This director needs to apologize

Chapter 112: The first glimpse of the arduous test
After filming the disastrous airplane scene and artillery scene, the crew of "1951" seemed to have suddenly gotten rid of the lingering bad luck and was on the fast track.

First of all, in April, the mountainous areas of northern Shanxi finally returned to normal weather with clouds and less rain. The number of live shooting scenes available to the crew every day suddenly increased from 4 to more than a dozen.

Secondly, after the two scenes that required the military's deployment of weapons and equipment were completed, the difficulty of filming the subsequent scenes was greatly reduced.To use Chen Yiming's own classification, it is "everything is under control."

After bidding farewell to Lieutenant Colonel Yang and his artillery battalion with a group dinner, the crew returned to the temporary base and began filming the trench scenes on the south bank of the Baishui River.

Before the filming started, Professor Sha had already directed his team of engineers to renovate the trenches that "crossed the water" and the matching camera track.

The camera car for this section was also creatively proposed by Chen Yiming and was hand-made by the prop master of the Magic Shadow Factory.

The appearance is similar to the double main beam gantry crane in the factory workshop, but it is many times smaller in size.

The engineers dug parallel trenches on both sides of the trench, and the tracks were still laid with double layers of quick-drying cement.

During actual shooting, by hoisting the photography platform up, you can control the camera to rotate 360 ​​degrees around the actors.

The only drawback is that it can only take close-up shots, not long shots like the opening scene.

However, in the trench scene before crossing the river, the focus was still on the messenger duo, so the lack of a distant view was not a problem.

After training in the two major scenes of airplanes and cannons, the two leading actors and the two groups of photographers have become more and more cooperative. Basically, after several live rehearsals, the minimum requirement of "one shot" can be achieved.

At the same time, assistant director Zhang Weining, who has been "doing odd jobs" since the filming started, has made his debut.

The first time Chen Yiming saw Zhang Weining training the extras on the spot, he was simply astounded. Compared with Zhang, the tricks he showed when filming "Holiday in the Magic City" were nothing more than playing tricks on his own.

This trench scene is divided into three sections by two hidden editing points, starting from the trench parapet at the end of the opening scene and ending when the camera enters the regimental command post and goes black.

The first and last segments were shot by a camera crane, and the middle segment was shot by Paul using a Steadicam.

The overall traveling distance is 350 meters, with two sections of horizontal trenches and one section of longitudinal traffic trenches, and more than 80 people will appear in the group performances.

Chen Yiming could only give a rough description of the scene in the storyboards and scripts, and could not determine the actions and paths of each group performer in advance.

Therefore, in this 350-meter-long trench, how many extras need to be filled to make the content of the shot just right, neither too crowded nor too boring, is a task that tests carefulness and patience.

As for this job, director Chen Yiming didn't pay much attention to it. In fact, it was all done through consultation between the two bosses, Zhang Weining and Sha Pingju.

In the first live rehearsal, Lao Zhang simply showed off the whole scene. Even the two leading actors could only try their best to play their roles and hold on to complete the trick.

He was ten meters ahead of the camera, walking at the same pace as the actors, correcting the postures, movements and lines of the engineer soldiers as he walked.

Yes, Lao Zhang even designed lines for many extras.

According to him, the silent trenches were not real. The voices of the extras were far away from the radio poles and could appear as faint background sounds, thus adding more texture to the scene.

"I'm asking you to clean the gun, not to dismantle it. This is a prop gun that cannot be reassembled after being dismantled."

"Write more slowly. The soldiers at that time were not very educated and could not write letters as neatly as you."

"Stop digging and let me dig the shell-proof holes instead of digging tunnels."

"Very well, just treat those people in the middle of the trenches as sticks and don't look at them."

"I've said it several times. You two are chatting. It's not an endorsement. I really can't remember, so I just kept talking casually. I don't know what to talk about? Have you eaten? What have you eaten? Isn't it time to start talking?"

"Go away and be casual. This is not a military parade."

Lao Zhang just walked along the trench and talked, stipulating the actions of each group performer in place, and every word was accurate.

As Duan and Liu arrived at the entrance of the traffic trench, Zhang Weining directed a group of soldiers to walk out of the traffic trench. The camera shifted to the other side of the queue in time, forming a cutaway shot of the front and rear scenes.

Paul held up the Steadicam and inserted himself between Lao Duan and Xiao Liu, and the three of them formed a column and turned into the traffic trench.

Lao Zhang climbed out of the trench, rushed to the front on the flat ground, and gave instructions to the scattered group performances in the traffic trench.

Soon the camera gradually approached the entrance of the next main trench. After being silent for a long time, Lao Duan suddenly said, "Wood!"

When Duan Yining didn't hear a response, he turned up his volume and shouted "Wood!" again, while turning his head back.

Paul quickly turned around and pointed the camera at Liu Dongjun, who looked dull, and at the same time handed the camera over to the camera car on the second section of the track.

The reason for Liu Dongju's sluggishness is simple, because the camera has already given an important profile of this scene, our army's precious "heavy firepower" in the early stages of the Peninsula War, a 75mm mountain gun of the Little Japan standard.

This is naturally a preparation for the artillery cover at the end of the film.

The way Chen Yiming arranged the appearance of the mountain artillery was for our army's artillery crew to conduct rapid deployment training.

