Zeng Zhengzong took the split-shot script and looked through it, trying to find a suitable description for the demonstration in the [Special Effects Description] text in the details table of each shot in the split-shot script.
"Is there any literary script that I can appreciate?" Chen Kaige was a little curious about Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei's science fiction script.
He also graduated from Beijing Film Academy. During the graduation season, students work in groups of three to five to make dramas or micro-films. He is also aware of these things.
I heard Liu Yifei said that her and Chu Xuan's micro-film works are science fiction. Faced with a subject that has not appeared in China before, a subject that is not considered by capital, and a subject that cannot be released in a short time due to market box office restrictions.
The themes that will appear will face the themes that are restricted by the domestic film and television basic industry.
As a director, he brings some freshness.
Liu Yifei took out two literary scripts written by her and Chu Xuan from her small backpack and handed them to Chen Kaige.
"Teacher Kai Ge." she said.
Chen Kaige took it, and Wang Jinhua took another copy from Chen Kaige's singer and looked through it.
At this time, Zeng Zhengzong found a simple description of the special effects scene, approached Chu Xuan and pointed at it: "Mr. Chu, the company's special effects preset library for this scene happens to have a similar one, can we just use it for demonstration?"
Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei looked at it - [The tsunami spread into the city and the building collapsed.]
"Okay." Chu Xuan nodded.
"Show me." Tang Jili took the over-scene script.
"Is there also a storyboard script?" Han Sanping asked.
Liu Yifei nodded and handed the last storyboard script to Han Sanping, who reached out and took it.
Zeng Zhengzong was about to demonstrate the production of special effects. Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei followed, and the others followed while reading the script.
Everyone present was a shareholder. Previously, they had only determined the value of the company through its performance and basic software and hardware expenses, and had made plans to merge into Bright Times Film and Television Company.
Special effects are a new thing. Except for Han Sanping, a high-ranking boss in the China Film Group, who has an in-depth understanding of special effects, the rest of the people have a vague understanding of this aspect, and the things they occasionally learn are specious.
Chu Xuan just proposed to see the details of the special effects production, which is exactly what they want. After all, it is a company controlled by themselves. They also want to see the special effects production process and the level of special effects production.
"These are the original paintings." Zeng Zhengzong picked up a stack of drawings.
Everyone took a look and each took out some original paintings from the drawings and looked at them.
"All special effects require original paintings?" Chu Xuan lowered his head and looked at it. The original paintings included scenes of ancient buildings, scenes of weather changes, scenes of cracks in the earth, etc.
After listening to Chu Xuan's question, Zheng Min on the side shook his head and said: "Environmental special effects and scene special effects rely on the original painting. The fighting special effects between other characters do not need the original painting. In other words, the larger the special effects scene, the more important the original painting will be."
For large and small special effects, just use computers to synthesize them."
Everyone nodded.
Zeng Zhengzong pulled out a pile of original paintings from the original paintings, showed them to Chu Xuan, and said: "Mr. Chu, look at it."
Everyone and Chu Xuan looked together. Chu Xuan took the original paintings and looked at them one by one. The main subject of these original paintings was a building that was impacted by sea water.
In the first original painting, the sea water is some distance away from the building.
In the second original painting, the water is gradually getting closer to the building.
In the subsequent original painting, sea water hits the building and the building slowly collapses.
"There is this scene in the script of the micro-movie "Hope"," Zeng Zhengzong said.
Wang Jinhua, Chen Kaige, Tang Jili and Han Sanping read the script and found that such a scene was indeed described.
"Then what?" Chu Xuan asked.
Zeng Zhengzong put these original paintings into a machine and said: "Scan the original paintings into the computer. This is the first process."
As he spoke, Zeng Zhengzong patted a technician on the shoulder, and the technician quickly understood.
In the eyes of everyone, the computer in front of this technician had a bunch of original paintings imported into a piece of software that they had just seen.
"These pictures look three-dimensional, but they are actually flat in nature," Zeng Zhengzong said.
Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei nodded. The building in the picture has three-dimensional lines and looks three-dimensional, but overall it is still a flat figure.
"To turn it into a real three-dimensional model, we need to model it. This is also the second step of the process." Zeng Zhengzong said.
