Zhang Yimou knew that this was an opportunity that Xu Wangqiu did not hesitate to fight against the Dongying photographer to win for himself, and he had to perform well no matter what. He is not good at words, and in order to explain well, it took a few seconds to organize the language before he officially spoke: "Our film is divided into three parts, the visit of the Dongying delegation to China in 1956, the visit of the Dongying delegation to Dongying in 1946, the search for his son in 1946, and the acquaintance of Songbo in 1926 and the sending of his son to Dongying; from a narrative point of view, it is reality, memories, and memories in memories."

That's what I think, the realistic part, that is, the 1956 part, uses a plain audiovisual language, and the colors should have a sense of staleness, preferably close to the documentary of the time, after all, the story takes place in 1956, which has been many years old. I won't talk about the problem of color, but the problem of the lens, I think that this part should use the moving lens, and the more soothing places are only a slight movement, and where the conflict is intense, the lens is violently moving. Especially in the scene where Yishan breaks his fingers, the camera shakes very violently. The more soothing areas are composed normally, while the conflicting distances are made irregularly and with a lot of jumps. Because people must have emotions when they recall, the shaking of the camera and the composition of the film represent the change of inner emotions, and the change of lens and composition is the externalization of the inner emotions of the characters. When recalling the severed finger, Guo Yishan must have been very painful in his heart, his heart fluctuated, and the camera shook very much.

I don't think that only shooting with a plain lens language is art, Wangqiu told me that in fact, there are only two kinds of art, either go outside or go inside, either objectively describe the external world, or go deep into the heart and discover our soul. Many great directors are known for discovering the inside of their characters, such as Fellini and Antonioni. Most of the content of the movie "A Game of Chess That Hasn't Been Finished" is the memories of Guo Yishan and Songbo, who lost his son, daughter, and wife in the war; Songbo lost his daughter, son-in-law, and apprentice, and his heart was seriously traumatized. ”

Xu Wangqiu nodded with satisfaction, Zhang Yimou is not good at words, when discussing just now, because Kobayashi Setsuo couldn't stop interrupting and questioning, he stammered and didn't say his true intentions for a long time, and now no one interrupted, he said his thoughts very well.

Sato Youheng and the staff of Dongying were completely stunned by Zhang Yimou's idea, and looked at him dumbfounded, feeling that this idea was simply explosive. It is not uncommon to externalize the inner life of the characters in the movie, but in the past, the internal externalization of the characters was often externalized in a few shots or a certain scene, or like a certain emotion, but it is absolutely unprecedented to present the emotional changes in the process of the characters' memories like this.

In fact, Zhang Yimou is very good at externalizing the hearts of characters, and he has been like this since "Red Sorghum", and "Hero" is the masterpiece. The evaluation of "Hero" in China is not very good, but it is highly evaluated abroad and has won many awards, the reason is that it uses color to externalize the characters' hearts. Spielberg's evaluation of the film is that "Hero" created a way to tell stories with color, so that people can understand without reading subtitles, making color a language that can be communicated.

Take the first paragraph of Nameless in "Hero" as an example, when Nameless fought a decisive battle with the sky, the color was normal, but after the decisive battle with the sky, when he went to see the remnant sword Feixue, the characters' clothes and objects turned red. Unlike the last two paragraphs, the colors are always uniform. The reason is that the decisive battle between him and Changkong was watched by some people, and he did not make it up, but what he said was true, and the content of the sword flying snow was made up by him for the assassination of the prince. When people lie, their inner emotions change, let alone lie in the face of King Qin, this color change is a nameless emotional change. In addition, there is another layer of meaning in red, Nameless is here to assassinate the King of Qin, and assassination means bloodshed, red is the color of blood.

Although Sato is a commercial film director, he still has artistic pursuits, and every film he has made in the past has artistic pursuits and explorations. Now after listening to Zhang Yimou's idea of the camera, he was absolutely amazed, and couldn't help but say: "Mr. Zhang, this idea of yours is too amazing, too amazing!"

Zhang Yimou smiled embarrassedly and said, "It's not my credit alone, it's mainly due to the influence of Wangqiu, who is especially good at showing the inner changes of characters through lens changes." After reading the script, I thought, since most of the story is memories, and the emotions of memories will definitely change, why can't this change be presented?"

Xu Wangqiu said with a smile: "Being too modest equals pride." Let's move on to the color part. ”

Zhang Yimou nodded and continued: "There are two kinds of color tones in the movie, the reality part doesn't do too much about color, what is the real world, then we shoot it, and the memory part, I think we should use an abnormal tone, the main color should be yellow, but not that brilliant golden yellow, but the kind of yellow that is a little sick." Because the characters have serious trauma and mental illness in their hearts, using yellow as the main color can perfectly present the inner pain of the characters. In addition to the yellow, the color of the lens is a little gray, a bit like dead ash. ”

Sato Youheng felt that Zhang Yimou's idea was very good, but it was technically difficult to implement, and he couldn't help but say: "It's easy to use yellow as the main color, just add a yellow filter, but it's mixed with gray in addition to yellow, this is difficult to deal with, and it's technically impossible to achieve, how do you achieve this effect?"

