Huayu Zhihao

Chapter 731 Realistic motion capture

"Chen, 20th Century Fox has so many classic series, why did it come up with the idea of ​​filming "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"?"

Chen Hao said nonsense, "You should know that I like science fiction films very much, and the "Planet of the Apes" series is one of them. When 20th Century Fox approached me to cooperate, this classic series was the first that popped into my mind. "

"So what is the relationship between "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" and the previous "Planet of the Apes" series?"

"The world view of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" is consistent with that of "Planet of the Apes", but the time of occurrence in the movie is the origin of the whole story." Chen Hao explained.

"Chen, I heard that Warner Bros. asked you to restart the "Batman" series before, but you refused to co-direct with Christopher Nolan? Now that the box office of "Batman: The Dark Knight" is about to break 5 million, what do you think? "

Chen Hao raised his brows when he heard this, "Nolan did a great job, I like this "Batman: The Dark Knight" very much, I am already looking forward to the third part of Nolan's series, I really hope to see it sooner."

The reporters were a little disappointed when they heard the words. This was not the answer they wanted. Chen Hao should provoke Nolan.

However, now "Batman: The Dark Knight" is indeed in full swing, and Nolan has gradually reached the pinnacle of his career with this movie.

Previously, Nolan showed his film talents with "Follow", "Memory Fragments" and "White Night", but if he wants to become a real great director, he still lacks a commercial masterpiece that will take him to the top.

So, with his active contact and hard work, he finally got the director of "Batman", and he did not disappoint Warner, and now he has become one of the most watched directors in Hollywood with this film.

And Chen Hao's path is actually the same as Nolan's. First, "Comet", "Moon", "Saw", and "District [-]" attracted Hollywood's attention.

Subsequently, the three commercial blockbusters "The Hangover", "The Da Vinci Code" and "National Superman Hancock" made Hollywood giants rush to cooperate with him.

As a representative of the new generation with excellent box office and word-of-mouth, Nolan was not as good as Chen Hao before, but now "Batman: The Dark Knight" directly puts him in the same position as Chen Hao.

Even, many people think that Nolan is more talented and capable than Chen Hao.

In addition to a "Batman: The Dark Knight", the skin color may also be a certain reason.

In this regard, Chen Hao just curled his lips. He doesn't regret not directing "Batman: The Dark Knight", because even if he directs, with the talents of the Nolan brothers, they will definitely rise.

It's just a different movie.

However, with the help of the North American media, Chen Hao's feeling of guilt towards the Nolan brothers has been reduced a lot.

……

After the opening press conference, Chen Hao rushed directly to the crew with several main creators.

Lu Yang had already prepared everything, so Chen Hao directly brought the male lead James Franco, Nicole Kidman, and Andy Serkis to burn incense and worship Buddha.

The three of them were obviously confused, they didn't know what they were doing, so they could only follow Chen Hao's example.

After all, Chen Hao is the director and the head of Liang Tian Chi Films, so no one dares to offend him easily.

After burning incense and worshiping God, Chen Hao lifted the red cloth on the camera and said loudly, "I announce that "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" is officially launched!"

The background of the story of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" is set in modern San Francisco. Gene scientist Will Rodman (James Frank) has developed a drug for the treatment of human neurological atrophy diseases, which can treat Alzheimer's disease. disease.

When the new drug was tested on chimpanzees, it was found that it could greatly improve its intelligence. The symptom was that the eyes turned green and the intelligence reached human levels.

After the successful experiment gave birth to a calf, the chimpanzee attacked the staff and was shot in order to protect the offspring's maternal outburst.

The institute was forced to euthanize all remaining chimpanzees, and the research project was halted.

In order to save the newborn baby orangutan, Will chooses to adopt it and name it Caesar (Andy Serkis).

In the process of feeding Caesar, Will Rodman met and fell in love with zoologist Caroline (Nicole Kidman) because of treating the orangutan's injury.

Because Caesar inherited his mother's genes, he has been very intelligent since he was a child, and has been living happily with Will's family.

After Will saw the effect of Caesar's experiment, he injected the same drug into his father with Alzheimer's disease, and miraculously restored his brain function.

But a few years later, Will discovered that the human body had developed antibodies to the virus drug, and Will's father's condition deteriorated again.

Will showed the results of the drug to his boss, asked to use a more severe virus for experimentation, and succeeded in the orangutan experiment, and then Will took the drug home.

After accidentally injuring a human, Caesar was separated from Will and sent to an animal care facility.

