On October 30, 1984, "Life and Death" was finally started in the studio of ILM!

There was no press conference, no flashing lights, and no complicated ceremonies, and the crew quietly started filming.

“Cut！”

Just ten seconds after the first test shooting, Wang Jie shouted to stop, he stood up from behind the director's camera, walked back and forth several times between the props and sets arranged in the elevator room on the ground floor of the building, and finally stood in the middle of the shooting location.

Zeng Jiang, who played the villain, and another extra, were all put aside.

Some scenes are fine with the naked eye, but with a camera, the smallest problems are infinitely magnified.

"The lights were a little bit darker, and I needed a more metallic gray texture. ”

After thinking about it for a few minutes in combination with the picture just shot, Wang Jie found that there were problems with the scene and camera position he had conceived, after all, the movie was ten years ahead of schedule, and many technologies did not meet the requirements. Wang Jie tried to readjust, "The position of the No. 2 camera is moved to the left thirty degrees, you only need to capture Zeng's back, and the costume is ......."

The costumer immediately raised his hand next to him.

Walking next to Zeng Jiang, Wang Jie pointed to his somewhat shabby work clothes and said, "Change the one with a more gray color." ”

Then, Wang Jie turned his head and said to the extras who played the security guard: "You come with me." ”

Wang Jie walked to the door of the elevator room, turned to look at the extras who came with him, pointed to the place where he came, and said, "Your surprised expression just now is too heavy, you should pay attention to restraint, you have to walk along the outside of Zeng." ”

Seeing the other party's solemn nod, Wang Jie observed the camera position again, and then returned to the back of the director's camera.

The adjustment was completed quickly, and at the signal of Wang Jie, assistant director Chen Xunqi shouted "start"!

Wang Jie concentrated and stared at the footage captured by the camera, and the security guard in the picture quickly walked to Zeng Jiang's side to check his repair order, and then the camera fell on Zeng Jiang's right hand hidden behind the repair order......

Wang Jie immediately frowned and shouted directly: "Stop!"

He strode up to Zeng Jiang and took the repair order, the white paper was full of messy letters, maybe even the gods couldn't understand what was written on it.

"Props!" Wang Jie's voice was unusually loud, "I want a fake maintenance order, not this!"

He motioned to the person in charge of the props team to put down the piece of paper, and the other party hurriedly ran over, and without waiting for him to explain anything, Wang Jie said directly: "You have ten minutes to solve it!"

Wang Jie doesn't want to cause flaws in the film because of small mistakes.

Filming soon restarted, and in less than ten minutes, the props team produced another repair order, regardless of whether these people have doubts about Wang Jie, professionalism is still there, taking money to do things is the most basic principle of Hollywood, if you can't even do this, these people will not have the current qualifications and status.

"Adjust the fourth plane to the air and shoot overhead!"

The set was busy but not chaotic, Wang Jie held the megaphone and kept giving orders, "Huang Yuetai, there is a problem with the aperture of your No. 2 camera, readjust the white balance." Machine Three, you just have to stare at the heroine!"

Throwing the megaphone to Chen Xunqi next to him, Wang Jie walked into the built bus, nodded to the actors who greeted him, and walked directly to the driver's seat.

"Sandra Bullock, you had a big problem with the test shoot. ”

Sitting in the driver's seat was a 171-centimeter-tall brown-haired woman, like most Hollywood actresses, she was very thin and had a large skeleton.

"You were acting too wild. Wang Jie reminded her, "Be more restrained, and don't stare at your eyes, this is a very bad habit, your facial lines are already tough, and the look of staring is too comedic!"

Turning around, Wang Jie looked at Keanu Reeves again, perhaps too young, and he had a lot of prodigal breath on him.

"Keanu, put away all your cynicism! I don't demand much of you, tense your face and show the most serious expression!"

"I see. ”

Keanu Reeves nodded seriously, he was afraid that Wang Jie would replace him.

Glancing at him again, Wang Jie turned around and walked into the back compartment, from the moment he entered the crew, Keanu Reeves was respectful to Wang Jie, and many things were very restrained.

"And you!"

In the carriage sat Asian, African, Latino and white actors including Nicole Kidman, who came to make a cameo, Wang Jie's eyes swept over them one by one, "You are not decorations, every expression of you will have an impact on the movie, don't let me see your dull expressions again, otherwise I will replace you all!"

