Hollywood Road

After continuing to communicate with people who personally participated in the news investigation that year, and after reviewing most of the information, Murphy began to write the outline of the script for "Focus". This time the script is completely different from the past, and it is far from the "Dark City". No, everything in the script must not be exaggerated. All the content must conform to the facts and can withstand the investigation of any person and organization.

Although the film must have appropriate artistic exaggeration, Murphy has also directed films based on real people in the past, but those themes are far less serious than this one.

You know, what appears in the movie as a villain is the Catholic Church today! If there are untruths in future films, they will inevitably become a laughing stock in the attack of Catholicism!

This is not the result Murphy wanted.

Therefore, in the process of writing the script, Murphy always adhered to a principle that was sufficiently objective.

Murphy's script is like a close-up report on the activities of the "Focus" feature group that year, leading people to the truth step by step.

The content is entirely a reappearance of the situation in the past. For example, in the process of the investigation, the reporters were not without difficulties: the public relations department specially reminded to be careful to offend the Catholic subscribers who occupy 53% of the "Boston Globe" The church is so powerful that the upper echelons are unwilling to tear off the veil of hypocrisy and make it too shameful; the shake of the reporter’s personal beliefs confronts the painful and heavy depression of many others, and the impact of busy work on marriage; and even the cruelty of journalism itself— -In the final stage of the investigation and evidence collection, the team caught up with the "9-11" in 2001. More "big" news forced reporters to pull away to report more "important" news, while explaining an apology to the victims they contacted. At the same time, beware of being sniffed out by your peers and stealing the opportunity to report...

Sensationalism is definitely not suitable for this film. It is more powerful to reveal the facts that existed in the past from an objective standpoint.

There is no objective content that is called slander, not counterattack!

In the entire script outline, Murphy almost eliminates the drama, completely flat and straightforward, without deliberately demonizing those criminal priests, and there is no sinful stimulating picture.

For example, when he was writing a scene in the script, the female reporter Sasha visited the priests involved in the case one by one. After eating a lot of closed doors, she suddenly met an old priest with a benevolent face. She unpreparedly admitted that she had molested a boy and calmed down. Say "I have never felt happy in this matter myself."

In reality, all the clergy are secretive about this matter. Only this priest named Ronald Paquin publicly confessed what he had done. As he tells in the script, Paquin himself was a teenager. He was also raped by a Catholic priest.

These are not sensational, let alone criticized, but objectively displayed in front of the audience.

Faced with such a serious situation, there is no need for scripts, no directors, and no conclusions about the final film. The audience is enough to judge good and evil!

Similarly, Murphy does not need to have heroic preaching, let alone the usual conspiracy and danger in commercial films of the same subject; even if someone asked to send the information to the newspaper a few years ago, why did he not act at that time? It's not a possible reversal in imagination: Robbie Robinson, editor of the "Focus" team, finally found out that it was because of his own negligence that he had missed the source of the information, which made possible reports 7 years late-even if the actual presentation is excellent Such reporters also make mistakes.

The biggest conflict he used in the script was that reporter Mike found the most critical evidence and eagerly asked the team leader to publish the manuscript. The latter suppressed his eager impulse for justice: the greater truth is behind, in-depth Reporting can't just cause commotion. If the church apologizes in individual cases, it will not bring about a substantial change in society, and their news ambition is "to deal with the entire system."

After spending a month to finish the script outline, Murphy once again recruited the Stanton Studio's screenwriting team into the project, and continued to enrich the script with collective strength.

Even this kind of very serious subject film can not escape the fate of the Hollywood assembly line in the end.

Using the concept of assembly line factory, the production process of a film needs to go through multiple "flowing" procedures, including screenwriting, director, actor, photography, recording, props, clothing and other departments, and each department has more sophisticated The division.

For example, the screenwriting department has various specialized parts such as "intentions proposed", "main plot of structure", "addition of secondary plots", "writing dialogue", "adding gimmicks", etc., all of which are presided over by a sufficient number of people; "Director", the "assistant director" part that specializes in various types of scenes; the actor department has experts who specialize in discovering actors, and actors are divided into different types. Other departments also have a fine division of labor and employ various experts to perform their duties.

