This director needs to apologize

Chapter 206 The sense of story is endless

During the National Day holiday in 2011, Wang Xiaogang's "The Great Earthquake" faced Han Sanye's "The Founding of the Party." However, the one frequently exposed in the media was Chen Yiming, whose work had not been released at all.

At the media briefing in Xiangcheng that day, Chen Yiming could be said to have risked his life to accompany a gentleman. He answered every question and chatted with the reporters until dinner.

Director Wang got the hammer he asked for. All the questions he had raised over the past two months with @陈一明 were revealed by reporters and laid out in front of Chen Yiming.

Chen Yiming responded one by one when he had something to say, never leaving Director Wang with any regrets.

So throughout the National Day holiday, the reporters were so happy that they had something to write about every day.

The two big directors went back and forth to write one first, then called Director Wang to come up with another one. If they couldn't pick a star from Director Wang's camp, they would always come up with something new.

Chen Yiming himself did not pay attention to his resurgence in the public opinion field at all. He was in the imperial town throughout the holiday.

Lin Xiao, Qi Yu, Cui Fang, Wang Lizing and their follower Wang Wei plunged into the Populus euphratica forest outside the town to study how to shoot the first scene of "Mulan".

Although Chen Yiming completed a detailed storyboard based on the test shooting materials of the two photographers, after seeing it on site, he found that there were many areas that needed to be adjusted.

"Mulan" is different from "Holiday" and "1951". It is no exaggeration to say that this movie is Chen Yiming's first big test since time travel.

"Holiday in Magic" is an MTV sketch, which is basically shot in the same way as a TV series, but with some cinematic elements added to certain scenes.

As long as you watch "Holiday in Magic", you will know how lackluster the film's techniques are.

Limited by time, budget and technical conditions, "Holiday in Magic City" can only be shot like this, and it cannot be advanced even if it wants to be.

"1951" is the other extreme. The pseudo-one-shot shooting method directly blocks the available techniques.

Chen Yiming has done his best to fill in the content of the shot and add rhythm changes, but a single perspective sets the upper limit of expression. This is the so-called manpower sometimes being limited.

In fact, according to the conventional upgrade sequence, Chen Yiming should consider shooting a feature film with mostly interior scenes, first control the lighting variables within a certain range, and explore the expressive upper limit of photography techniques such as camera movement, color, and composition.

All of a sudden, we jumped to "Mulan", where the exterior scenes were varied and complex. The use of natural light that was extremely difficult to control was indeed a big step.

But now that the arrow is on the line, Chen Yiming is no longer sure, so he can only bite the bullet.

Because of this, he took the first scene after the film started, the meeting of Wood and Wu in the Populus euphratica forest, very seriously.

The scenery of Tara Grassland in October is pleasant, but the feeling is not comfortable.

The altitude here is about 2500 meters, and the temperature difference between day and night is huge. If you want to catch the magic light at the moment of sunrise, you have to set off before dawn through the dew-filled mist.

The air was damp and cold, and the coldness had already penetrated into the cracks in his bones before he even reached the woods.

From a distance, it looks like an orange-yellow Populus euphratica forest. When you walk in, you will find that the branches and leaves are actually vibrant and colorful, and the color of each leaf is slightly different.

When the sun peeked above the horizon, low-angle light shone into the woods, and the color difference of the leaves instantly magnified several times. It was like a radish having a meeting in the lens.

The face of Wang Wei, who served as the light substitute, had become a paint shop, all his expressions were covered, and no emotion could be imagined.

After trying for three days, everyone reached a consensus and gave up.

In this case, if you don't want to change the scene, there are two solutions.

One is to add a filter to reduce saturation when shooting, leaving the responsibility of color correction to post-production.

The second is to use props to enhance the morning mist in the woods, which is equivalent to adding a physical filter to the lens.

Chen Yiming decided to take a two-pronged approach. On one side, he called Lu Ping, who was monitoring the progress in the Props Workshop of the Demon Shadow Factory, to Huangcheng Town. On the other hand, he asked Qi Yu, Cui Fang and Wang Wei to experiment with desaturation shooting, and then sent the material back to the Demon Shadow Factory. Toning.

Facts have proved that post-production color correction is not a panacea. Too much facial details are lost, and the basics are sacrificed to the last.