The requirement was that when the two leading actors arrived here, they happened to catch up with the extras pushing the gun cart out of the bunker. Outside, there was an extra performance dressed as a cadre looking at the watch to count the time.Of course, the first rehearsal was not so perfect. The camera only captured half of the cannon barrel, and most of the cannon body was still in the hole.

The cadres and extras simply froze on the spot.

Lao Zhang rushed over and spit out lotus flowers, which made the engineers who were playing the artillery crew blush.

The distance from the artillery to the command post is not long, but the requirements for group performances are higher. Because it is close to the command post, more people know Staff Qin, so the group performances here have to appear on camera and speak.

Lao Zhang ran back and forth to organize the extras to enter the scene one by one. Don't look at it as just saying hello when passing by. Ordinary people who have not received professional training suddenly appear on the scene, which is really not possible.

Fortunately, during those days when the city was forced to be closed due to wind and rain, Zhang Weining spent time with the engineers and soldiers, and through thorough investigation and experience, he was able to pick out a few "literary and artistic activists."

There are not many lines, they are basically polite words such as "Old Qin is back", "Hello, Staff Qin" and "Come tonight".

Chen Yiming watched the whole process and found that Lao Zhang's training had a bit of a drama tone. This was easy to change and was not a big problem.

Old Duan was walking and chatting like a social butterfly, which was in sharp contrast to the helpless idiot behind him.

After going through it all, Zhang Weining may have felt that the performance of the group performances was not as good as expected, so he went to Chen Yiming to express his apology.

However, Chen Yiming felt completely opposite to Lao Zhang. The performance of the extras far exceeded his expectations. After the first live rehearsal, he had already given up most of his heart about the scene.

The next step is just a matter of time and effort. Lao Zhang has laid a solid foundation and may be able to finish filming in two or three days.

……

It was actually filmed, and it was exactly as Chen Yiming expected. By the fifth actual shooting the next afternoon, this long shot of a large group scene with more than 80 extras was officially completed.

Next, the crew struck while the iron was hot and shot four times in two days to complete the next scene where the duo was ordered to go from the command post to the top of the hill where Li Mingliang was.

Then it took a day and a half to film the running portion from Li Mingliang's place to Zhang Yi's place on Highland 589.

At this point, all the scenes with group performances have been completed, and all subsequent scenes will be professional actors and students from the three schools.

Although Zhang Yi is the commander of a company in the movie, he is just a polished commander on Highland 589, and his only subordinate is a correspondent played by a student.

However, the filming of this scene had to be postponed, because it was not a small fight with a few smoke cans, but a large-scale open flame. It had to be reported to the military division and relevant departments and carried out under the supervision of management personnel.

For the same reason, the sniper scene on the north bank of the Baishui River had to wait until late April to be filmed.

Chen Yiming temporarily adjusted the production schedule, and the crew moved to the hillside on the east side of Tianma Mountain to shoot the scene where Liu Mutou traveled through the poison gas zone.

There are no extras in the frame, no special scenes, just Liu Dongjun himself and Paul who follows him like a shadow.

This is also the first time that Liu Dongjun plays a leading role in the crew. There is no longer Duan Yining to lead and push, everything depends on him.

Chen Yiming, who was meticulous about storyboards and scripts, went out of his way when it came to this scene and gave the actors the highest degree of freedom.

No route is prescribed, no actions are limited, and no emotions are described.

All that was given to Liu Dongjun was the summary of the situation and the final goal. Everything in between was blank and was left to him to fill in.

If it was Duan Yining who ended up, Chen Yiming would have to frame the scope first, lest the old Duan let himself go and take the second half of the movie in a strange direction.

But Liu Dongjun is different. He is a newcomer in every sense of the word. In short, he has little experience and weak imagination.

Chen Yiming must retain and inspire his possibilities to the maximum extent, and enrich his interpretation level in all quadrants, otherwise the whole scene will just follow the task process, with extremely dry emotions and no substitution.

Both Xiangrui and Lin Xiao said that this scene was a bit like Wang Jiawei's style, asking the actors to act out a blank script, but it was entirely up to Wang Jiawei's "feeling".

Lin Xiao even thinks that Chen Yiming is worse than Wang Jiawei. Wang Jiawei only tortures famous actors, whether they are movie kings or movie queens, but Chen Yiming can train with Liu Dongjun, a minor.

He laughed and teased Chen Yiming, asking him if he was trying to pick the weakest persimmons. He knew that he couldn't train big-name actors, so he made Lao Duan go offline at the speed of light in the previous scene.

The conscience of heaven and earth, when writing the script, Chen Yiming had no such idea at all.

However, what Lin Xiao said about "practicing" was not an injustice to him. In his previous life, Chen Yiming was indeed not Wang Jiawei's style. He was used to filming scene after scene with a script in hand. He hated the scripts being vague and he also hated the actors' improvisation.

Because that would make the scene out of control, mean revisions and reshoots, and prevent Director Chen from getting off work at that time.

Now the situation has pushed Chen Yiming into a situation where he has no choice but to follow Wang Jiawei's example and use his mysterious "feeling" to guide the actors so that the play will eventually move to a track that fits his own heart.

This is what Chen Yiming was not good at in the past.

This one-man show is a difficult test, both for Liu Dongjun and Chen Yiming.

(End of this chapter)