This director needs to apologize

Chapter 272 Lao Duan, it’s you!

Logically speaking, Chen Yiming should not reveal his serialization concept too early.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. No matter how grand the idea is, it needs to be progressed step by step in a down-to-earth manner. It is not advisable to aim too high.

There is a category in the field of online literature called setting parties. The outline has not yet been revealed. The world view of the Three Realms, Six Desolations, Eight Kingdoms and Ten Sects has already been laid out. For more realistic ones, even the small gangs among the outer disciples have been set up. The leader and the younger brother.

Chen Yiming was addicted to DND games for a while when he was in college. He was particularly keen on various imaginative settings and even hand-painted many illustrations.

But the game was still born in the end, because creative passion is like a tornado, it goes away as quickly as it comes.

More importantly, he found that the more detailed the world view was, the more irritated he became when filling in the content later.

There were too many inconsistent bugs, and it was too much trouble to fix them, which made him want to delete a lot of data directly.

Although the data was saved in the end, he was unwilling to take another look at it. It was still sleeping in the backup mobile hard drive until he traveled through time.

He himself has experienced the pain of his own skin, and logically speaking, he should not set any restrictions for Wang Wei and the others.

If you want to influence the script, you can make revisions based on the first draft to guide the script closer to the worldview he envisioned.

This is indispensable for making a great IP. The core of the story is the characters. Storytelling is actually about the relationships between characters. The more diverse the characters and the more complex the relationships, the greater the room for screenwriters to play, and the more vitality the IP will have.

The protagonist does not even need to be limited to a private detective, but a gray person with a more diverse identity, straddling both black and white, and dealing with various forces to solve the conspiracy.

The high reputations of the animated films "Nezha" and "Jiang Ziya" illustrate that story lines and world views cannot be confused.

The difficulty of "The Trilogy of the Gods" is that it treats the world view as a story line, lacks an absolute protagonist, and has to lay out a grand world view in a limited time. It is difficult to please both ends.

Because there are not no reverse cases, the typical one is Fengshen.

The experience Chen Yiming drew from this is that when creating a movie universe, you must clearly distinguish between the worldview and the story line, and you must not try to have the best of both worlds.

Journey to the West is the story line. The first few chapters of "Journey to the West" quickly introduce the protagonist group of four people and one horse to learn the scriptures. After that, the long journey to learn the scriptures is just to continuously introduce new opponents to make sequels.

Journey to the West and Fengshen are a stark contrast.

The same arguments, opposite conclusions, it's so weird.

There have been more than ten movies based on the Fengshen IP in previous lives. The animated film "Nezha" has a box office of 40 billion, and the live-action film "Fengshen Part 30" has a box office of less than billion.

The inspiration is naturally from the previous life's "Detective Chinatown", which is just a dark version, stripping away Baoqiang's comedy role, and creating a series of serious crime suspense stories.

Moreover, Fengshen is more scalable and vital than Journey to the West, because the IP of Journey to the West is highly bound to the quartet of Buddhist scriptures, especially Sun Monkey. Even Jiang Ziya in Fengshen is not the absolute protagonist, which makes it more group-like and more Flexible.

The experience of the past life is applied to this life, which is the "Chinatown" planned by Chen Yiming.

However, after repeated thinking, Chen Yiming decided to tell the whole story about the Chinatown universe so that the three assistant directors would have an idea.

Of course, this is just Chen Yiming's personal opinion. In the past, many professionals thought that Fengshen was difficult to shoot. The reason was precisely that it was too group portrait and there was no absolute protagonist.

The advantage of not having a story line is that the world view is more free and uninhibited. It doesn't have to be like "Fengshen Part 1" where Nezha and Yang Jian had to be made into conjoined twins in order to make the plot smooth.

Fengshen is a world view. "Fengshen Yanyi" does not have an absolute protagonist, but only creates a general background of the era. All living beings in the three realms make their own choices at this node of fate, seeking benevolence and benevolence, seeking justice and righteousness.

Considering that this project has been going through 7 years of misfortune and constant twists and turns, it is actually understandable. All parties involved in the project must have had many unspeakable last resorts.

Chen Yiming himself was not satisfied with "Fengshen Part 1" because he felt that the filming was too hasty and rushed, and the second half gave people a sense of deja vu as a special effects kidnapping plot.

It is no exaggeration to say that "The Romance of the Gods" has shouldered most of China's fantasy blockbusters, and the only one that can compare with it is Journey to the West.

Drawing on the historical elements of Chinese immigrants to build a plausible movie universe, the story line and world view are all started from scratch.

In order to prevent this kind of freedom from being too unrestrained, Chen Yiming naturally had to inoculate the Wang Wei trio who were crazy about their imaginations, lest they go astray and waste their efforts.

In other words, the main function of the Chinatown Universe that Chen Yiming took out today is not a teleprompter but a fire damper, blocking the fire of the three people's thoughts from burning outside the house.

Facts have proved that Chen Yiming's approach is effective. After some fierce mutual suggestions and denials, Wang Wei, Tian Li, and Li Zhun listed a series of story elements based on the worldview framework presented by Chen Yiming.

