Entertaining Children

   Chapter 933 Movie Cost

  After talking and laughing for a while, everyone began to watch the movie.

This time I watched the film and said that I was watching the unedited video material, but when Xiao Yao wrote the script, he was based on the film of the previous life "WALL.E" in his mind. The video screen produced was very streamlined and not much. Superfluous stuff. All the materials add up to about two hours, which is almost equivalent to the length of a general movie after a rough cut.

  In order to provide a baseline for video production, Xiao Yao himself performed the initial original dubbing for all the characters.

  Tong Luo’s company is a special effects animation production company. In the past, he mainly helped games do CG animation and some game special effects. Making CG animations and game special effects screens will also involve sound effects. Tongluo's company also has human resources in this area, so Xiao Yao also handed over the sound effects to Tongluo's technical staff to be responsible for production. After Xiao Yao performed the initial original dubbing for the character, the technicians of Tongluo Company also completed the production of sound effects when producing the video.

  The original soundtrack and sound effects are available, and now these video materials are completely blank with only the soundtrack.

  Although there is no soundtrack production, this kind of video material looks like the effect will be a lot worse, but it can already better show the story of the movie. Both Huang Shi and He Ying are senior actors. It's not that they haven't seen the video material before the release or broadcast. Their judgment in this area is far beyond ordinary people. It is entirely possible to make a basic evaluation and evaluation of this animated film through such materials. The level is judged.

  It is said that Xiao Yao is not only funding, but also the director and screenwriter of this animated film. Huang Shi and He Ying are amazed, and their interest in this animated film is a little bit greater than before. Even if there is no soundtrack of the video material, they are very serious and dedicated.

Xiao Yao’s genius is well-known. Their expectations for Xiao Yao’s two years to make this movie are not low, but what they didn’t expect was that the image material of this animated movie would be given to them. The feeling is much better than their expectations.

  In terms of subject matter, this animated movie must be a science fiction animated movie. To make science fiction, whether it is film or fiction, requires extremely rich imagination. Whether it is a live-action movie or an animated movie, it takes a certain amount of courage to dare to play science fiction, and you will be criticized for nothing if you are careless.

  However, in this animated film, whether it is the scene on the future earth or the scene in the spacecraft in space, it is very brilliant. Not to mention the exquisite pictures, various details also reflect a strong sense of science fiction, and it feels at least not worse than those Hollywood science fiction animation movies.

  In terms of themes, this animated film is mainly based on love, but the ruin-like earth makes people unconsciously think of environmental protection. The images and behaviors of humans in the spacecraft are also implicitly satirizing some unhealthy lifestyles.

It is normal for young people to make a movie about love and love, but in the atmosphere of love themes, these very socially significant questions are raised in a hidden form, showing the creator's ambition and height on the ideological level. It’s hard to believe that this is a script written by a young man in his early twenties. This is why Xiao Yao’s reputation for precocity and genius is aside, otherwise Huang Shi and He Ying would definitely doubt whether this script was really written by Xiao Yao.

   What made the two of them feel pleasantly surprised and unexpected, as well as the role setting and expression in terms of content, there are many novel, very creative and characteristic places.

  The robot cannot make obvious facial expressions, and it is very difficult to express emotions. This animation film uses robots as the protagonists to tell the story, which is very unexpected. I did not expect that the two robot protagonists designed by Xiao Yao are still two characters who don't even speak.

  Many robots in the consciousness of ordinary people are capable of language, that is, they can speak. But the two robots as the protagonists in this movie seldom speak, and can basically be regarded as the two characters with the least talk among all the characters that can speak. The two protagonists are the least talkative characters in the whole movie, and they are also robots that are difficult to make obvious facial expressions. Whether in live-action movies or animated movies, such settings are extremely rare, at least Huang Shi Neither He Ying has seen such a movie.

The character setting of such a robot that hardly speaks is likely to make people feel boring. It seems to be extremely risky at first glance, but after looking at it, Huang Shi and He Ying found that this is the case. The setting makes them a lot of fun when watching.

  First, they found that they could still feel the emotional expression of the two protagonists in the movie. In the movie, the emotions of the robot are well expressed through the different forms of the robot's eyes and some simple hand movements, which makes people seem to see the facial expressions.

  In addition, even if the protagonist does not speak, there is no soundtrack for these materials. They don't feel bored at all, but they feel very exciting and interesting.