He pointed at the computer screen and said: "The software can provide a three-dimensional space. The polygonal three-dimensional grid we see is used for wiring. The wiring lines are used to turn the virtual lines of the plan into real ones to form a real three-dimensional figure.
"
He added: "Modeling is a very time-consuming task, and the interlaced vertical and horizontal wiring work is particularly complicated. The more precise the model, the less mistakes can be made, otherwise the three-dimensional graphics will show a distorted effect."
Chu Xuan looked at the floor plan in the software and said, "Does this picture have the final three-dimensional effect?"
Zeng Zhengzong put his hand on the back of the chair and said to the technician: "Preset picture."
The technicians understood in seconds, moved the mouse to operate, created a new three-dimensional space, and dragged out a building from the preset model. This building was exactly the floor plan that Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei had just seen. It was just at this moment.
The graphics are three-dimensional.
The technician drags the mouse and the three-dimensional graphics in the mobile software rotate 360 degrees. The boxy building model and the scene of the spreading sea water are very three-dimensional.
"Each special effects company has its own special effects preset library. These special effects have international copyrights. If any company directly edits them into their own films and TV series, they can sue for infringement." Zeng Zhengzong explained.
Everyone listened and expressed their understanding.
"Modeling is to make the floor plan three-dimensional and the character model three-dimensional." Chu Xuan asked.
"That's understandable." Zeng Zhengzong nodded and said to the technician: "Play the demonstration."
The technician did what he said and pressed the f5 shortcut key. The software changed to full-screen mode and started playing 24 frames and 24 pictures.
In front of everyone's eyes, in a separate scene of a building, sea water emerged from the bottom of the video, and then surged towards the building. When the sea water touched the building, the glass of the building shattered and began to shake, and then slowly collapsed.
Lean posture.
"It looks shocking, but it's still a bit fake." Liu Yifei smoothed her hair and said.
"The buildings and the sea water are all gray and there is no light and shadow. It looks like a silent movie animation." Chen Kaige expressed his opinion.
Zeng Zhengzong smiled and said: "This is just modeling, of course there is no light, shadow and color."
As he spoke, he walked to a technician next to him.
Zeng Zhengzong pointed to the technician just now and said: "The original painter is the first process of special effects, and the modeler just now is the second process of special effects production."
He patted the back of the chair and said: "The next step is special effects production, which is the third process and is controlled by the special effects artist."
Original painters, modelers, special effects artists... everyone nodded to express their understanding.
At this time, the special effects master dragged a special effect from the special effects preset library and placed it at the contact point between the sea water and the building.
Under the gaze of everyone, the point of contact between the seawater and the building suddenly exploded into spray.
When I was modeling just now, the seawater only touched the building, and there was no special effect of the water splash.
Seeing this scene, everyone also understood that the role of the special effects artist is to add special effects one by one to make the scene more detailed and realistic.
"This special effect is ready-made," Tang Jili said.
"When technicians practice their techniques, they usually create special effects that are applied to various scenes, so that they can be used as a reference or used directly when there are corresponding projects." Zeng Zhengzong said.
"The water splashes when it hits the building. This is considered a physical special effect." Chen Kaige said.
"Yes." Zeng Zhengzong nodded.
"It's very expensive to do special effects like this." Han Sanping is someone who knows special effects.
"But there is still no light, shadow and color." Chu Xuan said.
Zeng Zhengzong glanced at Chu Xuan and said: "The fourth step of the process is ready."
Everyone followed Zeng Zhengzong and came behind another technician.
"The fourth step is the most important step in special effects production, which is special effects rendering, which is the responsibility of the renderer." Zeng Zhengzong patted the back of the chair.
The technicians understood the situation and imported the 24 graphics of the seawater hitting the building from the shared files on the computer into the renderer software.
Chu Xuan looked at it and said: "The crew of "Zhu Xian" talked with Mr. Zeng about some special effects. Before the "Hope" micro-movie, Sissy and I also read a lot of science fiction movie magazines. I have always had a doubt about why special effects are needed.
How long does it take to render? One second of special effects in "Star Wars" took ten days to render on a thousand computers? That's 240,000 hours? I can't understand it."
Liu Yifei frowned, and Chen Kaige and others looked like they were listening. This was not only Chu Xuan's doubts, but also what they wanted to know.
