After dinner, Zhang Ran came directly to the crew's conference room, ready to hold a meeting to discuss tomorrow's work.

Since there was still some time before the meeting, Zhang Ran asked the staff to play the footage taken during the day to see the effect of the footage after being edited together. In these scenes, the actors' performances are very good, and they are also very well shot. But after editing it with the previous shots, Zhang Ran felt a little incongruous, especially the long shot.

Zhang Ran was thinking about what to do, and Zhao Fei came in. Zhang Ran said hello to Zhao Fei, showed the edited video to Zhao Fei, and then asked, "Do you think this long shot is a little wrong?"

Zhao Fei said in surprise: "I think it's very good! This shot is a subjective lens, and through the shaking of the lens, we can feel the changes in Rabe's inner mood." For example, when we see people being killed by a single shot, the camera shudges violently, and we can feel that Rabe is startled. When I got to the street, I saw the Dongying soldiers smashing and looting, especially ignoring the German flag and looting German shops, the camera shook slightly, showing Rabe's inner anger. There is not much dialogue in this shot, but through the shaking of the camera, we can clearly feel the changes in Rabe's inner mood, and the whole shot is perfect, how can there be a problem?"

Zhang Ran frowned and said: "This shot is very beautiful and exciting, but I always feel that the movie flavor is too strong, the technique is too modern, and it doesn't have the feeling of the old movies of the 3 and 40s, and when combined with other shots, it looks a little unreal." ”

Zhao Fei liked this shot very much and defended: "This kind of first-person subjective shot was available in the 3 and 40s, and it is not too modern. As for the strong flavor of the movie, there is a point. But it works well. is like the little girl in red in "Schindler's List", the movie is very strong and dramatic, but the effect is very good. Take "The Pianist" and "Schindler's List" as examples, "The Pianist" is more restrained and more realistic, while "Schindler's List" has a lot of sensationalism and seems a bit fake. But the audience eats this set, "Schindler's List" has a much greater impact on a global scale than "The Pianist". We made this film in the hope that more people will understand this matter, and it must be that the more audiences the better, some techniques may not be so real, but as long as the effect is good, I think it is acceptable. ”

Zhang Ran also considered this when he originally designed this long lens, and felt that in order to make the effect of the movie better, it was okay to make one of the shots fancy. But as the film officially started, when he felt that he had really entered this history, he was a little unacceptable to this approach: "What we want to express in this film is different from Schindler's List, and in terms of narrative structure, the story of our film switches between different time and space, which is itself dramatic, and if too many techniques are used in audiovisual language, it will affect the authenticity and seriousness of the film." Rabe and Weitling, I felt that the film had to look like it was shot in the 30s and 40s, when the cameras were bulky and difficult to move, and it was difficult to shoot long shots like that. ”

Zhao Fei felt that the effect of using a long lens was good, but he also felt that Zhang Ran's words were also reasonable, and suggested: "Since this is the case, then let's use another way, use the most simple lens to shoot today's scene again, and then see how the effect is, which effect is good, which one is good, which one to use." ”

Zhang Ran nodded and said, "Then let's discuss how to shoot this scene in the most simple way." ”

The next day, the crew reshot the scene, and this time Zhang Ran and they finished filming the scene in the most simple and almost documentary way. The crew and actors know that this is Zhang Ran's habit of making movies, and in the process of filming, he often asks a certain part of the scene to be reshot, or even all of it. Everyone didn't complain and completed the scene very cooperatively.

In the subsequent shooting, Zhang Ran adhered to his own concept, requiring that all kinds of "film techniques" be avoided to the greatest extent, and that the audiovisual language of the film be truly unpretentious, and that no trace of the director should be seen as much as possible. During the filming process, when Zhang Ran looked at the monitor, he often said: "This is not good, the movie is too flavorful, you can't shoot like this." ”

In one scene, Toho Pictures sent people to the gate of the refugee camp to distribute biscuits and apples, and took out a small copper plate for the refugees, and then the photographer Shigeru Shirai made a documentary of this scene for publicity. But at the same time, a group of Dongying soldiers climbed over the back wall of the compound and raped 12 women. Zhao Fei suggested that the Dongying people who were giving out candy at the entrance of the refugee camp should be photographed first, and then the camera should be shaken up with a rocker arm or a drone to shoot the Dongying soldiers climbing into the courtyard wall and raping women in the building, showing the hypocrisy and shamelessness of the Dongying people through comparison. But Zhang Ran firmly disagreed, he believed that in the 3,40s, there were no drones and large rocker arms, and such fancy shots could not be taken.

Time flies quickly, and in a blink of an eye, it is February, and the Spring Festival is just around the corner.

The crew of "Angel of Justice" is a "small United Nations", with a large number of foreign staff and a large number of union members, so the crew strictly abides by the union requirements in the arrangement of working hours. Eight hours of shooting a day, with a break on weekends. On important holidays like the Spring Festival, the crew is naturally very humane to give everyone other long holidays.

After last year's Spring Festival, Chinese films entered a cold winter. The industry first pinned its hopes on the summer file, then on the National Day file, and then on the Chinese New Year file, but the result was that everyone was disappointed again and again. Now everyone has pinned their hopes on this year's Spring Festival stalls, hoping that the Spring Festival stalls can recover the decline.

There are three major blockbusters released during the Spring Festival this year, namely Stephen Chow's new work "The Mermaid" launched after three years, the star-studded "Macau Vice-in-Affair 3" in Hong Kong, and the all-star visual blockbuster "Three Dozen White Bone Spirits", all three of which have strong box office appeal, among which Stephen Chow's "Mermaid" is considered to have the potential to break the box office record of "Future Apocalypse".

