The film market is still quiet in March, but this time is also the most tense time for the film industry.
At almost this time, filming for summer movies has begun, and preparations for films that want to compete for the Lunar New Year movie are also underway.
Of course, it is already too late for big production at this time. The martial arts masterpiece "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate" jointly created by Xu Ke and Li Lianjie is almost finished, and this time it is a 3D version.
The special training for "Jinling Thirteen Hairpins" has also ended and filming is in full swing.
The tribute film "The Founding of the Party" starring a number of big-name stars is also in the final post-production and will be released on June 15th, the Party's Founding Day.
They are all busy preparing their own movies, and Li Qian's Future Pictures is also preparing three movies.
Guo Fan and Li Yang are preparing "The Adventures of Li Xianji", and Teng Huatao is preparing "Thirty-three Days of Love".
There are only two movies, one less than last year.
Su Lun has made two movies in two years and is going to take a vacation to rest. As soon as Xu Zheng started writing the script for the sequel to "A Man on the Road", Li Qian was roped in to play the leading role. Wu Jing was still in the Jinling Military Region.
Qi Yukunwo searched for materials in rural areas of southern Henan.
One movie a year, only Li Qian, who stands on the shoulders of giants, can continue to maintain this pace.
However, the company also has a TV series, "Legend of Lu Zhen" brought by Du Yang from Perfect Pictures. A newly established company has launched four TV series at the same time, which is not a small amount.
Li Qian has already finished the split-shot script, so he takes the time to rest for a few days to recharge his batteries, and then sit down with the crew to discuss the specific shooting.
Everyone is busy with their own things, and Tong Liya is also studying the script at home during this time, while accompanying Li Qian.
However, she also has her own things to do. Today she went out to discuss the movie with Teng Huatao, screenwriter Bao Jingjing, and leading actor Wen Zhang.
The three of them arrived, and Tong Liya, who came in a hurry, looked apologetic and said, "I'm sorry, Director Teng, I'm late."
"Yaya is here, I have just arrived, sit down quickly." Teng Huatao greeted Tong Liya to sit down, and Bao Jingjing and Wen Zhang also said hello.
"Sister Bao, senior brother."
Wen Zhang was two years ahead of Tong Liya, so there is nothing wrong with calling him that.
Teng Hua laughed and said, "Wen Zhang, Yaya, you are still classmates, you know each other in school, right?"
"Senior brother is a big celebrity in school, but unfortunately we have never rehearsed a play together. This time we finally have the opportunity to collaborate." Tong Liya said with a smile.
"Yaya, aren't you being mean to me? I was just messing around in school." Wen Zhang laughed at himself.
Alumni and fellow villagers are always the easiest people to get close to. We know each other at school, and we became familiar with each other within a few words.
Seeing this situation, Teng Huatao breathed a sigh of relief. Li Qian, who had not yet become famous, rejected Wang Jinghua, which made her very embarrassed. She refused to deal with Li Qian unilaterally. Wang Jinghua came to him that day, and he was so angry that he said nothing.
Same.
Moreover, as a friend, he knew Wen Zhang's character. He was prone to losing his temper, especially after he became popular. If he didn't go along with his wishes, he would be displeased with everyone. Teng Huatao was afraid of causing an unpleasant incident.
Fortunately, Li Qian didn't bear any grudge against Wang Jinghua. When he occasionally mentioned her, Li Qian didn't show any strange expression at all. It was purely Wang Jinghua's unilateral "vengeance".
After chatting for a while, Teng Huatao quickly chatted with them about the script.
"You two have also read the script during this time. This is a modern urban white-collar love comedy, focusing on the occupation, age and income group of urban young white-collar workers. This identity is familiar to you, right? This is a break from the ordinary.
People, middle-class emotional stories, you have to grasp the identity of the characters well."
It took some time to get the script, and both of them knew this.
The character Tong Liya is just an ordinary white-collar worker in a wedding company, and is still far from the middle class. However, the plot downplays the economic status of this "white-collar worker".
The most practical issue of renting a house is that in big cities, an ordinary employee cannot afford to rent a good house. However, the interior decoration and exterior landscape of Huang Xiaoxian's house were made more exquisite by Teng Huatao.
