director of the millennium

Chapter 7 Kissed?Like a kiss!

the next day.

A bustling street in the west part of the capital, where the crew of "17-year-old Bicycle" gathered.

Wang Xiaoshuai's film crew is not a grassroots team. After all, he is a director who has won awards at foreign film festivals. He has been around in Europe and the United States, and is quite famous!
If the crew of "17 Years Old Cycling" made a staff list, there would be more than 30 people including actors!

In these days, this is the size of a large crew.

However, not everyone who works on the crew will come to the scene to follow the filming of the film.

For example, the Baodao Jiguang Company that invested, as well as the French capital, although they have sent producers and supervisors, but these are all boss-level figures, and their name is really just a name.

Just like Han Sanye, the former deputy director of Beijing Film Studio in the Mainland and now the deputy general manager of China Film Group. He also had the title of producer on the crew of "17 Years Old Bicycle", but Wu Yuan never saw this at all. A big shot who will be at the helm of the Chinese film industry for the next 15 years.

Those who are really busy on the set are mainly migrant workers who are engaged in photography, scenery, scene recording, recording, lighting, and props.

Plus the screenwriter, art design, costume design, editing, and soundtrack behind the scenes.
These are the real people on the crew.

"For this drama, the planned shooting cycle is 15 days, and there is still plenty of time."

"If it weren't for the fact that both of your leading actors are newcomers, the filming would only take seven days."

Sitting in the director's chair, Wang Xiaoshuai stared at the store of "Feida Express Company" where the scenery and props were arranged, and at the same time chatted with Wu Yuan who was sitting beside him curiously watching the monitor.

Movies in this era are shot very quickly. After all, they don’t need any special effects, and they don’t need transitions across the country. Generally, a literary film can be done in a week to half a month.

Some directors on Hong Kong Island can shoot a movie in three days!

After all, every extra day of shooting means extra money spent on film!

"Hey, you really have a good eye." Seeing that Wu Yuan's eyes were always on the monitor in front of him, Wang Xiaoshuai pointed to the monitor with some pride and said, "You haven't seen it before, have you?"

"This is the latest IVS system, a high-end product. Nowadays, foreigners use this system for filming."

"In the past few years, all the high-end production crews in China have used this thing."

Wu Yuan pouted, but didn't answer.

He didn't find it novel, he was amazed to see such an ancient equipment, okay!

What is the IVS system? To put it bluntly, it actually connects a beam splitter to the optical viewfinder of the film camera, then outputs a video signal, and then connects it to the director's monitor.

In this way, the director can see the picture in the camera and the performance of the actors in real time.

Before this set of equipment, it was really troublesome for directors to shoot movies. At that time, the photographer was the only person who could see the picture during shooting, and there was no way to playback the picture. Only the photographer could decide whether the material could be passed or not.

The director had to see the samples that were developed the next day to know what effect was produced yesterday.

It wasn't until the birth of the IVS system, commonly known as the "monitor", that the director could finally see the shooting screen in real time.

However, this thing has been around for more than 20 years, and there has been little progress.

Even though Wang Xiaoshuai is using the latest model, the picture effect is not very good, and the resolution of the output video signal is only 480P.

It is enough to see a composition and a rough performance of the actors, and the details of the light ratio, light effect, and color cannot be seen. You still have to wait for the samples to be washed out to see the real picture effect.

However, with the development of technology now, directors can finally play back on the set at any time, and the monitor has a video recording function, which is quite convenient.

Wu Yuan remembers that it was not until 09 that the "HD-IVS" that output three-channel 10bit 1920x1080 digital signals was available. This thing is really useful.

It was not until the era of digital photography that the director finally saw the almost perfectly restored picture on the live high-definition monitor.

And in digital photography, each lens is a separate file. Basically, you can look at it however you want, either forward or backward.

Some demanding directors even allow editors to cut the film on the spot, and they can see the rough cut effect of a scene in half an hour after shooting.

When Wu Yuan became the executive director in his dream, he would often watch the film editing on the set, and often the chief director would say that he would have to stay up for three nights as an executive!
Rich crews can even do on-site pre-color correction, and the director can directly see the effect of the first-level color correction on the monitor.

That is, with filters added!

At this point, the directors finally don't have to finish filming every day and have to develop the film, watch samples, and hold seminars.

Wu Yuan, who has rich experience in the digital photography era, once returned to the Millennium film crew, it really made him feel unique.

Although "17-Year-Old Bicycle" was not shot smoothly, it is because the movie mainly tells a story around two separate lines of the two protagonists.

In the movie, the lines between Xiaojian and Xiaogui are parallel but intersect, and finally reach the climax and end in a "hot-blooded" teenage fight.

Therefore, when Wang Xiaoshuai was filming, he mainly shot Cui Lin and Zhou Xun as a group, and Wu Yuan and Gao Yuanyuan as a group.

In the first few days, we mainly filmed scenes with Cui Lin and Zhou Xun.

