March 2005.

On the southern outskirts of Suncheonfu Castle.

Minghu Film and Television Base, Studio No. 3.

Sun Yuting held a folder in her arms, standing behind Li Qian's director's chair, watching the picture in the monitor with him, and not far from her and Li Qian's side, there were as many as a dozen computers, collecting and preliminarily processing various data.

The filming of "Avatar", except for a few indoor scenes, more than 80% of the pictures in the whole movie were shot on a green screen, and more than 80% of the character performance shots were collected through the current data collection method, which collected the actors' expressions and performances, and finally completed through post-production.

To put it simply, if you look at it from an academic point of view, this film really has little to do with the so-called "performing arts", it is more of a "technology".

Considering that although the technology required for this film has been basically formed, it still lacks the necessary relevant shooting and production experience and running-in, so Li Qian even formulated a long shooting cycle of up to ten months for this film, and a post-production time of up to one year.

Almost every second is a lot of money burning.

Frankly speaking, if the director was not Li Qian, Sun Yuting would basically not have any confidence in this film with an investment of up to 500 million Chinese yuan - although among the directors of Minghu Culture, Sun Yuting is already a relatively modern school, and she is also the one who has the best impression of the use of various film technologies.

But even if she participated in the preliminary preparations from the beginning to the official start of the filming, there is still a question in her heart that cannot be driven away-will such an "alien scenery film" with a simple plot really be produced? Will the so-called 3D really attract fans to pay? Can it really open up a new era and a new era in the film production industry, as Li Qian described?

She believes in Li Qian, believes in his talent, believes in his ability, believes in his vision, if it is a random change to another movie, she does not hesitate to believe that Li Qian will have the ability to make it well, make literary films, he can shoot people to the ground, make commercial films, he can be a global hit.

Even if it is a brain-burning niche film, she has no doubt that Li Qian can shoot exceptionally well!

But...... New technology, 3D, half a billion investment, simple movie content and old-fashioned themes...... A mixed Chinese and foreign film shooting team, and a team of actors who are also mixed with Chinese and foreign actors...... It's a little bit ......

Of course, who made that person Li Qian!

Although there are all kinds of hesitations and worries in his heart, Li Qian said that if he wants to do it, he will do it.

In the past six months, she has followed behind Li Qian, running around before and after the saddle, as the assistant director of the crew and Li Qian's most important assistant, she almost shared half of Li Qian's workload by herself.

In fact, although it has only been four and a half to five years since graduating from university, and so far there is only one third part of "Princess Huanzhu", but in fact, Sun Yuting's reputation and status in the industry, and the ranking of this batch of signed directors within Minghu Culture are not low, as long as she is willing, in fact, she can make one or two more TV series like Lu Lingxi to accumulate experience, and then try to transform into a movie- With Minghu Culture and Li Qian's script, this road has been verified by several directors of Minghu Culture, and success is almost 100% guaranteed.

However, after Sun Yuting directed and produced the third part of "Princess Huanzhu", she resolutely chose to return to Li Qian, continue to be his assistant director, and be an errand assistant for him.

She felt she had a lot more to learn.

And now, although she has a lot of worries about the filming and production of the movie "Avatar", in fact, as a filmmaker who has participated in the research and development of 3D shooting technology and the preparation of this film, Sun Yuting herself is actually full of interest in this new way of filming and production.

She just doesn't have as much confidence in this technique and the film as Li Qian does.

Li Qian suddenly stopped the shooting.

Even Sun Yuting couldn't help frowning for him - 3D is a new technology, 3D-IMAX shooting, and no one is familiar with it, so all the shooting can only be groped, and it is really normal for problems to occur.

As of the third day of filming, the crew and crew, including the crew, including the actors, were busy at the same time, but in the first two days, only six simple shots were shot that were finally passed - and it is not sure if it will be retained in the post-editing.

The reason for this outrageous slowness is mainly due to the lack of proficiency in the use of technology.

With the filming experience of "The Matrix", the current top shooting team in Minghu Culture is relatively proficient in how to shoot and produce green screen movies, but even with some experience in "The Matrix", motion capture technology is still a bit handy.

The actor's motion capture technology has been Hollywood's specialty in recent years, and Minghu Culture is unwilling to buy technology from Hollywood, let alone spend a high cost to hire a team, so it develops it itself and tries it out in "The Matrix" - up to now, the technology in the hands of Minghu Culture has even surpassed Hollywood's top level in theory, but it is still a little difficult to achieve when it is used and filmed.

But this is the top priority of the whole film.

As a result, the crew, team, actors, and directors can only try over and over again, little by little, to practice, to run-in, and to master.