  For example, in the time before the movie is close to fifty minutes (the original version of the previous life is forty minutes, but the material is more or less), there are only these two robot characters and a cockroach who can't speak at all. Except for a brief introduction of their names, the two robots basically did not speak, almost giving people the feeling of watching a silent film. But it happened that the first fifty minutes were the fifty minutes that touched He Ying and Huang Shi the most and at the same time found them very interesting.

  In addition, this animated film also includes a real movie clip starred by a real person. There have been movies in the world where animated characters are added to perform in live-action movies, but adding fragments of other live-action movies to an animated movie is still the first in this world.

It is worth mentioning that in the original version of this movie, the part of the former CEO of BNL is a live-action performance, but Xiao Yao did not find a live-action performance, and changed this character into an animated character, but kept the real movie fragments. , Replacing the fragment of "Hello, Dolly" with a fragment of a classic American song and dance movie of this world. But for Huang Shi and He Ying, who have never seen the original version of the previous life, just adding real movie clips is enough to make them feel surprised.

  "Awesome!" After watching the video material, both Huang Shi and He Ying applauded Xiao Yao from the bottom of their hearts.

  Although Xiao Yao has written, directed and acted in short short films, and made many amazing MVs, after all, feature films, short films and MVs are not the same. For a young man in his early twenties, being able to make an animated feature film is already a very remarkable thing, but Xiao Yao not only made an animated film, this movie can also be used in many All aspects gave them a great shock, and the two of them had to sigh once again that Xiao Yao was indeed a monster who could not judge his ability and talent by age.

"Thank you for the compliment!" Xiao Yao smiled, "These are still materials, and there is still a lot of later work to be done. Also, don't just praise the two of you. If you feel anything wrong, you can also tell me. Remind me, this junior. It will be easier for us to change it while we haven't done it in the later stage."

   "Director Xiao, as a director and screenwriter, you are not my junior." Huang Shi smiled, "I think it's great, there is nothing to change."

   "Where is Sister He Ying?" Xiao Yao looked at He Ying again.

   "There is nothing wrong with the movie, but I have a problem myself." He Ying said.

   "What's the problem?" Xiao Yao and Huang Shi both looked at He Ying.

"You said before that I was the heroine?" He Ying smiled. "But the heroine of this movie is the robot Eva. It seems that there are no words from the beginning to the end. Is this task too easy for me? Up?"

  "Do you want to play another role?" Xiao Yao asked.

"That's not it," He Ying said, "This character is very cute, I like it very much and I won't change it with others. But just a few words, I feel embarrassed to ask you to pay, it is better to follow that time As I said in the show, this time I made a friendly guest appearance at the time, and I will help you with this role for free."

"Oh, He Ying, did you save money for this guy?" Huang Shi smiled, "This guy is so famous now, and he has shares in several companies under his name. Why do you need you to save him this little money? "If you want it, you have to want it!"

   "Brother Huang Shi, are you still my brother?" Xiao Yao looked at Huang Shidao deliberately angry.

   "As far as I know, when you helped Xiao Yao make that short movie a few years ago, you also starred in the short film. Why didn't you ask him for payment at that time?" He Ying smiled and looked at Huang Shidao.

"Our situation is different." Huang Shi said, "It wasn't that I didn't want it. He said in advance that he was not paid and asked me to help. Besides, at that time, he was not as famous as he is now, and he did not engage in fashion with Yin Xi. Brand, he didn’t invent a hand-disc and open a musical instrument company, and I didn’t know he had shares in a model company."

"Also," Huang Shi continued, "The investment in that short film he made was all his own savings, and he didn't ask for money from his family. After the short film was shot, it could not be used in theaters, there was no commercial future, and no return. , I’m too embarrassed to ask him for money. And I’m not completely paid to star in the film. Later, his short film won awards in France, and after selling the copyright to the video site, he also paid me."

"But I heard him say that he has invested his income in this animated movie in the past two years." He Ying said, "We all know that making an animated movie is very expensive. You watch this animated movie. There are only two investors, except that he is Mr. Tong’s company, and I have never heard of Mr. Tong’s company."

"Sorry, Mr. Tong, there is no offense," He Ying said to Tong Luo, "It's just that I am also in this circle, but I haven't heard the names of you and your company, so I guess your company is not A large and powerful company."

"It's okay," Tong Luo smiled and waved his hand. "You are right. My company used to help game companies do CG animation and special effects. It's really not a big famous company. The investment in this movie , Xiao Yao is the big head, accounting for more than me."