Tong Liya said, "So, we want to present an ideal world to people, so that people can at least forget their worries in this world, and appreciate love and thinking about love not as luxury goods."
Teng Huatao nodded and praised with considerable praise, "Yes, that's the truth. Yaya understands it very thoroughly. What we are talking about is ideal love, love without such worldly worries as daily necessities."
She is worthy of being one of the most outstanding actresses of the new generation. She has experience in two classic romance films, and her understanding of the film is perfectly in line with her own ideas.
When they next talked about the script and characters, Tong Liya also understood it very thoroughly, just like the effect he wanted to achieve in his heart, which even impressed Teng Huatao.
In less than a month, he was able to understand the script so thoroughly. Teng Huatao has been filming for so many years. It is very rare for an actor to be of this level.
Tong Liya would be really embarrassed if she knew what Teng Huatao was thinking. These were all what Li Qian said, but she just used them.
The conversation about studying the script passed happily. Teng Huatao and Tong Liya were chatting most of the time. As the male protagonist, Wen Zhang was not very able to interrupt.
The main reason is that he was too preoccupied with studying Wang Xiaojian. Wen Zhang couldn't speak to the character of Huang Xiaoxian, but Li Qian had also talked about the character of Wang Xiaojian, and Tong Liya could also talk about it.
What makes Tong Liya a little strange is that Wen Zhang is not at all like the rumors from the outside world today, he is very humble.
However, she remembered that after Wen Zhang became famous in the past two years, his temper became increasingly fierce. The media and even the crew often exposed that he was acting like a big star on the set. He shouted at the crew at every turn, and even cursed people worse than the director.
, travel is also very domineering, one person occupies one road.
On Weibo, a film critic once wrote an article that disparaged him. As a result, the article directly criticized him and said that if you continue to spread rumors, believe it or not, I will kill you.
Various revelations may be false, but with the V on Weibo, it is indeed Wen Zhang’s real-name certification, and the sentence I’ll kill you if you believe it or not is true.
But this meeting was similar to that in school, even a little gentler.
If Wen Zhang knew what this school girl was thinking, he would really get into trouble.
Although in the past few years, after experiencing popular TV series such as "Struggle", "Snail House" and "Snow Leopard", Wen Zhang is already a leader among the new generation of niche actors.
In "Ocean Paradise", he was paired with Jet Li. As the leading actor, his performance could not be faulted, but the movie did not have much impact.
In terms of fame, Wen Zhang is not inferior to Tong Liya at all, but in terms of celebrity status, there is no comparison. Two consecutive movies have sold more than 500 million in box office. Among the new generation of actors, no one can compare to Tong Liya.
Wen Zhang is not stupid. He scolds the crew and the 18th-tier actors. Of course, those who are higher than him must lower their profile.
Moreover, he couldn't afford to offend Li Qian.
Even after filming "Ocean Paradise", he called Li Lianjie "Jie Daddy". Now that he has a backer, Li Qian is not someone he can offend.
All in all, the crew was very harmonious when they met to discuss the plot.
After it was over, Teng Huatao also went back to think about his script. After discussing it with Li Qian some time ago, he learned a lot.
The original intention was to make a middle-class love story, with petty bourgeoisie everywhere. Even the waiters in the restaurant are polite and polite, which is the ideal of ordinary people. They will not have troubles such as houses, cars, food, rice, oil and salt in life and love.
It's two extremes from the TV series "The Age of Naked Marriage" that just finished filming.
However, Li Qian suggested that you should not be too separated from the ordinary people, but should control it at a level that is within reach of ordinary people, so that it looks like you can have it if you work hard.
Moreover, Li Qian also gave a lot of detailed suggestions. He is worthy of being a great commercial director. Teng Huatao admires his vision in this aspect.
However, before the chair was warm when I got home, I received a call from Huang Zhonglei and asked him to go to the winery and open a bottle of good wine.
The expression on Teng Huatao's big round face suddenly became a little indifferent. He asked them how to deal with it when they asked for money. When he found an investment, he would come over from time to time, either drinking, playing ball or having parties.
...