Zeng Zhengzong smiled slightly, spread his hands and gestured and said: "Mr. Chu, if you have a Rubik's Cube wall made up of 10,000 Rubik's Cubes in front of you, how long would it take you to clearly see the colors of each Rubik's Cube and each module in the Rubik's Cube Wall?
And write it down?"
Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei were startled and looked at Zeng Zhengzong thoughtfully.
"This is impossible, no matter how much time it takes." Liu Yifei shook her head.
Zeng Zhengzong's smile grew thicker and he said: "The principle of the renderer is to imitate the imaging of the camera in the retina of the human eye. It takes us a lot of time to see a complex thing, so the renderer imitates the human eye to see a complex thing.
Complex special effects scenes require the use of underlying algorithms to analyze the imaging. The more time it takes, the clearer the image will be, the more textured, textured, and more realistic the image will be."
Everyone was suddenly startled, and then suddenly realized.
"Teacher Zeng explained clearly and clearly, and I learned a lot." Chen Kaige said with a gentle smile. Even a big domestic director, he learned something new at this moment.
"I understand." Liu Yifei said sweetly.
"I understand." Chu Xuan said.
"Teacher Zeng said that rendering is the most important part of special effects production. Why is it the most important?" Wang Jinhua looked away from the "Hope" script and asked.
Zeng Zhengzong patted the technician on the shoulder and motioned for him to give way.
After the technical staff gave way, Zeng Zhengzong sat down and explained in person.
"I'll talk about a few must-use parameter functions."
Everyone watched, waiting for his next words.
"Generally, the first step in special effects rendering requires filtering, which is equivalent to the software scanning the graphics and analyzing it into pixels one after another. This pixel is equivalent to the pixel of the camera."
"Disassemble the image captured by the camera into pixels."
Chen Kaige said something.
"It can be understood that way." Zeng Zhengzong nodded, clicked on a parameter with the mouse, and said: "After filtering, add materials."
"Like this building, we can add stone on the outside and steel structure metal on the inside. Modeling and special effects only make the scene three-dimensional, and rendering can make the scene solid."
"The third step is environment rendering, adding light and shadow, such as sunlight, sunset light, moonlight, etc."
Everyone nodded and looked at the preliminary lights and shadows added by Zeng Zhengzong.
"The light and shadow are too vague, floating on the surface." Chu Xuan said.
"So manual optimization is required." Zeng Zhengzong said: "According to the customer's special effects production level requirements, it is divided into non-optimization, normal optimization and fine optimization, corresponding to non-optimization, local optimization and pixel optimization."
"Pixel optimization?" Liu Yifei raised her eyebrows, slightly confused.
Zeng Zhengzong turned his head and said: "It's just pixel by pixel optimization, optimizing the light and shadow details to be as consistent as possible with the real light and shadow."
"Fuck you." Tang Jili couldn't help but curse.
"What are the pixels of this building and the water?" he asked.
Zeng Zhengzong looked at the data and said: "1425 pixels."
"How long does it take to optimize pixel by pixel? This is still a scene, there is no other way?" Tang Jili was speechless.
Zeng Zhengzong shook his head and said: "The software is just a simulation, and refinement requires manual labor. Even if it is done by world-class special effects personnel from Hollywood, the time cannot be accelerated."
Everyone nodded slowly, feeling very emotional. Even if they didn’t understand special effects, this understanding would make them understand how difficult it is to create special effects.
"Whoever says that post-production can be completed in a few months for future special effects movies will definitely be a bad movie." Chen Kaige said.
Everyone raised their lips slightly, amused by Chen Kaige's words.
"Teacher Zeng, don't be so absolute. There are definitely ways to shorten the production of special effects." Chu Xuan said.
Zeng Zhengzong was stunned for a moment and said with a smile: "There is a rendering farm in Hollywood. Tens of thousands of computers are dedicated to special effects rendering to save time. If Mr. Chu can do this, supplemented by five to a total of two thousand people
The technicians are all veterans, so the production of special effects is absolutely efficient."
"Ahem." Chu Xuan said, "Let's talk about it later."
Seeing that Chu Xuan was a little embarrassed, everyone was slightly happy.
"The shooting of special effects shots is inseparable from the production of post-production special effects. Can Teacher Zeng talk about this aspect?" Chen Kaige asked.