It's funny to say that Alan Tom, who plays the leading role, has some experience in motion capture shooting because he has participated in the shooting of two Hollywood-related movies before, and at this time, he can actually provide a lot of experience and advice to the shooting team - this is probably something that Li Qian didn't even expect when he auditioned before.

However, it is also better to know that China's current film production, just in terms of technology, is much behind Hollywood.

For films, technology is not the only one, but it is an indispensable means and confidence for filmmakers to let their imagination fly and expand the space for film expression.

The previous special effects production, no one in China followed, Minghu Culture spent a lot of money to keep up, and now it has the world's top special effects production capabilities, which are not comparable to those small workshops in China that followed the trend later. The current motion capture technology, there is still no one in China to follow, Minghu Culture continues to spend a lot of money on its own technology, and is currently working hard to become the world's top.

The new technical direction in the future, Li Qian said, will be 3D.

If his prediction turns out to be correct, if "Avatar" is finally successful, and 3D movies are as sought after as Li Qian expected, then Minghu Culture will be at the forefront of the world's filmmaking technology, and the people who are currently involved in the filming and production of "Avatar", including himself, the assistant director, will become the first people in the world to have experience in 3D film shooting and production.

Li Qian got up and left the director's area and walked towards the group of technicians.

Sun Yuting followed.

Since the start of filming, she has been like this almost every time, trying to participate in this shooting with great efforts, trying to keep up with Li Qian's steps as much as possible, and understand and master the shooting methods and skills of advanced shooting technologies such as 3D shooting and motion capture shooting as soon as possible.

Li Qian communicated with the technicians for a while, and listened to Sun Yuting thoughtfully, and then several people walked to the green screen in the center of the venue together, Li Qian, Sun Yuting, and several technicians discussed with the actors the error between the actor's performance and the "Avatar" action that finally appeared after capturing and technical rendering in the scene just now.

Just stopped, just like that, and just like that, more than ten minutes passed.

After the discussion, everyone quickly returned to their places, and the actors brewed for a while before filming started again.

This time it went well, and Alan Tom completed a few assigned moves more satisfactorily. After shouting "Click", Li Qian got up and went over, exchanged a few words with the technicians at the scene, and communicated with the chief photographer Fu Xuelong, which was unanimously recognized by everyone, and finally shouted: "This one is over!"

It's that tedious.

In fact, now the crew has been filming for three days, and they are filming some of the simplest and most basic actions that will appear in the movie, and the actors who appear in the filming are currently only the actor Alan Tom and the heroine Michelle Saldana - in fact, in Sun Yuting's view, the filming during this period should not even be called shooting, it should be regarded as the crew's run-in and internship period.

This time, even the director needs an internship before he can take up his post.

The next action shooting requires the horse to appear and cooperate - those who are familiar with film shooting know that in film shooting, there are two kinds of actors, which are the most headaches for the director. One is a child, the other is an animal.

The horse selected by the crew is well-trained, but even so, the breeder and rider are still assisted in the shooting - the shooting plan for this type of lens was discussed in advance, and finally Li Qian adopted Sun Yuting's idea, here, only the horse is used as a prop, and after the shooting is completed, all the shots of the horse are directly brushed out through post-production and replaced with the "horse" of the planet Pandora.

It's a shooting plan to make shooting as simple as possible.

The horse is very tame, and the shot is very simple, just a horse-mounted action, but unfortunately, after the camera walked through, Li Qian shouted to stop, but the technician shook his head at him, and then explained to him, "I'm afraid not, although the characters and horses will be enlarged in equal proportions, but the special effects in the later stage are made, I'm afraid it is difficult to achieve special harmony, the range of movement of the characters, and the size of people and horses, it is difficult to achieve perfection." ”

Li Qian crossed his waist and looked helpless.

There is no way, this plan can only be killed, this time without waiting for Li Qian to say anything, Sun Yuting directly picked up the loudspeaker and shouted, "Prop master, bring up the No. 13 props! ”

So the horses were taken away, and several prop masters worked together to push the cart, pulled up the all-green painted plastic props made in advance, and placed them in the middle of the shooting venue according to Fu Xuelong's requirements.

This is a prop that has been moderately modified according to the shape of actor Alan Tom, and after careful calculation, it is relatively easy to replace the whole "horse" of Pandora in the later stage.

This prop is dead.

So in fact, in such a shot, the next step is to use motion capture technology to shoot a corresponding movement of the horse, so that the technician can use special effects to create an action picture that can be replaced - this shooting plan is a little more complicated than just now. However, for the nearly 2,000 shots of the movie "Avatar", this is only the most basic difficulty.

For actors, this shot is simpler.

According to the director's request, he stretched his hand forward, and then got on the horse - but this time, after Li Qian shouted "click", Fu Xuelong walked over with a frown.

