"There's always been a bet in the media." Ex stirred the spoon with great interest, watched his coffee spin in the cup at a uniform speed, and said slowly, "At first, they bet, how long can you last with Michael Bay?" ”

"And then?" The filming of "Transformers" is coming to an end, and the schedule is very tight, Lin Mingyang finally took a half-day off from Michael Bay, he didn't come to listen to Ex's boring "nonsense".

"'Transformers' should have a sequel if nothing else, and they're now betting on whether you'll continue to appear in the sequel." Ex saw the impatience in Lin Mingyang's eyes, but he still spoke slowly. "Michael Beck is famous for his temper tantrum in Hollywood, how does it feel to work with him?"

"Don't you think that as my agent, it is a bit derelict for you to ask this question when the film is about to end filming?" Lin Mingyang snorted angrily, "I have a great time working with him!" ”

"Well, I accept your criticism!" Ex shrugged helplessly, "Then have you gained anything during this time?" ”

"Harvest?" Lin Mingyang stared at Ex, "My role is completely a foil, the real protagonists of this film are those Transformers, okay?" ”

"But you're worth a lot more than they cost!" Ex chuckled: "Okay, I'll admit that your role in this film doesn't have much merit, but Michael Bay's directing talent in commercial films is unquestionable, haven't you learned something from it?" ”

Lin Mingyang pouted: "Directors like Michael Bay who pursue big scenes and extreme special effects have a common shortcoming, that is, the connotation of the movie is not expressed enough, in my opinion, his style is somewhat flashy." ”

"But he took this flashy style to the extreme, and the audience was willing to buy it, and that's the most important thing." Ex shook his head, it had been a long time since he had spoken to Lin Mingyang in such a didactic tone, but today was an exception. "Without Spielberg, there would be no Transformers, but do you know why he wanted Michael Bay to direct it himself?"

Lin Mingyang feels that the answer is obvious, "because Michael Bay is good at shooting this kind of action movie." ”

"When Hollywood talks about grasping the big scene, who can pat their chest and say that he can surpass James Cameron?" Ex asked further.

"Cameron will definitely overspend on this subject, and if it is handed over to him, DreamWorks doesn't know how many days it will take to tighten his belt to earn back his investment."

This is one of the reasons, Spielberg himself is not a money-saving material, and although the "War of the Worlds" was a fun film, it also cost no less than $200 million to produce, and DreamWorks is now relatively tight. If you have a hot potato in your hand and you are reluctant to throw it away, what will you do if you change it? ”

Lin Mingyang had never considered the problem from this angle before, "If it's me, throw it to someone you can control!" ”

"You and Spielberg made the same choice, it seems that Michael Bay's 'black cauldron' is not wronged, of course he needs a film to turn over now. Judging from Michael Bay's past style, he was born to make a hot-blooded movie like "Transformers". The most important thing is that Michael Bay knows how to save money on this film! ”

"Save money?" Lin Mingyang was stunned, Michael Bay would never associate the word "saving money" in his mind. He knew that VFX based on "computer-generated graphics" was a bottomless pit to spend money on, but Michael Bay had always focused on live effects, and these were real deals.

"You're in the crew, in fact, as long as you pay a little attention, you can see something!" Naturally, Ex doesn't make these remarks out of thin air, although he hasn't been to the crew of "Transformers", but he has carefully studied Michael Bay's previous films, and finally came to this conclusion:

"The way Michael Bay saves money has to do with his cinematography style, and if you think about it, compared to James Cameron, are you really a detail-oriented director?"

Lin Mingyang was silent, and Ex himself gave the answer.

"I don't think so, in his previous films, there were far more local scenes than panoramas, and there were far fewer close-ups of details than long shots. In this way, the amount of work for the VFX animation part can be cut in half. I believe that there will be a lot of long shots in the film "Transformers", and the digital modeling does not need to be too detailed to the extent of labor and money, and the outline is probably passable, and the audience will never see it real between the excitement of the mood and the flickering of the camera. ”

"His films have always been known for their quick-cut, flashing style, which is very different from James Cameron's desire for perfection in detail, and you can see what I mean when you think back to how this film was made."

Ex didn't say it, Lin Mingyang didn't think it himself, but after his reminder, Lin Mingyang suddenly woke up, he had seen a few fight scenes that had been edited. The most typical is the PK battle between "Bumblebee" and "Barricade", when filming, the director's camera has always been aimed at him, and "Bumblebee PK Barricade", which should have been one of the highlights, has completely become the background of his performance.

