Chapter 3: Walden

Walden Lake is located in the northwest corner of Boston, closer to the Harvard campus than the Quincy Side, and is popular for many Boston locals and visitors alike, as well as extracurricular activities for students at several nearby universities. It is a wonderful experience to enjoy the lake view www.biquge.info, but it is definitely not a big winter, so the temperature is below zero to run to the lake to play, and there is no difference between standing on the beach and blowing the cold wind.

"Can't we shoot in the city center, if we can't find a suitable place to contribute my apartment." John Reading looked reluctant, during this time the cold wind was swishing in the mountains, even the squirrels were hiding, and there were few living people, and it was absolutely boring to go.

"I've paid the rent in advance, and besides, what kind of flavor can be filmed in the city center?" Liang Baoguang chose to pay the rent to shoot on Walden, not because it was not a whim, but it had a deep meaning, because Walden Lake is not only a small lake in the suburbs of Boston, but also the name of Henry David Thoreau's masterpiece.

"Walden" is a bit like a weekly diary for elementary school students in terms of form, and the content arrangement is also very casual and casual, from the fight of ants to the change of seasons, Thoreau writes wherever he thinks of it, but once he understands this record that is not a record, he will be impressed by the deep artistic conception and vast feelings under the simple surface.

In Thoreau's time, with the rapid development of the American economy with the pace of industrialization, the ideas of money worship and hedonism gradually became absolutely dominant with social changes. At the same time, distorted values stimulate people's unlimited pursuit of wealth and money, and the accumulation of material wealth has become people's only goal, and even desperate to achieve this goal. It was in this context that Thoreau left the world to live on the shores of Walden Lake, and recorded the bits and pieces around him with delicate brushstrokes, interpreting what naturalism is.

Liang Baoguang's adaptation of "Visitors from the Earth", the protagonist dictates everything he has experienced not to convince anyone, nor to prove anything, in fact, he is completing the process of self-reinvention through the narration before parting, just like Thoreau, who records the life by the lake. The setting of the protagonist's immortality and the subversion of theocracy by this setting can be felt through dialogue, which is actually a kind of praise for the "heart of nature" and expresses the transcendentalist view that "there is divinity in man".

Compared with the ingenuity of the plot setting and the subtlety of soft science fiction, Liang Baoguang hopes that the audience can feel the private goods he hides in this work. The man named Oldman, who went from the ignorant Cornoumanon to the Christ who was forced to be venerated as a god, to the Harvard professor who continued to absorb modern knowledge, corresponds to the three stages of transcendentalism: self-discovery, self-expression, and self-enrichment.

Such a movie naturally has to be filmed on the shore of Walden Lake to make sense, if the audience can recognize the filming location and link it to the content of the film, it will have a clearer understanding, and Liang Baoguang is going to put a copy of "Walden" on the coffee table during the shooting, which is counted as an easter egg.

"Don't listen to his chirping, just shoot at Walden, who rarely goes to his shabby apartment, and when you open the door, you will have the shabby smell of a bachelor. Michelle Herzfield slapped John Reading from behind, she knew that this man was just habitually whining, but it was already twelve o'clock in the night, and they had to drive home to rest, how could they have the heart to accompany him here.

"Tsk, it looks like someone has seen it for themselves, it's good to be young......" Barbara laughed wickedly.

The next morning, I drove to the holiday cottage on the shores of Walden Lake, not only John Reading, but all eight of them began to do manual labor, just arranging the shooting scene for a long time, because the place needed to be cleaned again, and it was even more difficult to set up the camera slide to set up the lighting source, and if the effect was not satisfied, they had to redo it, and they had to do it again and again, and only after lunch did they try to start shooting.

Being a director for the first time, and a one-step feature film director, Liang Baoguang's mood is very wonderful, he has no nervous emotions, and he doesn't even have any rusty feelings, and he directly enters the state. Because of the lack of manpower, he is also a cameraman, and he is as steady as a cameraman, and he is not like a novice at all, even he himself feels that he has special photography skills, and he must have been a respected "teacher" in his last life.

It's a pity that God always disagrees with people's wishes, and Liang Baoguang's own state is very good, but the process of filming the movie is still very tiring, because all the people involved, including himself, have no professional, and no matter what he does, he is inefficient. It wasn't until after eating that Liang Baoguang realized how wishful thinking his previous thoughts were, it was a good gimmick for eight real professors to play in their true colors, but these people were a bit too true.

