Backtracking to the Age of Literature and Art

Chapter 923
Alfonso Cuaron's surprise was within Jimmy's expectation. If Yu Dong hadn't mentioned Alfonso Cuaron, Jimmy would never have linked this director with "Gravity".

It's not that Jimmy doesn't like Alfonso Cuarón's directing level. Jimmy has seen two films of Alfonso, except for "When Love Is Hysterical" and the one starring Ethan Hawke. He can tell that this director is very talented.

But talent does not mean that he is suitable for making science fiction movies. None of Alfonso's previous movies can reflect his talent in this area.

But Jimmy still agreed to use Alfonso Cuaron as one of the alternative directors for "Gravity" because he was willing to believe in Yu Dong's vision.

"Mr. Cuaron, the time for the movie "Gravity" is relatively tight."

Alfonso Cuarón also understood what Jimmy meant, and he said with a smile, "I don't have any other work for now, so there should be no problem with my time."

Hearing that Alfonso has no problem with time, Jimmy smiled and said, "Then you can come over when it is convenient, and we will meet and chat."

Alfonso said without hesitation, "Tomorrow, I will go there tomorrow."

……

Alfonso Cuarón showed up in Jimmy's office the next afternoon.

Jimmy personally made a cup of tea for Alfonso Cuarón, looked at the dusty Alfonso, and said with a smile, "Mr. Cuarón, you don't have to hurry here, even though the movie is planned very quickly. Time, but I don’t care about this day or two.”

Alfonso Cuarón took the teacup and said with a smile, "But I care. To be honest, it is an honor for me to be invited to shoot YU's works. I am a science fiction fan, and I tried to I have written science fiction novels, and it is I who have written science fiction novels myself, so I understand the greatness of YU's works better."

"The one in front of you is the "Gravity" script." Jimmy pointed to the folder on the table, "It's not really a script, it's just a novel manuscript, plus some YU's comments and some revisions. The revisions make the novel look a bit like a screenplay."

Alfonso Cuarón nodded, expressing his understanding of what Jimmy meant. He picked up the folder and pulled out the manuscript inside.

Although it is a novel manuscript, it is actually much thicker than a novel manuscript. In addition to the annotations, the format has also been changed to a script form.

Seeing Alfonso Cuarón picking up the manuscript, Jimmy looked at his watch and said, "You can read the script at ease first, I still have something to deal with, if you need anything, you can tell me."

Alfonso nodded, "No problem."

Jimmy smiled, got up, walked to his office area, sat down, and began to deal with work.

He wants to finish the work that needs to be done in the United States as soon as possible. In a few days, he will go to China to attend the press conference of BenQ mobile phone. This is the first development conference of BenQ Communications. Of course he will be there of.

Recently, he has a lot of work, because several lines of the company are developing, the game industry, film and television industry, e-commerce, electronic payment, ticketing website, social networking site... Every sector needs to involve his energy, which makes him wish he could Like Sun Monkey, he knows how to do avatars.

In fact, the social networking site is better, because Jiang Jie has already been able to take charge of it alone, and Jiang Jie is basically in charge of Deep Space Corporation's business in the computer sector.

The book section is also okay, the margin management is in China, and the Campote management is in Europe and the United States.

Sometimes Jimmy also felt that he was lucky. He was able to recruit talents like Campote back then. At that time, Campote was Dante's assistant at Bantam Books, and his position was quite awkward.

According to Campote's qualifications and ability, he should have been promoted a long time ago, but at that time, Bantam did not have a suitable position for Campote. Wait, wait until the company has a suitable position for Campote.

But Campote couldn't wait any longer. He had worked in Bantam for seven or eight years, and he was very capable, but he was still Dante's assistant, so he must have thought about quitting.

At that time, if Campote wanted to find a new owner, it was actually very easy. A lot of book companies were willing to hire him, but Jimmy was very sincere when he was recruited. Not only did he draw a big cake for him, but he also gave him real power. .

After so many years, the cake that Jimmy painted for Campote has basically come true. Now that Dante meets Campote, his head will be lowered by three points. Who made Campote have the best-selling cake in the world? Writers, and a bunch of them.

These writers in Deep Space, needless to say, Yu Dong, Rowling, Martin, and Li Wei alone can support a large number of book companies.

Some people have roughly calculated before that the combined annual sales of all the books of the four writers in Deep Space are more than 1 million copies, so Dante must please Campote.

Jimmy still has one thing to do during this period. Yu Dong's brother-in-law Chen Tao wants to put on a reasoning-related variety show in the United States. For this reason, Jimmy even got in touch with ABC.

There are two proposals given there. One is direct cooperation between the two parties. Yuhua Reasoning Agency provides a plan for a variety show. If ABC finds it feasible after reviewing, then both parties will work together to produce it. The second is Yuhua. The reasoning agency produces its own shows and then sells them to ABC.

The former plan is obviously more stable. As long as ABC approves the plan, Yuhua Club will definitely not lose money. The second plan is a bit more risky. If they produce the show, but ABC doesn’t want it, or just wants to Give a low price, and they lose money.

But risks and benefits coexist. Although the former is insurance, the benefits will definitely be lower. Basically, most of the benefits will be taken by ABC, and it also involves the division of copyright. After all, the program is jointly produced by both parties.

Chen Tao and the others discussed it among themselves, and finally decided to choose the second option.

Of course, it is useless for Chen Tao and the others to decide on their own, because the money still has to be paid by Deep Space Corporation, and the final decision is still in the hands of Dong and Jimmy, and Yu Dong has said long ago that there is no need to ask him about this matter. , so everything depends on how Jimmy chooses.

In the end Jimmy chose the second option.

He chose the second option not because of the high benefits of this option or because he believed in Chen Tao's ability, but because he understood that only the second option could truly cultivate usable talents for them.

