Made in Hollywood

As a kind of audio-visual art, the charm of film lies in its "presentation." Duke's editing of plot and dialogue is also a disguised way to make the audience feel more involved in the process of watching the movie. ∑,

Nowadays, many commercial films are scolded for brain damage, a large part of the reason is that they are afraid that the audience will not understand them, such as explaining through lines or arranging a large number of scenes.

This is something that Duke will inevitably discard when editing. In the ten-minute editing of "Furious Road", he will not explain at all. He only needs to use the screen to explain all the relevant information that the audience wants to know, including World setting, character personality, conflict reason, story trend, etc.

In other words, one aspect of editing is to tell stories through pictures. This is not difficult, because audiovisual language is a compulsory course for every director.

In the footage played in the editing room, an opening scene completed by Duke and Mike Dawson is shown. A lizard twisting its ugly body must be naughty at the feet of Tom Cruise, and then it becomes alive. The dead lizard in Cruise's mouth, in addition to showing the male protagonist's aura, there is also an important background to explain that this is a world where the weak and the strong!

"For most viewers, the excitement of watching this film comes mainly from its action scenes."

The day’s work has just begun, and Duke explained to the entire post-production team, “It’s also about chasing cars and fighting. How can Fury Road be refreshing? The most obvious thing the audience feels is the length of the action segment.”

The audience is undoubtedly the focus of Duke's production of films.

He added, "I divided the film into three main action segments, and the action scenes in all segments must last more than ten minutes!"

Mike Dawson took Duke's words and said, "Compared with the stunningness of other Hollywood action movies in just a few seconds, our editing is to make this film extremely smooth."

In theory, anyone can shoot long action scenes. But whether the audience can be excited or even mesmerized is another question entirely.

To be precise, from the design of the action itself, to the rhythm of the arrangement between the actions, to the contrast and echo between the paragraphs, and then to the presentation of the camera. All reflect the director's ability to direct and edit.

In fact, from the perspective of the design of the action itself, this version of Duke's "Furious Road" is similar to those Hollywood road movie cult films, still focusing on vehicle styling and personal stunts.

But after all, he is a director who pays attention to technology. He uses more advanced technology in the shooting, and his actions are more like "spectacles." For example, for those 150 modified vehicles with different appearances, a single appreciation is equivalent to a "monster show" in the automotive industry, but they have to chase and collide together, then explode violently, and then these incredible stunts. Most of them are actually done by stunt actors fighting their lives...

The combination of these perceptions and the novel stimulus provided is unmatched by other highly homogenized action movies.

Compared with the spectacle effect of the action itself, the editing within the action paragraphs and the rhythm of the echoes between the paragraphs can better reflect the current level and skill of his film director.

Duke compares the whole film to a grand opera, and the three main chasing passages are undoubtedly the most colorful movement.

These three scenes are in the editing of him and Mike Dawson. Gradually reflected the respective excitement in content and melody between the "movements".

Three-stage action scene, through clever techniques. Edited by Duke together, they can implicitly and accurately show the escalation and change of the relationship between the hero and the hero, and complete the task of advancing the plot and perfecting the character's personality.

In fact, the relationship between the editing and arrangement of such action paragraphs and the expressiveness of the film, Duke has borrowed some of Lee's methods, the three scenes in Ang Lee's "Lust? Caution". Love drama, don't look at the "action" mode The wind and the horse are irrelevant. In fact, it is similar to the one he used.

Action film directors like Duke who strive for perfection will also through post-production, edit and design rich enough changes in a single action scene to make the simplest action segment. It also becomes full of rhythm like music.

For example, in the rough cut of the car chase scene in the third paragraph, he made several main characters, digital supporting roles plus two main villains, and those dragon sets swinging on high poles. Everyone has their own performance moments. Every time they "performance", it is a complete thrilling design, one after another.

The purpose of this is very simple. It is to make the hearts of the audience go through the ravages time and time again. Afterwards, the degree of enjoyment is just like having experienced many times.

It is true that these skills for expressing movements are nothing to a director who is based on action elements like Duke, but he obviously wants the new film to be made more "beautiful" apocalyptic, deliberately beautiful, and bizarre and captivating.

In post-production, Duke is pursuing a bizarre and captivating beauty, a beauty that is deliberately enlarged and enhanced.

