This director needs to apologize

Chapter 242 Grief and grievance

Chen Yiming stayed in Xiangcheng for two days. After inspecting the construction site with Da Zhuang, he visited the local project-related parties one by one.

Xiangcheng is willing to cooperate with the crew to speed up the construction progress. On the one hand, it revitalizes a piece of fixed assets. On the other hand, it also sees the names of Chen Yiming and Moying.

As a direct beneficiary, Chen Yiming had to have an attitude. If someone arrived in Xiangcheng and didn't put the friendship in place, he would be stupid.

Then Chen Yiming rushed to the Magic City without stopping and dived into the Magic Film Studio to watch movies.

Auspicious's "Love Letter" will start filming later this year and wrap up at the end of April. Counting a few scenes during the winter vacation a year ago, the actual shooting time was more than three months. As far as a youth romance film is concerned, it is definitely considered to be extremely well-crafted.

Just looking at the amount of material, the director Xiangrui has enough freedom, and the rough cut is actually over 4 hours long.

In the screening room of the Magic Film Studio, the lights came on, and Chen Yiming turned to look at Director Fu Da sitting next to him.

Before Chen Yiming could speak, Xiangrui pursed his lips first.

"Yiming, I know the film length exceeds the standard, but I can't cut it."

When talking about the latter part, he seemed to be crying.

Chen Yiming knew this would happen a long time ago. If he didn't let it fly, it would not be auspicious.

"Super Sense" couldn't take off because the investment was strictly limited. If it was not shot strictly according to the storyboard, it would definitely exceed the standard, and Lily's schedule did not allow for Xiangrui Moji.

Now the crew of "Love Letter" is decided by Xiangrui alone. Not only is the investment of 1500 million more than enough, but the actors are all newbies. The only "big name" Liu Dongjun is Xiangrui's number one younger brother. He will not tell him to go east. Go west.

With the right time, right place, and right people, Xiangrui must give full play to his artistic talent.

On the one hand, Chen Yiming was tied to "Mulan" and had no time to separate himself. On the other hand, he also felt that "Love Letter" did not have any big scenes that required a huge amount of money, so Xiangrui must not be able to make any big mistakes.

As for the length of the film being overtime, just cut it. Xiangrui can't do anything to his own children, but he can!

Looking at the crying Xiangrui in front of him, Chen Yiming said with a relaxed look, "The filming was very good, the artistic conception and atmosphere are very good, and it is just suitable for release during the Chinese Valentine's Day.

Starting tomorrow, I will come over and help you cut a fine version. Do you want to watch the whole process? "

Xiangrui's little face wrinkled into a bun, and he was obviously having a fierce ideological struggle in his heart.

After a while, she said fiercely, "I want to come!"

Chen Yiming laughed and said, "Okay, let's meet in the second editing room at 8 a.m., and the editing teacher will be responsible for notifying you."

In fact, the editing of "Love Letter" did not require Chen Yiming to do it himself. The editors of Phantom Studio were more than enough to complete the work.

To put it bluntly, there is only one reason why the refined version cannot be advanced. Even if Xiangrui stands in the way, he will not let you cut it and will not let him cut it, hindering the editor's work.

Just like in the old days, when you learned skills from a teacher instead of your own father, your own children would not be able to become talented if they could not be beaten harshly.

Judging from the 4-hour rough cut, Xiangrui shot all the content of the storyboard that was discussed and determined with quality and quantity.

The extra parts are the result of Xiangrui's "flying". Compared with the original storyboard, it is one more choice.

As for the actual effect, it is difficult to say how much of a substitution relationship there is, because the scenes in the movie are not isolated, but are related to each other and echo each other. A single shot is beautiful, but it is not necessarily a bonus after being edited into the final film.

For example, in the plot where the foreign language test paper was sent to the wrong person, Xiangrui added a lot of scenes during the actual filming, and the filming was full of twists and turns.

In the original storyboard, the wrong test paper was handed out only for the first time, which was regarded as an introduction to guide the male protagonist to pay attention to the female protagonist.

After that, the male and female protagonists started to have scruples, and they would intentionally distinguish them when writing their names, and the teachers or classmates who handed out the papers would also pay attention accordingly.

This is also a logical arrangement. If the wrong test papers are always given out, it will be too deliberately bloody.

After this time, the foreign language test paper was just a one-way "tangle" for the male protagonist, because he was secretly competing, and every time he improved his score, he subjectively regarded it as a way to get closer to the heroine.