After getting off the temporary bus, Wang Jie returned to his position, deployed various departments, and soon after calling the scene cleared, the shooting continued.

This kind of action film does not have particularly strict requirements for actors, and Wang Jie does not need difficult long shots, after more than ten days of shooting, the efficiency of the crew has improved a lot.

After the morning shooting, after Wang Jie had lunch, he took several teams such as photography and special effects to leave ILM in several cars and go to a small town on the eastern edge of Los Angeles.

The crew's motorcade crossed the town to the easternmost point, turned into a fork in the road, and drove for about five minutes before finally stopping in front of a white wooden house.

The house is not big, that is, hundreds of square feet, because the crew has just repaired it a few days ago, the house is not dilapidated from the outside, and the most important thing is that the house is separated from the surrounding neighbors by a considerable distance, even if a Tomahawk missile explodes, it will not affect other people.

All the formalities had already been completed, and after Wang Jie and the others got off the bus, they immediately started to get busy.

The special effects team and pyrotechnics team were busy arranging explosives, the two producers were communicating with the owner of the house, and Wang Jie commanded the camera team to set up the camera position.

Fortunately, Wang Jie had watched a lot of on-site shooting of explosion shots in his previous life, and the pyrotechnicians from the DreamWorks special effects department called from Xiangjiang played with explosives.

"Huang Yuetai, arrange the No. 1 and No. 2 machines on the front. ”

Standing on the lawn in front of the house, Wang Jie explained to director of photography Huang Yuetai: "These two cameras use a wide angle to shoot. The No. 3 and No. 4 machines were arranged at an oblique angle of 45 degrees respectively to capture a close-up picture of the explosion. Also, what about the high-speed camera I want?"

"Ready. Huang Yuetai asked Wang Jie to look at the high-speed camera that he had purchased at a huge cost.

"This is the number five. Wang Jie looked at the dummy in police uniform placed on the side, "Put the camera on its body." ”

Obviously, Wang Jie wanted to use it to capture the internal explosion.

Just as Huang Yuetai was about to leave, Wang Jie grabbed his arm and reminded: "The camera should be arranged eighty meters away!"

Although he attaches great importance to this shooting, Wang Jie does not want a tragedy to happen.

After explaining this, he entered the house again, turned the hallway, and entered a bedroom, where the props team was setting up, trying to restore the scene of the studio, which was also the first explosion point.

Seeing the pyrotechnic group that planted explosives at the support point of the house, Wang Jie suddenly felt an itchy feeling, in his previous life he used a lot of bomb explosives when he was a "scavenger", but now he will not rob other people's jobs, for him, shooting explosions is more interesting than making explosions.

Walking out of the house, the four cameras on the front and the inclined plane had been set up, Wang Jie walked across the lawn, walked behind several cameras to check the shooting angles one by one, and only after confirming that there was no problem did he return to the vicinity of the No. 1 camera.

"Why use line control?"

Looking at the person who was wiring in the distance, Chen Xunqi asked curiously: "Isn't wireless remote control more convenient?"

"You don't know?" Wang Jie saw that he was at a loss, and explained a few words simply.

Wire-controlled explosion is a guideline that the crew must abide by when shooting, many people think that the explosion is operated by the pyrotechnic master with a remote control, but in fact it is not, because the wireless signal is unstable, it is easy to cause accidental explosion, and the wire control is safer.

Under normal circumstances, the explosives used by the crew for filming are also completely different from military or mining explosives, the latter two are based on the principle that the solid instantly turns into gas, and the explosion is huge;

In some bomb explosion shots, the power of soft explosives is obviously insufficient, and the shooting effect is not good, in fact, it is easy to solve, you can fill the inside of the bomb made of plastic foam with some dirt and dust, and after the explosion, there will be a dusty effect.

Of course, if you want to shoot a ship, a large car, or a house blown up, you have to use military explosives.

What the pyrotechnic team is deploying and controlling is military explosives!

In order to meet Wang Jie's requirements, the amount of explosives required was quite large, and the pyrotechnic team placed nearly 10 kilograms of explosives in various key parts of the house, obviously not only to blow up the house, but to let it completely enjoy the treatment of a dirt plane.

After a full four hours, the on-site layout work was over, and all the cars drove into the distance, and Wang Jie stood behind the No. 1 machine and raised the megaphone.

"Clear?"

"Cleared!"

