my movie years

Chapter 111 Turn Movies into Magic (Subscribe)
For a successful director, box office and awards are indispensable, both hands must be grasped, and both hands must be hard
Zhang Hao has gone further and further on the road of a successful director, which is something worth celebrating.

However, at this moment, he didn't have time to open champagne to celebrate.Because the shooting of "The Prestige" was quite hard, and there were a lot of troubles.

Today I was filming a theater performance, that is, the magician's assistant played by Li Xiaoran, Ah Hao's wife don't drown.

In order to strive for authenticity, the water tank is a real water tank that can be used for magic performances.

Before the filming started, the magician and his assistants who were the consultants of the production team demonstrated several times to show Li Xiaoran how to escape safely.

In case of an accident, let Li Xiaoran escape according to the escape method taught by the magician.

"Director, it's very safe, don't worry!" Li Xiaoran comforted Zhang Hao as he checked the props worriedly.

"We still have to check it carefully, safety first." Zhang Hao said.

In fact, similar scenes can be completed with green screen special effects production. CG simulates that the water tank is broken, and then the water is scattered on the ground.

However, the green screen special effect technology is too fake and the picture is distorted.It's not Industrial Light & Magic, Tiangong Yicai can't play such advanced green screen CG special effects, so Zhang Hao adopted the method of real shooting.

The props were quickly prepared, and the group performers acting as the audience also entered the venue one after another.

This ensemble scene was quite relaxed. Zhang Hao remembered that when he was an ensemble performer, he was either exposed to the sun or rained every day, or lay on the ground pretending to be a dead body to earn some dead money.

"Okay, check it one last time, all departments are ready." Zhang Hao did not sit in the director's studio, but took charge of the camera himself on the spot.

After the filming started, Li Xiaoran was tied with ropes by A Jie played by Deng Chao and A Hao played by Huang Xiaoming. They looked at each other, and A Jie tied a blue knot.

Although this kind of knot is strong, it will soak in water and is not easy to untie.

The scenes are shot in several sections and then connected together through post-editing.

The magic assistant played by Li Xiaoran was hoisted into the water tank, and then the red curtain was lowered.

Considering the safety of actors entering the water, it is impossible to complete the entire performance process at one time, but perform separately.

Lao Bai, played by Li Xuejian, picked up the hammer, pinched his watch and watched the time. When the time came, he realized that something had happened, and quickly took the hammer to lift the curtain.

Sure enough, Li Mei, the magic assistant played by Li Xiaoran, was struggling to ask for help, and Lao Bai hurriedly hit the glass of the water tank with a hammer.

The water in the water tank poured out, and Li Mei had been drowning for too long and could not be rescued.

Ah Hao broke down and cried, because it was his wife who died.

This scene was filmed all morning. Except for the last scene of drowning, which was a success, the other scenes were shot back and forth many times.

The main problem lies in the group performances. The performance on the stage requires the cooperation of the audience off the stage.But the ensemble actors have no acting skills at all, and the few close-up shots given are all local special and foreground actors.

In any case, it took a whole morning to complete this not-so-difficult scene.

After that, Li Xiaoran still had a few scenes, one was a successful water tank magic escape show, and the other was a backstage argument scene.

The next day, the crew filmed another difficult scene. The reason why it is said to be difficult is because it needs to perform this trick in real
For this, Zhong Linsu, the master of magic, needs to be played as a real master of ancient color tricks.

The production team also searched for people in the juggling circle, and finally Guan Xiaotong's father, Guan Shaozeng, came forward and found the master juggler named Tao Xuecheng.

It happened that he was very good at changing fish tanks, so Zhang Hao asked him to act in the movie once.

Tao Xuecheng is getting old, and no one can pass on his skills, so he is extremely happy to appear in a movie to promote ancient color tricks.

I just didn't understand Zhang Hao asking him to put on bow legs to perform the trick of turning into a fish tank, because he didn't need to put the fish tank between his legs to do the trick, and he even performed it for Zhang Hao face to face.

"So, Master Tao, how did you conjure up the fish tank?" Zhang Hao couldn't help his curiosity and asked Tao Xuecheng.

Tao Xuecheng drank tea calmly, squinted at Zhang Hao and said, "This is a secret. The secret of the trick is known to the audience, so is that still called trick?"

"Uh!" Zhang Hao touched his head and said, "Curiosity, I'm just curious."

"You young people, you don't understand the legends of our ancient tricks. You think you can guess the secrets of tricks by guessing, and you don't understand if you tell them."

After Tao Xuecheng finished speaking, he ignored Zhang Hao, leaving Zhang Hao embarrassed.

The old man was dissatisfied with his deconstruction of the ancient color trick to transform into a fish tank. In his opinion, this is not the secret of performing a fish tank at all.

Zhang Hao is very innocent, and he has never seen a similar trick, and this trick is from the original movie.

Even Zhong Linsu is a real figure in history, a juggler who performed for a kind old lady in the palace in the late Qing Dynasty, and is called a magician in the West.

Later, he performed empty-handed and caught bullets, and died accidentally because of this magic trick.

In the plot, the magician Ajie performed magic, and then Ahao broke two fingers.

On the day of the filming of this scene, all the crew members who had nothing to do came to watch the performance of this master juggler.

Although he was very dissatisfied with Zhang Hao's deconstruction, Tao Xuecheng still followed Zhang Hao's request and completed the magic performance of turning into a fish tank with bowlegged legs.

At the end of the performance, the group performers didn't need to pretend anymore, they applauded sincerely, and after the filming ended, they were still eagerly discussing how everything was done.

Every time a magic show is performed, many viewers wonder how it all works.Even in the hottest years of magic shows, there are quite a few magic puzzle-solving videos on the Internet.

Although Zhang Hao is not a magic fan, he has watched several magic puzzle-solving videos.What to say after reading it, it's like the feeling that after the thing is over, the woman is still reminiscing, but you are already dull.

After understanding the secret behind it, I lost that sense of mystery and curiosity, and I can no longer arouse curiosity.

Magic, on the other hand, needs to maintain a sense of mystery and the curiosity of the audience.

The show "The Prestige" itself is a grand magic show.At the beginning of filming, Zhang Hao and the leading actors and creators clarified a concept that everything they do in the play is a magic show presented to the audience.

All these mysteries, even after reading the script more than ten times, except for Zhang Hao, the rest of the crew still can't understand what kind of tricks Zhang Hao is playing.

Can a movie still be a magic shot?Or is performing magic in a movie a magic show?
Everyone didn't understand what Zhang Hao wanted to express. What Zhang Hao meant was that the plot structure of "Fatal Magic" itself was a magic show.

The whole story revolves around the three steps of magic, realizing a movie magic performance.These three steps, Zhang Hao will tell the audience through Lao Bai's mouth from the beginning, which is equivalent to telling the audience the answer in advance.

But the audience would not have thought that after seeing the end of the movie and walking home dizzy for a long time, they would realize what kind of movie they saw in the cinema.

Perhaps, it will take a long time for curious audiences to gradually understand the magic feast that Zhang Hao created for them.

Actually, it was made by Christopher Nolan, but now Zhang Hao made it himself.

The exclamation of the audience at that time will be the biggest reward for Zhang Hao.

(End of this chapter)