Movies with only one person are rare around the world, but there are some.
Tom Hanks' classic "Cast Away" is a movie about survival alone. Except for the appearance of other characters at the beginning and end, the main plot is only the male protagonist.
Movies of this type basically have one thing in common: besides the male protagonist, there must be something around him that can accompany him.
There is a volleyball in "Cast Away", and the actor always carries it with him.
Whether it's an animal, a toy or something, there must be something that can make people feel their existence in that extreme environment.
Whether it is an apocalypse with no one or a setting like "Cast Away" where there are no other people, it is important to create an atmosphere of loneliness, but it is also important to give the characters a sense of comfort.
Even if it's not a movie of this type, it's impossible for the characters to have nothing to communicate with, even if it's some art-house movie.
More than thirty years ago, there was a Belgian horror love movie "A Man and His Pig". The director directed and starred in it. Not to mention that there were no other actors in the film, and there was not even a single line of dialogue.
But there has to be another character, a sow.
The story is about a lonely man who lives alone on a farm and has many quirks.
Even after spending time together for a long time, he developed feelings for and had a relationship with the sow. The sow gave birth to his children, a group of piglets.
The male protagonist takes care of the sow and piglets like his wife and children, feeding them milk.
But the piglets did not recognize him as their father, only their mother pigs. As time went by, the hero became more and more disappointed and hanged the piglets and ate their meat.
When the sow saw her child being killed by the man she loved, she howled in despair in the forest.
In the end, the sow also died. The male protagonist buried it and wanted to bury himself alive to die in love, but in the end he crawled out of the grave.
From then on, the man's behavior became more and more abnormal. He threw away all the food in the house and threw Xiang into the pot to cook.
On a sunny day, he thought of the sow. Overtaken by sadness and despair, he picked up the ladder and rope and hung himself in the sunny woods.
"Have you found anything else that movies of this type have in common?"
At this time, the crew was resting in place, waiting for the sun to set. Li Qian talked about an old experimental film.
But in the ears of Liu Ye and Wen Muye, this story sounded so abnormal.
Even though I am a film professional and have read countless films, I still see very few films like this.
But since he asked, Wen Muye thought about it and expressed his opinion, "Boss, the piglets and sows in this movie, the volleyball in "Cast Away", and Lao Guo's "127"
The DV in which he recorded his last words in "The Hours" all symbolizes hope. When the only hope in a desperate situation is gone, it is almost despair. Only in despair can one burst out with energy far beyond his own, and then escape from trouble and be rescued.
"
Although I didn't come from a film school, I did get a private bachelor's degree in directing and studied for a year at a film school, so I still have this level of experience.
However, it’s too wordy.
"It almost means that something very important that has always been with the characters suddenly disappears, which usually leads to a turning point in the plot of the movie.
In our scene, Brother Ye fell into a trap, and the dog was bitten by a zombie and died of infection while trying to save you. Your only partner in this apocalypse was gone, and then you, who had always been cautious, drove to the city center at night to look for zombies.
Choose another survivor at a critical moment, and the heroine will appear to save you.
It's a very crucial scene. We spent five hours on the scene in the morning, and we won't have that much time later. From the time the sun sets to when it gets completely dark, there are only two or three hours in between."
In this scene, the male protagonist was driving on the road as usual, and suddenly found that the dummy that had been placed in front of the video store appeared on the road.
He definitely didn't move it, either the dummy could walk on its own, or someone else moved the dummy.
If there were other survivors, the actor would broadcast radio broadcasts in the city center every day, and the other survivors would have heard it long ago.
Knowing that the male protagonist is such a person, and also knowing the video store he often goes to, and the dummy he often greets, he removed the dummy to seduce him. It is obvious that he has bad intentions.
Moreover, even if these speculations are not true, the male protagonist has been frightened every day for so many years in an empty city. When facing other survivors, he will naturally be wary. After all, this is such an era.
The joy of seeing the dummy in the distance and mistaking it for a living person, the disappointment and fear of discovering that it was a familiar dummy, the uneasiness of constantly shouting, and the catharsis of shooting later. This whole fast-paced emotional change was something Liu Ye had never experienced before.
I got it right, it took more than five hours.
"Don't worry, Director Li. The mood of this scene is relatively simple, and it has been foreshadowed before. Moreover, I have been getting along with the dog for more than half a month, so there is no problem."
Liu Ye was also a little embarrassed to have wasted a whole day. The scene in the morning was not just a fast-paced change of emotions, but when new emotions appeared, the original emotions were still there.
Even if I am nervous, uneasy, and shooting to vent, there is still a trace of expectation and joy in my heart, because if the dummy can come here, someone must have moved it, which means there are still living people in this city.
.
Because in the past few years, the male protagonist, who has been dealing with zombies, has not found any signs that the zombies are intelligent.
In fact, it was because the male protagonist captured the wife of the zombie boss, and the zombie boss also used the same trap to catch him, and only sent three zombie dogs out. He had no intention of killing him, but just to follow him to find his lair and save his own.
Wife.
"Brother Ye, don't be too nervous, we have two nights."
Li Qian nodded and then ordered the stunt team, "Let's start hanging the person up."
"..."
Liu Ye was stunned. He said it well, but why did he hang it up? There was still half an hour before the rest time was over.
"Pop!"
Li Qian clapped his hands and said, "The work has started. Get ready. Finish the shooting and finish the work early."