There Caesar was treated mercilessly, and then became hostile to humans.

In the end, the wise Caesar escaped from the nursing home, returned to Will's home, stole the medicine, brought it back to the detention center for other chimpanzees to use, and began to lead them, eventually leading the other chimpanzees to escape from the detention center.

At this time, it has been proved that the drug is a deadly virus to humans, but it is harmless to orangutans and can greatly improve their intelligence.

The virus has begun to spread, the situation is reversing, and a war that has to be confronted with human beings is about to begin.

……

"How are you getting ready, Andy?" Chen Hao asked Andy Serkis, who was wearing a motion capture suit.

The reason for the success of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" is that it relies on a solid script, and second, it relies on computer special effects that confuse real ones.

These fake orangutan characters are not only due to the wonderful performances of the orangutan actors who did not show up, but also rely on the world's top motion capture technology of the visual effects company Weta Digital.

Weta Digital, invited by "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", is also providing motion capture technology services for "Avatar".

Naturally, Chen Hao also brought in a working group of Haotian Special Effects. They were doing business for personal gain, not only for making money for his company, but also for them to learn the world's top motion capture technology.

After I go back, I will develop it myself and try to make up for this shortcoming.

Therefore, Chang Hongsong personally led the team from Haotian Special Effects this time.

So, what is motion capture technology?

In the worlds of filmmaking and video game development, motion capture is commonly used to record the movements of human actors and convert them into digital models to generate [-]D or [-]D computer animations.

Taking "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" as an example, the film needs to go through three processes:
1. Capture and shoot: Actors need to wear special clothing and headgear, and many parts of the body are attached with capture points that can emit signals. These capture points are light-emitting diodes. There are a total of 48, which can be controlled remotely, and the brightness can be adjusted according to the lighting conditions.

Every move of an actor will be converted into a signal, captured by a special camera lens, and finally transmitted to a computer terminal.

2. Computer rendering: The digital animation modeler makes a 3D model of the orangutan, and then transplants the expressions and movements performed by the actors to the 3D orangutan model, and the orangutan comes alive.

The actor's expression is captured by the headgear and fed into the face solver software, which converts the human face into that of an ape.The appearance of the orangutans was constructed according to the requirements of the animators.

The hair, shading, texture mapping, shadows, etc. on their bodies are all computer-rendered effects, and generally 200 to 1000 processors are used at the same time.

3. Add special effects: The "retoucher" should "P out" the strangely dressed human actors in the original captured pictures, and replace them with vivid orangutans that have been prepared.

It takes a "photographer" several months to "p" the human beings completely, and only then can the animator put the orangutan on it.

At the same time, the computer added the environment of the motion capture outdoor shooting to create an image that matches the three-dimensional environment.

Finally, through more detailed processing of hair, wrinkles, etc., the movie images we see are synthesized.

Motion capture allows us to enjoy wonderful movies, but it is still a new technology and is still in the "initial application stage".

But if you think about it boldly, in the future, we may see deceased superstars such as Monroe, Hepburn, and brother "resurrected" with this technology, and the golden age of peerless glory will also reappear on the screen.

At that time, the scene where the actors are not old and always filming will become a reality, and the years will no longer be a horrible butcher's knife.

In addition, I have to mention Andy Serkis, the actor who played Caesar, he is indispensable for the success of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes".

Playing Caesar is different from "playing" Gorilla King Kong in "King Kong" because Caesar has more breadth in character.

Caesar's "orangutan character" has a great leap from an innocent person to a revolutionary leader. Andy Serkis watched many African chimpanzee activities in order to improve his acting skills.

He also contributed a lot to the film's sound effects, mainly imitating chimpanzee noises.

More importantly, he is also the teacher of dozens of other orangutan actors. He has played the roles of "Gollum" in "Lord of the Rings" and King Kong in "King Kong", which gives him rich experience in motion capture technology. experience.

How to behave more like an orangutan, Andy Serkis has taught dozens of other orangutans a lot of experience and skills.

In particular, the four actors Gibbon, Rocket, Bowser, and King Kong, who have appeared more often, have all participated in Andy Serkis' assault class.

Perhaps it was also this experience that gave Andy Serkis the idea of ​​holding the world's first training course on motion capture technology.

In addition, Andy Serkis also helped with the special effects production.

Although the actor was turned into an orangutan by P in the later stage, the movements, demeanor, eyes, etc. all need to be the same as the orangutan.