The least controversial thing is the gang, synonymous with the underground world.

Perhaps inspired by Chen Yiming, Wang Wei particularly favors the idea of ​​multiple identities. The identity on the surface is involved in the conspiracy, and the identity secretly has another purpose. The drama and reversal are very strong. He was the main director, and the two assistant directors Tian Li and Li Zhun didn't express any objection, so the idea was settled.

The three of them still had a heated debate as to how this double-faced gangster should appear in the movie.

Wang Wei was the first to speak excitedly, "Of course he is the protagonist, the male lead. When he appeared on the scene, he was just a little gangster who was passively involved in a case. As the plot progressed, the little gangster unveiled the mystery little by little until he transformed into a gang leader. Boss, isn’t this cool?”

Tian Li also joined in, "It sounds like it's a one-man show. How about adding a partner in the middle? In the early stage, they depend on each other, but in the later stage, they turn against each other. At the end, the mantis stalks the cicada and the oriole follows behind. This way the reversal will be more powerful."

Lee Principle, who is accustomed to being an executive director, focuses on checking for omissions and filling them. He interjected, "A dark one to the end? I think it's a bit too presumptuous. How about the male lead being an undercover? Does light defeat darkness? This should be said even in Chinatown. A little bit of righteousness is the right thing to do.”

Tian Li was the first to object, "Undercover is too cliché. We have spent a lot of money to go abroad to film. If we don't act recklessly, it won't be in vain. We have to go all the way to the end. This will be shocking enough and the ending will not be easy to guess."

Wang Wei frowned, avoided the supportive gazes of Tian Li and Li Zhun, and turned his head to look at Chen Yiming.

The latter shrugged and said, "It depends on what I do. You make up the story after telling me. I am only responsible for reviewing the manuscript."

Wang Wei hesitated for a long time, and finally said, "Brother Tian and Brother Zhun each write their own thing. It's the first draft. There's no harm in writing one more version."

Tian Li and Li Zhun came together, and the former gave a thumbs up, "You are amazing, you are so noble, you just became a director and you turned into an evil party in an instant."

Wang Wei Huashui and Xi Ni avoided the arguments between their two partners, successfully maintained their favorite dual identities, and determined that the main line of the story was the gang's conspiracy.

With the gangsters, the second element of the story is naturally the police as the antagonist.

As we all know, there must be bad cops in movies (not including domestic ones), and Chinatown is no exception.

The question now is whether the good police should be reflected in the script.

It was Wang Wei who was still the first to express his opinion, "It still needs to be there. On the one hand, it is convenient to pass the review. The main thing is authenticity. The world is as dark as crows. The tone of the story is too desperate, which is not conducive to the spread of word of mouth."

At worst, arrange a supporting role with a smaller role, and make it darker when filming the sequel. "

Tian Li shook his head and said, "It depends on the scope of the conspiracy. If it is a dispute between gangs, it is enough to set up a black policeman. Adding a white policeman will overwhelm the scene."

If the gangs are involved in conspiracies in the business and political circles, the story stage will definitely not avoid the intersection of the black and white worlds, that is, the police station. In that case, it will be necessary to enrich the attributes of the police. "

Li Zhun still sings the opposite tune, and he still opposes the two sides, "Isn't gang fighting just like the old Hong Kong movies? If it is moved to Chinatown, it will still be the same old routine. Those Hong Kong directors are no longer interested in it.

However, there are risks in elevating the conspiracy. Logically speaking, all scripts filmed abroad must be reviewed by local departments. If the whole story is too shady, will it affect the review? "

The three of them had another heated discussion about the police. After they ran out of words, it was still the same as before. Tian and Li looked at Wang Wei, and the latter looked at Chen Yiming.

As everyone knows, Chen Yiming has already lost himself in deep thought.

Because of the discussion between the three people, Chen Yiming thought of a classic crime suspense movie in his previous life, which was the story of gangsters and police.

Of course, it's not "Infernal Affairs."

But "The Usual Suspects" released in 1995.

After many years, Chen Yiming has some vague memories of that movie. He only remembers a few wonderful scenes of starring Kevin Spacey and the meaningful phrase "FUCKING COPS".

This is a typical "Rashomon"-style one-man show. The story uses a flashback structure and starts from the trial of the crime. The entire crime process comes from Kevin's confession.

The truth is hidden, and the conspiracy is looming.

The ending is naturally reversal and reversal. The little gangster is just the vest of the gangster, and it is probably just the most insignificant one among the many vests.

It was perfect for filming a sequel. Unfortunately, for some reason, there was no news about the sequel he was looking forward to until Chen Yiming traveled through time.

Does this story seem appropriate as the opening chapter of the Chinatown universe?

It's just that the protagonist is not a good choice. Kevin Spacey's micro-expressions are really superb, and the multiple meanings and suspense themes are a perfect match. No wonder he has filmed many similar works in his previous life.

"Seven Deadly Sins", "L.A. Confidential", and the unforgettable drama "House of Cards".

Chen Yiming went through contemporary Chinese actors in his mind, and finally settled on the face of an old acquaintance.

Duan Yining, old Duan, it’s you!

(End of this chapter)