America 1982-Chapter 288 - 13: Art is Priceless_2
Martin nodded, "Very well, you go arrange it, you have full authority to handle this."
Stanley handed the videotape to a black kid outside the door, smiling as he gave some change to the kid and gave a few instructions. The seven or eight-year-old black imp immediately ran off with the videotape, and Stanley then accompanied Martin into his home.
Upon opening the door, the living room was filled with six or seven black women seated around a round table, skillfully handling ten pounds per bag of marijuana on the table, with each small package being carefully weighed.
The leader was a kindly looking, corpulent black old lady. When she saw Martin come in, she subconsciously stood up, wiping her hands with her apron:
"Is this Mr. Hart?"
"Yes, Mama," Stanley said to the old lady, then introduced her to Martin, "This is my mother, everyone calls her Mrs. Jack."
"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Jack, I’m Martin, Martin Hart," Martin said to the old lady with a smile.
"Hey, you all should leave, don’t you see Mrs. Jack’s house has a distinguished guest?" The old lady clapped her hands, signaling for the women to clear the marijuana from the table: "Hurry up and leave, don’t make my place look like a drug lord’s den."
The black women efficiently packed up the marijuana and simply pushed the door open and left.
"Uh... I thought that was the Jack family’s business." Martin breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the women take all the marijuana away.
When he first saw the scene, he had been worried that if the police showed up, they would arrest him too.
"The Jack family doesn’t deal in that kind of business, it’s just the neighbors’, I’m just helping them out while I’m bored, and keeping them company for a chat to pass the time. Everyone in this neighborhood is warm-hearted," Mrs. Jack said to Martin with a kind smile:
"Coming from the East Coast, I guess you haven’t tasted Compton’s soul food. I’ll go prepare a dish for you, Mr. Hart."
"Thank you, Mrs. Jack." Martin thanked the old lady and then, taking in the now-empty living room, said to Stanley beside him, "This place looks pretty good."
Stanley nodded gently, "Yes, everyone in the African Star neighborhood here is kind-hearted and down-to-earth. That’s also why our family has been living here for a full fifty years. It also has another name... "
"Hey~~ Stanley~ Hey, Mama, do you have any rat poison? Can you give me some rat poison?" Before Stanley could finish, a young black man wearing gold chains and dressed like a hip-hop artist barged in, first greeting him, then shouting towards Mrs. Jack in the kitchen.
Stanley introduced him to Martin, "My brother, Josh."
Mrs. Jack, dragging her portly body to the kitchen doorway, said, "Josh? We don’t have rat poison in the house, but we do have a few dozen rat traps."
"Never mind then, that dude’s guts got spilled by Roger, using rat traps on him now might be a bit inhumane. I’ll go ask the neighbors instead," muttered Josh, the youngest of the Jack family, before turning and walking out.
Martin digested the conversation between the two, then turned to Stanley sitting beside him, "What were you and your mother saying about this neighborhood just now?"
"The neighbors here all have warm hearts, they’re very kind and honest," Stanley said to Martin.
Martin nodded, "Right, really fucking warm-hearted, really fucking honest, and you mentioned another name for this African Star neighborhood?"
Stanley adjusted his glasses, "Yes, it’s also the name of our gang, the Compton Executioners."
...
In Tommy’s office, Rick hung his head, feeling somewhat guilty as he said to Tommy:
"Mr. Hawk, the pilot episode of ’Finding Daddy in America,’ had a cost reaching half a million dollars. I’ve already tried to reduce the costs, but there’s no way around it. Half a million is the lowest already. From what I understand, similar reality shows have costs ranging from 600,000 to 750,000 dollars."
The pilot episode of ’Finding Daddy in America’ had just completed not long ago. After briefly arranging the pilots for other projects, Rick Russo hurried back from the production company in Hollywood to the television station to apologize to Tommy.
According to his earlier cost estimates, he thought an episode could be done for about 350,000 US dollars. But once the actual filming started, he realized the expenses were more numerous than he had anticipated.
He assumed that post-production would be similar to that of adult films, but once it moved into the post-production stage, everything was completely different from the lively and colorful production of adult films.
Although he tried to control the costs, BT Film Production hadn’t dared to commission major companies like Columbia, Warner, Fox, etc., to help with the television program production. Instead, they chose Casavina, a second-tier independent company in the TV program production industry. Still, cost overruns were inevitable once the project started running.
For just one episode of a non-celebrity black reality show, the company had assigned a post-production team of seventeen workers to start the job, something completely unimaginable to Rick Russo.
During the production of adult films, when the raw footage entered post-editing, there would only be two workers, who were able to complete all tasks including editing, modifications, compressing scenes, designing covers, and handling sound effects, among other tasks.