One of the two is Xiao Jian, a courier who came to the capital from the countryside to work, and the other is Hong Qin, a rural girl who comes to the city to work as a nanny for a wealthy family, but always secretly wears her master's clothes and wants to pretend to be a "city dweller."

Xiao Gui, played by Cui Lin, always lives in a dilapidated courtyard house, peeking through the wall at Hong Qin, who is dressed up in a "flowery" style through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the tall building next door.

The characters played by Wu Yuan and Gao Yuanyuan are two urbanites who grew up in the capital.

Literary and artistic films are all about "imagery", "symbols" and values.

In this "17-year-old bicycle", the bicycle is a special symbol and symbol. Through the attitudes of Xiaojian and Xiaogui towards this bicycle, it reflects the differences in the lives of urban and rural people, and the integration of rural people into the city. Difficulties, and differences between urban and rural areas.

The sixth-generation directors are good at this, as if they can’t make movies if they don’t shoot some difficult social reality, the tragic fate of small people in the big era, and insinuate the society, the times, and so on.

It’s not that Wu Yuan disdains or rejects this type of film, but after all, he was not born in the 60s and 70s. He experienced that complex and turbulent period of change and was brainwashed by a large number of European art films.

Especially after 20 years of experiencing the dream, his film concept and values ​​have long been changed.

In his view of movies, he must either make commercial blockbusters that are loved by the public and can bring laughter and excitement, or he must make literary and artistic films that can touch people's hearts, arouse resonance, and explore more human nature and character stories.

He really can't make this kind of film that indulges in self-expression, explores the social system, and exports rebellious, cultural, and political concepts, and he has no interest in making it.

Anyway, there is already a generation of directors working hard in this field, so there is no need for him, a newcomer, to get stuck in it.

Chinese movies need such a group of filmmakers to make this kind of movies, but they don’t need all filmmakers to delve into this field!
He should open up some new paths, new styles, and new genres for Chinese films!

Therefore, during the time he joined the crew, although Wu Yuan has been following Wang Xiaoshuai, eagerly learning the operation mode and knowledge of film crews in this era.

However, the various film concepts and artistic ideas he constantly instilled in Wang Xiaoshuai were all in the left ear and out the right ear, and he didn't take it into his heart at all.

Every night at the movie watching party, Wu Yuan mostly just sat quietly and listened to the heated arguments between the director and screenwriters, rarely expressing his opinions aloud.

His attitude made Wang Xiaoshuai feel that this kid is a man who can be made, he knows how to listen more, watch more and talk less!
Just when Wang Xiaoshuai's affection for Wu Yuan was getting higher and higher, and he was about to succeed in self-strategy, the scenes of Cui Lin and Zhou Xun's group were almost finished filming, and only the rival scenes involving Wu Yuan hadn't been filmed yet.

This also means that the scenes of Wu Yuan and Gao Yuanyuan will start filming.

Compared with Cui Lin and Zhou Xun, Wu Yuan's group is more inclined to shoot youth love stories, that is, the ambiguous first love between two high school students.

Wu Yuan and Gao Yuanyuan also got their filming schedule.

However, when Wu Yuan saw the specific arrangements for the first scene, he immediately approached Wang Xiaoshuai.

"Senior Brother, the first scene between me and Sister Yuanyuan is going to be a kissing scene?!"

Wu Yuan has heard before that many directors who make literary films like to shoot passionate scenes, emotional sublimation scenes, and kiss scenes first, because it can help actors get into the scene faster and let them find their feelings faster.

He just didn't expect that this kind of thing would happen to him one day.

Pointing to the script in his hand - "Houhai, Xiaoshulin...", Wu Yuan was speechless.

"This is the most difficult scene between you two. Once you overcome this difficulty, it will become easier after that." Wang Xiaoshuai said righteously.

"Okay." Wu Yuan slapped his lips together and nodded helplessly in agreement.

Anyway, there is no French-style mouth-to-mouth kiss in this drama, the only one that can be called an intimate scene is this one.

But after carefully reading the script, Wu Yuan frowned, a little confused, and asked again: "Brother, you didn't write clearly, should I kiss her cheek in the end or not?"

No wonder Wu Yuan was confused, it was because the script was written too vaguely, just a line "Xiao Jian approached Xiao Xiao's cheek nervously and shyly, wanting to kiss her cheek, the ambiguous atmosphere of youthful first love lingered around the two of them..."

Then, as soon as the scene changed, it became "Xiaogui took the opportunity to steal the bicycle..."

So is this a kiss or not?

Facing Wu Yuan's doubts, Wang Xiaoshuai smiled slightly, and slowly uttered two words: "Like a kiss."

"Then kiss or not?"

"Like a kiss!"

"Is it really a kiss?"

"It's like a kiss!"

Giving Wu Yuan a "you can figure it out yourself" look, Wang Xiaoshuai left with his hands behind his back.

"I just annoy this group of literary film directors who like to play with stream of consciousness! What kind of nonsense are you talking about every day!" Wu Yuan looked at Wang Xiaoshuai's back and complained fiercely in his heart.

(End of this chapter)