China Entertainment: Indulge in Vanity Fair

Chapter 25 Communicating a Business Idea?No, it's debiasing
Qian Lin is very busy, and she doesn't have much enthusiasm for a returning director who makes commercial films. As a teacher who teaches film art in school every day, she has never seen any commercial films. She still thinks that films must have a certain artistic quality, which is too commercial. She didn't really agree with it from the bottom of her heart.

But He Fang's movie needs theme without theme, art without art, and audio-visual... It's all Hollywood sports shots, with fancy colors.Moreover, it is full of vulgar commercial shots.

But as a film teacher, she has to admit that "Far Cry" is more in line with commercial standards than many domestic films, and it is a proper standard commercial film.

The logic of the story is complete, the dramatic conflict is fierce, the relationship between the characters is clear, the commercial elements are full, and the atmosphere is well established.Although the performance is a bit stretched, the director cleverly avoided the performance problems of the actors.

This movie needs meat and meat, action and action, and horror and horror... The key is that there is an open ending in the end, which can make the audience think about it after watching it. Although it is not advanced, it is still very standard. Thriller approach.

So after Qian Lin watched it, she really wanted to criticize it, but she didn't know how to criticize it, so she could only criticize it for being too vulgar.

In fact, on the other side of her heart, she also really felt that directors who have received formal Hollywood training really have a complete set of creative techniques in commercial films, which is not available to domestic directors.Even if domestic directors are making a commercial film, they still try their best to put some personal things such as "author's expression" and "advanced thinking" into it, for fear that others will say that his film has no thought and no soul.

But "Far Cry" is very pure, business is business to the end, without any so-called "thought" and "soul".

"Director He, should you read it first and then talk about it, or should we talk to you first? Or should you tell us your thoughts?" He Lin asked after entering the editing room with He Fang.

"Let me watch it first, and then I will tell you my thoughts after reading it." He Fang said.

"Then, the initial cut version is 150 minutes long. You watch it first, and I will go to work. After reading it, you call me, and then we will talk about it in detail."

"Okay, no problem, Mr. Qian, you should do your work first."

……

After three full hours, when it was dark, He Fang finished reading the first cut and filled two A4 sheets of paper with opinions.

Afterwards, everyone can only have a meal together first, and He Fang will treat guests and order a restaurant outside.

After having a meal together and drinking a little wine, I felt that everyone was not so unfamiliar. After talking about some film techniques with He Fang, Teacher Qian felt that He Fang's thinking and her thinking were complementary to a certain extent.

Because she studies the artistry of films, of course she believes that she has seen so many Hollywood commercial films and has a good understanding of commercial films. She also teaches students the analysis of commercial films.

But after chatting with He Fang about commercial films, she found that the commercial films she was talking about were just commercial films that Chinese people thought they understood, and they were different from real commercial films in Hollywood.

Leaving aside the production division process, Qian Lin knows it all. After all, it’s not a secret. Everyone knows what Hollywood’s producer-centered system means.

Talking about how to make low-budget movies commercially and exquisitely, they discussed "Far Cry" for a while.

When the production cost and period are limited, how to achieve excellent production and keep the commercial elements from falling behind.

He Fang recounted what he said to several actors before, that is, how to use moving shots, light and shadow, props, medium shots and small panoramic shots to disturb the audience's vision, to cover up the low cost and the lack of acting skills of the actors .

"You mean, there's something wrong with our current way of performing?" Qian Lin was very interested in this.

"I can't say that there is a problem. I can only say that our current shooting methods are very unfriendly to newcomers. Newcomers can't perform well, but the director will always take a close-up or close-up shot on the faces of newcomers. You say they can Is the show coming? That’s all broken. The key is that our directors are all taught to use fixed lenses to shoot movies. The picture of the film is very stable and does not change. At this time, the focus of attention is on the actors' faces and performances. Because the audience will only pay attention to the moving pictures that can attract their attention in a fixed environment."

"Actually, this is an endless loop. If you want to control the cost, you have to use some newcomers. Fame is too expensive to use. But once you use newcomers, the acting skills of the newcomers will be full of problems, and the quality of your movie will suffer. It will decline, and then it will become a bad movie. But, you don’t use new actors, what do new actors rely on to improve? Can acting skills be developed through age? Low-cost movies can’t make it, and new actors can’t make it. Something went wrong with our shooting mode."

Listening to He Fang's explanation, Qian Lin nodded thoughtfully, then drank beer silently.

This seemingly simple commercial movie is really not that simple.

For example, Chen Kaige can't play well. For example, the sixth generation directors can make literary films, but they just can't play commercial films.Because they always like to add some of their personal "thoughts" to the movie, injecting a kind of "soul" into the movie, which often makes the movie go in the wrong direction.

In their eyes, simple commercial films have become something that high-level artistic directors can't handle. The problem here seems to be not as simple as they thought.

"Of course, what I'm talking about is just some differences in creation. In fact, there are many aspects that are different. For example, if the editing is replaced by domestic directors, they will desperately want the right to edit. Work as an editor to cut movies. In Hollywood, directors also want editing rights, but this possibility is very rare. It is very simple. When a director combines the three rights of editing, directing, and editing into one, it violates the creative rules of commercial films. .Commercial films are not authored films, and do not require directors to instill 'ideas' and 'souls' into the audience."

"In addition, let's talk about this producer-centered system, which will make the budget of the entire crew more reasonable. You can see why the production cost of my "Far Cry" is only 300 million, but the props, scenes, lighting, The art and clothing are not bad? Because I didn’t deduct the budget that each department should have. For our piece, the lighting equipment budget is [-], and we basically use all the lights that can be used. So, look at our lens The light and shadow in the film definitely don’t have the plastic feeling of cutting corners. Besides, we don’t have enough budget for the art setting and props at all, but I spent the limited money on the scenes and props that need to be reflected. In order to save costs, If we can borrow scenes, we will borrow scenes, but for the scenes that must appear, I will make sure that the setting and props are in place."

"There is also Fuhua. I heard that for movies with a production cost of 300 million yuan in China, Fuhua is usually borrowed or bought cheap in the market. But we are not ambiguous. We are high-end products that attract sponsors and absolutely It won’t make the audience think it’s inferior.”

"Of course, these production concepts may allow us to make a movie that can't be faulted with only 300 million yuan. In China, I heard that "Crazy Stone" also cost more than 300 million yuan. , but if you look at their pictures and quality, can they compare with ours?"

He Fang didn't want to brag, nor did he want to show off the superiority of the business methods he learned in Hollywood, he just wanted to eliminate the prejudice against him from BJ filmmakers.

After all, he didn't come back to fight BJ's filmmakers, he just wanted to make movies to make money.He doesn't want to promote and carry forward any commercial film theory, he is not a theoretical school, he is a pragmatic school.

Why is Mango TV so successful?Because Hunan people are pragmatic, we produce whatever the audience wants to see.Of course, you can't just cater to them blindly, that would be a wrong way, and the audience still wants to watch the midnight show, so they just do it?
(End of this chapter)