Time passed day by day, and March was already halfway through. Li Qian also ended his short break and devoted himself to a new round of work.
Before filming begins, call the main creators for a meeting to discuss how to shoot the film.
"The tone and style of "I'm Not the God of Medicine" have been determined before. Realistic creative methods are used to maintain the tone of realism, and try to be as far away from reality as possible, with less embellishment and more emphasis on truth."
The tone of a film must be determined first. The direction of each film must be determined at the beginning of creation. Along this direction, photography, lighting, character performances, scenery, etc. must all comply with it.
Even the posters are different.
A promotional poster for "I'm Not the God of Medicine" has been shot, which can be regarded as the final look. The font is handwritten. The handwritten font gives people a sense of intimacy, which is based on the tone of the movie.
"Then should we focus on people or stories?" Director of Photography Zhang Zhonghua pondered.
"Of course the focus is on people, otherwise the carefully designed characters would be in vain." Li Qian smiled.
The leading actors in the movie all look like animals. Cheng Yong is a wild boar with broken teeth, Huang Mao is an angry monkey, Lu Yiyi is a humble raccoon, and the medical representative is a shrewd Doberman pinscher.
These are all very delicate things, including the actors' costumes.
Cheng Yong's clothes at the beginning had a lot of lines, squares and flowers, and gradually turned into cold colors, collared clothes, and became more and more serious.
Shoes have also gradually changed from leather sandals or slippers to leather shoes. When a person wearing sandals becomes a person wearing boots, the spiritual temperament is completely different.
As a woman, Liu Sihui's changes are the most obvious. Her hair style has gradually changed from burgundy to black, long and straight. Her clothes have had many animal elements from the beginning, such as leopard print windbreakers and python skin pants, and have gradually become more similar.
For a serious image.
Even Zhang Changlin, in order to match the changes of the character in the movie, initially wore a white coat and a red sweater under the suit. It looked particularly like a person sticking out a red tongue, which is the state of a vampire.
But his character setting is not a simple villain, and his personality changes can also be seen later, so his character shape gradually changed into the image of an ordinary person, and his clothes and image became more and more ordinary.
Li Qian has put a lot of details into the characters, and it is not an exaggeration to say that they are meticulous. Of course, he mainly talks about people, and uses people to drive the story, rather than focusing on the story.
This series of settings were all completed by Li Qian alone in a short period of time, and they amazed everyone.
Xu Zheng said, "Director Li, this level of detail is even more detailed than more than 90% of literary and artistic films. I have never seen any commercial film in China that can do this, even "Lust, Caution" is even worse."
Li Qian smiled and said, "It's different from movies. Our movie needs to have more important characters and be more detailed. If there were only one or two main characters, of course there wouldn't be such trouble."
"However, my image turns out to be that of a wild boar with broken tusks. I will be inseparable from pigs in this life. Director Li's imagination is too big." Xu Zheng complained again.
"It fits this image very well. Cheng Yong is originally full of aggression. He beats his ex-wife and lawyers. He is easily irritable and irritable. But the actual situation is very bad and cannot support his character. It's like he has lost his temper.
The tusked boar.”
"But boss, you have a lot of main characters, and you focus on the characters. Aren't you afraid that the plot will be scattered or even fragmented?" Guo Fan asked again.
There is no end to learning. Guo Fan temporarily dropped the preparations for "The Adventures of Li Xianji" and came to the meeting just to learn. He learned something useful from each movie and sooner or later he squeezed Li Qian dry.
"You didn't read the storyboard?" Li Qian asked back.
"Have you seen it?"
"Then you ask this question. There are very few scenes where other characters appear alone. Most of the scenes appear as a group, so there is no sense of separation."
Film ensemble scenes are difficult to shoot, especially when people are the main actors. Everyone has to be taken care of, and the plot can easily fall apart.
However, this problem can be avoided if the characters all appear together, but the difficulty is that so many main characters appear at the same time, and it is difficult to express everyone's personality in the same shot.
Therefore, each character must have particularly vivid characteristics, all-round, so that one can easily tell who he or she is at a glance.
We won’t introduce the characters one by one. The characters and the plot are enough for the audience to figure out their respective family relationships and backgrounds.
