On November 6th, "Family with Children" was completed.
Zuo Le left the rest of the filming work to Du Lei and rushed back to Quancheng from Shennongjia to take charge of the post-production of "Family with Children". At the same time, he and the editorial department began to perfect the outline of "Seven Swords".
The original version of "The Seven Heroes of Rainbow Cat and Blue Rabbit" has a total of 108 episodes, each episode is 15 minutes, minus some animation scenes for young people, and it will be just over 30 episodes. Although this length is not short, it is very short for a large-scale martial arts drama.
It is said that it is still a little bit less.
It just so happened that Zuo Le also felt that the original plot always revolved around the confrontation between the Demon Cult and the Seven Swords. Although the plot was compact, it was somewhat monotonous, so he planned to add some charlatans in it to enrich the world view as much as possible.
In addition, since the animation was changed to a live-action version, some of the undercover and wits plots cannot be as childish as the original version, and must have certain foreshadowing.
After adding, subtracting and subtracting, the final script of "Seven Swords" was initially set at around 40 episodes.
In late November, Zuo Le slowly faded out of the post-production of "Family with Children" after Gao Xinjian and the editing team gradually adapted.
I mainly focus on the script creation of "Seven Swords" and discuss various shooting issues such as scenes and martial arts in the play with Du Lei and other shooting teams who have returned from filming, together with the martial arts action team and the special effects team.
To put it simply, it means discussing which scenes were filmed in real locations and which ones were shot with special effects; which actions were shot for real and which ones were shot with special effects.
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Shanhe Films, conference room
Zuo Le was now in front of the projection screen, pointing to the real scene of Huangshan Guangming Peak and a hand-drawn drawing above, and said to the special effects team.
"The Jade Toad Palace is placed in this place. The main body is majestic, but it needs to be a little graceful. This is the first draft of the art team. Do you think it can be made?"
The special effects team that undertook "Seven Swords" is called Liuguang, which is a top special effects company in China. The boss of the team is Li Guang, who once served as the technical director of the top three special effects companies in the world, and later returned to China to found Liuguang.
He glanced at the picture on the curtain, chatted with the person next to him, and then made an OK gesture to Zuo Le.
"No problem, we will build the model as soon as possible."
Zuo Le was very satisfied with Liu Guang's confident attitude and continued to describe his ideas.
"This is a line of sky, where Zhu Wujie and Hou You competed in Qinggong.
The two of them are in this small space, climbing and fighting, using killer moves one after another. Director Li, Yuan Liuye will have no problem with this."
Li Fang is a fat man with long, flowing hair. He squinted his eyes and pondered for a moment: "The real scene is quite awkward. It was shot on a green screen. It should be no problem with the special effects in the post-production."
Mr. Yuan Liu is the second boss of the original team and the leader of the original team for this "Seven Swords" crew. He turned over the script and martial arts design sketches in his hands and added in Mandarin with a slight Cantonese accent.
"Another point is that Zhu Wujie's meteor hammer is a soft weapon. The actors cannot use it at all, and it also requires special effects."
Zuo Le looked at Li Guang again. Li Guang borrowed the script and sketches from Master Yuan Liu, looked at them with his subordinates for a long time, and nodded.
"It takes a little effort, but it's not a big problem."
Zuo Le was even more satisfied. He pulled out a few more hand-drawn drawings and said excitedly: "This is the protagonist's breakout in the later stage, setting off explosives to blow up the Jade Toad Palace, and Guangmingding being capsized by a sea of fire.
There is also this one, the protagonist secretly infiltrates Chen Cang, Da Ben and the maid attract the demon sect members to break out to the Feilai Stone, the maid detonates a bomb and exposes herself, the Feilai Stone must be broken into two pieces..."
"etc."
Li Guang stopped Zuo Le, who was talking endlessly, and felt a little embarrassed: "The flying rocks were blown up, can the Huangshan Scenic Area agree?"
"It's okay. I've already said hello to you. Their leaders are very open-minded. Don't worry."
Zuo Le vowed and patted his chest: "Not only Huangshan, Taishan, Liujiajie, Changbai Mountain and other places that appear in the drama will be "destroyed" to a certain extent according to the plot.
As for artistic processing, everyone understands and supports it."
"The relationship with Zuo Dao is very strong."
It's easy for Zuo Le to say, but those present are all film and television practitioners. How could they not know how difficult it is. Zuo Le can solve these difficulties. This alone is better than many large entertainment companies.