After seeing Andy Serkis' performance, Weta Digital exclaimed that Andy Serkis is simply an orangutan.

Because we knew we were going to do motion capture of orangutans, in order to make it as real as possible, Weta Digital also studied a lot of orangutan image data, and we are very familiar with their expressions and demeanor.

The expressions and eyes of Andy Serkis can be said to be lifelike, which reduces a lot of trouble in motion capture, and makes post-production much easier and reduces a lot of workload.

……

Wearing a motion capture suit and wearing a motion capture headgear, Andy Serkis laughed, "I'm in good shape and ready to shoot anytime!"

Chen Hao looked at the mechanical arm in Andy Serkis's hand again and smiled.

Because the body structure of humans is still very different from that of orangutans, the most obvious point is that orangutans walk on all fours, with their forearms touching the ground.

But human beings are very inconvenient when doing this action, because there are too few people with their arms over their knees, and not everyone is Liu Bei's.

If the actors walk with their hands on the ground, their body shape and movements will be very different from that of orangutans, and it will be too fake at first glance.

Therefore, in order to make the movements fully conform to the body shape of the orangutan walking and running, the crew specially tailored the mechanical arm for each orangutan actor.

In this way, when they imitate the walking of the orangutan, they can closely resemble the movements of the real orangutan.

"That's good, you are an expert in this area, and we will officially shoot the first scene later." Chen Hao said.

"No problem, I'm ready." Andy Serkis nodded.

Chen Hao nodded when he heard the words, then sat behind the monitor and looked at Lu Yang.

Lu Yang made an OK gesture to Chen Hao, and Chen Hao replied OK.

Then Lu Yang picked up the loudspeaker and shouted, "Everyone be quiet, ready to start filming, everyone be quiet!"

"One final confirmation, is the recording ready?"

"OK!"

"photography?"

"no problem!"

……

"The 5st scene of the 1nd scene of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"

The male protagonist Will is developing a drug to treat human neurotrophic diseases, but before human trials, they have to do experiments on orangutans.

At this time, he was observing and recording each experimental subject.

In the shot is a room where Andy Serkis is playing a female orangutan, playing the Tower of Hanoi intelligence test.

This game has 3 pillars and four rings of different sizes. The rings are shuffled and placed on the 3 pillars. You need to arrange the 4 rings on any pillar in descending order. , that counts as a win.

And the fewer steps you use, the higher your intelligence, and you only need 15 steps for a full score!
"Let's do it again!" said zoologist Franklin.

The male protagonist Will came over, knocked on the glass of the room and asked, "Is this Experimental No. [-]?"

Franklin replied, watching the orangutan's movements, "Yes, it's number nine!"

"Crack!" Chen Hao shouted, "James, after you finish asking, look at the information in your hand and make a record, because you need to confirm his information and write it down at the same time."

"Okay, director!" James Franco raised his hand to signal.

"Do it again!" Chen Hao shouted.

"The 5st scene of the 1nd scene of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"

……

After Will finished asking, he looked down at the document in his hand, and began to record.

Franklin replied while staring at the gorilla's movements, "Yes, it's Number Nine! We call her Bright Eyes!"

After noticing the orangutan's movements, Franklin immediately asked in surprise, "Did you see it?"

When Will heard this, he immediately raised his head and looked at the orangutan.

Franklin, who was a little excited, glanced at Will and immediately looked at Will in amazement, "It's really incredible!"

The orangutans are also moving faster and faster.

"Camera No. 2 gave Will a close-up shot." Chen Hao shouted.

"My God!" Franklin continued to exclaim.

Will stared intently at the orangutan's movements.

The orangutan quickly finished the game, and then directly took a grape from the fruit plate in Franklin's hand and stuffed it into his mouth.

Immediately after reading it, Will asked, "How many steps did she take?"

Franklin still looked at the orangutan in shock and said, "Twenty steps! The full score is fifteen steps. Doctor, what medicine did you give her?"

After hearing twenty steps, Will turned around and started running out the door, "Give me that video!" After speaking, he ran out of the room.

"Okay, it's over!" Chen Hao shouted, and then looked at Liszt of Weta Digital.

This performance was not too difficult, so it was easy to pass, but Chen Hao had to get confirmation from Weta Digital to see if Andy Serkis' motion capture was in place.

"OK, no problem!" Liszt shouted at Chen Hao.

Chen Hao smiled and nodded upon hearing this, "Then continue!"

(End of this chapter)