Zhang Yimou looked at Xu Wangqiu and smiled: "Actually, I have also had a headache for this problem, and I feel that it is difficult to achieve it technically. However, when I told Mochiaki about his idea, he came up with a solution, which was to shoot with expired film. ”

Sato Yuheng was taken aback: "What, shoot with expired film?"

Zhang Yimou nodded and said, "Yes, use expired film to shoot." The image of expired film is gray and low-contrast, and in the case of color film, there will be yellowish-green colors. It is definitely not possible to shoot a normal movie with expired film, but it is suitable for filming "A Game of Chess That Never Ends". ”

The picture of the expired film is yellowish and greenish, and it is gray and dark. Under normal circumstances, very few directors make films out of expired film. However, there are also directors who use expired film for special effects, such as American directors Alan Hughes and Albert Hughes, who went out of their way to buy a batch of expired film for the co-directed "The Book of Ellie". They believe that the characteristics of expired film with reduced light sensitivity, low contrast, and high gray haze tend to create a stunning sense of heterogeneity and surreality. And the final effect of the film is indeed the same, the gray and yellowish image style of the film gives people a strong sense of the end of the world.

Sato Youheng knows what the effect of expired film is, and it can indeed achieve the effect that Zhang Yimou said, but there are still problems with using expired film to shoot "A Game of Chess That Hasn't Been Finished": "The shadow part of the expired film has a high degree of gray haze, and "A Game of Chess Without Finishing" has a lot of night scenes, and the picture shot at that time is pitch black, and even the characters can't be seen clearly, how do you plan to solve it?"

Zhang Yimou said with a smile: "We have considered this problem and found a solution, which is to use the silver retention method to develop the film. Seeing that Sato Youheng was at a loss, he knew that Sato had not heard of the silver retention method, and explained: "Silver retention processing is a special film processing method, that is, after the film is bleached and before fixing, a certain amount of silver is controlled to develop again, so as to increase the density of the shadow part in the most exposed area. By leaving silver, the black places will be darker, which improves the contrast. The contrast in the shadows is improved, the detail is increased, and there are no black dead blocks.

This type of processing was designed by Enstoneovelli Remo, an operator in the control department of Teart Color, for Storaro's film "Red Molecules", or ENR for short. The film sparked at the Oscars earlier this year, winning nine nominations and winning Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Supporting Actress. There are a lot of night scenes in "Red Molecule", but the details are very clear, which is the credit of leaving silver for washing. When we shoot with expired film, the picture will be gray, but when we use silver to develop, the details are still clear, there will be no large areas of black blocks, and there will be no dead black. ”

Zhang Yimou originally didn't know about the new technology that had just been born, but Xu Wangqiu told him.

In the previous life, when Xu Wangqiu was studying at Nortel, he heard about such an incident, "Seven Deadly Sins" photographer Dares Kangji went to Nortel to communicate, saying that the printing of "Seven Deadly Sins" was processed with silver. After the exchange, the teacher of the photography department tried to leave silver for the technical backbone of the printing factory, but after many experiments, the desired effect could not be washed.

This incident made Xu Wangqiu interested in staying in silver washing, so he checked the relevant information. There are roughly three types of silver flushing, the ENR flush from Teart Color, the CEE flush from Delux, and the NEC flush from LTC. Among them, the ENR flushing of Special Arts is the most widely used, and Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" is one of the representatives.

Although Sato Yuheng doesn't know how to keep silver to rinse, he has seen "Red Molecule", a popular movie that has won multiple Oscars. Just like Zhang Yimou said, "Red Molecules" has a large number of night scenes, but unlike ordinary movies, "Red Molecules" has a high degree of contrast, the details are very clear, and there are no black dead blocks.

Sato Youheng originally thought that Zhang Yimou had only made one movie and was not yet the main photographer, so he was a little skeptical about his ability, but now when he heard Zhang Yimou's words, he couldn't help but think to himself, this young photographer is really amazing! Not only is he very imaginative and creative, but he also knows the new technology of film well, which is really amazing!

Sato Youheng said directly: "Mr. Zhang, you are really amazing! You are a real genius! These ideas and ideas of yours have simply opened my eyes. No wonder Mr. Xu admires you so much, and he must let you be the photographer of this play. Now that Setsuo Kobayashi has withdrawn, I don't plan to find another photographer, I am very much looking forward to working with you!"

Zhang Yimou saw that Sato Youheng called himself a genius, and scratched his head embarrassedly and said: "What kind of genius am I, Wangqiu is a real genius!" He smiled and said: "Now there is a problem, where to find the past film, we have a very strict control over film production in China, and there are very few expired films, I don't know what the situation is on Dongying's side?"

Japanese producer Masao Takenaka immediately said: "In recent years, Toei films have suffered a serious recession, and the studios have reduced production a lot, and there are a lot of stocks and expired films. Don't say that the expired film of one movie, even ten, I can also find it. ”

Xu Wangqiu said with a smile: "Then the matter is settled." ”