Time is tight. Although we didn't start work at 1 a.m. today like the first day, the crew got up early at 3 a.m. to prepare.
It has been on and off until now. The scene will be filmed until seven or eight o'clock in the evening. I will have a meal at the end and I don't know if I can go to bed at ten o'clock.
In total, today's working hours reached 19 hours. After finishing work, Li Qian didn't even have time to look at the developed samples.
After hearing Li Qian's words, everyone dragged their tired bodies to work, and Liu Ye was hung in the air.
I fell into a trap in the morning and fell into a coma due to a head injury. I didn't wake up until the sun was setting.
The waking up scene wasn't too difficult and we had to finish it before the sun officially set. It would be troublesome when it got dark.
Then there was the scene of preparing to evacuate, which was also shot successfully.
The appearance of the zombie dog had to be filmed after the sun had completely set, which gave the crew another break.
"Boss, in the movie "A Man and His Pig" just now, I think the male protagonist's desire for a sow represents primitive instincts, desires, and all crazy behaviors are suppressed outbursts. It is very similar to the society in Belgium in the 1970s.
It is related to the environment. It satirizes and criticizes the deviation of people's beliefs, the collapse of their outlook on life, and the chaos of their lives under the leadership of the ruling class..."
Wen Muye came up and told Li Qian his understanding of the plot seriously.
Li Qian: "..."
Just take a relatively niche and novel movie as an example, describe the plot orally, and analyze it so matter-of-factly.
I didn't even watch the movie, but I talked clearly and logically, and could compete with some keyboard warriors.
Waiting patiently for him to finish, Li Qian said helplessly, "Actually, this is a film that records the working life of a lonely person in a black humor style. It is not a perverted film. It is nonsense to spread it as a banned film on the Internet.
Don't over-understand either.
In the future, when you are creating, don’t use too many metaphors layer by layer. Ordinary audiences can usually only see two or three layers. Don’t use five or six layers. And you should also use metaphors that are relatively simple and easy to read.
way to express it.”
Mu Ye is different from Guo Fan in this article. He has been a director for four years and has studied for one year, and he still has some standard academic style.
Unlike Su Lun, Su Lun drifted to Beijing for a while and stayed with Ma Xiaogang's crew for three years before going to the Central Television Department.
The academic school has not produced a director that satisfies ordinary audiences in I don’t know how many years. Ning Hao didn’t study directing, he studied photography.
Although this is not to say that academic schools are useless, there must be certain problems if the Film Academy and the Chinese Theater Academy, two schools that specialize in training directors, cannot teach directors who can be liked by the audience.
Of course, if Wen Muye wants to take the path of a niche literary film, Li Qian will also support it.
But if this is not the case, Li Qian plans to wait for Xu Zheng to shoot "Thailand" and ask Wen Muye to partner with him to neutralize the situation.
...
The movie has to continue shooting, and after the sun goes down, it’s time to move on to the next shot.
It's mainly a fight scene between Liu Ye, the dog, and three zombie dogs.
We can’t use real dogs for zombie dogs. Even if the appearance can be changed with makeup, is it possible to use dogs to act in fighting scenes?
Special effects, three special effects people dressed in green were fighting Liu Ye with a prop hairless dog head in their hands.
Each action had been taken apart and rehearsed countless times, and it was not a very subtle move, but the filming was still completed successfully in three hours.
Finally, Liu Ye knelt in front of Heibei, who was bitten by the zombie dog. His whole body was shaking slightly, and he repeated over and over again, "You will be fine. Look at me, you will be fine."
"Okay, it's okay, let's go home."
"I'll take you home, come, go home."
Liu Ye, who was already injured on his foot, left the dark street with his hands on his back.
Here, the editing starts from the moment the dog is picked up, and the scene immediately switches to the scene of rummaging through boxes and cabinets in search of medicines at the base, without showing a limping and lonely figure.
Many film and television dramas like this kind of slow motion. For example, Li Qian remembers that there is a new version of "Bright Sword". When the cavalry company charges against the neon cavalry unit, it is all in slow motion. I wish I could have filmed the two-minute scene.
At twenty minutes, everyone who watches it will fall asleep. It is far less fast-paced and intensely edited than the original version.
That's war, not flirting.
...
As the filming in the Magic City passed day by day, Li Qian led the crew through various scenes. In addition to the two iconic buildings of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower and Nanjing Road Commercial Street, other places were chosen as close as possible to several nearby buildings.
District, otherwise it would be troublesome to close the street for filming. The city center is no better than the suburbs.
After staying in the magical city for more than 20 days, in mid-June, we came to the last real location shooting.
At one o'clock in the morning, two sections of the Nanpu Bridge have been closed, but the bridge is indeed brightly lit. More than 200 crew members, more than 100 extras, more than 400 people, and densely packed cars have filled the entire bridge.
It's stuffed to the brim.
The scenes of the male protagonist reminiscing about the past were shot a few nights ago, leaving only the final blockade of Pudong, a large number of people waiting for inspection on the Nanpu Bridge to cross the bridge, the scenes of the male protagonist's wife and daughter leaving, and the helicopter accident.
Except for the explosion scenes, they were all shot in real life, which was a lot of trouble during filming, but it saves trouble in post-production.
If the special effects are not good enough, just try to be as real as possible. If the technology is enough, you don’t have to go through such trouble and there is nothing you can do about it.