A field is full of craters, a string of tank wreckage is parked on the side of the road, integrated boards, memory circuits, and robotic vision processors are scattered all over the ground, shining in the sun. On the side of town, things weren't much better, with the corpses of human soldiers, the floor strewn with all sorts of items, canvas bags, broken beer bottles, cigarettes, gas masks, barrels for gas masks, and ammunition packs.

There were also scattered pieces of paper next to the corpse, including family letters, love letters, and pictures of beautiful girls. One of the group photos shows four young soldiers, wearing exoskeleton armor, and behind them stands a row of robot soldiers under their command, a total of eight, and it can be seen that this is a squad of soldiers.

Zhang Ran was standing next to a futuristic command car telling Matt Damon in military uniform; on the other side, the first assistant director was telling the extras what they should do when Matt Damon came over in a while; not far away, Williams and his pyrotechnics team were making smoke effects with a mixer of coffee beans and imported cooking oil; lighting, photography, and other crews were busy with their work.

Because of the smoke produced by the mixing of coffee beans with cooking oil, the air is filled with a faint aroma. Several domestic staff sighed that it was too extravagant, that kind of cooking oil would cost tens of thousands of yuan for an hour, and 50 kilograms of coffee beans would cost 10,000 yuan.

After more than an hour, the preparations were ready, and the shooting began. Today, I mainly filmed a scene where Major Adams felt that the command car was too stuffy, went out for a walk, and met Colonel Gu.

Although Matt Damon is working with Zhang Ran for the first time, he has made sufficient preparations before filming, and today's scene itself is not difficult, four scenes in a row are all passed at one time, and the next thing to shoot is a scene where Matt Damon plays Adams and Robert De Niro play Colonel Gu meet.

Filming soon began, and in the camera shot, Matt Damon was stunned when he saw an officer in the uniform of the Russian army slowly riding a bicycle over. The officer wore an exaggerated saber pinned to his waist, making him look like a World War I cavalry captain. The man rode and stopped in front of a crater.

Matt Damon hurriedly crouched to the side, observing the movements of the Soviet officer. The guy pulled his bike aside and crouched in front of a wrecked personnel carrier to pick up a charred circuit board. Matt Damon raised his pistol and shouted, "Don't move." ”

Robert De Niro was stunned for a moment, then showed a strange smile: "You are from the 1st Cavalry Division, right? I searched the whole town just now to find you, but I found nothing but a bag of coffee and this broken car." ”

Matt Damon was very vigilant, took a step back, and shouted: "This is the US military defense area! Raise your hands and put them behind your head!"

Robert De Niro took out his ID from his jacket pocket and threw it at Matt Damon: "I'm a friendly soldier!" He straightened his chest and said proudly, "Didn't you notice that a brilliant Russian colonel was coming?"

Matt Damon took the document and flipped through it in his hand. Robert De Niro pointed to the gun in Matt Damon's hand and asked casually, "Can you take what you have in your hand away?" Gone to court martial. ”

Matt Damon was very cautious, he was informed that the AI had now mastered the technology of making simulators, and said coldly: "How do I know this thing is not fake?"

Robert De Niro reminded, "You can go to the authentication machine and try it. But hurry, I'm not used to being pointed at gunpoint. ”

Matt Damon seized Robert De Niro's gun and escorted him to the position.

"Wait a minute. Robert De Niro picked up the bicycle next to him and grinned, "Don't you want a bicycle? ”

Matt Damon thinks this guy is too noisy: "Shut up, you can say as much as you want when your identity is confirmed." ”

Robert De Niro shrugged his shoulders and said, "That's good, there's just a battle here, right?"

Matt Damon said, "That was three hours ago. ”

Robert De Niro pursed his lips and said disdainfully: "It seems that AI commanders can also make mistakes, there is at least one company lying here." ”

Matt Damon glanced at the command vehicle from afar: "We have lost a lot. ”

Zhang Ran was very satisfied, Matt Damon showed Adams's caution, and Robert De Niro brought the Russian colonel to life. Robert De Niro has had a lot of bad movies in recent years, and even fans have begged him to stop taking bad movies. Now that great actor is back! Zhang Ran stood up, shouted "stop", applauded loudly at the two, and said, "This scene is amazing!"

After confirming that the sound and picture were fine, Zhang Ran announced that the shot had passed. The crew all moved, performed their duties, and began to prepare for the next shot, and the crew was once again running in an orderly manner.

In the next two days, the filming of "Future Apocalypse" went very smoothly, and the scene "After Adams met Colonel Goo, he followed Goo's advice and retreated with his troops" The filming was successfully completed.

That night, Zhang Ran was discussing tomorrow's shooting plan with the director team, and Williams came over to tell Zhang Ran that the preparations for the first war scene had been made and could officially start filming.