After seven days of fierce competition, Stephen Chow's "Mermaid" really performed the most eye-catching, achieving a box office of more than 1.8 billion. Since its release on the first day of the Lunar New Year, the movie has continued to break box office records: the box office in the pre-sale stage exceeded 100 million yuan, and the box office on the first day of release totaled 280 million, becoming the highest first-day box office and the highest single-day box office in Chinese film history, and then set the fastest record of breaking 2, 4, 6, 8, 1 billion, etc., and quickly refreshed the first-day and single-day box office records that he had just set on the first day of the Lunar New Year on Valentine's Day.

"Macau Fengyun 3" and "Three Dozen White Bone Spirits", both of which are sequels to the series, also relied on the series of signatures and super lineups to reap good box office: "Three Dozen White Bone Spirits" has a total box office of 750 million, and "Macau Fengyun 3" has a total of 780 million, which is equally divided.

At the beginning of the Year of the Monkey, the Chinese film market frantically attracted money and made great progress, once again hitting a new high at the box office: the box office from the first day of the Lunar New Year to the sixth day of the Lunar New Year reached 3 billion, and the first day of work after the seventh and post-holiday holidays coincided with Valentine's Day, and the two schedules of the Spring Festival and Valentine's Day were seamlessly connected, jointly setting an astonishing record of 3.6 billion box office, which soared by 44% compared with the 2.5 billion result of the Spring Festival last year. This amazing achievement has brought a wave of warmth to Chinese films in the cold winter, and it has also greatly relieved many people in the industry, and many people have begun to predict that the most difficult time has passed, and Chinese films will come out of the cold winter this year.

Zhang Ran is not so optimistic, this year's situation should be better than last year, but I'm afraid it's not much better. Watching movies during the Spring Festival is just needed, and there is also the hit Stephen Chow's "Mermaid", so the box office of the Spring Festival stalls exploded. But as far as the whole year is concerned, except for the summer file "Full Band Blocking Interference", there is still a lack of popular films.

However, Zhang Ran feels that it is not necessarily a bad thing for the cold winter to continue for another year or two, and now that the star capital in the market is cold and the followers are withdrawing, the entire film industry is gradually moving towards a benign development path.

Early in the morning of February 20th, hundreds of reporters rushed to Shiqiu Film and Television Base to interview the crew of "Angel of Justice". However, this time, the security guards at the base did not stop them, because today the crew opened the media to visit the class.

As soon as the media reporters walked into the film and television base, Cao Bingkun greeted them. He smiled and said to the reporters present: "Friends from the media, welcome to the crew of "Angel of Justice" to visit the class. I'm Cao Bingkun. Mr. Zhang asked me to receive everyone and show them around. I'll take you to the base first, and then I'll take you to the site for an interview!"

A reporter asked: "Cao Bingkun, what role do you play in the movie?"

Cao Bingkun said with a smile: "I play Han Xianglin in the movie, and I am Rabe's secretary!"

A reporter said: "It's the traitor played by Fan Wei in "Nanjing", Nanjing!"

Cao Bingkun immediately stopped when he heard this, and corrected him very seriously: "No, Han Xianglin is not a traitor, but a real hero!" Cao Bingkun immediately briefly told Han Xianglin's deeds, and finally came to a conclusion: "It is very shameful to smear such a hero as a traitor!"

The reporter who said that Han Xianglin was a traitor said embarrassedly: "I was misled by Lu Chuan's "Nanjing Nanjing", thinking that Secretary Rabe was really a traitor!

Under the leadership of Cao Bingkun, the reporters visited the location of the crew. As he walked, Cao Bingkun introduced the buildings on both sides of the road to reporters. The old buildings on both sides of the street, as well as the dilapidated buildings, give reporters the feeling of traveling back in time and space to 1937. The reporters were quiet and didn't make a big fuss, just clicked their cameras to take pictures from time to time.

Cao Bingkun told reporters that the scene layout is completely in accordance with the design and construction of the historical safety zone and related buildings, from the whole real scene to a prop, which is very elegant. Zhang Ran demanded that all elements have a historical provenance, such as the furniture in Rabe's room was all antiques bought from the Modu antique store, his watches were bought from the Dongying antique store, and the boxes were selected from a dozen antique boxes bought from the Modu. Even the leaflets thrown by the Toei plane were copied according to the historical originals.

At the same time of visiting, Cao Bingkun also told everyone interesting things about the crew, such as the Chinese actors basically don't talk to the Dongying actors during filming, and when they arrive at the filming site, seeing them wearing Japanese military uniforms and holding bayonets, everyone feels uncomfortable and can't deal with them at all. For example, at a dinner, Duan Yihong pulled the Japanese assistant director and said earnestly: "How can you do this, do you say this is done by people?"

After a walk around the base, Cao Bingkun took the reporters to Jinnu University. At this time, the campus of Jinnu University was full of people, not only a large number of staff members were busy, but also hundreds of young girls in refugee clothes were standing. On the trees around the lawn, the washed clothes and children's diapers were drying, and they looked green.

Directly in front of the lawn, Zhang Ran is telling the girls who are playing refugees how to act. There were also several actors standing next to Zhang Ran, and the reporters recognized Tukel, Siqin Gaowa, and Xing Jiadong who played Rabe.

The reporters took out their cameras one after another, and they took a burst of hard shots at Zhang Ran. While frantically pressing the shutter, a reporter asked Cao Bingkun: "What is the main purpose of filming today's scene?"