Once he entered the filming state, Shao Shuaijun was like a different person, except for the distance between the two crews, he buried his head in the set and the projection room all day long, or discussed problems with the CG team staff of Weta Digital in the office of the special effects team.

Weta Digital is the world's leading special effects company, and it is the director of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Jackson, a New Zealand company that he opened with his friends. He is known worldwide for providing special effects for "The Lord of the Rings", "King Kong", and "Avatar".

This collaboration with Weta Digital is not only to provide special effects assistance for Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Teddy Bear, but also to build a bridge between Summit Special Effects and Weta Digital. Weta Digital wants to expand into the Chinese market, and Peak Effects can provide good support, and then get Weta Digital's technology.

To this end, the New Electrical Technology Research Institute has invited Weta Digital's VFX Supervisor Joe. Leterry, a visiting professor at the Institute of New Electrical Technology, Joe. Lerett was also very interested in this, and verbally agreed, just waiting for the formalities to be completed.

"Joe, I think there's something wrong with this orangutan sample, it's too much like a chimpanzee, and it lacks the form that has a unique intelligence. I mean, it doesn't have its own unique behavioral traits, and it shouldn't be a chimpanzee with red fur. Pointing to an orangutan walking slowly on the computer screen, Shao Shuaijun frowned and said.

In order to study the morphology of various orangutans, Joe. The CG team led by Lyrett can be said to have studied all the videos about apes on the Discovery Channel. In the warehouse of the entire CG team. At least a few thousand of these CDs and audio tapes were piled up. Even Shao Shuaijun, a layman, is about to become half an ape behaviorist.

"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" has more than 100 apes of various forms, mainly focusing on three species. One is the only orangutan, which is designed to speak sign language and is Caesar's henchman. Orangutans are found in Southeast Asia, with long red hair on their bodies and slow movements, while males get older and have larger and wider rims on their faces. It's scary to look ugly.

The second type is gorillas. Rugged in appearance. Huge size. In the movie, there will also be a prime-aged gorilla, as the number one combat force, becoming Caesar's right-hand man who leads the apes to escape. However, the gorilla will eventually die saving Caesar.

The third type is the chimpanzee, which is Caesar's species. It is also one of the most varied in the movie. Chimpanzees are highly social animals. Closer to humans. The genetic difference with humans is less than 1%.

For the study of chimpanzees and gorillas, the CG team has accumulated a lot of research, after all, they have produced "King Kong", the most popular gorilla movie. But for the study of orangutans. It's not so thorough, and there aren't many videos about orangutans on the Discovery Channel, so everything needs to be discussed by the CG team and the director team to sketch this red-haired big guy.

"But we didn't have enough materials for the orangutans, so it was difficult to find the characteristics of the orangutans and incorporate them into the special effects." A programmer in the CG team shook his head.

CG special effects are technological innovations and the most cutting-edge technology for visual presentation, but unfortunately, these lifelike CG effects require a lot of realistic materials. You can't expect this group of otaku programmers to use their imagination to portray a wonderful nature, it's unrealistic. They can only be integrated into the special effects shot if they see it with their eyes and capture the natural scenery with software.

Shao Shuaijun also knew that it was difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice, so he groaned for a while, and said: "That's it, Joe, you Weta Digital sent a few senior material collectors, and I asked the people with peak special effects and dream chasing special effects to go to Southeast Asia to shoot the wild behavior of the orangutans." ”

"In that case, it costs a lot, huh?"

"It doesn't matter, as long as I can make the movie more perfect, whether the production cost is 10 million more or 10 million less, I can accept it."

"Okay, I'll arrange for someone."

After solving the structure of the orangutan, Shao Shuaijun rubbed his eyes, and almost allocated his spare time to special effects for a whole week. There are still a lot of problems that need to be solved one by one, and what is even more difficult is that he still has two crews to take care of. Shao Shuaijun felt that his decision to shoot two movies at one time was hasty.

Such a heavy pressure, if it weren't for the fact that he was still young and in good health, he would not be able to bear it at all.

However, there is pressure to be motivated, and he now feels that he is more able to deal with the problem, and is more able to grasp the core and gradually resolve the difficult problems into small problems. If you can better control the crew, how to mobilize the enthusiasm of the staff and actors, how to arrange the rhythm to speed up the process, etc.

All of this has never been realized before, and human potential is really squeezed out.

