Although the students present had never seen a computer and did not understand what computer graphics technology was, they still understood the general meaning. Computer graphics technology is a type of animation that can be used to add to movies in post-production. However, most of the students present advocated learning from Europe, pursuing realism, and were very dissatisfied with what Xu Wangqiu said.

Chen Kaige is especially so, clasping his hands in front of his chest and snorting softly: "Audiovisual language is the root of the movie, I don't want to work audiovisual language, but I think about computer graphics technology, it's like putting the cart before the horse." ”

Zhou Chuanji stared at Xu Wangqiu for a few seconds, and began to ask the next question: "I have always been opposed to learning Hollywood, and I also think that we should not engage in computer graphics technology. Once, I met an American professor in his 40s and talked to him about the recent debate in China about learning from Hollywood and learning from Europe, and he said, "You have a 5,000-year-old culture in China, why don't you have your own national style, why do you learn from others?" I really want to find a crack in the ground. What I want to ask is, if you blindly follow Hollywood, will the final movie be a Hollywood replica?"

In fact, Zhou Chuanji's worries are justified, there are problems he said in Chinese films in the previous life, such as "Wuji" directed by Chen Kaige, the "Presbyterian Trial" from the West is extremely strange to Chinese; the film "Legend of the Gods" adapted from classical Chinese mythology appeared in the Spirit Race, the Wing Clan, and the airship in modern civilization, Shen Gong Leopard turned into a Warcraft, and Daji became an alien, making people feel like they were crossing chaos. These Western cultural elements are rigidly implanted into the magical creation of Chinese themes, breaking the integrity of the film's cultural system and making the audience extremely repulsed.

Xu Wangqiu looked at Zhou Chuanji and said solemnly: "It is indeed a shame for Chinese filmmakers to be unable to make a national style movie. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't learn from others, and now the world recognizes that Toei has his own national film style, and even Hollywood in turn learns from them. Toei Films started by studying Hollywood, Kurosawa is a fan of John Ford, and the traces of John Ford are very deep in his early works, and Yasujiro Ozu's early works also have a clear Hollywood style. On the basis of mastering Hollywood techniques and integrating national characteristics, they gradually developed their own style. Our current audio-visual language is far behind the world, so we should learn from others, and on the basis of mastering the audio-visual language, it is possible to develop a film with a Chinese national style. Otherwise, don't say that you can't even do a movie in the national style. ”

The teachers and students present, whether they advocated learning from Hollywood or Europe, all believed that Chinese films were now lagging behind and that they must learn from abroad. Now hearing Xu Wangqiu's words, they all nodded slightly.

Xu Wangqiu continued: "When it comes to national style, then I will say a few more words. Chinese stories of gods and demons and fairy tales are very typical Chinese stories, which are not found in the West. If it can be made, it will be possible to develop a new genre film, and it will be a genre film that only belongs to China. It is impossible to shoot this kind of story without strong technical support, such as filming "The Legend of the White Snake", such as filming "Havoc in the Heavenly Palace" in which Sun Wukong and 100,000 heavenly soldiers fought in the air, it is difficult to achieve without computer technology, so the development of computer graphics technology is really important for Chinese films. ”

Most of the Nortel students at the scene couldn't watch genre films, and they didn't think much of Xu Wangqiu's idea of making a Chinese genre film, nor did they think it was a big deal, but felt that it was an artistic depravity, but Zhang Jianya was completely stunned after hearing Xu Wangqiu's words.

Zhang Jianya likes gods and demons, especially "Journey to the West", but he has never told his classmates about it, for fear that others will say that he is naïve. When he was a child, after watching the cartoon "Havoc in Heaven", this story has always haunted his heart, and he has always felt that it would be great if it could be made into a live-action movie, but he also knew that it was impossible with the current technical conditions.

Now after listening to Xu Wangqiu's words, the flame of hope hidden in his heart is blazing. Zhang Jianya felt that his heartbeat was accelerating, and he asked himself, can he really shoot "Havoc in Heaven" with computer technology?

Zhou Chuanji, who was in front of the stage, looked at Xu Wangqiu and nodded slightly, thinking that this kid had a big heart, and he actually wanted to make China's own genre films, and he was ambitious, and said with a smile: "I look forward to you making Chinese genre films." He turned to Cheng Yin and said, "I'm done with my question." ”

Cheng Yin looked at the computer expert next to him: "Comrade Liu Shengquan, do you have any questions?"

Liu Shengquan is an expert in graphics at the Institute of Computer Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and since 1971 he has turned to the research of computer applications in non-numerical computing, and led a group of researchers in the Institute of Computing to open up the research on computer-aided design that was still blank in China at that time, and then prepared to establish the CAD research laboratory.

Liu Shengquan felt funny when he received Nortel's invitation, what computer graphics technology do students of the film academy know, but after reading Xu Wangqiu's article, he was taken aback, modeling technology, rendering technology and other cutting-edge technologies in graphics and image research are mentioned in this article. This made him very curious about how a film school student could know this, so he agreed to participate in Xu Wangqiu's thesis defense.

Liu Shengquan looked at Xu Wangqiu and said kindly: "Using computers to produce and process images involves rendering technology, and your article also mentions rendering technology, do you understand this technology?"

Xu Wangqiu does not understand the principle of rendering technology, but he is very clear about the process of rendering technology. In the past, many of the movies he made had special effects shots, which involved rendering problems. He's seen VFX artists work on VFX shots at VFX companies and knows the rendering process very well. Now that Liu Shengquan asked this question, he briefly talked about it.