Considering that there may be large, complex dynamic scenes, as well as spectacular slow motion where Bumblebee fires a "boom cannon" and a barricade dances a "spinning scoring wheel", this is not a two-point savings in VFX costs.

In addition to not performing at all, even for those battle scenes that are being performed, Michael Bay will use his hand-held camera method to "miss" some large dynamic scenes that seem to be immersive, but in fact are lazy. For example, in the big battle at the end of the film, "Vertigo" shows the scene of the "Rotor Crusher" sweeping the streets, and the scene of the "Destroyer" showing his might in the middle of the street, frantically dumping bullets, shells, and rockets.

Although the whole movie looks lively, there are few really impressive scenes. But you really can't blame Michael Bay, because he at least showed the process of fighting, but it wasn't enough, and it was very good to be able to shoot to this extent within the budget of the film. Thinking about the masterpiece that James Cameron may have been filming in secret, Lin Mingyang suddenly felt that Michael Bay's shooting budget was indeed a little cold.

Michael Bay's glorious image in Lin Mingyang's heart has also faded a lot with the piercing of this layer of window paper, at least he no longer blindly "worships" each other as before. Judging from the general trend, Lin Mingyang's trend of moving closer from an actor to a director has been very obvious, and Ex said this to Lin Mingyang, the original intention was to remind Lin Mingyang to pay more attention to Michael Bay's shooting skills, because the other party's set is very practical in commercial films.

But what Exx often didn't expect was that Lin Mingyang embarked on a completely different path because of his "reminder". Of course, that's a later story, at this time, Ex ran all the way to Los Angeles, and naturally there were more important things.

"Jimmy, the co-chairman of Universal Pictures, gave me a call yesterday."

"Something is wrong with Kate?" As soon as Exx mentioned Universal Company, Lin Mingyang didn't know why, and his first reaction was Kate, who was filming in China.

"So you still know that you are the executive producer of "The Mummy 3"?" Ex said teasingly.

"But my task has been accomplished, and the filming is something that the producer should worry about!" Lin Mingyang thought about it and felt that it was wrong, he only spoke to Kate on the phone yesterday, if something happened in the crew, he should receive the news as soon as possible.

Ex didn't sell it anymore, "This has nothing to do with Kate, they called me, in fact, they want to ask you to make a new film." ”

"Another commercial blockbuster?" Lin Mingyang instinctively frowned. The recognition of the Oscar for Best Actor made Lin Mingyang completely take off the title of idol star and become a new generation of powerful actors in Hollywood, and he has higher requirements for choosing his own movie roles.

With the rapid development of Facebook and YouTube, Lin Mingyang's wealth is getting bigger and bigger. Now that he is famous, he is not short of money, and his salary is no longer his criterion for choosing roles. If it weren't for Spielberg's kind invitation, it is estimated that he would not even be willing to take over this "Transformers".

"The script tells the story of a group of killers, Luc Besson has left Hollywood, besides him, there shouldn't be many directors who can make this theme into a literary film, right?" Ex thought he had humorously told a bad joke, but the effect was not very obvious.

"I wish the director was Luc Besson, so maybe I would still be interested in the film."

Hearing the resistance in Lin Mingyang's words, Ex's tone became cautious, "You said before that you had a killer complex, I thought..."

"But I don't want to amuse the audience by killing people!" Lin Mingyang's attitude was arduous.

"So you don't want to take this film?" Ex asked in a strange tone. Normally, he wouldn't ask such a sentence more, but today he was a little strange.

Lin Mingyang asked curiously: "Do you think that I shouldn't give up, refusing will cause huge losses?" ”

"Not really!" Ex shook his head, "There's nothing to lose for you not acting, but I think you might have regrets!" ”

"Regrets?" The puzzled look in Lin Mingyang's eyes became more and more intense.

"I heard that the heroine of this film is Angelina Jolie, according to the original intention of the producers, they want you and Jolie to partner again and recreate the spirit of "Sister and Brother Agent", and this time there is no shackles between you and sister... I mean, you know. ”

After saying that, Ex shook his head with a pretended regret, "It seems that the producer is destined to be disappointed this time!" ”

(To be continued)