Today, there is no hope for kung fu movies in Hong Kong, but Yuan Baye's level still exists. If you can't find a job in Hong Kong, you can go to the mainland, or go directly to Hollywood, and you can work in these places. In Levy's view, it is estimated that it will be impossible to expect Hollywood's action direction to catch up with Hong Kong in ten years, and this ten years will finally be enough for them to gain a foothold here.

People who have the ability don't have to worry about eating wherever they go, even if the Yuan family class goes elsewhere, they can still work, and in the same way, the Hong family class is now disbanded, and if there is a suitable opportunity in the future, they can pick it up if they shoot kung fu movies. However, if you don't have this ability, it's just opportunistic, then forget it - Levy remembers that even the current batch of people who are engaged in new martial arts will go to the mainland to shoot the drama of hand-tearing devils in the future, and they are all scolded crazy.

Watching the people in the Yuan family's class give Hugh Jackman a lesson, Levy also nodded with satisfaction, and while watching the fight, Levy also thought of other things.

"Speaking of which, it occurred to me ...... Kate. Wasn't Beckinsale also required to come here to learn martial arts acting? Why didn't you see her? ”

Most of the X-Men characters don't need to learn fighting, but a few of them still have to undergo this training. In addition to Wolverine, the Demon Girl is also a character with more fight scenes, and since Beckinsale wants to play this role, she naturally has to learn action acting.

"Doesn't she have another job...... It seems that the special effects department called her away, and there are other arrangements over there. ”

Hearing this, Levy remembered something, "I know this, the special costume they made for her. Her character is special, and the costumes have to be specially made. ”

Beckinsale's matter, of course, Levy knew, was that he had just instructed the special effects department two days ago. I didn't expect them to do it so quickly.

In the movie, Beckinsale plays the Magic Girl. Compared to Hugh Jackman, who now has to exercise every day, control his diet, learn to fight, and even deliberately dehydrate to strengthen his muscles during performances, Beckinsale's work is even more tiring. It can even be said that in the entire crew, the most tired now has to be said to be Beckinsale.

She needs two hours a day to exercise and stay in shape; There are about eight hours to put on makeup. So as to be able to string together a suit of demon girls. And that's not counting the preparation time for the performance in the film, the time to remove makeup, the time spent training, and the fact that you are not allowed to drink alcohol in order to hang patches on your body, touch the coating, not use cosmetics, and the sequelae caused to the skin; In addition, because people are half-naked in the process of applying makeup, others have to compare, so it is equivalent to saying that she has to sit in a closed powder room for eight hours a day. Asking a makeup artist to put makeup on her is also a big psychological problem, plus she needs to learn fighting techniques, and there are a lot of transformation effects to participate in the production. She has quite a lot of things to do.

In such a difficult job, the final salary is 100,000 US dollars, although she wants to use this movie as a stepping stone to Hollywood, but it is too tiring. And. During the filming of the film, I wore makeup for eight hours a day, which was also too much of a disruption to the shooting. So, after seeing how tired she was at work. Levy also asked people to try to find a way to reduce her pressure.

Levy knew that researching these might be more expensive than giving her a salary increase, but in Levy's opinion, it was necessary. The salaries of the actors are all industry standards, and even if Levy is already very famous, it is inconvenient to add or subtract it by himself. However, it is very appropriate to study new technologies for the purpose of caring for the actors and promoting the development of films.

And they seem to have found a way quickly, which makes Levy a little unsure whether they haven't thought about what to do before, or if there really is no way.

"In that case, I'll go to the special effects department to see how their special effects are prepared."

Hearing that they had the special effects ready so quickly, Levy couldn't help but want to check them out. After all, in this movie, in addition to the fighting part, the special effects part is also a very important part, and it can be said that it is the link with the largest investment.

And as soon as he walked into the special effects department, Levy heard people's whistles. And when he entered the room, he couldn't take his eyes off it.

Beckinsale was trying on clothes here - and now, she was wearing a pair of close-fitting clothes made for her. This dress directly wrapped her entire body from the neck down, so that those hanging pieces and colors did not have to be decorated a little bit, which can be said to be a lot more convenient. However, Levy believes that the reason why the people here are whistling is more because of the good figure that Beckinsale shows in this bodysuit.

"Hello, Mr. Levy."

Seeing Levy, Beckinsale greeted Levi very generously, and at the same time raised his hand and turned around, so that Levy's eyes could better see the costume on his body.