White space in a movie is also very important. You have to allow the audience room for imagination so that they can enter.
Just like writing a book, when describing the appearance of a heroine, you cannot write down all the facial features in detail. That way, although the writing is very clear, the audience will never feel it.
"Oh, I see!"
Guo Fan suddenly realized that he did not write the script himself. As a bystander, some things that make sense in one explanation can easily be ignored.
"So, boss, are you planning to add some comedy elements? How can you prevent it from conflicting with this serious reality subject?"
Guo Fan asked questions like a curious baby. In terms of comedy, Ma Xiaogang is undoubtedly a master, but even he did not dare to add comedy elements to serious themes such as "Assembly Number" and "Tangshan Earthquake"
, that's almost none.
Two conflicting elements, put together hastily, will collapse too easily.
"Why do you have so many problems? Have you paid your tuition fees?"
"Boss, please tell me, I find that comedy is one of the most resonant elements, and I plan to add some of it to my movies."
Li Qian was helpless and simply said, "The comedy elements in my movie are mainly slightly vulgar market elements to express the character's environment and information. This aspect is interesting and humorous, and it is not just
Humor for the sake of making jokes is actually a true portrayal of the life of the lower class of society, especially leukemia patients. It is very suitable to use it in this subject, and it can also keep the more serious movie optimistic."
Seeing what Guo Fan wanted to ask, Li Qian quickly stopped him, "Stop talking and listen carefully. This is a movie we are discussing, not to answer your questions. You will know after the movie is released by reading the various reviews.
Those film critics definitely dug very deep into the film, covering all corners of the film."
Guo Fan wisely shut up and could finally get back to the topic.
"Lao Zhang, photography and lighting are the key aspects. There will be more movement, shoulder resistance, and follow-up shots, as well as neo-realistic shots that are close to the actors.
In terms of color, it is similar to that of most realistic movies. Natural light is the mainstay. Use as little lighting as possible. The color should have a sense of age. It is mainly based on the four scenes of yellow-orange-blue-white. In addition, Indo and domestic shots also need to be used.
There is a clear distinction.
The scenes in Indu should be colorful and energetic, because it represents the hope of Cheng Yong and countless leukemia patients, while the scenes in China should be relatively plain.
In China, we use Arri cameras, the colors are relatively flat, close to the effect of the human eye, we use Cooke lenses, which are slightly warmer and moister, while Indu uses Xiaohong, the colors are relatively saturated, and with UP lenses, they are more solid and fresh.”
Standing on the shoulders of giants, there is basically no need to discuss many things, Li Qian can just arrange it.
"I understand." Zhang Zhonghua nodded, and then he felt a little emotional, "Xiao Hong, we used the first generation of this camera when filming "Sniper Phone Booth" in 2007."
When talking about the past, Guo Fan also sighed a little, "No one thought at that time that we could reach this point from a small online movie crew."
Suddenly they started to feel emotional. Xu Zheng and Wen Muye didn't know how to answer the call, because when they joined, Li Qian had already succeeded.
However, looking back on Li Qian's career as a director, it is miraculous that he has reached this level in just four years.
Xu Zheng also sighed, "In 2007, RED digital cameras were just launched, and Director Li shot his first online movie. Now, the latest series of this brand's digital cameras can be used on the big screen, and Director Li has become a
He is the best director in the country."
"..."
I’m not old yet, I’m just feeling life here.
Li Qian shook his head and said with a smile, "Technology is changing with each passing day. The little celebrities back then were old enough to appear on the big screen. They are considered epoch-making products. We humans can't lose to machines. We have to make progress. Domestic movies are also making progress. Make good movies with your heart."
That’s it, our film “I’m Not the God of Medicine” will also be an epoch-making movie!”
An epoch-making movie?
Li Qian's high evaluation of his new film made everyone look at him with suspicion.
"Go on, there is still a lot to talk about, and we also need to plan how to shoot the early scenes."
Li Qian didn't say much off topic. This meeting will last for a week. Based on the split-shot script, it is necessary to decide how to shoot each scene and ensure that the set will be shot directly according to the pre-agreed. Only in this way can the shooting be efficient and fast.