In one of the fleet's Land Rover SUVs, Jodie Foster sat next to Eric with a thick stack of Gravity storyboards on his lap. The pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info shooting is coming to an end, and she finally got her wish to ask for all the hand-drawn drawings of Eric, intending to use it as her collection.

Retracting her gaze from the two helicopters in the air outside the car window, Judy looked at Eric, who was watching a video on her laptop with headphones on, and said, "Eric, so flamboyant, aren't you afraid that we will be watched tomorrow?"

Eric pressed the pause button, took off the headphones, and wondered, "What?"

Judy rolled her eyes slightly, repeated what she had just said, and said, "The last time I was filming a location scene of "Chrono Contact" in New Mexico, in order to prevent reporters from secretly taking photos on the set, Robert was simply anxious. Now North American journalists must be more hungry for the news of "Gravity", right?"

Since the establishment of "Gravity", except for a small amount of official information released by the Firefly Group, the media has hardly received any other information related to the film. Whether it is Eric's super-rich status at this time or his new work after two consecutive global billion-level films, it is enough to make North American media large and small try to dig up more news related to "Gravity", but unfortunately, most of the footage of the film was shot in a high-security studio, and paparazzi reporters have no way to start even if they want to dig up the news.

At this time, the entire crew of "Gravity" was dispatched, and it is conceivable that a large group of reporters will flock to it next.

In fact, at this time, the front and rear of the convoy were already following a lot of media vehicles.

Although it is about to be completed, there is still more than a year before the release of the film, in order to maintain freshness, it is not suitable to release too much news related to the movie at this time, Judy has been in the circle for so long, so she naturally understands this truth, so she will have the worry just now.

Eric smiled lightly and said, "Don't worry, they can't shoot anything." ”

Judy's eyes flashed, remembering the destination of the convoy at this time, as well as the words revealed by Eric some time ago, and suddenly said, "You mean, we are not going to the real shooting site now?"

"Yes and no," Eric laughs and explains, "I wanted to use the aerial shot of the capsule falling from space, but we shot the last part of the landing in the northern Colorado River Valley." ”

Eric said, winking at Judy, "Remember to keep it a secret, not many people know about this news now." ”

"I'm the heroine, and I only told me now," Judy glanced at Eric, didn't continue the conversation, glanced at the laptop screen on Eric's lap, and wondered, "What are you looking at, well, this is Michael Eisner?"

Eric unplugged his headphones and started playing video again, and Michael Eisner's voice came out of his laptop.

“…… While committed to the research and development of CG special effects software and technology, Light and Shadow Times will also invest in the research and development of new 3D film projection technology. 3D movies have appeared for nearly a hundred years, although the development of related technologies has been very slow, but with the advent of the era of film special effects, we have reason to believe that 3D movies are likely to become a new film industry development trend after both sound films and color films. Whether it's Universal, Warner, or Paramount, they're all very optimistic about the future of 3D movies......"

After watching the second half of the video with Eric, Judy said, "This is, the press conference?"

Eric nodded: "The press conference of a film special effects company jointly established by Universal, Warner and Paramount, the age of light and shadow, you just heard." ”

"Hehe, now, there are opponents in the digital field, and 3D movies, Universal They also have to follow up. ”

Eric smiled: "Maybe, but there is competition to make progress, I have always felt that both people and enterprises cannot do without opponents." ”

That being said, the so-called 'Age of Light' established by the three companies didn't really make Eric feel much threatened, and he knew very well that it was just the other three's reaction to the Firefly system swallowing up Columbia Pictures again.

This is not because of arrogance, because special effects companies need special effects film projects if they want to develop. Eric can confidently say that the film projects in the hands of the other three companies will definitely not be able to support their ambitions to compete with the digital field in the era of light and shadow.

Moreover, usually, a film needs to put forward various special effects requirements before the special effects company will carry out targeted technical research and development. However, Eric has been urging the digital field to reuse the various special effects technologies that have been developed for archiving over the years, and has achieved very good results.

For common CG special effects, such as storms, explosions, motion capture, large-scale war scenes and other technologies, the digital field has a very mature technical solution, although in recent years, the digital field has rarely undertaken film projects from other companies other than the Firefly system, but the digital field is very open to licensing these general technical solutions.

Under the influence of this special business strategy in the digital field, many small special effects studios have sprung up in Hollywood in recent years, and these small special effects studios or special effects companies do not have too independent technical research and development departments, but purchase finished special effects software and related technical solutions from the digital field.

Compared with setting up a team to spend a few months writing a storm special effects code, you can buy a fully mature special effects scheme from the digital field for only tens of thousands of dollars, which is far more than independent research and development in terms of cost, time and special effects. Whoever you are, you know what choice to make.

On the other hand, the projects obtained by these special effects studios are basically the seven major Hollywood outsourced lenses, and most of them are the firefly system itself.

By controlling the direction of project outsourcing, the Firefly system can also indirectly influence and even control the development of these small special effects studios, making them become vassals in the digital realm in disguise. These small special effects studios, while capable of surviving relatively well, will never be able to pose much of a threat to the digital realm.

Even, in the future, once the special effects industry becomes sluggish, as long as the special effects outsourcing strategy is tightened, these small vassal studios can be easily sacrificed to help the digital field resist risks in disguise.

