Chapter 004

It was already dusk and the lights on both sides of the street were on.

Simon looked at a stunned and hesitant woman in front of him. He had to remind them that it was time to go back. Malibu, far west of Los Angeles, was still far away from Burbank. Finally, Catherine is suggested to drive. It's too dangerous for Janet Johnston to drive in high heels.

Seeing that Simon was normal and showed no signs of getting sick, Catherine was relieved, but she was inexplicably unwilling to explore Simon's past.

Glancing at her friend, who was still turning her eyes, Katherine found it funny.

Let you not be serious all day, and finally be cured.

The female rogue pretending to be crazy meets the real madman from the mental hospital. Tut tut.

The friend into the co driver, Catherine also got on the car, hesitated, the woman still told Simon standing outside the window what difficulties must contact themselves, and then start the car.

Turning around at the intersection not far away, Catherine finally nodded to the boy on the side of the road and slowly stepped on the accelerator. The wine red ford gradually merged into the city traffic in the dusk.

Looking at the two women's cars away, Simon lifted his backpack and turned to leave.

After buying a map of downtown Los Angeles from a nearby store, Simon sat down in the open-air seat of a street fast food restaurant, ordered the cheapest dinner, and began to look at the map.

Because of inheriting the memory of 12 other people, Simon found that it's not just those professional skills. For Hollywood, or the whole of Los Angeles, from human geography to entertainment gossip, Simon knows all kinds of information about the past and future decades.

It seems that I still have the potential to be a paparazzi.

So amused thinking, Simon easily found the location of wma's headquarters on the map.

Camino street is just not far from the intersection of Wilshire Avenue and Santa Monica Avenue, the most prosperous part of Beverly Hills. Nearby is Century City Park where media companies gather. 20th Century Fox studio is located there. CAA headquarters, wma's nemesis, is also not far away.

Mark the location of wma's headquarters, and Simon finds the headquarters address of American Writers Union, which is also on the circle.

The waiter brings up dinner, Simon fills up, checks out and goes out of the restaurant.

Then he began to worry about how to leave Burbank.

In the 1980s, there were no buses or subways in Los Angeles. There were also very few taxis, and there were telephone reservations.

After wandering the street for more than half an hour, Simon realized that he underestimated the lack of public transportation in Los Angeles and regretted that he didn't have the cheek to ask Catherine to give him a ride.

No choice but to stay in a hotel in Burbank.

Early the next morning, with the help of the hotel owner, Simon called to book a taxi. After bargaining with the driver, he finally paid $15 with a tip, and the driver sent him to West Hollywood on the other side of Santa Monica mountain.

Standing on the side of Melrose Avenue, although there is still a long way to go from the destination, in order to save money, we have to walk. Fortunately, Simon has a whole day. Following the guidance of the map, I walked south and north to Fairfax Avenue, which intersects Melrose avenue nearby. After more than 20 minutes, I came to the WGA building.

Simon didn't come here to join the writers' Union. He doesn't have the qualification yet. His main purpose is to register the copyright of the script in his backpack.

According to the federal copyright law, in theory, the creator automatically obtains the copyright after completing the work. But in reality, once there is a legal dispute, whether the copyright registration has become a very important evidence.

In the United States, there are many ways of copyright registration, and even some private registration agencies.

Of course, the most authoritative one is the copyright office. However, due to the extremely low work efficiency of the US government departments, it may take four to six months for the creators to get the copyright certificate before they submit the registration to the copyright office, and the audit progress is extremely slow.

Therefore, in Hollywood, the first choice for most screenwriters is to register copyright through WGA.

Prepare the materials and registration fees, and you can basically get the registration certificate on the same day.

Of course, registration with WGA also has disadvantages, that is, it will only keep the registration materials for five to ten years for the creators, and it needs to be renewed when it expires. However, the registration of copyright office is permanent, and the emergence of legal disputes can also get more perfect protection.

After some deliberation, Simon chose to submit all the two scripts he had completed for registration.

The registration fee for a single script is $20, and the cost of two scripts plus printing materials once again makes Simon's wallet dry. After leaving the WGA building and thinking of the meeting in the afternoon, Simon made a copy of the script of the butterfly effect, and then picked out an electronic watch that cost less than $2 from a roadside stand.After all this, it's past noon.

Simply buying a portion of food to fill his stomach, Simon rechecked his wallet, and yesterday's $198 has dropped rapidly to less than $97.

Some helpless, but not too flustered.

The most serious problem is just to live on the street. The possibility of starvation is still very low. It's a big deal to find a church to rub some free food stamps.

