（外文电子版资料）Robert A Heinlein - Shooting Destination Moon (Article).pdf

SHOOTING DESTINATION MOON “Why don’t they make more science fiction movies?” The answer to any question starting, “Why don’t they—” is almost always, “Money.” I arrived in Hollywood with no knowledge of motion picture production or costs, no experience in writing screen plays, nothing but a yen to write the first Hollywood picture about the first trip to the Moon. Lou Schor, an agent who is also a science fiction enthusiast, introduced me to a screen writer, Alford van Ronkel; between us we turned out a screen play from one of my space travel stories. So we were in business— Uh, not quite. The greatest single production problem is to find someone willing to risk the money. People who have spare millions of dollars do not acquire them by playing angel to science fiction writers with wild ideas. We were fortunate in meeting George Pal of George Pal Productions, who became infected with the same madness. So we had a producer—now we were in business. Still not quite— Producers and financiers are not the same thing. It was nearly a year from the writing of the screen play until George Pal informed us that he had managed to convince an angel. (How? Hypnosis? Drugs? I’ll never know. If! had a million dollars, I would sit on it and shoot the first six science fiction writers who came my way with screen plays.) Despite those huge Hollywood salaries, money is as hard to get in Hollywood as anywhere. The money men in Hollywood write large checks only when competition leaves them no alternative; they prefer to write small checks, or no checks at all. Even though past the big hurdle of getting the picture financed, money trouble remains with one throughout production; if a solution to a special-effects problem costs thirty thousand dollars but the budget says five thousand dollars, then you have got to think of an equally good five thousand dollar gølution—and that’s all there is to it. 1 .1 mention this