In early October, the National Day holiday had just passed. A bit of the Siberian cold current seemed to have flowed out, crossing the Mongolian Plateau and arriving at the small Kuandian studio on the bank of the Yalu River.
Assistant director Guo Fan frequently checked the weather forecast on his mobile phone, which was accurate to fifteen minutes. It showed that the temperature would be between minus one degree and minus three degrees from nine to ten o'clock in the evening. It was a cold day.
But that was not the case on the set at the moment. Since we were filming a scene involving flames, the set was so hot that the air was stretched and deformed by the flames, and the edges were rolled up. Guo Fan wiped his sweat, and the square inside the monitor
Yi is running:
He stumbled, holding a gun, looking left and right in the mud, looking very wary. Fang Yi was the only one in the picture, and there was a dilapidated house. Several cameras were pointed at him at the same time.
Fang Yi ran and watched, and the camera moved synchronously with him. When he was about to reach the edge of the set, suddenly a flare was sent from the sky. In an instant, the entire field of view was brightened, and the camera followed Fang Yi.
Yi's "direction" turned, and what came into view were the ruins of the wall.
It turned out that there were not just one or two houses here, but an entire large village that had been smashed to pieces, and everyone had disappeared.
Fang Yi was shocked and stood still, but his shadow was stretched very long and distorted by the flare. The shadow fell in the village, moving rapidly from window to window, like a ghost, until it disappeared in the flames.
What does this shadow mean?
It is to increase the sense of immersion for the audience, as if they can see the end from this end from a "first-person" perspective, and quickly confirm for the audience that there is indeed no one at all. The village was destroyed by American aircraft and cannons.
Perhaps Fang Yi, the protagonist, was very anxious. Although he stood still, his eyes swept over the entire village, leaving nothing behind.
So what happened to the people in the village? Are they dead or have they fled? You can decide on your own, since it was the Americans who did it anyway.
The scene is fixed on Fang Yi's face, with flames beating on his face. The surging thoughts in his chest are all expressed through this firelight.
——“cut!”
After waiting for a while, Fang Yi raised his hand and said, "Let me take a look at the scene just now." His voice was a little hoarse because Fang Yi was deeply involved in the scene. Guo Fan immediately gave him salt water, and Fang Yi took a few sips and took a few deep breaths.
Then sit in front of the monitor.
I watched the footage just now.
Not good. Fang Yi's face turned bitter.
Damn it! I’ve been preparing for so long and it still doesn’t work.
There are two difficulties in this section. One is that when the flare flies up, the shadow below has to follow the direction, which means that the route planning and prop placement of the entire set require some geometric knowledge; the other is that the shadow is dancing on Fang Yi's face.
The firelight should be very bright, and it is best to illuminate the child's hole until it oozes golden red.
In the end, neither of these was achieved.
Especially the latter, it's not bright enough. On a giant screen in a movie theater, this is a big flaw.
Actor Zhang Yi explained the difference between movies and TV series in terms of performance, which is the difference in scale. For example, in the small screen of the TV series, you have to cry and your muscles tremble to show that you are shocked, but on the super big screen in the movie theater
, as long as you raise your eyelids, the audience will realize it and you will be shocked.
Therefore, when Fang Yi has no body movements or lines, if his face is not bright enough, the audience will not be able to even "raise their eyelids" and may not know what he is performing.
"Are we going to reshoot it?"
Guo Fandu muttered, he estimated the cost and grinned: "Let's use other methods to solve it. The current situation is that it may not be able to be solved if we try again."
Fang Yi agreed with Guo Fan. If he wanted to stick to this scene, he had to do it.
Regarding how to shoot, the creative team had prepared before shooting, but the actual shooting may not have the desired effect, which is a chore. Fortunately, we use digital cameras now, so we will know immediately whether it will work.
Ten years ago, when digital cameras were not very common, we didn’t know not only whether they would succeed, but also whether they would fail.
At that time, a film camera was used. The characteristic of that thing was that after the filming, the director did not know what the picture would look like. He had to put the film in a refrigerator and transport it by air to a big city that could develop the film. He didn't know until it was developed, and he couldn't see it before it was developed.
There is no light and no heat.
At least a week or two should pass.
Therefore, the status of the photographer at that time was much higher than it is now, and it is not an exaggeration to say that he was the second director. Because whether it is good or bad depends entirely on the experience of the photographer, he can judge whether this part can be successful or not.
The current situation is that it cannot be done.
Guo Fan said: "This shot is too difficult. If it had been shot twenty or thirty years ago, it would have been almost impossible! Unless the director is a person like the king of sunglasses, he will try his best over and over again regardless of the cost until it is shot.
"
He added: "However, this just proves how powerful we are. Why? Because technology has just developed to the point where it is possible, we tried to shoot such a sequence, which is very groundbreaking. This shows that our method
Director, has become a world-class leading director."
Fang Yi: "You have said all the good things, but you can't make a movie just by saying good things."
Guo Fan knew that he was not willing to give in, so he insisted on chewing this part, and immediately changed his tone: "We can't shoot it now, but we can always shoot it, in two weeks or three weeks at most... When we encounter mountains and rivers, we wade through them.
, can’t you still figure it out?”
The Kuandian studio not only has this one set, but in fact there are three locations in the entire suburb of Kuandian County that are used as filming locations. So here, the US military shoots along the river, and on the other side, soldiers from the Seventh Company shoot from the side of the road three kilometers away.
He sprang out and engaged in a fierce "gunfight" with the US military. This was all to save costs, and it couldn't be seen in the editing anyway.
What Guo Fan said makes sense. The worst he can do is continue to fight. It won't affect other filming.
For the next two days, Fang Yi thought hard all night, and during the day he summoned people from the special effects team and art team to discuss how to change the shooting equipment without affecting the picture effect to achieve the goal.
In human terms, it is how to make the fire become bigger and brighter.
There are two conclusions. One is to use special effects to increase the brightness on Wu Qianli's face in post-production - this conclusion was abandoned. Because what is needed here is not just a rough increase in brightness, but the brightness under firelight, that is
Special effects need to simulate fire, which requires the use of particle effects.
Base has never done this before, so I don't know if it will work. They have a full schedule now and are working overtime, so they have no time for trial and error.
The other is to physically increase the amount of fire, such as setting fire to a large forest - maybe Chen Kaige, Zhang Dabeard and others can do this, but Fang Yi cannot.
He dubbed the documentary "We Are Born in China" the year before last and later became the mainland's environmental protection ambassador. He must not do this kind of thing.
Stuck here.
For two full days, soldier Wu Qianli charged along this road several times carrying domestically produced Bobosha. After running out of the screen, it switched back to director Fang Yi to comment on the scene just now.
Every time he took a photo, the results were not satisfactory. The weather was getting colder and colder, and he didn't have much time left.
He also felt the suffering of the soldiers back then. The sky was not responding and the earth was not working. In this small place, he was trapped.
Fortunately, Fang Yi lived in 2012 after all, so he quickly received help from the organization.