Looking at her daughter's worried face, Shelley sat on a nearby rattan chair and asked with concern, "Dear, what are you worried about?"
Natalie Portman shook her head slightly. "Nothing, Mom."
Shelley probed gently, "Is it about next year's Oscars?"
After hesitating for a moment, Natalie nodded slowly. Seeing this, Shelley comforted her by patting her hand. "Frank Pearson, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, and Harvey Weinstein all praised your performance and have hinted they'll support you."
She smiled, "Darling, don't forget your identity and what you've done before. With proper PR, you have the best chance."
If it had been half a month ago, Natalie Portman would have thought these words made perfect sense, but now she shook her head. "Mom, they support me because I'm Jewish one of the most representative and self-acknowledged Jewish actresses. If there's another Jewish actress who performs as well as I did in Black Swan, backed by an even stronger force, do you think I would definitely win?"
"But dear, are there really such actresses in Hollywood?" Shelley couldn't think of anyone in the same generation who could compare to her daughter. "You're recognized as the most skilled and well-shaped rising actress. If the academy wants to promote a representative for the new generation, no one is more suitable than you."
"Good looks and acting skills alone can win an Oscar?" Natalie couldn't help but question. "Mom, do you really think so?"
Shelley was momentarily speechless. Just as she believed Natalie had a great chance at Best Actress next year, she realized that neither the role nor the acting is decisive.
Still, she didn't worry too much. "The Jewish forces in Hollywood will all support you."
"No!" Natalie Portman said firmly. "Some will definitely support others."
She looked at her mother seriously and said, "Scarlett Johansson's new film is in production, targeting the Oscars! Don't forget, she's also Jewish. And her backer is Duke Rosenberg and the entire Warner Group!"
"..." Shelley heard this news for the first time and was at a loss for words.
If it were just Scarlett Johansson alone, she wouldn't care. But the person behind her couldn't be ignored, even if his style is usually unpopular with the academy.
And she couldn't ignore that Duke Rosenberg is an extremely important member of the Hollywood Jewish club. Plus, Scarlett's godmother has deep ties with many powerful Jewish figures like Spielberg.
Her originally confident gaze at her daughter turned into worry.
"To increase the chances of winning," Natalie Portman clenched her fists and said forcefully, "we need to do more!"
Do more? Shelley couldn't think of what that meant.
"Mom, I want a child." Natalie suddenly said something unrelated. "I want to have a child with Benjamin."
"What?" Shelley was very shocked. "Nat, what are you thinking? Having a child now will ruin your career!"
"No, I must!" Natalie seemed determined. "This will push my career forward!"
Shelley didn't understand Natalie's meaning. She just looked at her daughter in surprise. She knew her daughter was dating that French dancer.
Facing her mother, Natalie didn't bother hiding much and continued, "Mom, from what I know, Benjamin is still involved with his ex-girlfriend..."
After all, this romance was one she had stolen; Natalie would never admit she was the third party.
"From what I've observed, Benjamin really likes children..." she said seriously, "If there's a child, there will be no more problems between us."
"But your career..."Shelley began.
Before she could finish, Natalie waved her hand to interrupt and continued, "This will also benefit my career."
Looking down at the juice on the table, as if seeing her own future, Natalie's gaze grew firmer. "As long as I can get pregnant quickly, during the awards season, pictures of my pregnancy will be on every major media. Most people in society sympathize with and favor pregnant women, which will definitely influence voting choices!"
Shelley was speechless but had to admit her daughter made a very good point. In a conflict between an ordinary woman and a pregnant woman, over ninety percent of people would side with the pregnant woman.
That was society's reality, and her daughter was clearly good at leveraging it.
Natalie Portman was also convinced that if she could be active in the award season with a big belly, she would definitely be the strongest contender for Best Actress in all the awards!
After careful consideration, Shelley still said, "Better say something to Martin."
"I will," Natalie nodded. "We also need him and William Morris to coordinate PR."
The next day, Martin Miller of William Morris received the relevant news. He couldn't help but admire Natalie Portman's mind she was definitely among the top few actresses in the circle.
By mid-August, after intense preparation, Gravity entered the shooting phase. Duke started filming at Warner Studios in Burbank.
