?"
If it weren't for their frequent phone calls, he might have thought James Franco had vanished from the face of the Earth.
"I… uh, I…" James Franco shrugged, showing an awkward smile, "I locked myself in the mansion in Beverly Hills, researching the magician character."
Hearing this, Murphy couldn't help but put down his work and look at him seriously.
With just one glance, Murphy noticed some significant changes in James Franco compared to their last meeting.
He was thinner than before and seemed to have not rested well recently. He looked a bit haggard, with heavy dark circles under his eyes.
"Jim, didn't I tell you to contact me if you had any issues?" Murphy pointed at him, "Your mental state is terrible."
While he appreciated James Franco's dedication, he didn't want him to exhaust himself before filming even began.
"Uh… I watched the movies and characters you recommended, then locked myself in the mansion's room for a whole month, writing diaries and trying different madness, finally getting myself into a psychotic state…"
Leaning back in the chair, James Franco forced a smile, "Since last week, I've been sleeping only four hours a night, thinking wildly, and feeling physically exhausted."
"You…" Murphy shook his head, "Do you remember what I told you?"
James Franco smiled again, "Don't worry, Murphy. My mind is very clear, and I know my limits."
"Clarity is good! If you get depressed because of the character, they will never let me off the hook!"
Murphy was, of course, referring to the other members of the Stanton faction, and James Franco understood this, finally laughing out loud. "You think too much sometimes, Murphy."
Murphy acknowledged this, knowing that perhaps James Franco couldn't fully understand, but he was acutely aware of the tragic fate of Heath Ledger, which he could never forget.
Murphy stood up, walked over, and patted James Franco's shoulder, "Take a vacation and relax. Call Lily, and maybe take a trip to the Caribbean or Hawaii, then wait for my notification."
Thinking about his recent lousy state of life, James Franco nodded, "Yeah… I really should take some time off."
Murphy quickly added, "Wait for my call, don't rush back to the crew."
Seeing that James Franco's mental state wasn't too bad, Murphy felt relieved, but he still wanted him to relax first. Health was more important than any role.
After seeing off James Franco, Murphy went to Gal Gadot's office to briefly review the crew's financial reports.
One of the basic skills of a Hollywood producer is understanding "financial reports." The complete industrial production system of Hollywood has extremely complex requirements for production management, requiring producers to write financial reports every week, including how they will spend money in the upcoming week, etc.
This part of the crew's work was jointly managed by Gal Gadot and a third-party guarantor. Although both were producers, Murphy and Gal Gadot's responsibilities were entirely different.
Compared to Gal Gadot's overall management, Murphy was completely a creative producer.
In a Hollywood film or TV show, the producer is the project's handler, crucial to its success or failure. The creative producer is the driving force behind the project, embodying all the creativity. Whether it's story interpretation, actor selection, director selection, or film promotion, it all requires the creative producer's innovative and sincere brain.
Throughout the project, the creative producer constantly plays multiple roles—mother, father, lover, confidant, teacher, fighter, negotiator, arbitrator, dreamer, and more.
The creative producer watches the project take shape, imagines the next project, births the project and nurtures it, giving it its own life, continuously shaping and forming it, injecting content to show to the world, and then giving it the hope to stand out.
For a director, there's nothing more satisfying than collaborating with a creative producer. No film or audiovisual product's narrative can compare to the outstanding cooperation between a producer and a director.
Even in Hollywood, excellent creative producers are quite rare. Gal Gadot still had some ways to go, so Murphy had to shoulder part of the creative producer's work while Gal Gadot handled the specific management tasks.
Just like he had climbed up from the bottom step by step, a producer also needed to accumulate work experience.
Another point was that whether in preparation or filming, Murphy required his crew to have a highly specialized division of labor, just like his and Gal Gadot's division of labor.
It is well known that Hollywood's film industry's production system is based on a finely divided production process, with approximately 140 crafts involved in the current Hollywood film production process.
Although movies are a form of entertainment and spiritual product, Hollywood has materialized and industrialized them based on market demand.
This finely divided labor means that every detail in film production, such as set design, scene performance, and character dialogue, will be excellently crafted because it's handled by experts in those fields. However, when each detail expert wants to express their creative individuality, the numerous personalities may clash and fail to grasp the whole picture, eventually becoming subsumed in the production's procedural and standardized nature.
To this day, all Hollywood commercial productions are part of this system.
However, within this procedural production, Murphy had also established the concept of the 'big movie industry' with 20th Century Fox.
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