In this case, we will work hard to solve the problem of cigarette sealing.

The task Lu Ping had to complete was very simple. Spread the thin layer of mist that normally lies below the legs to the top of the tree crown, creating the effect of mist covering the entire forest. Chen Yiming specially borrowed Luo Baohe, a pyrotechnicist who worked with him during the filming of "1951", from the Bayi Factory, and worked with Lu Ping to develop the most natural and fitting fog.

On October 10, Luobaohe and Luping basically realized the effect of fog extension. Each five smoke cans can cover a radius of 7 meters, which can support about 5 minutes of shooting.

The facial highlights required during shooting were supplemented by Mr. Wang Lizing's lighting.

The next day, a group of young actors for this scene were brought to the Imperial Town by their teachers and parents, and there was immediately a lot of commotion at the only hotel in the town.

The two leading actors, Zhang Zifeng and Tao Yixi, are 10 and 7 years old.

Zhang Zifeng was Chen Yiming's secret from "Earthquake", and it was also the main reason that finally made Chen Yiming decide to use two versions of actors.

She has a face that resembles that of a grandpa who feeds her food. It’s not about how beautiful or delicate she is, but because she has a sense of story behind the camera.

The so-called sense of story is not a vague subjective feeling, but refers to the plasticity of the actor's facial features in various temperament levels with the cooperation of makeup.

Take Zhang Zifeng as an example. Her facial features are small, so she gives people a clean sense of distance.

The eyes are dark and bright, the corners of the eyes are slightly drooped, and the eyebrow lines are close together. When looking directly at the camera, he has an innocent feeling like a small animal.

The face is thin, the bridge of the nose is high, the outline is clear, and the eyes have a hint of stubbornness, giving him a perfect youthful look.

Wang Xiaogang mainly highlighted the first two points of Zhang Zifeng in "The Great Earthquake", while Chen Yiming focused on the first and third points.

Tao Yixi is Chen Yiming's top student from the CCTV Children's Art Troupe. The little girl looks childish, but she has already starred in two major dramas, "A Dream of Red Mansions" and "The Legend of White Snake."

Of course, they are all children's versions of children acting in big dramas.

The body structure, lines, and expressions are all remarkable and have been tested in practice. It is enough to play the child version of Wu Zetian who has "little ambition".

Another seventy-eight [-] or [-]-year-old boys, all students from the Magic City Opera School, are responsible for playing the role of Mulan's fellow villagers.

Before dawn on October 10, Chen Yiming and his team led Zhang Zifeng and Tao Yixi to Populus euphratica forest to try to take some close-ups.

At 6:[-] in the morning, the first ray of light broke out from the horizon and softly hit the canopy of the Populus euphratica forest.

The road leveled open the cigarette can, and the white smoke mixed with the fading fog gradually dispersed in the forest.

The fog absorbs the excess spectrum and filters the refracted light into a light yellow color, creating a warm atmosphere under the lens.

Zhang Zifeng stood behind a poplar tree and stuck out most of his head.

The natural light hits Zhang Zifeng's forehead diagonally downward, leaving a shallow shadow that elongates diagonally to the right on the lower edge of his nose.

Wang Lizing arranged in advance for his assistant to shoot a set of 3 lights 5 steps in front of the side, and reflected the fill light through the visor to enhance the brightness of Zhang Zifeng's neck and chin, making up for the chromatic aberration caused by the low incident angle of natural light.

After taking the close-up of Zhang Zifeng, I changed the camera position to take the close-up of Tao Yixi at the edge of the woods.

The light here is a little mixed, and Mr. Wang's lighting took longer. By the time the preparations were completed, half an hour had passed.

When the angle of incidence of sunlight changes, the camera position must also change. When the camera position changes, the lighting must be adjusted accordingly. The changes are endless.

Tao Yixi's close-up test shot was barely completed before the deadline when the lighting did not meet the requirements. Today's task was half completed.

Only when the color-corrected material sent back in the evening meets the requirements can it be considered a complete success.

When the two little girls went on stage, Chen Yiming discovered a problem that he had previously ignored.

That is, Wang Wei, as a stand-in, is much taller than the little girl. This problem was not fatal originally, but after adding the low angle of the sunrise light, the original camera position and lighting plan lost too much redundancy. .

To sum up, PPT needs to continue to be modified.

(End of this chapter)