The appointed time is four o'clock in the afternoon. In order to ensure safety, Simon came to wma headquarters half an hour in advance.

Wma headquarters building on Camino street is a very modern glass fiber reinforced plastic structure building. Although the floor is not high, it is quite magnificent compared with other mediocre commercial buildings around. There is a small square in front of the building, which undoubtedly shows wma's outstanding position in Hollywood at this time.

Towards four o'clock, Simon stepped into wma headquarters five minutes in advance.

Explain your intention to the receptionist of the company, and the other party has called. A moment later, a young white man who looked less than 30 years old came out. The young man was wearing a professional white shirt and black trousers. He was tall, thin, with gold rimmed glasses, dark brown, meticulous and polite.

Simon knew each other's name was Owen Wright, and he was Jonathan Friedman's assistant. Then he followed the opposite direction to the inside of the building.

Shuttling through the spacious corridor next to the glass curtain wall, Simon found that the wma staff around him were either in a hurry or with their brows locked. Some people noticed his strange face and looked a little wary.

Simon was not too surprised by this situation.

According to what he knows, wma is going through a very serious turbulence in recent months.

In the first half of this year, Maurice Stoller, chairman and CEO of wma, and Stan Carmen, President of wma, died one after another.

The job vacancy caused by the death of two core executives not only caused the power struggle within the company, but also the brokerage companies such as CAA and ICM took advantage of the turmoil of wma and began to dig the wall with hoes.

Especially after Stan Carmen's death, the Hollywood gold broker's first-line stars, such as Al Pacino, Warren Beatty, Barbara Streisand Gordy Han, all went to CAA, which directly damaged wma's vitality.

Simon followed Owen Wright to an office and waited in the lounge for a moment. A middle-aged white man with gray hair pushed the door outside and came in.

Middle aged people look about 40 or 50 years old, wearing a gray suit, not too tall, over 1.7 meters, thin, deep socket, wide nose, black hair, typical Jewish appearance.

In fact, Friedman is clearly a Jewish surname.

"I'm sorry, just after a meeting," Jonathan Friedman walked up to Simon as he saw him get up. He looked at Simon faintly, with a gentle smile on his face, extended his hand politely and said, "so, Simon westero?"

Simon nodded, shook his hand and said, "Hello, Mr. Friedman. Nice to meet you."

Jonathan Friedman nodded back and made a please sign.

As they walked into the next office, the middle-aged man said: "it's the first time I've heard the surname 'westero', so I remember it immediately. Simon, that's your advantage. It's not easy to be remembered in Hollywood. "

Simon just laughed and didn't answer.

Jonathan Friedman motioned Simon to sit down across the desk. After sitting down, he put his arms relaxed on the desk and crossed ten at will to look forward to the young man opposite.

Height about 180cm, very standard.

His face is angular, with brown hair. He is not as childish as a teenager actor. He is very photogenic.

Black T-shirt, jeans, simple clothes, but there is a calm and self-confidence beyond their peers, very attractive to the opposite sex.

Potential embryo of danghong Xiaosheng.

There is a kind of Tom Cruise type development potential, the recent box office hit "top gun" has attracted too much attention.

However, the boy is a screenwriter.

Jonathan Friedman didn't have much to look forward to.

A good screenwriter needs experience. Jonathan Friedman doesn't think a 20-year-old can write a good screenplay. Even, he doubted whether the young man could understand the format of the regular Hollywood script.

In fact, Jonathan Friedman and Catherine are not familiar.

In addition to meeting occasionally at some Hollywood parties, the latest meeting between the two is just a client of Friedman who is fighting for the hero of Catherine's upcoming film.

It is for this reason that Jonathan Friedman agreed to meet today after receiving Catherine's recommendation call, which is a favor for the beautiful woman who has a certain say in the film casting.Jonathan Friedman's original intention was that if Catherine's introduction was good, he would recommend it to wma's literary agency. After all, even a Hollywood first-line screenwriter often brings less income to his agent than a second-line actor. He has no plan to act as a screenwriter himself. If not, anyway, the human relationship is enough, there is nothing wrong with direct refusal.

But at this time, seeing Simon himself, Jonathan Friedman had some idea to send Simon away as soon as possible. He was just promoted to vice president of wma this month. Recently, the company is in a mess. At this time, he is not in the mood to be a ambitious young man.

Of course, Jonathan Friedman didn't show that. He has always believed that it is necessary for him to keep a humble attitude in order to be an excellent agent.

After a brief assessment, Jonathan Friedman's tone was still mild, with a bit of encouragement and expectation, and said, "well, Simon, tell me about your script first?"