This director needs to apologize

Chapter 237 Large Group Gymnastics

It took two days to shoot the group portrait scene in the Tang Army's tent. The weather forecast was for the next few days to be rainy and sunny. Xiaomei temporarily adjusted the production schedule and moved the subsequent fragmentary scenes to the front.

Short shots and fewer people make shooting more controllable. Therefore, although the weather was not ideal, the crew could freely switch between the grassland and the camp, and the shooting progress was still not slow.

After more than a week of filming, the weather finally improved again, and the filming of the grand martial arts scene of the grassland decisive battle officially started.

In real history, this battle was called the Battle of Yingshachuan. It was a major battle between 50,000 Tang troops and 100,000 Western Turks troops.

Of course, Chen Yiming cannot recruit 100,000 extras to restore history one-to-one. It is neither possible nor necessary.

As the saying goes, if there are more than 10,000 people, there will be no boundaries, which means that after the number of people reaches a certain size, it will be difficult to clearly identify them visually. Ten thousand people and twenty thousand people are actually very different in the eyes of the audience.

Moreover, Chen Yiming only captured a partial battlefield in the Battle of Yingshachuan, that is, Su Dingfang led 500 cavalry to attack the 2 reinforcements of the Western Turks Shunishi tribe. As for the battlefield where the main forces of the two sides fought, only a few scenes were briefly mentioned in the movie.

Large-scale group scenes are naturally shot from more people to less people, which is easy to control and saves costs. Therefore, the first thing to shoot was the shot of the main lineup of both sides.

Chen Yiming deliberately arranged this scene for two days on the weekend to make it easier to recruit people from the nearby imperial town to make up the number.

The short two-minute shot required the use of 4,000 extras, 1,000 horses, 4,000 sets of costumes, and countless props such as flags, drum horns, and horses.

Not counting reusable costumes and props, the shooting cost soared to 500 million.

This is also due to the advancement of post-production special effects technology. Chen Yiming only needs to use a small number of actors, and the big ones can be copied and filled in through special effects technology.

The Tang army had 40,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry, so the infantry in the center formed a phalanx of 40,000 people, with three in front and one in back arranged in an inverted triangle. Each square consisted of two rows of spearmen, three rows of sword and shield bearers and Composed of five rows of crossbowmen.

Behind the three horizontal square formations is the Tang Army's central army. Cheng Zhijie, Su Dingfang, and Wang Wendu are all here. The three of them are surrounded by guards in bright armor. They are the same group of extras who filmed Mulan's father's attack on the camp.

The ten thousand cavalry were equally divided into two parts and placed on both wings of the infantry square.

The battle formations of the Tang army in real history were definitely not that simple, and the arrangement of troops was not so mechanical. As far as long-range suppressed crossbows were concerned, the equipment rate of the early Tang army was more than 80%, which means that almost all members were shooting arrows.

Chen Yiming chose to shoot like this for only one purpose, which is to look good.

For example, the Qin Army's arrow array in the previous movie "Heroes" is an excellent example of film and television adaptation. For the cold weapon war on the screen, large-scale group exercises are definitely the best solution.

The information that the human eye can receive in a short period of time is limited. The more elements there are in the field of vision, the deeper the human senses will feel the order and rhythm.

Imagine that the strict front row array held up their shields for cover, the back row archers drew their bows and fired in unison, and the crossbowmen continuously fired crossbow arrows in the gaps between the ranks.

Did discipline, efficiency, and quality come out all at once?

The main battlefield is just a foreshadowing in the movie, and these three or two minutes of scenes have little to do with the protagonist Mulan. There is a much bigger decisive battle in the desert in the second half of the movie, so Chen Yiming shot it very restrainedly.

The extras wore felt hats and leather robes to play herdsmen on the first day, and wore helmets and armor on the second day to play Tang soldiers.

The Western Turkic Army is easy to photograph, just ride in formation.

The Tang army was a bit more complicated. The square formation was divided into two parts: infantry and cavalry. Shoot the infantry first and then the cavalry.

The whole process was shot statically, with the actors not moving the camera. It took two days to shoot enough material for post-production.

Then the scenes with Jiang Huiwu and Wang Jinsong were shot first, mainly the scenes of giving orders.

After sending away the two guest stars, we started to get more difficult, shooting the scenes of the Western Turkic cavalry charging into the battle formation and the Tang army's counterattack.

In the movie, it is a huge scene of thousands of horses galloping and thousands of arrows firing, causing death and injury, but it was not like this at the time of filming. There were only a few hundred extras inside and outside.