The teachers and students present couldn't understand what Xu Wangqiu was saying, as if they were listening to the Book of Heaven. However, Liu Shengquan was extremely shocked, what Xu Wangqiu said was completely beyond his imagination. Computer graphics technology has been born for more than ten years, and it is still very primitive, and now it can only do the simplest image processing, and Xu Wangqiu said that the lighting, path animation, these things are difficult to achieve with current technology.

Liu Shengquan has been engaged in computer graphics research for a long time, and when he heard the terms and Xu Wangqiu's description, he immediately understood the value of these technologies, and hurriedly asked Xu Wangqiu about the principles.

Xu Wangqiu didn't know the principle of computer science, he told Liu Shengquan that these things were told to him by the special effects engineer of Industrial Light & Magic when he was in Cannes, and the other party only talked about the special effects process of Industrial Light & Magic, and did not talk about anything else.

This made Liu Shengquan very regretful, if he was in Cannes and met that big-mouthed special effects artist, he would definitely be able to ask a lot of good things. The other party must have known that Xu Wangqiu didn't understand computer technology, anyway, Xu Wangqiu didn't understand it, and he didn't worry about leaks. It's a pity, it's a pity!

After Liu Shengquan finished asking questions, Chengyin asked Xu Wangqiu a few more questions, but they didn't jump out of the scope of the paper. Xu Wangqiu answered these questions very easily, without any of the questions, it can be said that the answers were fluent, and he easily passed the defense.

Coming out of the big classroom, Xu Wangqiu and Su Bai walked outside the school with a smile and a smile, ready to go into the city for a big meal.

As he was walking, Zhang Jianya chased after him from behind, he looked at Xu Wangqiu and said, "Congratulations on passing the dissertation defense." ”

Zhang Jianya is Tian Zhuangzhuang's wave, and he doesn't have much contact with Xu Wangqiu. Seeing Zhang Jianya come over to congratulate him, Xu Wangqiu felt a little strange, but after all, everyone is a classmate, and others came to say hello, it is impossible to save face, and said with a smile: "Thank you!"

Zhang Jianya didn't know how to speak, scratched his head and said, "Xu Wangqiu, can I ask you a question?"

Xu Wangqiu nodded: "What question, can you ask?"

Zhang Jianya scratched his head again: "That, can computer technology really make the scene of Havoc in the Heavenly Palace, I mean like the cartoon "Havoc in the Heavenly Palace", the houses in the Heavenly Palace are hanging in the air, in the clouds, and they look like the real thing." ”

Xu Wangqiu was slightly stunned when he heard "Havoc in Heaven", and suddenly remembered that in his previous life, Zhang Jianya was preparing to create China's first computer special effects film "Havoc in Heaven" in 1995, with an investment of 100 million yuan. As a result, in the process of preparation, Liu Xiaolingtong was dissatisfied with too many special effects and withdrew, and then the investment company went bankrupt due to a real estate project, which led to the final suspension of the film.

The fiasco of "Havoc in Heaven" has distorted Chinese film directors when they hear about computer special effects, and has frightened investors so much that they will not dare to venture into high-budget films for a long time. It wasn't until a few years later that Jiang Zhiqiang, a native of Xiangjiang, invested in Zhang Yimou's "Hero", and Chinese films entered the blockbuster era.

If "Brain Heavenly Palace" succeeds, will the history of Chinese films be rewritten, and will the era of Chinese blockbusters come ahead of schedule? Xu Wangqiu feels that it is unlikely that "Havoc in Heaven" will succeed. After the failure of "Havoc in Heaven", Zhang Jianya directed "Emergency Landing" and "Polar Rescue", both of which also made extensive use of computer special effects, but neither of them was successful.

Among them, "Emergency Landing" is okay, but compared with similar Hollywood movies of the same type, there is an obvious gap in rhythm and atmosphere creation, mainly because of the director's problem. When Zhang Jianya was at Nortel, he was proud of learning New Wave and New Realism, but he did not master the skills of genre films. Even Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige are struggling to make genre films, not to mention others.

Xu Wangqiu knew that although Zhang Jianya was now mixed with Tian Zhuangzhuang and them, the films he made after graduation were basically commercial films, which belonged to his side, so he said: "Now the computer can only process the simplest images, and it may take fifteen or even twenty years to achieve the effect you said and make the Heavenly Palace, and it looks like the real thing." If you really want to direct Havoc in the future, it's best to start preparing now. ”

Zhang Jianya hurriedly asked, "What preparations do you need to make?"

Xu Wangqiu said: "First, you must be familiar with movie special effects, at least you must know what the effects of special effects are, and to what extent, so that you can properly use special effects in the future; ”

Zhang Jianya frowned, special effects are not a problem, he is from the Magic Shadow Factory, and he can learn from the master of the stunt workshop, but the knowledge of genre films and the process of the film industry are more troublesome, so he said: "Didn't you say that Chinese films are handicrafts, not industries, won't you let me go abroad to learn?"

Xu Wangqiu shrugged his shoulders and said: "If you have the conditions to go abroad to study, it must be a good thing; He looked at Liu Lin and said, "We have similar ideas to you, we all have our own movies we want to make, and we are exploring how to do the film industry, if you are interested in the film industry, you can communicate with us." ”

Zhang Jianya breathed a sigh of relief and said directly: "Okay!"

Xu Wangqiu said with a smile: "We are about to go into the city to eat, so let's talk together while eating." ”