He said that a little more light needs to be added.

Hedge light.

Today's film technology, post-production is almost omnipotent, anything can be modified, but for a great photographer, no matter how good the post-production light is adjusted, it is not as natural and beautiful as the light adjusted during on-site shooting - although "Avatar" is almost a film shot on a green screen, Fu Xuelong still has his own extremely high requirements for his works. He does not allow the lens he is in charge of to appear unreasonable and unsophisticated.

Photography is about light.

If it was the brown horse he was responsible for the selection just now, the reflection on the actor's legs formed by the color of the horse's coat was almost invisible under the strong lighting of the scene, but now, when the horse is transformed into a prop of the green horse, this reflection changes.

Although it is still almost undetectable, and after post-processing and substitution, the background, horses, and actors in this shot are almost completely imperceptible.

But Li Qian thought about it, looked at the footage he just shot again, and nodded in agreement.

Since the beginning of the preparation of the movie, the first point that Li Qian has been emphasizing is: 3D movies will appear on the big screen in the future, and if they want to have good results, they must be enough!

3D movies, once the brightness and color fullness of the picture are insufficient, it is easy to cause visual fatigue and reduce the viewing effect - at this time, this light and shadow shift in the shooting seems to be insignificant, and it will not really affect the quality of the movie, but since it is filmed, of course, it must be shot to perfection. And now pay attention to it, making up a light is always more delicate than the post-processed picture.

So, Fu Xuelong quickly instructed the gaffer to temporarily take charge of adding a light, and this delay passed for a few more minutes - and then, Alan Tom repeated this extremely simple action again.

When she saw that it was already more than five o'clock in the afternoon, Sun Yuting didn't care, and suddenly, after shooting a shot, before Sun Yuting could adjust the next shot, Li Qian turned his head and said to her, "Today is good, I have already taken four shots today!"

Sun Yuting smiled.

It's probably the slowest film schedule ever, but, yes, the overall shooting schedule is gradually picking up little by little – everyone is improving.

Only the male protagonist Alan Tom is a little pitiful.

In order to get the name of "Li Qian", he was finally selected, and he needed to pay up to ten months of filming cycle - you know, ordinary Hollywood movies, even if they are blockbusters and actors, three or four months are enough - but after entering the crew, he has been repeatedly filming some of the most basic actions for the director to practice.

However, there was not the slightest dissatisfaction or impatience in his appearance.

You can say that his professionalism is high enough, since he signed the film contract, he will say what the director will say, and it can also be said that he is full of expectations for the sci-fi blockbuster of the great director Li Qian after "The Matrix".

Among the Hollywood actors, not to mention the two big names who are super first-line, even if they are first-line and quasi-first-line, as soon as they heard that the filming of "Avatar" should be based on motion capture, and the live-action performance shots are limited, they all politely declined, but for Alan Tom, who has just stepped into the second line with one foot, it must be a good opportunity to continue to climb up.

…………

At about half past six, Li Qian announced the end of the afternoon shooting, and then walked over in person and said to Alan Tom in English, Alan Tom shrugged his shoulders and said, "The director decides everything." ”

Li Qian smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

…………

Lu Bin, the director of the set, is responsible for cleaning up the set after the end of each day's shooting, but Sun Yuting still has to keep an eye on it, otherwise she is a little uneasy.

The technicians over there copied today's shooting materials and handed them over to the special staff to take back to the Minghu Cultural Archive, and the two actors who participated in the filming this afternoon did not need to remove their makeup, so they walked out with their respective assistants very comfortably, and several European and American actors who had no shooting plans also dispersed at this time, Li Qian stood in the studio and watched for a while, and then turned around and walked out.

Bai Yujing was holding a cup at the door, looking thoughtful.

Li Qian walked over, subconsciously took her cup over, and didn't care if she had drunk it, unscrewed the lid, drank two small sips, and then returned the cup to her.

The two walked out side by side.

Bai Yujing said: "I feel that this shooting ......"

Li Qian said: "I told you, you don't have to come so early, you won't have time to rejoin the group in May! Your scenes, and finally cut into the motion capture scenes in the film, are very few, and a lot of them are indoor scenes." It's even too late for you to join the group in June, which is enough for you to shoot a TV series outside. ”

Bai Yujing was very unhappy by him, "I'll come over in advance to take a look!"

Li Qian heard her dissatisfaction, turned his head to look at her, and realized that he had not thought carefully under exhaustion, and his words were annoying, so he smiled and waved his hand, and said, "Okay! You can watch it if you want!"

But Bai Yujing was still not very happy, "In the big production of 500 million, I am the only one who got the important role, you don't know, it's a lot of pressure!"

Li Qian laughed, "What pressure do you have! The pressure is on my side!"