These hundreds of people were specially selected by the production team from among the many extras. They have good discipline and enthusiasm, and naturally the performance fee has doubled.

The first is a shot of Tang Jun's battle formation counterattacking, which is almost equivalent to the school's radio gymnastics. Just remember your position and movement route, and follow the instructions from the loudspeaker.

There is only a square formation of a few hundred people in the viewfinder, but with the addition of post-production special effects, thousands of arrows can be fired at once. The filming of the broadcast gymnastics is not complete yet. A large number of close-ups still need to be shot, mainly the scene where the Tang soldiers are shot with arrows in a fancy way.

This part was shot entirely with a green screen, and then replaced with the original material during post-production.

After filming on the Tang Army side, the extras put on their robes and mounted their horses, and began filming the part where the Western Turkic Army charged into battle.

The Imperial Town is next to the Shandan Military Horse Farm, so most of the locals know how to ride horses. The local Naadam Convention holds horseback riding competitions every year, so the shooting was very smooth.

Then the green screen was still surrounded, and the martial artist mounted the horse instead, and shot additional close-ups of the bow shooting and the falling of the horse after being struck by the arrow.

After the main battlefield was completed, it was relatively easy to divide the battlefields on Mulan's side. In addition to the smaller number of extras required, another reason was that there were more close-up shots.

The long shot was taken first, with hundreds of extras on horseback, and the camera frame was on the top of a hill in the distance, condescendingly bringing the large grassland in the distance into the frame.

This is a carefully selected lowland. According to the script, the Wangzhang Army turned northeast along the edge of the hills and pointed directly at the side of the Tang Army's formation.

In the monitor, hundreds of extras on horseback gathered together, moving forward slowly and gradually disappearing behind the distant hills.

After adding post-production special effects, it is no longer just a bunch of cavalry, but a bunch of cavalry covering the low ground, moving forward one after another after a short interval.

After enough footage was taken, the same group of people filmed the scene where the rear troops of the Royal Army were lured away by a trap.

After finishing this shot, the same group of people put on fake makeup and started filming the part where the royal army's troops fled in embarrassment.

Next, this group of people changed into the costumes of the Huihe tribe and took pictures of Huihe friendly troops luring the enemy.

In the end, it was still this group of people who changed their Tang army uniforms and transformed into the scout troops of Commander Yu Nan.

The riding skills I had been practicing hard for half a year came in handy this time.

Although the hills of more than 100 meters are not high, it is still quite dangerous to charge down on horseback, let alone hundreds of horses rushing down together.

Of course Chen Yiming would not let Yu Nan take such a risk. There were indeed hundreds of riders in the distant scene, but at that time the scene was relatively static.

When Yu Nan really rushed down, there were only a dozen riders around him. Except for Mulan and Nie Yuan, who had to appear in the scene, the rest were either riding coaches or martial arts brothers.

After finishing the close-up and close-up shots, Mulan and Nie Yuan called it a day, changed into riding stuntmen, and shot the scene of the large group of people rushing down together.

Later comes the highlight of the decisive battle on the grassland, the cavalry showdown.

After consulting with historical experts and studying the visual effects with Lin Xiao, the photography team and the martial arts team, Chen Yiming planned the duel into three parts.

It started with mounted shooting.

When the Tang Army appeared on the top of the hill, the Wang Zhang Army below must give an early warning to the whole team. Chen Yiming did not deceive the enemy here, and the Wang Zhang Army's personal guards were not slow in preparing.

Mulan had few men, so she could easily get entangled and lose speed if she charged directly into the formation, so she chose to fly past the enemy's cavalry formation at high speed, and then fired arrows to disrupt the enemy's formation.

This is the "Mangu evil" tactic of the Mongols in later generations. Chen Yiming moved it to the early Tang Dynasty. Although it is not consistent with historical facts, it does look good when photographed.

Yu Nan and Nie Yuan each led a team of scouts around the formation to fire arrows. Wang Zhangjun fell into chaos. Some people dismounted to avoid, while others drove their horses away from the formation and circled to speed up, trying to intercept the Tang army's cavalry.

So the battle enters the second stage, hedging.

The Tang army won because it was faster, more organized and better equipped, while the Wangzhang army won because it had more people. The result of the conflict between the two sides was that the Tang army broke through the formation.

The battle then entered the final stage. Mulan took the lead and charged into the center of the king's tent army, beheading the general and seizing the flag to win with one blow.

(End of this chapter)