At the start of filming, Duke used a specially made device a lightbox.
"Scarlett..." Standing in front of the lightbox, Duke shouted, "How do you feel?"
Having done test shots before, Scarlett wasn't too uncomfortable and gave Duke an 'OK' sign.
"Pay attention to the image on the LED screen!"
He reminded again and returned to his director's chair. The shots weren't too difficult at first mostly close-ups of Scarlett's eyes. The eyes and helmet reflections needed detailed scrutiny to avoid mistakes.
Gravity had many close-up shots, and if the reflections in the eyes weren't done well, many shots would show errors. The crew wasn't the first to consider this issue.
Back in 2004, Tim Webber's visual effects team at Industrial Light & Magic had this concept while making a commercial designing a room with LED screens on the front, back, left, and right, playing corresponding images so that the reflections in the eyes could be captured directly.
Expanding on this idea, it eventually evolved into the two major pieces of hardware used for the visual effects of Gravity one was the full LED screen shooting device known as the "light box," and the other was a large LED screen designed to solve the problem of light reflections.
During Duke's shoot here, Scarlett was looking at the LED screen displaying the simulated cosmic lighting, and the camera captured the reflection of that light in her eyes.
To film this close-up, Scarlett Johansson had to stand in front of the massive LED screen, looking at the simulated cosmic light and shadow on the screen, with the camera capturing the reflected light in her eyes.
Because the eye's surface area is very small and the resolution requirement is not high, even a low-pixel LED screen could guarantee the picture quality. This kind of image and lighting capture was also used for other reflective surfaces, like the helmets worn by Scarlett and George Clooney.
In the earliest part of this shoot, the difficulty wasn't the actors' performances but rather the lighting. Because of lighting problems, the shot was retaken almost all morning, and the best solution was only found before lunch.
"Even if I close my eyes, it's all light bulbs inside."
During lunch, Scarlett complained lightly to Duke at the right moment, and Duke comforted her with a gentle pat on the hand, reminding her the film had just begun shooting and everything still needed adjustment.
Lighting was just a representative of a series of problems.
The design of space environment lighting involved three main light sources: distant hard sunlight, soft light reflected from Earth, and occasional reflected light from the moon.
This setup neither looked like real outer space nor like the inside of a space station. In space, people face total darkness, only seeing parts of the sun, Earth, and occasionally the moon.
But if they filmed exactly like that, nearly 100 minutes of the movie would have very little to keep the audience interested, so Duke decided to constantly change the lighting.
Therefore, the crew's lighting technicians had to continuously adjust the properties of the light per Duke's instructions whether the light was hard or soft, its reflectivity, and its color.
These seemingly tiny details could create many different environments.
Fortunately, the spacecraft moved very fast, experiencing several day-night cycles within 24 hours.
In fact, the lighting effects during filming varied dramatically and theatrically following the rotation and movement of the camera and characters. Over the equator, a sunset occurs every 90 minutes.
In the afternoon shoot, there was also a shot depicting Scarlett's character finally entering a dark starry sky, with almost no light except for the faint glow inside her helmet.
Duke also designed an accurate overall trajectory for the character throughout the story. For example, in the first scene shot the next day, Scarlett's character was above the African desert with the sun entering the field of view, so Earth's color was warm, and the reflected light on her face was warm-toned.
After finishing a few simple scenes, the crew gradually got the hang of it, and Duke began scheduling the weightlessness scenes.
The weightlessness scenes required specific combinations, which were necessary because the actors in the light box were constantly rotating.
For instance, Duke started filming with George Clooney's face, then had to move the camera to Scarlett, who was rotating at different speeds. The camera circled her and then pulled back to George Clooney because if it went directly back to George, the next shot would show his feet.
...
Hi For access to additional chapters of
Director in Hollywood (40 chpaters)
Made In Hollywood (60 Chapters)
Pokemon:Bounty Hunter(30 Chapters)
Douluo Dalu: Reincarnated as Yan(40 Chapters)
Hollywood:From Razzie to Legend(40 Chapters)
The Great Ruler (30 Chapters)
Join pateron.com/Translaterappu