Chapter 111 Turn movies into magic (please subscribe)
Author: Box and Orange
Chapter 111 Turn movies into magic (please subscribe)
A successful director is indispensable for box office and awards. He must seize both hands and be strong with both hands.
Zhang Hao has gone further and further towards becoming a successful director, which is something worth celebrating.
However, at this moment, he had no time to open the champagne to celebrate. Because the filming of "The Prestige" was quite hard and there were a lot of troubles.
Today I filmed a theater performance scene, which is the scene where Li Xiaoran plays the role of the magician’s assistant and Ah Hao’s wife, Don’t Drown.
In order to strive for authenticity, the water tank is made of real water and can be used for magic performances.
Before the filming started, the magician who was the consultant of the crew and his assistant demonstrated back and forth several times to show Li Xiaoran how to escape safely.
In case of an accident, let Li Xiaoran escape according to the escape methods taught by the magician.
"Director, it's very safe, don't worry!" Li Xiaoran saw Zhang Hao checking the props uneasily and comforted him.
"You still need to check it carefully, safety first." Zhang Hao said.
In fact, a similar scene can be completed using green screen special effects production. CG simulates the water tank being broken, and then the water is scattered on the ground.
However, the effects produced by the green screen special effects technology were too fake and the picture was distorted. Since it was not Industrial Light and Magic, Tiangong Yicai could not produce such advanced green screen CG special effects, so Zhang Hao used real-life shooting.
The props were quickly prepared, and the extras who acted as the audience also came in and took their seats.
This extravaganza was quite easy. Zhang Hao remembered that when he was an extra, he was either exposed to the sun or rained every day, or he would lie on the ground pretending to be dead to earn some money for corpses.
"Okay, one last check, all departments are ready." Zhang Hao did not sit in the director's studio, but personally controlled the camera on the scene.
After filming started, Li Xiaoran was tied up with ropes by Ajie, played by Deng Chao, and Ahao, played by Huang Xiaoming. They looked at each other and Ajie tied a Lan knot.
Although this kind of knot is strong, it will soak when exposed to water and is difficult to untie.
The scenes were shot in several segments and then connected together through post-production editing.
The magic assistant played by Li Xiaoran was hoisted into the water tank, and then the red curtain was lowered.
Considering the safety of the actors entering the water, it is impossible to complete the entire performance process at one time, but to perform them separately.
Lao Bai, played by Li Xuejian, picked up the hammer, pinched his watch and looked at the time. When the time came, he realized something was wrong and quickly went over with the hammer to lift the curtain.
Sure enough, the magic assistant Li Mei, played by Li Xiaoran, struggled for help, and Lao Bai quickly hit the water tank glass with a hammer.
The water in the water tank poured out. Li Mei had been drowning for too long and could not be saved.
Ah Hao collapsed and cried because it was his wife who died.
This scene was shot all morning. Except for the last drowning scene, which was a success, the other scenes were shot many times.
The main problem lies with the extras. The performances on the stage require the cooperation of the audience off the stage. But the extras have no acting skills at all. The few close-ups given are all local special actors and foreground actors.
No matter what, this scene, which was not really difficult, still took me a whole morning to complete.
After this, Li Xiaoran had several more scenes, one was a successful water tank magic escape show, and the other was a backstage argument scene.
The next day, the crew filmed another difficult scene. It was said to be difficult because it required a real performance of the trick.
To this end, the magic master Zhong Linsu needs to be played as a real master of ancient color tricks.
The crew also searched all over the magic field, and finally it was Guan Xiaotong's father, Guan Shaozeng, who came forward and found the magic master named Tao Xuecheng.
It happened that he was very good at transforming into a fish tank, so Zhang Hao asked him to perform in the movie.
Tao Xuecheng is old and has no one to pass on his skills, so he is extremely happy to appear in movies to promote ancient tricks.
He just didn't understand Zhang Hao's request that he pretend to be bow-legged and perform the fish tank trick, because he didn't even need to put the fish tank between his legs to perform the trick, and he even performed it to Zhang Hao in person.
"So, Master Tao, how did you transform the fish tank?" Zhang Hao couldn't help but asked Tao Xuecheng out of curiosity.
Tao Xuecheng drank tea calmly, glanced sideways at Zhang Hao and said, "This is a secret. If the secret of the trick is known to the audience, is it still called a trick?"
"Uh!" Zhang Hao touched his head and said, "Curious, I'm just curious."
"You young people don't understand our ancient magic legends. You think you can figure out the secrets of magic by just guessing. Even if I tell you, you don't understand."
After Tao Xuecheng said this, he ignored Zhang Hao, leaving Zhang Hao with an embarrassed face.
The old man was dissatisfied with his deconstruction of the ancient color trick of turning into a fish tank. In his opinion, this was not the secret of turning into a fish tank at all.
Zhang Hao was very innocent. He had never seen a similar trick before, and this trick was in the original movie.
Even Zhong Linsu is a real person in history. He was a magician who performed for a kind old lady in the palace in the late Qing Dynasty. He is called a magician in the West.
Later, he performed a performance of catching bullets with his bare hands and died accidentally because of this magic trick.
In the plot, the magician Ajie performed a magic trick, and then Ahao broke two of his fingers.
On the day of the filming of this scene, all the crew members who had nothing to do came to watch the performance of this magic master.
Although he was dissatisfied with Zhang Hao's deconstruction, Tao Xuecheng still followed Zhang Hao's request and completed the magic performance of turning into a fish tank using a bow-legged method.
At the end of the performance, the extras no longer needed to pretend, they applauded sincerely, and even after the shooting, they were still discussing how everything was done.
Every time there is a magic show, many viewers want to know how it is all done. Even in the past few years when magic shows were most popular, there were many magic puzzle videos on the Internet.
Although Zhang Hao is not a magic fan, he has watched a few magic puzzle videos. After watching it, it is like the feeling that after finishing, the woman is still thinking about it, but you are no longer interested.
After understanding the secret behind it, I lost the sense of mystery and curiosity, and could no longer arouse curiosity.
And magic needs to maintain a sense of mystery and the curiosity of the audience.
The play "The Magic" itself is a grand magic show. In the early stages of filming, Zhang Hao and the leading actors and creators clarified a concept. Everything they did in the play was a magic show presented to the audience.
Magic show.
The mystery of all this is that even after reading the script more than ten times, except for Zhang Hao, the rest of the crew still couldn't figure out what kind of trick Zhang Hao was playing.
Can a movie be regarded as a magic show? Or is performing magic in a movie a magic show?
No one understands what Zhang Hao wants to express. What Zhang Hao means is that the plot structure of "The Magic" is itself a magic show.
The whole story revolves around the three steps of magic, realizing a movie magic performance. Zhang Hao will tell the audience these three steps through Lao Bai from the beginning, which is equivalent to telling the audience the answer in advance.
But the audience would not have thought that they would not realize what kind of movie they saw in the cinema until they saw the end of the movie and walked home in a daze for a long time.
Perhaps, it will take a long time for the curious audience to gradually understand the magic feast that Zhang Hao created for them.
In fact, it was created by Christopher Nolan, but now it is created by Zhang Hao himself.
When the time comes, the audience's exclamations will be the biggest reward for Zhang Hao.