Li Guang thought in his heart that he could "explode" the first of the Five Mountains. Although it was only on the computer, he was still a little excited for no reason...
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This meeting lasted for a week, and the crew roughly distributed their respective tasks.
The film crew went to set up the real-life scenes, the special effects team started special effects modeling, the martial arts action team also began to contact the confirmed actors for martial arts training, and the logistics team still produced props and costumes.
Zuo Le is in charge of the overall situation and is responsible for scripts and casting.
Except for the previously confirmed characters, the remaining characters are mainly Dugu and his son (Black Heart Tiger and his son) and Hong Miao, Lan Xin, Song Shasha, Da Ben from Seven Swords, as well as some supporting actors who don't appear often.
As the leader of the demon sect, Dugu Qianqiu, Zuo Le wanted to find a domineering actor.
Zuo Le went through it in his mind and felt that Zhang Ruijin, a professional and experienced actor in the role of Emperor Boss, was quite suitable for this role, so he asked the company to contact them. It happened that Teacher Zhang was scheduled, so the matter was settled.
Song Shasha, the Ziyun Sword Master who pitied the whole drama, Zuo Le initially thought about finding an outsider, but after thinking about it for a while, he felt that Zhang Jiajia (nurse Zhang from the cooking team) was also quite suitable.
In addition, the girl has always been interested in coming to Shanhe, so Zuo Le simply used this role to win people's hearts.
In "The Story of the Cooking Class", Nurse Yan and Xiao Zhang were comrades-in-arms, and in "Seven Swords", Ma Sanniang, played by Yan Ni, tortured Song Shasha, played by Zhang Jiajia, for dozens of episodes, and was eventually killed by Song Shasha.
If you think about it carefully, it's quite interesting.
Da Ben, who was reckless and bold, finally settled on Zhou Song, an actor with a background of martial arts champion, who was recommended by Wu Yue to Zuo Le and was his fellow junior.
Zhou Song's acting skills are acceptable. The key is that he is good at kung fu and is proficient in stick skills and sword skills. You don't have to worry about hiring him for a role.
As for the most important male lead Hong Miao, the female lead Lan Xin and the second male lead Dugu Xiao, Zuo Le plans to find three handsome men and beauties to play them, especially Lan Xin, who is set to be the most beautiful woman in the martial arts world. If you don’t find someone with a score of 95
The girls above are not convincing.
But then again, although there are not many top-notch handsome men and beautiful women these days, it is not impossible to find them, but it is not easy to find handsome men and beautiful women with acting skills.
Zuo Le browsed through all the boy and girl groups that debuted in the industry, including Fresh Flowers, but none of them were satisfactory.
In terms of looks, he's okay, but either the actor's temperament is too soft, which doesn't fit the shrewd and courageous young hero Hong Miao and the domineering and affectionate character of the Demon Cult's young master Dugu Xiao, or his acting skills are too bad. Zuo Lelian gave Zuo Lelian a chance to try.
I don't even think about trying.
The reasons for actresses are roughly the same. Their temperament does not match their age, and they also have some plastic surgery. To make them the most beautiful women in the martial arts world, Zuo Le can't stand up to the lustful Zhu Wujie...
In the end, Zuo Le could only set his sights on the major art schools in the country, hoping to pick out a few pieces of raw jade that had not been infected by the glitz and glamor of the entertainment industry.
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Not to mention, Zuo Le is very lucky, he actually found two treasures from the National Opera and the Beijing Dance Academy.
Yuan Ye, a third-year student in the Department of Chinese Opera Performance, has participated in many well-known plays and was recruited by the National Theater at the age of only 21.
The young man had a cheerful and sunny personality, was handsome, and had great acting skills. Zuo Le chose him to play Hong Miao at a glance.
Shui Miaomiao, the school belle of Beijing Dance Academy, a close disciple of a famous dancer, ranked first in the 2016 Internet Top 100 Beauties, and is known as the Water Fairy.
Zuo Le initially invited the Water Fairy to star in "Seven Swords", but others ignored her.
Later, when Zuo Le inquired about it, he found out that this girl was deceived into acting in a movie when she first became famous. She worked hard for a long time and made a bad movie, and only got half of her salary. From then on, Shui Miaomiao suffered a loss.
I have never agreed to appear in a film or television drama again.
Zuo Le figured out the reason, went to the door again with Lan Xin's character biography, signed up for the role, and then continued to persuade the girl to star.
Perhaps she was moved by the role of Lan Xin or attracted by Zuo Le's directorial resume. After several hesitations, Shui Miaomiao finally nodded in agreement.