"So I think Xiao Yao really put his savings in the past two years into this animated film." He Ying continued, "In addition to the production of a film, the cost of publicity is not small. This is a good movie, and I hope it will be well publicized in the future. My remuneration should be reserved for publicity when the time comes. Also, if you have any difficulties with publicity funds then, You can find me, and I will do my best."

   "You really don't have any other investors in this movie?" Huang Shi was said by He Ying, thinking of the question of investment, and turned to ask Xiao Yao. In terms of the effects shown by these materials, it is hard to believe that this can be supported by the funds of an individual and an unknown small special effects company.

   "Really not." Xiao Yao smiled.

  "Will it be convenient to tell me how much the production cost is?" Huang Shi asked again, but after asking, Huang Shi immediately added, "It's inconvenient."

  "It is estimated that the total is less than 200 million yuan," Xiao Yao and Tong Luo looked at each other, and then gave a rough figure, "Currently, it has spent more than 100 million yuan."

  The original animation film of the previous life was released in 2008, and Xiao Yao’s film was only produced in 2018 in this life. In horizontal comparison, the production time is at least more than ten years late. In addition, the technological development of this world is still slightly ahead of the same period in the previous life. Many of the previous lives were still the leading animation technology in the United States in 2008. The 18 years in this world are not only not the United States Even if it is available in other countries, it is not the leading technology that a large company has mastered.

  In addition to reducing the technical cost a lot, the labor cost of Tongluo's special effects company in China is definitely much lower than the labor cost of the Pixar studio in the United States.

  The director, screenwriter, character image design of this animated film, and the later soundtrack are all done by Xiao Yao himself. Although these are also converted into costs, at least a lot of communication is always omitted.

  In addition, dubbing, editing and other post-production staff will also be found in China, and the cost of these aspects has also been greatly reduced.

  Another point is the gap in the amount of material production. The original version of the previous life was made in accordance with the general film process. There must be a lot of material cut during editing, and Xiao Yao has a film in his mind. Only about two hours of material was made for a film of more than 90 minutes. This saves money. The cost lost is not even a little bit.

  Animated movies are indeed very expensive. The official production cost of the original version of this animated film in the previous life was 180 million US dollars, and Xiao Yao relied on the above-mentioned advantages to control the production cost of this animated film within 200 million yuan.

"Although it sounds like a lot, it is much less than I expected." Huang Shidao, "But in this case, you have invested tens of millions in at least? If you have financial difficulties and need to invest, I can also count. One serving."

"It shouldn't be necessary." Xiao Yao smiled, "I did the soundtrack for the later stage. For publicity, we must find the distribution company. That is their business, the cost of the film, not our producer. Cost. In addition, we can also do pre-sales overseas."

"Don't talk about your money, I didn't even move my family's money." Xiao Yao continued, "In fact, when we first started, we also thought about looking for investors, but later we discovered that we could stick to it. There is no more investors. Don’t talk about other investors. Didn’t you find out? We don’t even have ads in this movie."

The closest that Xiao Yao made this animated film was to raise investment. After that trip to Germany, he planned to add a few shots of vehicles with BMW logos to the garbage dump in the front part of the animated film, and then seek sponsorship from BMW. . However, after discovering that funding could be supported later, Xiao Yao finally dispelled this idea and decided to make a more "pure" movie.

   "Yes," Huang Shi said suddenly, "I just found out that there are no advertisements in this movie! It's the first time I saw you doing this movie."

  "Is it some kind of spiritual cleanliness?" Huang Shi smiled.

   "This~ barely count it." Xiao Yao hesitated for a moment and nodded.

   Although the production cost of this animated film in the previous life was as high as 180 million US dollars, the global box office also reached more than 500 million US dollars, and it was not a loss from the box office alone. The movie market in this world in 2020 is much higher than in the previous life in 2008. Although Xiao Yao never thought that the box office of his animated film could reach as much as 500 million US dollars, the cost of only 200 million yuan is basically making money. It can still be guaranteed. Xiao Yao tried his best not to make other investments, and to ensure that his investment accounted for the bulk, also in order to obtain greater economic benefits in the future.

Of course, these words are definitely not suitable for talking to Huang Shiming now, and Xiao Yao’s first movie does have some mental and clean ideas. I hope that the fewer people involved, the better. I am in this movie. The bigger the proportion, the better, so I just followed Huang Shi's words to admit it.

  (End of this chapter)