Zeng Zhengzong nodded, thought for a moment and said, "shooting on green cloth in a studio requires post-production special effects processing. If I were a special effects director, I would immediately imagine the special effects scene based on the space of the green cloth.
"Then based on the imagined special effects scenes, the actors were reminded where to stand in front of the green cloth and how to move."
"Finally, I will advise the director on which shot should be pulled up, pushed out, down or up."
"Ultimately, the captured images must conform to the parameter simulation of the renderer. This will save a lot of time in post-production special effects production, because the director's shots are shot according to the special effects lenses. If the light and shadow effects are very good, there is no need to adjust."
Everyone looked at each other with a slight understanding.
Chen Kaige stretched out his finger and pointed it, as if pointing the country: "So, whether the special effects are good or not depends on the director's shooting skills and light and shadow technology."
"That's for sure. After all, special effects serve the picture, and the captured picture is the core." Zeng Zhengzong said without a doubt.
"Special effects are just embellishments. The core still depends on the abilities and artistic ideas of the producer and director." Han Sanping agreed.
Everyone nodded slightly. Any film or television drama is first provided with ideas by the producer, and then shot by the director. Even post-production special effects production requires the director to provide guidance on pictures and shots.
What producers and directors need to think about is if the special effects are perfectly integrated with the captured images. If the captured images are not good, then the best special effects will be of no use because they cannot be integrated together.
Therefore, when making a special effects blockbuster, the producer, director, and special effects director are the trinity, and the artistic ideas need to be unified.
After this trip, Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei broadened their thinking again and benefited a lot.
"For the 4 minutes of CG scenes before and after the short film "Hope", what is the budget based on the top-notch special effects you can achieve?" Wang Jinhua suddenly asked.
Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei were startled. They did not expect Wang Jinhua to ask such a question, but it was also a question they wanted to know, so they turned to look at Zeng Zhengzong.
Zeng Zhengzong was stunned for a moment and did not look back. The big boss spoke. He clicked on the calculator with the mouse and made a budget based on his experience.
"Based on the average."
"4 minutes and 240 seconds. The benchmark for movie special effects is 24 frames per second. CG images do not need green cloth to shoot, so special effects require 24 original paintings per second."
"According to the highest standards, the average movie-level original painting is 500 yuan per piece, and 5,760 original paintings in 4 minutes is 2.88 million."
"Based on the average rendering time of 150 hours for one frame of movie special effects, it takes half an hour for the company's 300 computers to render one frame of special effects, 12 hours for 1 second of special effects, and 120 days for 240 seconds of special effects, which is 4 months."
"There are 80 technical staff, the average monthly salary is 10,000, and the salary for 4 months is 3.2 million, and the performance increase is 20%, which is about 3.8 million."
"A special effects computer cost 10.8 million yuan for 36,300 computers. It can withstand full load operation for one year. The special effects production of "Hope" took 4 months, and the computer cost was 3.6 million yuan."
"A computer with a power of 300 watts consumes 0.3 kilowatt-hours of electricity per hour. 300 computers consume 90 kilowatt-hours of electricity in one hour, which is 260,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity in 4 months. According to the enterprise-level electricity consumption system of Beijing, which requires more use and more provision, 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity is 1.7 kilowatt-hours.
Yuan, 260,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity is about 440,000 yuan.”
"So, the 4-minute CG scene of the "Hope" micro-movie took 4 months and was budgeted according to the highest standards, roughly around 10.72 million. This is just the cost, not counting any additional profit charges."
Everyone was shocked, 4 minutes of special effects were so expensive? It was just the cost.
"If we calculate it in terms of outsourcing projects, how much is it?" Wang Jinhua asked.
"More than 15 million." Zeng Zhengzong said.
Hearing this, Zhang Jizhong shook his head, gave Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei a thumbs up, and said: "The special effects alone cost 15 million. This micro-movie of yours is a bit awesome and grand!"
Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei looked at each other. They did not expect that movie special effects would be so expensive. Adding a few million would almost catch up with the 65 episodes of "Zhu Xian".
Wang Jinhua smiled and said: "Although the special effects company is about to be merged into Brilliant Era, each subsidiary has a different division of labor and different finances. Calculated based on the outsourcing price, I will pay for it."
Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei were startled and turned their heads to look at Wang Jinhua.
Wang Jinhua said to the two of them: "This is a graduation gift for you."