Therefore, in addition to editing, Duke has another important job, which is the processing of the color of the picture.

The super-saturated tones he wants can make the world in the film as rich as a comic book world. To put it in the words that he once lived on the other side of the Pacific, it is really "bright blind people's eyes."

For the processing of tones, photographers and editors need to have a certain degree of commonality in their concepts. After so many years of cooperation, Duke’s dedicated photographer John Schwarzman and editor Mike Dawson have also formed a unique relationship. The tacit understanding of aesthetics can transform lens movement and editing into an unprecedented extreme aesthetic.

Editing also makes the combination of shots in many scenes look more crisp and powerful.

In more specific lens processing, Duke also has a lot of meticulous little methods, so that the simplest shots, through John Schwarzman's camera and Mike Dawson's editing, glow with breathtaking beauty.

For example, during the chase in the middle of the film, the heroine puts down the front guardrail and shovels the loess to put out the fire. You can see goose bumps.

In addition, through editing, Duke needs to further enhance the atmosphere of "crazy", whether it is the cult-like locomotive worship of the villain, or the neurotic interpretation of the main and supporting actors, or even the processing of many martyrdom-meaning death scenes. In addition to the maddening soundtrack, it must make the audience feel as if they are not watching a movie when they are watching a movie, but as if they are in a sacrificial cult of apocalypse, even if they are exhausted by the intensive sensory stimulation, Also cry hoarsely and rush to heaven.

What he pursues in post-production is this "magic"-like beauty, allowing seemingly simple films to produce magic, and there is endless room for aftertaste!

In addition, in the editing of many fighting scenes, Duke borrowed from the dynamic editing in "The Bourne". When editing shots, flying shots, etc., the latter shot was slightly repeated, which can make the dynamics appear more dynamic. Natural and beautiful.

If you want to make a great movie, you need very sophisticated and strict lens language from start to finish. No frame can be sloppy.

No character is not exquisite in shape, no scene setting is not elegant, no shot is not rich in content, no editing is not carefully thought out, this is the basis for making an excellent movie.

In the fine-cutting, Charlize Theron and Tom Cruise's close-to-hand fight took only one and a half minutes, but Duke used a long and short set of 96 shots and spent three full days with Mike Dawson. time.

He really wants to know how those directors who can cut a standard-length film in ten days or even a week do it, and how to ensure the quality of the film if they do?

If you really want to be a good director, you don't need to listen to film critics, and don't worry too much about the theoreticians. Duke's experience over the years clearly tells him that filming and filming are completely different.

Audiovisual is the most basic technique of film, just as language is the basic of essays, and color and composition are the basics of painting. A director can only integrate audiovisual skills into his own through continuous drawing, filming, and reading. Intuition.

Every shot of the movie is completed through conception-conception-script-storyboard-real shooting. When shooting, every lens must consider lighting, lens focal length, movement, composition, and camera position, sometimes in order to shoot one For the camera, Duke had to direct the crew to light and set the camera for several hours.

And these, he would never be able to complete it alone, relying on a strong and cooperative team.

The same goes for post-production. This is not the job of the director alone.

While Duke is doing post-production, the promotion of Fury Road is also in progress.

In April, Duke and ima held a press conference at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. The two parties announced that they would formally sign an agreement to co-produce five ima films within five years. The films included in the agreement include ima2d and ima3d, and "Furious Road" is the first of them.

Duke and Richard Gerefang, the new president of ima, sang a hymn for each other.

"Ima's development trajectory is very good, coupled with the cooperation with 3d technology, will bring the audience an unprecedented ultimate movie experience." Duke said.

Richard Geerfang said, "The strategic cooperation between Director Rosenberg and ima is a very important step. This is a further expansion that we have achieved after the film marketing and screening strategy cooperation. We believe that this cooperation will Bring better box office to movies in the future."

At the same time, ima company will vigorously promote "fury road".

The two leading actors Charlize Theron and Tom Cruise also frequently appear in public, especially Charlize Theron, whose image of her shaved long hair is more conspicuous.

Warner is also making a big fuss in this regard. Many media have appeared in reports similar to ‘whether you like the bald goddess, you still think she is still sexy’. (To be continued...)

ps: Sum recommendation ticket!