This director needs to apologize

Chapter 88: Exceeding Expected Maximum Value

I believe in experience, which is to follow the plan of the first version, which is also the plan of the previous prototype "1917". I have a vague sense of value judgment, focus on portraying the small characters in the big background, and try my best to eliminate the audience's preconceptions about the movie.

The situation faced by director Sam Mendes is actually similar to that of Chen Yiming in this time and space.

Chinese audiences in the current generation of 2010 refuse to accept the all-round character images with traditional themes, while Western audiences in the previous generation of 2019 are also tired of the endless dark and cruel anti-war thinking of war movies.

It's not that Director Sa doesn't want to play with the connotation of value, but that the audience no longer accepts this trick.

This is a path that "1917" has already taken. The upper limit is indeed not high, but the show of technique alone is enough to be amazing.

As long as Chen Yiming ensures execution, he can reach 10% of the original film. With nearly [-] years of lead, he will definitely leave a mark in the history of world cinema in this time and space.

There are bonuses from past life experience, and there are ready-made homeworks to copy. Following this path is better than being safe and controllable.

As for trusting intuition, it is better to say trusting Lao Duan.

I believe that the soldiers of our army created by his acting method can solve the motivations and logic of the characters' actions for audiences at home and abroad with various views.

Despite Chen Yiming's passionate opening remarks at today's meeting, he is actually very calm inside and has made a detailed analysis of Lao Duan's acting.

Can the image of a murderous king of soldiers be equated with the victory of our army?

Don't be kidding, it's not that simple.

If this were the reality, there would be no subsequent multi-year wars after the 84 military parade.

But in the movie, it's really that simple.

When a fierce-looking gangster and a harmless student fight each other, the audience's first impression is definitely that the former takes the back seat.

This is a kind of movie-viewing expectation, rooted in the subconscious of every viewer.

The arrangement of the plot in the movie is based on the subconscious mind.

The gangster survives, which is in line with movie-viewing expectations and can smoothly show the gangster's cold cruelty.

Students survive and break movie-viewing expectations, which can reversely reflect the students' tenacity.

In fact, they are all reasonable. The key lies in the direction in which the script needs to guide the audience's expectations.

However, the viewing expectations of "1951" are one-way. The protagonist survives to the end to complete the mission, and the supporting characters escort him all the way.

Correspondingly, the suspense that can be set up in "1951" is also very limited. In addition to how the protagonist lives, it is also how the supporting characters die.

How the protagonist lives is a question of deducting points. All the efforts of the creators are purely to make the protagonist's escape from death more reasonable, so that the audience will have less trouble and less points will be deducted.

As for extra points, don't think about it. Isn't it natural for the protagonist to survive to the end?
As for how the supporting characters died, there are more articles that can be done.

For example, being stabbed to death for saving an enemy like in "1917" is a typical example of breaking expectations.

In effect, it's a pity.

Director Sa may have wanted to show the uncertainty of the battlefield and the ugliness of the enemy, but after watching it, Chen Yiming just wanted to criticize Director Sa for being so stupid and plot-killing.

In line with expectations, the more typical way is the death of the supporting characters in "Li Yannian".

Whether he was stepping on mines or fighting cannons, his death was very "silky", that is, when the audience felt that he should be sacrificed, he simply took his lunch box and died.

As for the look and feel, let’s not lose it.

Because when a certain situation develops on the battlefield and is judged by the audience as inevitable, the emotional projection of the character will quickly fade to prevent the death of the character from affecting their own emotions. This is a kind of subconscious self-protection.

Audiences who have too much emotional projection and difficulty in withdrawing will transfer the anger of the character's death to the director and screenwriter, either criticizing the unreasonable plot arrangement, or angrily criticizing the creator for being sensational.

Whether it is the fading of emotions or the transfer of anger, it is a huge emotional break in movie-watching, which will naturally affect the overall movie-watching experience.

There is no solution to this problem. The root cause lies in what Chen Yiming said, the desensitization caused by too soft literary dramas.

If you change the character of a strong man, the same desperate situation will be interpreted by the audience as a narrow escape, and they still expect the character to create miracles.

Even if the miracle doesn't happen in the end and the character still dies, there is still a subtle gap between the character's expectations and the movie-viewing expectations, which creates opportunities for emotional continuation.

Of the Chinese war movies that Chen Yiming had watched in his previous life, only the battalion commander played by Duan Yihong in "Changjin Lake" gave him the feeling of expecting a miracle.

Other characters, including the protagonist played by Wu Jing, failed to achieve a similar feeling.

The old gunner played by Hu Jun actually has some flavor, but unfortunately the way the creator arranged for him to die was too insane, so Chen Yiming was directly eliminated from the play, which ruined Hu Jun's superb performance.

This sense of expectation must come from the actors' performance, not the arrangement of the plot, otherwise it will be the perception of Li Chen's character, who will never die no matter how hard he dies, and then become irretrievably dramatic.

In addition to breaking expectations and conforming to expectations, there is also an arrangement of conforming first and then breaking, pursuing a sudden sense of contrast.

In the first beach landing scene of "Saving Private Ryan", there are many such cases, and the ones Hanks handled on the way ashore were basically like this.

However, this method of playing is suspected of fooling the audience. It is usually used by supporting actors, and it should not be too frequent.

The supporting characters have much more emotional projection than the supporting characters, and if you do this you will be thrown off by the audience.

