Chapter 599: A Cutting Like No Other
From the very beginning to the present, Murphy has always been clear that all film shoots are for editing, and that post-editing must be taken into account when shooting shots. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info
For any film, the coherence of the story is crucial, and if the director has an editing mind when shooting, then the post-editing will be twice the result with half the effort and save a lot of trouble.
The mindset of editing in filming, or the mindset of shooting for editing, can be of great help in post-production.
As a director, Murphy has a sense of editing when shooting, such as how to shoot and what footage to shoot, so that it can be fully used in post-production.
Cinema is a craft, and shots and editing are the characteristics of cinema.
From this point of view, if a film can make an indelible impression on a certain scene in the movie without the plot and characters, it can be said to be a success.
Frankly, this is also one of the biggest prides of being a movie.
Of course, this is not to say that the use of aerial lenses, push rail zoom and other lens techniques is a good lens, the lens is a language, and when using this language, it must fit the story, scene, tone and other factors of the film itself.
There are times when the film requires the use of difficult camera techniques, and other times, it is just a matter of keeping the camera still to make a great shot.
Every great shot is built on a well-thought-out basis, with sufficient motives and reasons, as long as the lens can show the content of the film to the fullest, it is a good shot.
"For me, real photography starts before the shooting, and I think about the composition and prophecy of the lens in my mind."
In mid-October, the filming of the crew ended successfully, and Murphy was interviewed by the media of Twentieth Century Fox, "Today we watch the great shots presented by those great films in film history, all of which are the result of the hard work of the director and the cinematographer. Great shots are like fleeting shooting stars, and you can only catch them if you give everything you have. ”
He added, "Dreaming is not only about dreaming and daring to think, but also about the process of dreaming and thinking."
After the shoot, Murphy didn't stop and immediately threw himself into post-production, and due to Jody Griffith's ill health, Murphy decided to do the editing work himself.
The post-production of this film requires only a few shots that need to be processed for special effects, and apart from the necessary color grading work, it is basically editing.
The shot is the basis of editing, and the editing is the new life of the shot.
Godard once said that the camera is the beginning of filmmaking, editing is like dressing up, when the original footage is placed in front of the editor, the editor is like the world's greatest magician, presenting the audience with a beautiful fairy tale of an ugly duckling turning into a white swan.
How you shoot and how you connect it, how you put it all together, depends a lot on what the director wants to express. Is it a very tense action scene, or is it a tender romantic scene that the director wants to use to emphasize the facial expressions and movements of the main character? Think about what is most important and when to express that most important part.
For example, whether a small object or a casual look in the protagonist's hand is worth capturing.
Once you decide to start editing your film, you'll be surprised to find that one or two moments can change the feel of the whole film.
Murphy first edited aerial footage for the film's opening scene, and after reviewing all the shots he had filmed, he quickly figured out how to edit it.
Murphy takes a long shot of downtown Los Angeles as the first shot, giving them a guide, followed by a black-and-white medium shot, and finally a black-and-white close-up centered on Old Chinatown.
After editing, he felt that there was still something to be done, and added a dilapidated slum location shot to it, so that he could clearly explain the background of the story in a short shot - the most chaotic part of Los Angeles.
In the opening scene, there will be no characters, but in the subsequent scenes, Murphy will directly introduce Diego Rose as the main character, so the editing must be character-centric.
Similarly, before editing, Murphy needs to take a closer look at the relevant footage he shot.
How to organize and select footage is not what a good editor really does, and good editing only needs to master one thing: you know when to cut.
Murphy never edited according to those so-called "knowledge", but integrated into the film and felt it with his heart.
This is not a commercial film, and the usual editing method is not suitable for such a serious-looking personal biopic.
From the scene footage, finding all the shots of Robert Downey Jr., Murphy focused the editing point on Robert Downey Jr.'s eyes, and since this is a memory, the eyes are the key to the editing, and the eyes express the emotion of the picture more than anything else.
