At the end of December 1985, Humen Town.

At the beginning of the year, this ancient town, which was written into the modern history of China, changed its future development plan on the whim of Lin Qi and became an experimental town with film and television culture and tourism industries.

At present, there are about 20,000 people in the entire Humen Film and Television Base, half of whom are film crews and park staff, and the other half are construction workers, who are busy building in accordance with the planning drawings of the park and the requirements of the "Opium War" crew.

Not only the scenes required for the movie, but also the most basic infrastructure works and commercial and residential buildings. In order to restore the history, these residential and commercial buildings will also be antique, although there are modern facilities inside, but from the outside, almost the same style as ancient buildings, will not be abruptly seen telephone poles, transformers and other buildings that destroy the atmosphere.

"Boss, usually our employees, the way of life may be the same as historical figures, and our employees can be filmed as extras at any time. The management of the film and television city proudly said, "Now we are engaged in the Opium War theme park, and after this drama, we will continue to expand to more dynasties and even foreign historical buildings......

Lin Qi nodded and said: "In the future, new start-up film and television companies will continue to invest in many historical blockbusters. There is no guarantee that it will be available every year on the scale of "Opium War", but it is no problem to invest in one in two or three years!"

"Great! We need more movies to make us famous. The management of the park said with great anticipation.

In the early stage of film and television city planning, the most important thing is fame. Without fame, it is naturally difficult to attract external crews to film, let alone attract tourists for sightseeing.

At present, the popularity of the park is completely dependent on Lin Qi's investment in "Opium War", although it has a huge investment scale, but if the film and television city wants to really develop well, it still needs other crews to come here, rather than relying only on the internal blood transfusion of the new entrepreneurship department.

Of course, for the time being, relying only on the movie "Opium War" is enough to maintain the early operation of the studio.

You must know that the budget of "Opium War" has exceeded the standard, and a total of 130 million Hong Kong dollars has been spent. It is estimated that the cost of the film may reach 200 million Hong Kong dollars.

With such an investment budget, getting to Hong Kong will scare the entire film industry. Because, in the Hong Kong film industry this year, the total annual investment budget of the whole industry is only more than 100 million Hong Kong dollars. Hundreds of Hong Kong films are invested every year, and most of the Hong Kong film budgets are mainly based on low costs of hundreds of thousands of yuan. There are only a dozen films that can get an investment budget of several million per year. And the movies with more than 5 million are already well-deserved blockbusters in Hong Kong.

Of course, when the Hong Kong film industry needs to brag about the awesomeness of the entire industry, the film and television box office results of the new entrepreneurship department will also be included in the global total box office data of Hong Kong films. However, the Hong Kong film industry has a tendency to ignore the works of the new entrepreneurial system, which is larger than the entire industry pattern.

Of course, at least half of the investment in the "Opium War" film was spent on costumes, props and scenes. Compared with Hollywood's expensive sets, which tend to be demolished or abandoned after filming, a considerable part of the scenes built by the film crew of "Opium Wars" are permanent buildings that can be reused in the future.

It is precisely because of this that the cost of this movie is lower than on the surface, after all, Humen Film and Television City is also an asset of the new entrepreneurial department.

In any case, the investment budget of this film should have set a new high for Chinese films. If you compare it with the original history, at least less than 20 years, there is no budget for that Chinese film, which can be compared with "Opium War".

If the factor of inflation is taken into account, even those Chinese blockbusters that have hit billions of box office in the future market, their investment capital may not be as good as "Opium War"!

After all, the god films that set a box office of more than 5 billion yuan in later generations have an investment budget of 300 million. A few decades later, the budget of 300 million, regardless of the salary or price level, will greatly shrink its purchasing power, and it is definitely not as abundant as the budget of the god film that invested 200 million in the 80s!

Of course, for the sake of filming, the wooden ships of more than 1,000 tons and hundreds of tons are specially restored, which is still pediatric. You must know that more than ten years later, in order to shoot, Hollywood director Cameron even suffered another 10,000-ton iron ship according to the original drawings.

It seems that in order to make this kind of movie to entertain the public, he will burn money at any cost, which is a bit of a loser.

But the cultural influence and sense of identity created behind this is a more valuable asset than the money burned!

Not to mention, this is still a commercial film, if the shooting effect can make the audience buy it, not only will it not lose money, but it will also create a good profit!

……

The crew of "Opium War" is filming intensively.

The scene was filled with gunsmoke and explosions, and it was really like a battlefield. This is similar to the later war films in Hengdian, which are purely catchy and make up the numbers, not to mention the average quality of extras, even professional actors lack professionalism.

When the filming of this drama started, the crew specially asked professional officers to organize a one-month regular military training for all crew members.

After the military training, a bunch of military historians studied the tactics and organizational models of the Chinese and British armies in the 19th century, and then changed into military uniforms from more than 100 years ago, according to historical records, to simulate the life and fighting style of the army at that time.

As for the actors of the British army, they found a group of European and American military fans in Hong Kong, and because they were paid no less than Hong Kong for food and accommodation, many undesirable European and American Hong Kong drifters also went to the mainland to become extras.

The film's sole investor, Xinchuang Film and Television Entertainment Company, has more requirements for films than any film directed by a Chinese director in this era. Neither Hong Kong directors who are good at commercial films, nor domestic directors who are good at main theme films, have never made this kind of blockbuster that purely uses the visual impact on the battlefield as a selling point.

Including those military war films of the domestic Bayi Studio, most of the space is used for character portrayal, and the specific battle process is often very short, most of them are just blowing a charge trumpet, a group of soldiers shouting, occupying the position, and the war is over. If you want to portray more details, on the one hand, there is not enough technology, and on the other hand, there is not enough money.

And "Opium War" uses the best photographic equipment, and at the same time, the scale of funds is not capped, the only requirement is to make an epic blockbuster that refreshes the standard of Chinese war films.

Therefore, in order to shoot the best scenes, the movie tried to shoot from different angles at any cost, and finally chose some of the best shots and scenes.

It doesn't matter how much film costs here, the key is that blasting and the like don't cost money. Even the props team and demolition team sent by Bayi Film Studio couldn't help but feel numb to the employer's wealth, you must know that the cost of blasting "Opium War" is enough for Bayi Factory to shoot ten war blockbusters!

"Mr. Lin, the movie has been shot 80% of the time, and now the main reason is that some of the war scenes have not yet met the requirements, so they are being re-shot. Li Hanxiang explained to Lin Qi, "According to the schedule, it will be completely completed in the first half of next year." Post-production still needs to be polished for a while, and it will probably not be released until the second half of the western half of 86. ”

Lin Qi nodded and said, "Okay! Slow work and careful work, this movie is ultimately going to be watched by audiences all over the world." The drama and plot are too complicated, and it is estimated that the audience is impatient to have an in-depth understanding of history. Only by working on the war scene is the common language that the whole world audience can understand!"

There are too many historical cultures in the world, but even the audience in their own country who has the patience to understand the history of their country is a niche, let alone the audience of the whole world. Therefore, historical war films, the historical aspect cannot be too detailed, and can only be summarized in a nutshell. The war scene can be written about in a big way, and this aspect can be understood all over the world, regardless of the language and culture of the nation-state.

Therefore, those niche movies may work history, human nature, etc., but the blockbuster movies may work on scenes that stimulate the audience's emotions, rather than pursuing a deep understanding of history or values.