In order to engage in this variety show, Fang Tao has already come to the United States first, and set up a working group. Recently, he is looking for a shooting location. After the shooting location is confirmed, they will start to form a shooting team. behind the scenes.

It's easy to find in front of the scene, just find some hot people who are good at creating program effects, the key is behind the scenes.Fang Tao was doing all these things himself, and Jimmy didn't worry about it, but he was going to see how Fang Tao was doing these two days.

……

Almost two hours later, Alfonso Cuarón finally put down the manuscript in his hand. He let out a long sigh of relief, and took a sip of the cold tea on the table.

When the tea was hot just now, he didn't think it tasted very good, but now that the tea is cold, it tastes quite good.

Jimmy heard the movement, looked up at Alfonso, and then said apologetically, "I'm sorry, I forgot to refill your tea. This tea is already cold."

With that said, Jimmy stood up, ready to add some hot tea to Alfonso.

Alfonso quickly waved his hand, "No, no, I think herbal tea tastes better."

Jimmy nodded with a smile, "We Americans are more used to drinking cold drinks. How about it? Do you have any thoughts after reading the manuscript?"

He looked down at the manuscript on his lap, and then Alfonso said, "Let me first talk about the difficulties I saw, mainly focusing on photography, I want to make this movie feel, and the movement control And motion capture technology is very demanding. In fact, Yu Dong’s comments in the manuscript should tell us that if you want to make this movie look good, you must shoot a space with a strong sense of reality and good expressiveness. Let’s talk about light first. , on the seventh page of the manuscript..."

Alfonso turned the manuscript to the seventh page and continued, "Here is a classic commentary on light sources, which needs to show hard light from direct sunlight, soft light reflected from the earth, and occasionally hard light reflected from the moon. It is difficult for our traditional lamps to perform such a complex situation well, the key lies in the change of the light source, and it is also difficult to achieve such precise cooperation between the light and the camera movement."

Hearing this difficulty, Jimmy frowned. He didn't expect "Gravity" to be so difficult to shoot. After all, so many movies about space have been made. In Jimmy's opinion, there should be no technical problems. Great difficulty.

"Can the lighting problem be solved?" Jimmy asked.

Alfonso pondered, "I can't think of a solution for the time being. In fact, a new technology called lightestage was born this year. We may use lightstage to shoot people and do relighting when compositing with cg in the later stage, but it is difficult to do so. , The cost is high, and the most important thing is that lightstage is based on densely sampled launch field collection, and the collection time is very long. In fact, I heard a technology last month, someone used the LED display to create changing eye reflections, this technology may be able to It can be used for a while, combined with pre-rehearsal technology and motion control technology, and the expectations can be achieved. The pre-rehearsal technology is now very mature, and the cost has been reduced a lot.”

After listening to Alfonso's call, Jimmy raised his mouth slightly and leaned back slowly. Alfonso Cameron's performance surprised him.

Obviously, Alfonso's attention to filming technology is not comparable to that of ordinary people. Jimmy has never heard of the things he said, but even if Jimmy has never heard of them, he can understand the logic of these things.

"Perhaps, would you like to spend some time researching how to combine lde light sources with motion control and preview technology to present perfect lighting?" Jimmy laughed.

Alfonso also laughed, "Of course, I am willing to try."

……

After Alfonso officially took over the filming of "Gravity", Deep Space announced the news on its website.

Netizens who saw this news were a little confused, especially readers from non-Chinese regions.

[Did I read it wrong? Is Gravity going to be a movie? 】

[The English version of the novel is not even out yet. 】

[Deep Space Company, please come out and answer, will there be an English version of "Gravity"? 】

[Uh...By the way, I would like to ask about the neon language version. 】

[Spanish...]

【Italian...】

[Forget it, let's treat it like "Source Code", first release the movie, and then release the novel. 】

[The key is that China can already see it. 】

[Is there any kind elder brother who can translate the novel? 】

[That's against the law, we must support the original version. 】

[Why is there no English version of "Science Fiction World"? 】

[That's right, I hope that "Science Fiction World" will have an English version as soon as possible, not only YU's novels, but also liu and hcq's novels, each time I have to wait a long time to read them. 】

[Who is Alfonso, why haven't I heard of it? 】

[It seems to be an unknown director. 】

[It's not that he's famous, I've seen his "Little Princess", and it looks pretty good. 】

[Why are you looking for a director like this, why not a big director like Steven and James?This is YU's novel, doesn't the company pay much attention to it? 】

[I just googled Alfonso. He has never made a sci-fi movie. I really can’t understand why Deep Space chose such a director. 】

[Strongly request Steven to continue filming, only Steven can shoot the taste of YU science fiction, whether it is "Second World" or "The Martian" are very good. 】

【Ridley is also very good. I look forward to seeing his cooperation with YU. I like his "Blade Runner" very much. 】

……

Many netizens were puzzled by Deep Space Company's choice of Alfonso to film "Gravity". Although Alfonso is fairly well-known in the industry, for ordinary audiences, Alfonso is a little-known Directors, there is no way to compare with big directors like Spielberg and James Cameron, and they are not worthy of YU's works.

That's right, many netizens used the word unworthy, because YU's name is too big now, and in everyone's minds, it is natural to bind his novels with great directors.

Alfonso also often surfs the Internet, but he doesn't care about these remarks on the Internet at all. These days, he devotes himself to the filming preparation of "Gravity".

Inspired by the reflections created by led displays, Alfonso designed a light box filled with led screens that play video to give the right light.

In addition, in order to shoot weightlessness in space, Alfonso also fixed the actors and moved the camera. In this way, when shooting in the light box, as long as the rendered environment animation is matched with the camera movement in advance, you can shoot Get a sense of reality.

(End of this chapter)