"Photography?"

"Ready!"

“……”

After the routine inquiry, Wang Jie raised his finger to the fireworks group, and the fireworks team immediately replied with an "OK" gesture, and the other person shouted the countdown in the loudest voice.

“10，9，8，7…… 3，2，1！”

"Detonate!"

An invisible electric current activated the detonated gunpowder along the line, and a deafening explosion suddenly sounded, and the orange-red fire rushed into the air about thirty meters away, and the white wooden house disintegrated in an instant, countless fragments scattered and splashed, and the scorching waves of air rushed like the tide of the sea.

A large amount of debris fell less than fifty meters ahead, the manic waves of air pushed the hair back, the earplug-wearing ears buzzed, and the ground seemed to tremble under his feet......

All of this could not distract Wang Jie, he was engrossed in controlling the camera, like the most fanatical religious element, using the camera to worship the firelight of the explosion!

"Oh my God!

With trembling hands, Chen Xunqi slowly took off the earbuds, bent down to support the sudden thighs, staring at the young boss who was still controlling the camera, after getting along with each other in the past few years, Chen Xunqi only discovered today that the boss who is a steady gentleman on weekdays still has such a wild side, and Wang Jie at this time is simply a madman in his opinion!

This explosion blew up more than $300,000. Frankly speaking, Wang Jie is not very satisfied with the effect of this shooting, although it is the first time to shoot an explosion scene in this life, but compared to the explosion scenes flooded in various movies in the original time and space in the previous life, the explosion they made and shot is really nothing, and the Hollywood pyrotechnicians and camera team at this time still lack experience in this area.

However, Wang Jie can't ask for more, after all, such a technology requires a long time of exploration.

According to the pre-set shooting plan, after returning to the set, the crew turned to model shooting, such as nonsense and costly shots such as bus leaping, Wang Jie switched to model shooting, and the realistic model created by Industrial Light and Magic will not affect the shooting effect too much.

Eventually, most of the models inevitably exploded, with a 20-foot-long model of a Boeing freighter and a similarly scaled down bus on the outdoor set of ILM.

In the first week of December, Wang Jie even completed the filming task that had been planned for two weeks, which is not only related to the gradual maturity of the crew, but also related to the fact that he always makes plans from the most difficult angles.

After a short week off at Christmas, the intense and hectic filming began again, but fortunately, the main locations were in Santa Monica and the greater Los Angeles area, and the crew also avoided the need to travel long distances.

Mr. Wang rented an unfinished highway from Santa Monica to Long Beach as the main filming location, rented hundreds of used cars from three car rental agencies, and secured advertising sponsorship from Ford and four buses from Volkswagen for free.

Wang Jie showed his profound side, he had already contacted the Los Angeles County Police Department, and the police were very interested in Wang Jie's distinctive Los Angeles police propaganda film, and would participate in the whole process of location shooting.

This is the norm in North America, where Congress, the Pentagon, the FBI, the CIA, HSD authorities, and even the public sector in some major cities have offices or liaison offices dedicated to dealing with Hollywood, and often participate in the filming of Hollywood films in order to promote their positive image.

"Life and Death" is simply too much in line with the needs of the Los Angeles police, and with Wang Jie's name, they will not only send a SWAT team as a background map, but also provide a variety of equipment including police helicopters, except for fuel costs, basically no other fees.

This saved Wang Jie's crew a lot of money.

For the next ten days, the crew basically spent time surrounded by collisions and noise, and several of the main actors completely retreated to the second line, selling their faces in front of the camera most of the time, and the stuntmen and the vehicles they drove were the protagonists in front of the camera.

Filming such a scene, it is inevitable that someone will be injured, not to mention a few stuntmen with minor injuries, even Chen Xunqi, the assistant director, was scratched his eyebrow bone by flying car debris during a shooting.

Fortunately, it is only a skin injury, and a piece of medical tape is pasted, which will not affect the work at all.

The bright sun shone on the earth, dozens of cars of all kinds were parked on the originally empty highway, the props team was busy replacing the road markings, and the stunt team installed the three cars on the catapult frame, and adjusted the appropriate ejection angle according to the requirements put forward by Wang Jie.

Wang Jie was standing on the side of the road, discussing the next shooting with Huang Yuetai, and the assistant director Chen Xunqi hurried over.