Levi carefully looked at the blue skin for a long time before he spoke again, "Kate, I have to say, even such blue skin can't hide your beautiful figure, you are very beautiful in this dress." Isn't it easier to put on makeup now than before? ”

"Fortunately, it used to take eight hours to finish the makeup, but now it can be done in two hours. It's much easier to just wear makeup on your face......" Beckinsale accepted Levy's compliment with a smile, and then began to talk to Levy as well, "Actually, it would be easier if you could design a hood on your face as well?" Maybe you can save ...... even removing makeup."

"It's impossible to do this, how can you capture the look of your face if you use a head covering? You are playing a living person, you must have an expression, now it's easier to just skin staining, we use the facial muscle simulation system to simulate the character's expression, which can well present your expression changes, but if you wear a hood, you can't......"

Beckinsale's words made the staff on the side immediately open their mouths. The boss and the beautiful woman were in front of them, and the technicians didn't talk much, but when it came to technology, their self-confidence also emerged, and there was no room for concession on technical issues, and they immediately began to talk endlessly.

"Facial performance capture technology, is it still unsuccessful?" Hear his words. Levy interrupted him with a word.

These words made the staff stop talking suddenly, "It's still researching, this technology is not mature, and it can't be put into use yet......"

Levy nodded, not saying anything more. But his words also made the staff silent. Obviously, for these technicians, the technical substandard is more uncomfortable than anything else.

Actually, Levy's special effects company is pretty good right now, but. It was far from Levy's requirements. For example, the makeup of the magic girl, Levi who has seen the facial simulation under the performance capture technology in the future, and then looks at the facial muscle simulation technology, it is naturally difficult to be satisfied. Levy wanted the most realistic human expressions, and the computer-simulated expressions were a little worse.

In the movie, there has always been a saying about the uncanny valley: this means that if a prop is not very human-like, then it is even a little flawed. People don't think it's a big deal either – robots come in all shapes and sizes, and people still think it's normal. And if a prop is very human-like, then the slightest resemblance will make people feel horrified - those highly realistic dolls. It's always scary, that's the truth.

Levy naturally wanted the mutants in his film to be very realistic, and it wouldn't be good if there was an uncanny valley effect.

Therefore, he is not small invested in films. Generally speaking, if the special effects of a movie are not particularly demanding, a minute of special effects is less than $1 million. And the X-Men in such a movie. The special effects can be very complicated: from the small Wolverine stretching out his claws, the transformation of the demon girl, to the big aspects of the Storm girl or Magneto's ability display, all of which have to be done with special effects. These special effects don't last long, and there is nothing to pay special attention to, and what Levy hopes is that they will put more effort into facial capture and do it better.

This is also a part that Levi is more concerned about: the X-Men in his memory are not very good in terms of special effects, and the art style can even be said to be very chaotic, and there is a lack of highlights in the production of special effects, but Levi himself didn't want the movie to be like that when he was making it. He wanted the special effects to be a little more characteristic: the X-Men's special effects could have been done better, and Levy wanted that too.

Unexpectedly, after investing so much, it still doesn't work. Levy frowned slightly at this situation.

Their own company knows the situation, and they hired Oscar winner Ron Fedkiw to develop the software, and a dedicated computational physics team from UCLA to develop the computational program, which Levy also knew. But after so long, their new technology is still immature, which also gives Levy a bit of a headache.

Levy originally thought that he had invested and that the speed of progress could be very fast: the special effects technology of the film was based on scientific and technological conditions: it stands to reason that the physical formula of film special effects was calculated by human beings in the 18th century, and the initial maturity of technology was completed in the 80s. Levy's investment was big enough that he could have accomplished almost it, but who knew that the gap was still huge.

"Keep trying, and if it doesn't work, I'll go somewhere else and ask someone to come." Levy knew that even if he didn't show up in the technical department, he often invited math and physics computing groups from various universities, and that scientists would not object to the exchange of knowledge, and that self-confidence and arrogance were two different things, "If it doesn't work, I'll go to Disney and ask their computing team to come over." ”

Levy knew that Disney also had a large number of technical departments in order to produce cartoons, and they had as many as six teams in the mathematical computing department alone. If that doesn't work, it's also an idea to ask them to come and help.

"But we're making a FOX movie, will Disney come and help?" The special effects man asked in a whisper.

"They're doing me a favor, not FOX -- I believe I have a way to get them to help." (To be continued......)