"Future Apocalypse" has a lot of war scenes, and there are several particularly complex long shots, and the preparation alone takes almost a week. And war dramas can't be improvised, and if they do, they may kill people. There are too many such examples, "My Commander, My Regiment" exploded during the filming of a war scene, the pyrotechnic master was unfortunately killed, and two assistants were injured; "Sorghum is Red" suddenly exploded during the filming of war scenes, resulting in Zhu Yawen, Wang Ting and other four actors were injured and hospitalized, of which Wang Ting's injuries were identified by the hospital as: deep second-degree burns on both arms, second-degree burns on the face.

The war drama seems very simple, just dig a hole in the ground, bury it in gunpowder, and then detonate it. Actually, if you don't know how much medicine to put in, how big a hole to dig, how powerful the shock wave can produce, etc., then the explosion point created is likely to cause an accident. Therefore, before filming a blasting scene, the most important thing is to do a test, first conduct 2 to 3 test explosions at the explosion point, and take the average value according to the scattering range of stones and soil, so as to determine the position of a good actor. In this way, the blasting power can be avoided and the actor will be injured.

Generally speaking, a war scene will go through four steps: mapping, test explosion, positioning, and prevention, but in order to save costs, some domestic crews often do not allow pyrotechnics to test explosions, and there are no corresponding defensive measures.

Zhang Ran: The next scene they are going to shoot is the battle that Adams and Gu talked about, a scene in which a robotic infantry company charges Major Adams under the cover of more than 20 unmanned tanks, and the first shot is a long shot. The shot begins in mid-air, initially charging close to the robot troops, slowly pushing towards Adams and them, and finally stopping at Adams' position.

This shot is one of the most difficult shots in "Future Apocalypse", not only because of the length of the lens, the large number of characters, the complex scheduling, the drone has to fly thousands of meters away, but because the drone has to cross the bombing point at an ultra-low altitude, and the dirt and dust that are blown up may make the drone lose control or even crash.

However, Zhang Ran insisted on this effect, the explosion point exploded on the ground, the fire was soaring and the dust was flying, and the camera lens passed through the fire and dust in the sky, just like a bomb exploding in front of you, the immersive visual impact and spiritual shock are incomparable to ordinary lenses.

This scene is very difficult to film, not only the stability and convenience of the drone are extremely high, but also the camera movement and flight trajectory must be perfectly coordinated with the actors on the ground, otherwise it will be difficult to achieve the effect. In order to shoot this scene well, Zhang Ran hired the famous American aerial photography team Flying-Cam, ordered ten of the latest drones from the Swedish drone manufacturer Intuitive-Aerial, and customized 20 red-epic cameras from RED that have not yet been marketed, ten of which were installed on the drone.

The next morning, Zhang Ran arrived at the filming site, and as far as the eye could see, hundreds of small red flags were planted within a kilometer or two of the ground, and he knew that each small red flag represented a bombing point, and then the actors had to start moving according to the arrangement of the director and pyrotechnician, and let them watch the red flag run more than a dozen times, and wait until they remembered the location, and then pulled out the red flag for real shooting.

Many of Hollywood's blasting scenes use gas explosions, first dig a pit in the ground, put in an air bag, cover it with dirt, and blast the soil very open with air, which looks good, and the air explosion does not use explosives, so there is no fire, and the damage to the actors is very small.

Zhang Ran's explosion points in this scene are both gas blasts and explosives, because the earth cannot be blown up to a height of five or six meters with air explosions, and several of the flaming explosion points are mixed with gasoline, these are real fires and real explosions, and they are lethal, so every minute, every second, and every centimeter of distance must be accurate, so as to achieve excellence and avoid hurting the actors.

The real tanks and prop tanks needed for filming this war have arrived, and the Irish soldiers who play the soldiers have also arrived early, and their faces are full of excitement and a look of eagerness.

Zhang Ran called the soldiers over, held the bullhorn, and said with a serious expression: "Gentlemen, there are more than 100 explosives behind you, some of which are real explosives, which are exploded at different times. So, when you are rehearsing, you must listen to the arrangement of the staff, and remember your position, this is not a joke, this is responsible for your family, and you are also responsible for yourself!"

It turned out that the giggling soldiers couldn't laugh all of a sudden, and their expressions were a little nervous.

After Zhang Ran finished singing with a white face, it was time for Williams to appear with a red face, he looked at the soldiers and said lightly: "Gentlemen, you don't have to be too nervous. I have been working in pyrotechnic special effects for almost 30 years, and I have never had an accident in war films that everyone is very familiar with, such as "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers", and I believe it will not be this time. However, there is a prerequisite that everyone must listen to the arrangement of me and the director, remember the bombing points around you, as long as you follow the route we set, there will be absolutely no problems!"

After Williams finished speaking, Zhang Ran began to divide the soldiers into groups, divided them into areas, assigned them tasks in blocks, what actions to do, where to run, where to fall, and then let them rehearse under the leadership of the pyrotechnic master.