"Boss, you're going to install a wireless camera in a car again?" he asked directly, "In the last week of shooting, you've already destroyed three expensive wireless cameras in crashes and explosions!"

Turning his head, Wang Jie looked at him, "Your boss is a rich man, and besides, these losses are inevitable!"

After speaking, he stopped caring about Chen Xunqi and walked directly towards the director's camera.

"Rich people are willful. Chen Xunqi looked at Wang Jie's distant back, and said with anticipation to director of photography Huang Yuetai: "When will I be content to shoot a blockbuster like my boss!"

"Follow the boss and you will definitely become a great director. Huang Yuetai said with emotion: "I have followed the boss for a few years, and I feel that my growth is simply earth-shaking!"

"Props?"

Standing on the slide table behind the director's camera, Wang Jie made a routine inquiry into the loudspeaker, "Camera?"

“OK！”

"Stunts?"

“OK……”

"All departments are ready to ......" Wang Jie put a Los Angeles Raiders hat on his head, "The one hundred and thirty-third game, the twenty-fifth act, begins!"

When he sat behind the camera, the sound of the car's motor sounded one after another, and a bus came speeding from a distance, because it did not slow down and turn, and ran into several moving cars one after another, which in turn crashed into other cars, and then the catapult started, and several cars rolled and flew into the air......

Car doors, bumpers, broken car glass, like a downpour, poured on the nearby pavement.

“CUT！”

Standing up from behind the camera, Wang Jie waved his fist vigorously, "Very good!"

Medical and rescue workers, who had been waiting on the side of the road for a long time, swarmed to the scene of the "crash" and dragged several stunt drivers out of the car, but they were not injured because safety measures were in place.

"Rest for half an hour!"

After such an exciting scene, Wang Jie also temporarily let the crew relax, people can't always be tense.

The unstoppable arrival of February, with Wang Jie blowing up a bus into scrap metal, the filming finally reached the final stage.

At sunset, Wang Jie set up the camera on the scrapped communication tower at Los Angeles International Airport, using a wide-angle lens to capture rare beautiful pictures, Wang Jie likes to focus on shooting sunrise and dusk shots, which will make the picture very beautiful and refreshing on the big screen.

Throughout the filming, Wang Jie used the filming techniques that were widely used in Hollywood in the future and are almost rarely used now, such as using medium shots and mixing upward angles to create an exciting feeling, such as shooting car chase scenes, allowing the camera's main perspective to chase car tires......

In making this film, Wang Jie's first consideration is the attraction to the audience, and what is shown to them must be the freshest and most exciting pictures.

This is the fourth day in a row that Wang Jie has used a wide-angle lens to shoot the scene of sunset and dusk, and if it weren't for the film's time constraints, he would have made Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock walk several laps at sunrise and sunset every day.

After capturing the satisfactory footage, Wang Jie handed over the camera to others to deal with, and returned to the set on the edge of the airport, ready to shoot the last shot of the whole film.

"The No. 2 machine on the boom lowers the angle of the overhead shot, and then lowers it fifteen degrees, and that's it. ”

looked at the prepared heroes and heroines, Wang Jie finally reminded, "The No. 1 machine surrounds 360 degrees, capture close-ups of faces!"

After a thrilling life-and-death race, the hero and heroine kiss heartily.

After Wang Jie shouted to start, Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, a typical American girl, kissed together......

"I announce......" After this scene ended, Wang Jie said loudly: "All the filming of "Life and Death" is over!"

The applause rang out, and all the cast and crew who were physically and mentally exhausted could finally rest, and after more than three months of filming, except for Wang Jie, who was still full of energy, everyone else was completely exhausted.

After all, in the last month, everyone has lived in an environment full of noise, speeding, collisions, and even explosions every day, and even the most energetic people have almost exhausted their physical strength and enthusiasm.

The crew returns to ILM, seals the film, temporarily stores the equipment, and then puts on nothing else, changes into glamorous costumes, and heads straight to a famous nightclub in Burbank for the carnival party that is essential when the Hollywood crew is finished.

After the shooting, most of the others can enjoy a long vacation, but Wang Jie also has to direct the post-production work of the film.

Before the advent of digital production, the post-production of "Life and Death" would definitely use film throughout the process, and all the special effects of this film were either shot on location or through models, and computer special effects technology was not used at all.

In early April 1985, Wang Jie finally completed the production of "Speed of Life and Death", but he did not rest, but moved to another battlefield.