This actor doesn't look like a good guy

Chapter 289 Why is it awesome?

"Then you have to work hard. You have to make animations like "Toy Story", "Shrek", "Finding Nemo" or "Spirited Away". Technology is one aspect, and the plot is also very important.

Anyway, our company has many screenwriters and directors, but if you have ideas, you can chat with them more. Although they may not be as good as you in animation, they are all very good in plot. "

"Hmm, I've always chatted with Director Ning Hao and Director Xiao Yang before. Some of their ideas are indeed very powerful. Sometimes I can't even think of things after thinking hard, but after telling them, they can just say it casually. Great idea to come.”

"Okay, since you have an idea, go ahead and do it, I'm very optimistic about you."

"Yeah!" Dumpling nodded heavily.

After Jiang Bai finished teaching all the movements, he started to prepare to turn on the computer.

Most of the shots in "Kung Fu Panda" were captured by real people, but some of them were produced using computers.

Their shooting location was in a studio, surrounded by green cloth.

Standing inside, the staff put the equipment on Jiang Bai's body. Every joint on his body was equipped with capture equipment. Whether Jiang Bai raised his legs to jump, moved his fingers, or even opened his mouth to speak, his expressions could be carefully captured.

However, even if the expression can be captured, it is definitely not that accurate. After all, human faces are still different from cartoon animal faces, but the facial expressions will be specially processed by professionals here. Now they All you have to do is get the moves right.

Of course, when doing these actions, Jiang Bai directly also did the dubbing.

Because when a person is most emotionally engaged, he or she is filming. Although many professional actors can recreate the dubbing afterwards, in the end, it is not as good as adding body movements to make them more immersed.

Of course, some of these dubbings may need to be re-matched later, but for the sake of coherence and saturation of actions, Jiang Bai is still used to doing it all at once.

Jiang Bai was doing motion capture here, while the others were watching and studying.

Because they will also play later.

The initial shooting was actually not that smooth, because the movements they made had to be reflected on those animated models, so there was a problem of the range of movements. It would not work if the range was too large, and it would not work if the range was small. Each image needed The range of motion is also different.

So after filming a few days ago, the director held a special meeting for them and asked them to discuss the techniques used in motion capture.

But as time goes by, everyone becomes more and more skilled in shooting.

In his spare time, Jiang Bai would also chat with the director.

“In this movie we used a lot of beautiful scenery in China, among which we designed the Peace Valley with reference to Lijiang and Guilin.”

Jiang Bai nodded: "Those scenes seemed to me to be quite beautifully done. We should learn from you on this point."

"No problem, let's communicate with each other. Is the assistant you brought here animator? In fact, I have been observing him during this period. Although he is an assistant, he always likes to go to the animation team to chat. And I can understand it even when talking about a lot of professional knowledge.”

Seeing that his idea was seen through, Jiang Bai smiled: "Indeed, he is an animation professional in our company. I brought him here this time because I want him to learn more about your advanced technology and experience."

"Haha, no problem. In fact, I have checked him out online before. Although he doesn't have many works, he is still very talented. His animated short films won many awards in your country last year."

"Yeah, actually he didn't major in animation when he was in college. Later, it was just because of his love that he chose to become an animation director."

Mark probably agrees with this: "It is true that you have to be particularly passionate about animation. The longest time to shoot an ordinary movie is one or two years. If you need to add special effects, it may take a little longer. There are also those efficient crews, even several A movie can be shot in a day, and even with post-production it only takes a few months.”

Jiang Bai deeply agreed with what Mark said.

Hong Kong movies are like this. It's like a war. It takes a few days to shoot a movie. The efficiency is very high. When Wang Jing was at his peak, he could shoot nine movies a year.

And the box office of those movies is not low.

Although there are many bad films, his efficiency is so high that it is considered mythical in the industry.

"Actually, your country has a long history, and there are many myths and stories, so there are actually many themes that are worth doing, but I don't know why you haven't developed yet. You have obviously developed very rapidly in other aspects. , but the development of the entertainment industry is so slow.”

"Well, it's hard to say this. The main reason is that people don't pay enough attention to it, so there are fewer people doing it. But we are starting to get better and better now."

As Jiang Bai was talking, he thought of those Chinese myths and stories, such as "Journey to the West", "Feng Shen Bang", "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio" and the like.

These animations are actually very interesting.

Moreover, these themes have their own topics, so if they can be filmed well, the attention will definitely be high, just like the "Legend of Nezha" that I starred in back then.

It has only been two or three years now and it has already become a classic.

But the limitation of animation itself is that the production cycle is long. If it is used for commercialization, the return cycle is also very slow. Therefore, many capitals will deliberately ignore this track.

"Director Mark, what you said before is actually correct. Our country's animation industry is indeed still in the development stage, but how can the animation industry monetize better?"

Mark smiled after hearing this. He is still very experienced in animation: "Actually, this is very simple. The best company in these industries is Disney. The animation itself is actually just a carrier. In addition to the playback and animation of animation, In addition to copyright income, the main source is peripherals.

Animated images can be made into toy posters and even some cards. Don’t underestimate these markets. If the popularity of these characters can really increase, the investment cost can be completely covered by the peripheral products alone.

In this regard, in addition to Disney, you can also refer to some of Neon's animation peripheral markets. They will produce some genuine cards and then divide them according to rarity. Those cards with high rarity and small quantity are also collectible. of value.

Some cards with only a few pieces released globally can even fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In addition, Disney will also build theme parks, which are full of various cartoon characters they have always created, as well as some co-branded products in other industries. This income is also quite high.