This is especially evident when Murphy works with great actors, who know how to express emotions with their eyes rather than relying solely on body language.
To cut out the effect of "a belly full of things to say, but no lines", the actor can not speak, but when editing, he connects his eyes with the picture he is looking at, and knows what he is thinking without words.
In addition, for close-ups that show emotions, Murphy will give a few seconds, which is a typical editing technique for literary films, that is, the shots and editing are usually called to give the protagonist's emotions for a period of time.
The audience usually feels a connection with the characters in the film, because there is enough time to notice the expressions of the actors before they speak, of course, including the expressions after they speak, Murphy has to grasp how long this emotion needs to be given, and in many scenes that reflect the actor's emotions, he gives Robert Downey Jr. a "shot to the end" four seconds before he speaks, in order to express his inner complexity and struggle.
In order to express the struggle of the male protagonist Diego Rose in the face of choice, Murphy also edited five multi-shot combinations with lengths of 4 seconds 15 frames, 4 seconds 9 frames, 3 seconds 6 frames, 2 seconds 17 frames and 1 second 23 frames in a scene, creating a stacking and slow-down effect, pushing to the climax in a shorter and shorter time, and the mood reached its peak.
In this clip, Murphy spent 15 seconds to climax and twice as long to regain composure so that the audience had time to feel Diego Rose's emotions.
Murphy's editing this time, 70% of the control is the rhythm, compared to the fast pace of previous films, the pace of this film is quite slow, only when there are many body movements in the picture, the editing rhythm will be faster, and when there are walking and daily street scenes, it will be close to the rhythm of natural life.
Of course, he will also use some editing techniques appropriately, such as stretching the time of a seemingly inconsequential shot when the storyline is in a hurry, and when the anxiety index is about to explode, it is time to cut.
Editing is a very talented profession, and if you don't have enough talent, you may be able to become a great editor after continuous hard work, but it is basically impossible to become a master.
Murphy still has some talent in this area.
There are six elements to construct the story of the whole film through editing, and he prioritizes them: emotion, story, rhythm, visual tracking, spatial continuity, and two-dimensional plane.
These priorities are used as a pattern and editing plan to ensure that your film doesn't go awry with editing.
Among them, the top three are the most important: emotion, story, and rhythm, all three of which are essential, and after years of experience in the field, Murphy can see that these three are closely linked, and they play a very large role.
Although he is the director of this film, Murphy tries to maintain a more objective state when editing, not as a director, but as an audience, to really feel the various rhythms, details, and whether the play is good.
Some films are suitable for what kind of cut, then what kind of technique must be used to cut, general commercial blockbusters, can make the audience ignore the existence of editing is the best editing, but such a niche film is different, he must show the existence of a different kind of editing.
That's why Murphy was so distracted when editing.
After finishing the fine editing of the whole film, Murphy did not relax, but went back and looked at the whole film, looking for superfluous shots from it, and then cut them all out, cutting out unnecessary shots would make the film smoother.
It took a full month, and a week before Thanksgiving, Murphy finally finished editing the film and cutting an official trailer for Twentieth Century Fox's publicity and promotion department.
The production cost of this film is limited, and the investment in publicity and marketing and distribution is also limited, such as the trailer commercial, which is only one, instead of three or four in the past.
It's close to late November, the traditional Thanksgiving holiday in North America is approaching, and although there are still many jobs to be done, such as dubbing, soundtrack, and sound effects editing, Murphy still put aside the post-production work at hand for the time being, and specially hired a costume designer to prepare suitable costumes for him and Gal Gadot for the upcoming movie premiere.
Directed by Seth Rogen, starring Stanton and distributed by Twentieth Century Fox, "The End of the World" will hit the North American Film Market in more than 3,700 theaters the weekend before Thanksgiving.
This sci-fi thriller comedy, in which many Hollywood stars make cameos under their real names, attracted much media attention before its release, and Twentieth Century Fox specially prepared a very grand world premiere for the film at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. (To be continued.) )