According to Liang Baoguang's previous plan, everyone chatted and talked about their own opinions to enrich the content, and he himself only needed to ensure the quality of the picture and the direction of the story, so he could make a decent work. But the fact is that these seven people will talk about strange places as they talk, singing "I don't turn, I won't turn" all the way to the sky, no matter how he gestures, he can't stop talking.

As a working professor at three prestigious universities, John Reading and each of them are small conversation experts who can hold up a three-hour public lecture on their own, and now the seven of them are together and chatting openly, which is really a candlestick night talk until dawn, obviously there are only seven people, but the 90-minute movie duration is extremely tight.

This kind of talk is only for the audience, and the audience is a few other professors, as long as they can understand each other, but the film is to be shown to the public, and it must be acceptable to the audience of all knowledge levels. Liang Baoguang had to admire Bai Lotian for coming, people's new Yuefu poems are easy to understand but beautiful and harmonious, and the realm is so high that he doesn't know where to go.

"I can't go on like this, my money is burning. Liang Baoguang bears all the expenses, so it is really his personal funds that burn, these people laugh from time to time, or talk off topic and start to talk about the mountains, he has to feel sorry for a wave of wasted film, he has never been so distressed when the burning point is stuck in the iron furnace castle fishing for the old iron palate, and the price difference between the two is too much.

John Reading and the others were very embarrassed, they also knew that they had too much free play in the afternoon, and they even forgot that this was a movie, and because they were talking nonsense, the film that was bound to be burned was paid for by Liang Baoguang, and they were a little embarrassed in their hearts, "This, we don't want to, but the brake is not installed on the mouth, and it will ...... carelessly."

"Hehe, it's like you've got brakes everywhere else. Michelle Herzfield's words may be a little weird to listen to alone, but it is easier to understand with her expression, she is mocking John Reading not only for not being able to control his mouth, but also for some parts of his lower body, and why her resentment is so big is not something that outsiders need to understand, on the contrary, at this time, just laugh along......

"Paul, it's really not good, let's pay a little bit of money, and we don't have to share the profits of the movie, just do a little bit to share some of the pressure for you. Barbara Kleiman was a little hesitant, and she didn't want to say this if possible, but although Liang Baoguang usually looked like he was not bad for money, he didn't show the temperament of a local tyrant, and he took out more than 100,000 US dollars to make a movie at once, and the pressure would definitely not be small.

"No, a bet is a bet, and since the restrictions have been said before, they can't be changed. Liang Baoguang didn't want to make a movie when he was idle at home, but made a bet with John Reading. And in this bet, there is a restriction on his independent investment and independent production, if he accepts Barbara's "kindness" at this time, his previous expression will be in vain, as a man, he accepts everything but does not accept failure.

When talking about the relationship between the declining North American film market and the American economy, John Reading insisted that the more exciting things in the cultural market, the more marketable they are, and movies are the best representatives, and in terms of stimulation, I am afraid that only indescribable films can compete with horror films, so he asserted that only by shooting horror films can we achieve low investment and high returns.

Liang Baoguang is opposed, he always believes that orientation is only the result of guidance, just like Sichuan people have not liked to eat spicy food since ancient times, after all, there was no such thing as chili pepper in the Celestial Empire before the end of the Ming Dynasty. As long as it is properly guided and the quality of the work is excellent, it is very easy to bring a wave of slightly alternative trends.

John Reading is teaching behavioral studies, where can he be questioned by students, the two talked and argued, and decided to make a bet to divide the winner, and Liang Baoguang himself made a non-horror movie, they can do their best to help but can't pay, and in the end, the return rate of the movie is more than 100 times even if Liang Baoguang wins, less than 10 times even if John Reading wins, if it is between 10 times and 100 times, it is counted as a draw.

John Reading felt that there was a high possibility of a draw in this bet, and the next thing was for him to win, and Liang Baoguang's goal of a hundredfold rate of return was too difficult to achieve, so his mentality was extremely relaxed, "Paul, don't be too anxious, several of us are the first time to be actors and make a movie, and it is inevitable that there will be mistakes. ”

"Hehe!" Liang Baoguang didn't want to speak, but he always seemed to have heard John Redding's rhetoric many times just now.