So if you really want to make commercial animation, these things must be done. If you can really do it well, just like Disney and Pokémon, it will actually be more profitable than ordinary movies. "

Mark said a lot, and Jiang Bai also understood what he meant. The main income from making ordinary movies is from screenings and DVDs, but the copyright income from these movies will show a step-by-step decline, and the further you go, the less.

Animation is different. If the IP can be managed well, then the IP will be like a hen that lays golden eggs. It can generate a steady stream of revenue, and it will snowball more and more.But just when he thought of this, he suddenly had an idea: "Director Mark, if I have time, can I meet with the senior leaders of your company? In fact, I think we can cooperate."

Jiang Bai thought that he could cooperate with these mature animation production companies on some works in the early stages, and by the way, let the animation departments of his company learn here.

Not only their technology, but also their creative and operation ideas, as well as their subsequent copyright operation methods.

It is much more efficient to learn directly from the teacher than to directly study and ponder other people's successful cases.

"Mr. Jiang, do you want your company to cooperate with us?"

"Correct."

"I think this proposal is very good, but I still have to talk to the company about cooperation."

"Then please ask Director Mark for me."

"Ah."

In the following period, Jiang Bai would often talk to Mark or John about the animation industry.

In fact, they also attach great importance to the Chinese market, so sometimes they will go in-depth to chat with Jiang Bai.

Time passed like this day by day, and recently Feng Xiaogang also started calling Jiang Bai to ask him when he had time recently and could he go and sit there.

Because with the success of "Jiang Hu", Feng Xiaogang also fell in love with Jiang Bai's promotion method. He could contact those in China on his own, but after all, he still had a few connections abroad.

But Jiang Bai is currently filming "Kung Fu Panda" here, and he has to be an action director and an actor. He will definitely not be able to go back.

So he could only talk to Feng Xiaogang on the phone about overseas promotion.

"Director Feng, do you plan to release "The Night Banquet" at the end of this year?"

"Well, I plan to put it until the end of this year. Do you have any new movies? Last year, your movie beat us to pieces. It was a total of [-] million. We combined can't keep up with you. .”

Jiang Bai felt a little proud when he heard this: "Director Feng, I can only count it as good luck."

"Hahaha, okay, don't be modest. Those people in your company are all very capable, but you see, I have made several movies with you. Whenever you have a new movie, let me Go and make a cameo, I'm tired of being a director all the time."

"I don't have any ideas yet, but if I have the chance, I will definitely ask Director Feng to make a guest appearance."

"Haha, okay, tell me when you're done with your work over there. I'm almost ready here, and I'm just waiting for you to come over."

"No problem. I still have a month or two here. I'll go back when I'm done."

"Okay, then I'll be waiting for you. And as for what I told you before, remember to contact me. I'll treat you to dinner when you come back."

"Remember it, Director Feng, don't worry."

After chatting like this, Jiang Bai continued to devote himself wholeheartedly to the filming of "Kung Fu Panda".

This story is set in China and uses various traditional Chinese images as characters. Except for pandas, all of these characters are images from Xingyiquan. The overall story uses the panda Abao as the protagonist, who grows up to be a The story of an orphan adopted by a duck and growing up to become the Dragon Warrior.

Although the filming has not yet been completed, Jiang Bai is still very satisfied with several images in this drama. Although Abao is very cute, he has played a villain before, so the overall villain Can Bao looks more handsome.

That is to say, the way Abao defeated Can Bao in the end was a little funny, but this is originally a cartoon. Although adults can watch it, children must be considered after all. It would also be good to let the protagonist defeat the villain in a slightly humorous way. .

Especially in the end, Canbao dealt a heavy blow to Abao who fell to the ground. As a result, he couldn't even break through the defense after fighting for a long time.

Also, after Po pushed the disabled leopard up to the sky with his belly, he used a move in the magic skill to flick the disabled leopard down with his fingers. In short, the script of this story was well written from beginning to end.

It’s hard to believe that this was written by a foreigner, and neither of the two foreign screenwriters had any screenwriting experience before.

"Foreigners can shoot Chinese subjects so well, so why should we not be able to shoot well?"

Thinking of what Mark said to himself before, China also has a lot of mythological stories that can be filmed. Although it has been done before, there are still too few films in the film industry. At least compared to foreign countries, China has a long history. There are all kinds of stories emerging, and there are so many things to photograph.

It seems that the development of the animation department will also be put on the agenda.

In addition, the company and I are currently making some money, and we do have funds to expand some new businesses.

"But in addition to DreamWorks and Disney, they can also go to Neon to learn more. The ancients said that it is true to learn from the foreigners to develop their skills and control the foreigners. If there are good things outside, learn more from them."

After some time, the filming of "Kung Fu Panda" gradually came to an end.

Jiang Bai took time to have a meal with the senior executives of DreamWorks.

We talked about cooperative learning.

DreamWorks is quite interested in cooperating with Chinese companies, because their main development is in this area. If they can enter the Chinese market, it would be a good thing, although China currently has restrictions on the number of foreign films that can be introduced. , but co-produced cartoons and movies will be more likely to pass review as long as they can meet the purpose of promoting Chinese culture.

In addition, Jiang Bai himself was born in the martial arts world, so after a morning meeting, they came up with the idea of ​​co-producing a martial arts animation.

DreamWorks was very interested in this, so they agreed to go to China to discuss it in detail later.

During this period, they each prepared a plan and then improved it together.

(End of this chapter)