Seeing that it was about to be January 17th, Shao Shuaijun had to put his work aside: "Joe, now all the special effects materials can be handed over to a few small special effects companies to do first, and the first thing we need to solve is Caesar!" We have to put all our power on expression and motion capture, and after a while, we will have to go outdoors to shoot the expression capture of real scenes, and the focus of all work will be shifted to this aspect. ”

Unlike Avatar, which was completely indoor-built and set shooting, Rise of the Planet of the Apes has a lot of outdoor motion and expression capture in addition to indoor modeling, so as to erase the boundaries between visual effects and the real environment, so that everything is real and unmistakable, otherwise, what is the difference between the new version of the movie and the old version of the movie.

"We're already working on the outdoor portable equipment, and we'll be able to make it in a few days. Serkis, how to work with the camera in the field. "Joe. Lerett replied in the affirmative.

"That's good, I'm going to the "Teddy Bear" crew now, can you come along, Joe?" Shao Shuaijun asked again. "Teddy Bear" also used capture technology to create the toy character of Teddy Bear, and it happened that Weta Digital's CG team was working on "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", so naturally, "Teddy Bear" was contracted over by the way.

"Okay, I'm going to see how the working group over there is doing."

The two drove to downtown San Francisco together, and it just so happened that the crew was busy filming motion capture footage of the teddy bear. The motion capture actor wears a bodysuit covered with light spots, and does actions such as climbing chairs, moving benches, and so on. There are 8 cameras around, filming his movements.

Motion capture technology is an animation production method that has only become popular in recent years. Through the light spots on the clothes worn by real people, that is, signal trackers, the movement trajectory of each tracker is recorded by the computer, and finally the trajectory map of the movement of these signal trackers is drawn on the computer.

Then, through the processing of calculations, the graph line is transformed into a three-dimensional image, and various character sections are added, and after refinement, the perfect presentation of special characters can be achieved.

The motion capture technology of "Teddy Bear" can be said to be a very low-level equipment, which can only capture a general action. Fortunately, the movie doesn't need the teddy bear to be very vivid, so the performance is very simple.

In between studying this motion capture technique, another set, Scarlett, who had just finished acting. Johnson, came to Shao Shuaijun's side and said hello: "Hi, Shao, when will you get off work?" ”

Shao Shuaijun looked at the 3D modeling on the computer, and said casually: "You can get off work at any time, today's work is not tense, have you finished filming today?" ”

"yes, if you don't get off work, I'll invite you to dinner." Scarlett said.

"Invite me to dinner?"

Scarlett smiled sweetly: "Ryan is here to visit, we hope to invite you to a meal, we have known each other for so long, Ryan has not met you yet, I hope to chat together." Oh yes, Joseph, Giovanni and Laura will be with them. ”

looked at his watch, it was only six o'clock now, and Shao Shuaijun nodded: "Okay, let's go have a meal together." ”

When I walked out of the room, I saw Joseph chatting with a handsome guy, although this handsome guy Shao Shuaijun was meeting for the first time, he could tell at a glance that he was Ryan. Reynolds, Scarlett. Johnson's husband, the future Green Lantern. Shao Shuaijun's first movie "Buried Alive", the actor in his previous life was him, which can be said to have a relationship.

"Hello, Director Shao."

"Hello, Ryan."

After saying hello, the group went to a restaurant in San Francisco for dinner. Ryan is a very good talker, and he brings the scene to life. And Shao Shuaijun belongs to the kind of people who eat and drink with their heads bored, you say yours, I eat my own. For this kind of gathering between friends, Shao Shuaijun also let go first, and went as much as he could, just burying his head in eating and drinking when he went.

Small talk is not what he is good at, and he doesn't want to brag with others.

After eating, everyone dispersed, Shao Shuaijun watched Scarlett and Ryan hold hands and get into the car, shrugged his shoulders slightly, he remembered that Scarlett and Ryan's marriage lasted about two years. After the filming of "500 Days with Shamo", Scarlett married him and invited Shao Shuaijun at that time, but Shao Shuaijun supervised the production of "Slumdog Millionaire" in India and did not spare time.

This year, the marriage between the two is estimated to be coming to an end.

But who cares about this kind of thing, Shao Shuaijun doesn't care anyway.

The next day, Shao Shuaijun went to the crew of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" to put Freida . Pinto picked it up and the plane headed for Los Angeles. Today is January 17, 2010, and the Golden Globe Awards are presented today, as the first film of Summit Entertainment to hit the Oscars, Shao Shuaijun naturally wants to help hard, and this time the Golden Globe Awards are the first formation.

"Slumdog Millionaire" has four nominations for Best Drama Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Score, and Shao Shuaijun's "Heartbeat" also has one nomination for Best Score. Besides, today, Shao Shuaijun will present the award to the Best Actress. Last year, the Golden Globes gave him face and gave him two awards, and this year he was embarrassed to refuse this small request. (To be continued......)

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