As for the other three newly established Light and Shadow Times, perhaps they will invest a certain amount of money in technology research and development in the early stage. However, when the three companies found that for most special effects lenses, the cost of independent research and development technology will not only be much higher than that of those small special effects studios, but also the human resource cost of subsequent specific CG picture production is also much higher than that of the same industry, and it is difficult for the light and shadow era to rely on the sale of software and technical solutions to obtain additional income like the digital field.

Then, after a few years, the top management of the three companies will definitely gradually give up their full support for the era of light and shadow, and continue to be implicitly controlled by the digital field in disguise. The era of light and shadow will gradually become a chicken-like existence, after all, even the basic special effects technology cannot be perfected, and the development of more in-depth special effects technology is impossible.

Historically, the most cutting-edge special effects technology has always been in the hands of a few companies such as Industrial Light & Magic, and some of Hollywood's best special effects films have always been produced by these companies.

However, several major special effects giants did not adopt the business strategy in the digital field at this time, and the special effects companies that rose later, no matter how big or small, basically need to develop new technical solutions on their own in the face of the differentiated needs of customers on the basis of some basic industry special effects software, and these technologies are likely to have been repeatedly developed and used by other special effects companies many times.

The repeated loss of resources in all aspects not only greatly increases the operating costs of the entire industry, but also makes those small special effects companies have no dependency relationship with the giants in the digital field. When the winter era of the special effects industry comes, all special effects companies are having a better and worse time, and they can only reduce costs by constantly moving to tax refund areas, and at the same time engage in vicious competition in price, which undoubtedly creates a vicious circle that damages the entire industry more.

As for the development of 3D cinema technology that Michael Eisner also mentioned in the video, Eric is a little wary that it would be a bit bad if there were two completely different sets of 3D playback standards for the entire industry in the future.

However, none of these things can be done overnight, and Eric can only wait and see what happens.

What Judy can think of, the experienced "Gravity" production team can also think about.

So, although the convoy made all the way to Phoenix, Arizona, the crew soon drove directly into a closed private resort in the north of the city. A large number of reporters who were stopped outside the resort watched the convoy disappear and could only jump to their feet in disappointment to take a few inconsequential photos of the convoy's back. As for the long-awaited core characters of the crew, they didn't even see a shadow at all.

After a six- or seven-hour drive from Los Angeles to Phoenix, everyone was already very tired, and naturally there was no work today.

After settling the group, Eric went back to his lodgings, took a shower, and came out of the bathroom, it was five o'clock in the afternoon.

There was a knock on the door, and Eric walked over and pulled it open.

Caroline's face turned slightly red when she saw Eric wearing a bathrobe, and said, "Eric, Mr. Stewart has returned from Lake Powell." ”

Lake Powell was the location for several of Eric's planned post-landing scenes, on the Colorado River in the north, about 200 kilometers from Phoenix.

As for Lake Pleasant, which is more than ten kilometers north of Phoenix, which is actually the drinking water reservoir of Phoenix, Eric did not choose to shoot the post-landing scene on this lake, on the one hand, to avoid the idea of the media, and on the other hand, it was actually the city of Phoenix that did not approve the filming request of the crew of "Gravity" due to environmental protection considerations.

As the producer of "Gravity", William Stewart had already rushed to Lake Powell three days ago with several assistants to re-explore the filming site to ensure that filming would run smoothly in the coming days.

"It's almost dinner time, let William go to the restaurant, I'll come over later," Eric nodded, looked at Caroline's shy little appearance, and smiled, "You come along." ”

"Well, then I'll inform Mr. Stewart," Caroline replied, and hurried away with her little head down.

The arrival of the crew of "Gravity" not only attracted media reporters from all over North America, but also many local TV stations in Arizona specially reported on this incident.

As a result, under the attention of countless pairs of eyes, the movements of the entire crew and everyone could not be hidden at all. However, the "Gravity" crew didn't seem to hide the incident, and after a night of repairs, the next day, the crew left the resort with great fanfare and rushed to the shores of Lake Pleasant.

Although they were stopped outside the crew's stationing site, in the unsheltered field, the reporters finally got their wish to photograph Eric, Judy and other main creators.

It's just that when most of the day passed, many people found that they didn't get much information about the content of the film, except for the conspicuous VH-60 helicopter in the field, which took off and landed, and sometimes even flew to an altitude of more than a kilometer.

Of course, it's not for nothing, at least, Eric Williams and the crew's cinematographer Nikkle Frank are on board the helicopter and seem to be shooting high-altitude overhead shots through the camera, but these simple aerial scenes don't make any practical associations with the content of the film.

Fortunately, the reporters were not short of patience, and since the entire crew of "Gravity" had rushed over, it was absolutely impossible for these people to shoot just a few simple sets of aerial shots, otherwise, Eric Williams would not have been here at all. Obviously, in the next few days, there will definitely be specific content shooting.

In everyone's expectation, early the next morning, as soon as the sky was bright, the internal staff of the resort who were bought by the reporters came with the news, so they cheered up.

However, when they saw the two helicopters taking off from the resort and passing over Lake Pleasant, they had no intention of landing, and still flew towards the northern mountains at a speed of more than 200 kilometers, and everyone was dumbfounded.

Although some reporters were unwilling to get into the car and wanted to catch up, everyone made it clear that how could the wheels of the car catch up with the helicopter, not to mention that in the mountains, the helicopter could fly in a straight line, but the car needed to go on the road.

Fortunately, a tent-sized object hanging under one of the helicopters finally gave these people some comfort, and well-informed reporters quickly found out that it was supposed to be a spacecraft return capsule after taking photos.