Chen Yiming's opinion is of course ambiguous as to whether the heroine is aware of this approach and whether there is a conscious response. After all, love in student days is inherently hazy, and it would be unsightly if it was all on the surface.

During the actual filming, Xiangrui did a lot of derivative processing on this plot. In order to make the relevant plot advancement away from coincidence, she increased the role of the third male lead and turned the handout of test papers into an independent plot line that runs through the high school stage. Under this arrangement, the third male lead, a supporting cast member in the same class as the male protagonist, not only has a greatly increased appearance rate, but also has many more independent scenes.

There are more funny scenes, but the overall rhythm is inevitably dragging, which Chen Yiming does not approve of.

The next morning, Chen Yiming came to the editing room on time and met with Xiangrui Wang Suqiu, the senior editor of Demon Film Studio.

The name sounds like a lady from Chen Yiming's parents' generation, but in fact he is a man, and he is not too old, not even forty years old this year.

In the long-established Magic Film Studio, with the title of "senior" at less than forty years old, one can imagine Wang Suqiu's editing skills.

In fact, the four-hour rough cut is the work of Mr. Wang. If Xiangrui had been allowed to do it himself, it might have been shown to Chen Yiming, and it would have been an eight or nine-hour long masterpiece.

After the meeting and greetings, Wang Suqiu sat in front of the operating table, with Chen Yiming and Fu Ruixiang sitting on either side of him behind him.

Chen Yiming was the first to speak, "Teacher Wang, you are more familiar with this rough cut than I am, so please remove all the branch plots of the third male, second female, and third female."

Xiangrui became anxious upon hearing this and jumped up from the chair and was about to speak. Chen Yiming quickly held her down with quick eyesight and swiped his right index finger to her mouth to signal her to shut up.

After all, he was accustomed to being the assistant director for Chen Yiming. Xiangrui sat down aggrievedly and looked at Wang Suqiu's "kakaka" with a twitching expression.

When she saw what was happening behind her, she was about to cry. She simply turned her head and looked towards the corner, out of sight and out of mind.

Wang Suqiu is already very familiar with this set of materials. He and Xiangrui had many tug-of-wars with Xiangrui on the first rough cut, so he knew where to use the scissors.

Half an hour later, Wang Suqiu completed the operation, and the sample duration was now less than 3 hours.

Generally speaking, the net length of campus romance films is best controlled between 90-110 minutes. On the basis that the story can be told clearly, it is best not to exceed 100 minutes.

In this way, after adding the opening LOGO and ending credits, the final screening version will not exceed two hours, and a single theater can schedule 3 evening shows, which greatly facilitates the scheduling of films.

Based on this standard, 80 minutes of material still need to be cut.

After the first step is to cut off the branches, the second step is to prune the branches.

Movies are actually an art of montage, relying on the natural association function of the human brain.

Let’s take the example of handing out the wrong test paper. The real process is that the class representative handed out the paper. After receiving it, the male protagonist was excited about the high score. After checking, he found that the paper was not his own. After some psychological struggle, he walked to the heroine. Changing papers there, under the gaze of the other party, embarrassed by my low score.

After the entire process is disassembled into component shots, it may be necessary to change the camera position to take more than a dozen shots.

But it can be greatly simplified in a movie. A close-up of the male protagonist, a close-up of the test score, a close-up of the male protagonist's reaction, and a close-up of the male protagonist looking at the female protagonist. Four shots are enough.

The score can be converted into background sound. The male protagonist walks towards the heroine and is omitted. The two exchange papers and leave it to the audience's imagination.

Although the storyboard represents the finished film in the director's imagination, in actual shooting, the director usually does not shoot it perfectly, but takes more shots than the storyboard.

In the eyes of editors, both dailies and storyboards are cumbersome, because many shots can be omitted directly with the help of montage.

The so-called pruning of branches means to slim down the sample. Each paragraph in the sample is reorganized through montage, removing the parts that can be omitted and retaining the essential part.

This step is a technical editing and has little to do with the theme expression of the film. Even an author's film needs to undergo similar slimming down.

After the first two steps are completed, the remaining sample can be called the "finished version". From here onwards, the further editing is a tug-of-war between the editor and the director.

Or to put it another way, the tug-of-war between the producer or executive producer and the director, because the editor is often the spokesperson for the producer or executive producer.

Only for films where the director has final cutting rights, the editor will edit according to the director's instructions.

Xiangrui is only the director of "Love Letter" and does not have the final editing rights, so now Chen Yiming directs Wang Suqiu's editing as the executive producer.

(End of this chapter)