What Chen Yiming envisioned was a fourth type besides these three, which exceeded expectations.Similar to Duan Yihong in "Changjin Lake", the actor tries his best to portray the strong character of the supporting character.

In terms of plot arrangement, it is also a dangerous situation with a narrow escape, but it is more urgent and leaves no room for error.

The difference is that after the supporting character steps forward, the perspective of the film is taken away by the protagonist, and the ending of the supporting character will not be directly explained.

What is presented to the audience through the lens is the continuous sound of gunfire and artillery fire.

Whether the supporting characters live or die is entirely up to the audience's imagination.

The result deduced by Chen Yiming in his mind is that if there is an ideal composition and accurate camera movement, the atmosphere created is not inferior to the "straight to death" shooting method of "Li Yannian".

Of course, this kind of "playing tricks" can only be played in "1951" with one shot to the end.

If a conventional war movie does this, it is worse than fooling the audience. In addition to leather shoes, there will also be razor blades thrown at the director.

……

After thinking it through in his mind, Chen Yiming clapped his hands and stopped the new round of verbal confrontation between Lin Xiao and Duan Yining.

He first asked Lin Xiao, who was blushing and thick-necked due to the quarrel, "Brother Lin, why do you think that if Lao Duan and the others change the way they perform, it means I want to add value to the movie?"

Lin Xiao looked stunned and blurted out, "Isn't that natural? What you said yourself just now is that you have to answer why you won and so on. Isn't that valuable?"

Chen Yiming spread his hands, "How can it be taken for granted? When I say that we need to answer why we can win, it does not mean that we want to export value in the movie!

It's a very simple reason. Our movie is going abroad to win awards. Do I need to let those foreigners understand why China was able to win the Peninsula War?So what if you understand, so what if you don't, it has nothing to do with them. "

This time it was not just Lin Xiao, but everyone else in the conference room also looked shocked. Good guy, you are just trying to trick us!

Chen Yiming asked with a smile, "Everyone, if you put it another way, would you care about which side lost and which side won in the Nuts Civil War, and then want to know why the winning side could win?"

It was only now that everyone understood. Lin Xiao woke up and said, "We have been arguing for a long time and it's all Bai Rao. When you talk about the value, are you talking about our own people?"

Chen Yiming shook his head, "Why must we show value nakedly? What we have to do is to follow the records of real war history and film how our army fought. It's that simple.

The so-called high value is not limited to speaking with lines, acting with characters, and using plots. It can also mean that we present what we should present, and then the audience can read it on their own. "

Having said this, Chen Yiming looked at Lin Xiao and asked, "Brother Lin, let me imagine a scene. The content is that Lao Duan held up a rifle and shot down an oil picker that was passing by at low altitude.

What did you think after reading it? "

Lin Xiao asked angrily, "How do you think I should feel? Isn't this just a stupid drama you made up? Hengcheng doesn't film like this anymore."

"Yes, this is a clip from Beibang's 1974 movie "A Red Sun." In the eyes of Beibang people, this is a real battle example they have learned from history books since childhood. The film is very realistic."

Everyone in the room opened their mouths, including the well-informed Mr. Sang.

Chen Yiming added, "Not only Beibang, but also the peninsula war history compiled by our country also records the case of our soldiers shooting down jets with guns, but we did not film it in the movie.

Now do you still think that the fragment I just described is a fabricated drama? "

Chen Yiming stood up, played the video of the 84th military parade again on the TV, and then said to everyone.

“Everyone, I gave the example of using a rifle to masturbate, not to illustrate that the strength of our soldiers is consistent with real war history, but to illustrate a phenomenon.

That is, the look and feel of the movie, as well as the interpretation of the motivation, are the result of the superposition of the content of the shot and the audience's perception. Many times, just presenting the facts already represents a certain value tendency of the main creator.

For our audience, we won the Peninsula War. This is a default position and requires no additional emphasis.

What should be their reaction when they see Lao Duan?
Maybe there will be a sense of freshness, because the mental outlook presented by the character is refreshing.

Maybe there is a sense of expectation, because the first impression Lao Duan gave us on the playground that day was one of awe and strength. For such a person, I would expect him to do something extraordinary.

Of course, it is not ruled out that there will be resentment, because it does not fit well with the image of the People's Liberation Army in people's minds.

For overseas audiences, they are either indifferent or rejecting the Peninsula War. This is also a default position.

When they see Lao Duan, they will also have a reaction similar to that of Chinese audiences.

What's new is that there is a sharp contrast between Lao Duan's image and temperament. He has simple equipment and shabby clothes, but he has an amazing aura of a strong man.

The sense of expectation lies in the fact that overseas audiences have no concept of main theme movies. Lao Duan's temperament will immediately remind them of similar movies they have watched, and combine him with Hollywood's tough guy protagonists.

Antipathy mainly occurs among certain groups of people. They are either biased or have only a partial understanding of China. Lao Duan's temperament breaks through their inner portraits.

Whether it is freshness, expectation or disgust, the image of Lao Duan is generally unfamiliar. As Teacher Sang said just now, unfamiliarity is a neutral starting point for communication.

Dear friends, in addition to political attributes, there are certain qualities in soldiers that transcend region and time, and are the unanimous expectations of audiences watching war movies.

Tough, decisive, resourceful, experienced in combat, and willing to take risks for others.

"1951" does not need to be deliberately valuable. As long as it tells the story of fulfilling one's duty and saving his comrades, it is the greatest value. "

(End of this chapter)