This ‘flow’ process, like the production lines of other companies, is a product of the era of highly developed large-scale machine production.

Although film is an entertaining spiritual product, Hollywood has materialized and industrialized it from the needs of the market.

The result of this fine division of labor has its advantages and disadvantages.

On the one hand, every detail of film production, such as setting design, scene expression, character dialogue, etc., will be done very well and exquisitely because of the control of quite proficient professionals; on the other hand, when every detail is When professionals want to express their creative personality, many personalities will collide with each other and fail to grasp the overall situation, and will eventually be submerged in the noise of the crowd, becoming a programmatic and standardized appendix of production.

Although there is such a paradoxical relationship, for the current Hollywood film industry, the refined and modern professional division of labor is still an important "joint" to improve the quality of products and industries.

The script was handed over to the screenwriting team to enrich it based on facts, and Murphy considered the specific shooting plan, first of all, the production concept.

The final production of the film must be as objective and calm as the script.

In terms of basic narrative, Murphy is prepared to use the common narrative routine of pros and cons of good and evil, but it is an uncommon way of not deliberately exaggerating tension and conflicts. He does not need to create the truth in the film to experience. The adventure process will not exaggerate the threats and blows from the church indiscriminately, nor does it require the secret destruction of the villain, or even prepare to use too many inner struggles and emotional changes of the protagonist.

In his plan, this film merely shows restraint in a simple and plain way of showing how these reporters fulfill their responsibilities and use the power of public opinion and power to contend.

In some respects, it is not so much that the opposing parties in the film are justice and evil, but rather the persistence of the journalist's professional ethics and the laissez-faire of going with the crowd.

In addition to a counterattack against the Catholic Church, this can also win the greatest support from the media!

In today's society, no one can underestimate the power of media and public opinion!

There is no heroism and drama of charging and fighting, but only trivial and small work, but for the journalists seeking the truth, it is in such a step-by-step trivial matter that the power to change the status quo has been accumulated.

This is Murphy's request for the film to reflect journalists.

In addition, with regard to the Catholic scandal, Murphy intends to focus the film on the work behind the scenes before the famous report is released, and hide the focus of the case-the priest behind the narrative, so as not only to give the film more space. To show the spirit of the real journalists, and more importantly, to avoid crude value judgments and hostile accusations.

Obviously, what the criminal priest did deserves to be flogged, but this is not what Murphy has to do. His film will state the process of revealing the truth itself, and the attitude towards the truth, just like the first thing he thought. In that way, leave it to the audience to choose for themselves-the audience is more insightful and good and disgusting than imagined in matters that directly concern the next generation, and they do not need to be guided and led far.

In fact, this refusal to comment on the results is not Murphy's deliberate choice to avoid the question.

On the contrary, in too many similar films, the director or screenwriter embeds his own strong judgments into the film, and presents a piece of video-like essay on the screen of the theater.

Of course, such a choice is far from wrong, but in a film that is so serious and sensitive and involves such a huge power of Catholicism, a calm and restrained attitude can finally give the film a heavier texture.

In this real case involving sensitive topics such as religion, children, and legal fairness, how to show the truth objectively and sincerely, and how to not become a farce of playing gimmicks and revealing scars is the part that really tests Murphy, the director and screenwriter.

Although he is really not a good person, and by the standards of many people, he can be planned into the ranks of villains, but Murphy still has his own understanding of justice.

The meaning of justice is not only to punish evil, but also to protect the innocent!

In the absence of visual stimulation and tension in the film, Murphy believes that only this kind of calmness and restraint can bring about the unique temperament of a serious film.

Another point is that this film is basically a noir film. Whether it is the theme or the content, it has the characteristics of this kind of film. Murphy will also choose a dark tone when it comes to style selection, just like Boston's winter sky is average.

By October, all the script creation was completed, and Murphy also came up with a complete project plan, based on many successful collaborations in the past and the sale of "Dark City", as well as a counter-attack against the Catholic attack. , Twentieth Century Fox also gave the green light to this project all the way, saying that the investment of 40 million US dollars and participation in the Venice Film Festival are not a problem at all.

Then, Murphy gathered all the Stanton party members together to discuss the issue of actors.