Chapter 108 Stealing Lao Guo's Industrialization Process
Chapter 108 Stealing Lao Guo’s industrialization process (please subscribe)
Author: Box and Orange
Chapter 108 Stealing Lao Guo’s industrialization process (please subscribe)
"Director Zhang Hao's new project "The Magic" has been approved, and two major stars, Huang Xiaoming and Deng Chao, are eager to join the project."
"Xu Qing said frankly that this was her second time working with director Zhang Hao, and she was completely moved by the story and script."
"Teacher Li Xuejian said that when he starred in Zhang Hao's movie, he mainly wanted to see what this young man could do."
After the press conference for the project of "The Deadly Magic", the media gave it enough space and conducted a lot of reports.
Haotian Studio is not idle here either. It released a concept poster designed by Zhang Hao on its official Weibo to attract the attention of movie fans.
The attention this time when the project of "The Prestige" was launched was the most overwhelming since Zhang Hao started making movies. It also proves from the side how much attention his film projects are getting now.
After the project establishment press conference, the leading actors also had their first script reading.
After signing the actor contract, the leading actors each received a complete version of the script.
Deng Chao was very happy to finally see the legendary highly confidential script, but after opening the script and reading only two pages, his brain cells began to burn.
During the script reading meeting, Deng Chao had the most questions and repeatedly asked Zhang Hao about things he didn't understand. In contrast, Huang Xiaoming was embarrassed to ask Zhang Hao and studied silently by himself.
"Director Zhang, are Ajie and Amo a clone or a replica?" Deng Chao asked Zhang Hao again after seeing the scene between Ajie and his prop master Amo in the script.
Zhang Hao had just finished reviewing the preparation of props and costumes, and various work logs were summarized to him and required her signature.
After listening to Deng Chao's question, he replied: "A replica or a clone or something, the self and the original body are one memory, one thought and one emotion. And Amo and Ajie have obviously different preferences, how can they be said to be one body?"
"Oh? It turns out there are two people, so I am playing two roles." Deng Chao understood a little.
When he didn't get the script at first, he thought he was playing one character, the magician Ajie. But after receiving the script, he was dumbfounded when he saw him playing two characters.
After seeing some basic settings of "The Deadly Magic", Deng Chao thought the two people were the same person.
In fact, the script has already told everyone through Lao Bai's mouth that Ajie and Amo are two people. Amo is Ajie's stand-in, or in other words, the two are substitutes for each other.
When the mystery is revealed layer by layer along with the plot, you can feel the pleasure of successfully solving the mystery while reading the script.
This is what made Deng Chao very excited. He was obsessed with the wonderful story told in the script and marveled at Zhang Hao's ingenious plot design.
In contrast, although Huang Xiaoming also worked hard, he was obviously not as obsessed as Deng Chao.
This is not to say that Huang Xiaoming is not dedicated, on the contrary, he has done a very good job in character understanding and shaping, and even developed and wrote a short biography of the magician Ah Hao himself.
Teacher Li Xuejian is also very diligent. In order to meet his status as a magic prop master, he specially asked his old friends to find someone to study for a period of time.
We are all magicians, how can we not learn two-handed magic?
So Zhang Hao invited two well-known magicians to give magic lessons to the crew and creators. Now even Li Xiaoran, who is the clumsiest, has learned a simple spring rope magic and showed off his skills in front of Zhang Hao.
The behind-the-scenes team assembled for "The Magic" is also quite strong this time. In addition to Zhang Hao's own team, costume design director Xi Zhongwen and art design director Yi Zhenzhou also joined.
Both of them have won awards related to the Golden Horse Film Awards, and have also participated in the behind-the-scenes work of "Hero" and "The City of Golden Armor".
Hearing that Zhang Hao was looking for suitable people to assist Su Tong in completing the art design work, the national master recommended these two people to Zhang Hao.
Looking at it this way, a normal national master is quite cute and takes good care of his juniors.
After the location scouting was completed, artistic director Su Tong returned to the capital and communicated with Zhang Hao about the work. In several scenes, the crew needed to appropriately modify them to conform to the settings in the script.
After the project establishment press conference, preparation work suddenly accelerated.
Tiangong Yicai Studio and a Korean special effects company began preliminary special effects design and production of props.
Many of the magic props used in the film, such as water tanks, bird cages, etc., need to be designed and produced by Tiangong Yicai in conjunction with a Korean special effects company.
In order to meet Zhang Hao's requirement that it can be used for real magic performances, he did not hesitate to invite many famous magic prop masters to join the crew and complete the production of props together.
The entire production of props is handed over to the special effects studio to form a standardized process, which is the first of its kind in China.
According to the general understanding in the Chinese film industry, special effects production is equivalent to computer special effects, especially after the release of "Avatar".
But this is not the case. In addition to computer special effects, there is also the production of physical props, the production of model props, and the design of sound special effects, which all belong to the field of special effects production.
In the past, in mainland film crews, most of these tasks were done by people in different positions.
Computer special effects are handed over to overseas special effects companies, props are produced by prop designers, and then customized by factories. The same goes for costumes.
Everyone gathered together for a play and dispersed after the play was over. There was never a real production pipeline.
To a large extent, this is a process issue.
Now, Zhang Hao is setting an example for the industry on how to form a standardized process for the production of special effects props.
Speaking of which, I would also like to thank Guo Fan for inspiring Zhang Hao.
Guo Fan himself said in his previous life that what Chinese-language films lack is not technology and talent, but the process of how to effectively integrate these technologies and talents.
This process is the foundation of film industrialization.
Guo Fan had found a path for Zhang Hao in his previous life, which made it a lot smoother for Zhang Hao to promote the film production process of "The Prestige".
And now Guo Fan, while studying with his own notes, admired Zhang Hao: "Director, you are amazing, you can actually think of forming such a process."
Zhang Hao blushed after hearing this. To be precise, he was stealing from his master, and what he was stealing was the experience summed up by the person in front of him.
Although it is said that in his previous life, Guo Fan himself recorded this set of procedures for the major domestic film and television companies and crews to learn from.
But Zhang Hao still felt a little embarrassed to take this credit as his own.
So Zhang Hao quickly said with a sloppy eye: "Can you summarize this set of procedures, or write down the problems we encountered during the filming process, and use them as experience in the future for other film companies and crews to learn from."
Guo Fan was in awe and gave Zhang Hao a thumbs up: "Director, you are amazing. You don't hide your clumsiness, but share it with everyone without hesitation. You are so high-level!"
If there was a picture to describe this scene, it would be like this:
As expected, he is indeed the man that I, Guo Fan, like, with a high level of ideological consciousness...
Zhang Hao stopped talking, forget it, he's tired, do whatever you want.
Although preparations for the film are going very smoothly, according to the schedule, it is estimated that the first shot will not be shot until the end of September.
During this period, "Detective Dee: The Empire of Heaven" was about to be released.
This film is directed by Xu Laoguai and stars Liu Tianwang, Li Binbing, Deng Chao, Liu Jialing and others. Most importantly, this film is produced and distributed by Huayi.
Because Huayi invested in "The Prestige", Zhang Hao was naturally invited to attend the premiere, giving the film a boost of momentum.