Editing a feature film is often more time-consuming than shooting, and it is never a simple job. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Does the pacing of the film match the director's intentions? Are the characters alive? Is the story clear and concise? Is there a dark line in the plot? If not, can the clip create one?

When it comes to editing, it's impossible to make every shot perfect.

Maybe there are generous statements, witty remarks, witty and funny, or cynicism, or autumn waves, or a flash of surprise.

If the criteria for choosing a shot are just the actors' performances, then editing is a fairly simple job.

But this can never be, in the movie "Transformers", the actors' performances can only be ranked relatively low, Duke and Mike? Dawson also needs to consider, how is the protagonist's partner doing? Is the camera positioned appropriately? Is the lighting just right? Are the weather conditions up to the mark......

After the initial completion of the special effects footage produced by ILM, temporary dialogue, music, and sound effects all needed to be inserted into the sequence.

The film was made step by step, gradually getting rid of the rough appearance, but the shot shot on set may not be the same as the effect Duke wanted, a shot of only 30 seconds, after adding special effects, may become a two-minute long scene.

In Duke's view, the problem at this stage of the work is how to carefully select the shots for live shooting, and on the other hand, how to make the Transformers show their power on the screen generated by the special effects, and how to make the Transformers and the actors coordinate naturally after adding special effects.

At Transformers Studios, the daily production is accepted by the person in charge in the morning, and the satisfactory results are selected and sent to Duke, and once Duke says it passes, several of his assistants send the approved parts to the audio-visual technology department, and they assemble them into real movie clips. ‘

If there is no interest in such work, it must be a very boring process.

But Duke maintains a tremendous enthusiasm every day in post-production, and every weekday morning, he brings together the heads of various departments in the fastest time and in the most concise way. Discuss the production of today's few acts.

There is one point that Duke stresses almost every few days, and he asks for as much control as possible to give the Transformers more playing time.

As the special effects are made, they are constantly being completed. Duke is also getting busier and busier, not to mention sitting together over coffee and chatting like at the Oscar nominee's luncheon, and the heads of various departments even need to communicate with him in a race against time.

"Duke wants to see us assertive, working tirelessly day and night to get better results."

As an Oscar nominee for Best Editing, when the reporter interviewed. Mike? Dawson once said, "He would sit in front of the system and string together the selected footage in order." All of a sudden, these scattered parts had aura, and the divine light was clutched. He can remember every shot he has taken, and he is more impressed than we are. He has a pair of precise eyes and a very strong sense of rhythm. Working with him, we have to try to keep up with him. Duke's style is true, but he also wants people to come up with good ideas. ”

There is no doubt that the finished film of "Transformers" will set a record for the use of special effects shots.

After Warner Bros. made an additional investment. The film will use more than 2,000 special effects shots, all of which were done by ILM, and their technical advantages are also reflected in the environment, lighting, physics simulation, and the compositing of CG characters and real environments.

The most difficult part of all the special effects shots was the collective transformation of Optimus Prime, Jazz, Ironskin, and Ambulance, and Duke used two cameras to shoot the footage from different directions, which was then composited by ILM through CGI footage.

Great special effects graphics need to be matched with equally great sound.

In the beginning, Duke was only going to modify the movie clips iteratively, and did not use 5.1 channels to generate sound effects.

Transformers Studios has a set of 5.1 channel equipment. But I've been racing against time to revise the picture, and I don't have time to care about the audio track.

But if something goes wrong with the audio track and then goes back and changes it, it will undoubtedly add a lot of work, so Duke thought of a compromise.

The crew extracted and split the sound files of the 24 tracks. Create left-channel, right-channel, surround mix files, or save low-frequency files with rough sound, and then organize the images and their corresponding sound effects files together.

When you need to play it in a 5.1 channel system, find the original files of the corresponding sound files and combine them with the picture.

The effect of this approach has been seamless.

In addition, representatives of the military are stationed at Warner Studios. Keep up to date with the progress of Transformers.

This also highlights the influence of Duke's films from the side, as long as people in the United States have a little brain, they know that Duke is a real popular film that can be widely circulated, and can influence countless people around the world through the big screen, the Internet, DVDs and televisions, etc., since the Pentagon sponsored his film, it is natural to need a positive image of the US military.

In this regard, Duke has always been reputable, he has worked with the Pentagon for many years, and he does not get his head in the water to think that the Pentagon is full of idiots.

Even in North America, tanks or fighter jets are not something that can be borrowed casually, and if you want to use them in a movie, you have to contact the military.

In post-production, Duke also made sure that the American side had a tall and positive image in the movie.

Whether it is the battle scenes, the dialogues or the uniforms, they all embody the values of the American side today. For example, the military in the movie refers to the Transformers robot as a "non-biological alien lifeform", reflecting the military's habit of using strange technological words in their wording.

Probably very satisfied with the crew, at a Comic-Con in New York in February, the Pentagon also sent people to participate in several promotional events for "Transformers".

"Director Rosenberg is in charge of the Hollywood side of the film, and we are in charge of the military part of it, and our cooperation is very smooth."

Paul from the Pentagon's Office of Public Relations? Colonel Shearer also gave a special interview to N, "The cooperation between the military and the entertainment industry can make the army look more human." We are not just protecting the country, although this is our first priority. This film will make the public understand that the military also has a human side, where protection is needed and where help is needed, we will be there. ”

Although the colonel's words are full of Americanism, this is propaganda aimed at North America.

Of course, the focus of the campaign is still on Duke, and although he won't stay in New York for long, Duke was interviewed by Vanity Fair magazine at the event, and it is important to make this film, and it is equally important to promote it.

Due to the extremely limited time given by Duke, the female reporter sent by Vanity Fair sat behind him without going around in circles, and the questions went straight to the topic.

Pointing to the huge poster, she asked, "The theme of the movie is 'The story of a boy and his car'?" ”

"I worked a lot with my colleagues to make sure that the narrative of the film was really from a child's point of view." With his arms on the armrests of his chair, Duke spoke quickly, "But I added some military elements from the beginning to make the film style tougher, more intense, and more intense." ”

The female reporter looked down at her notebook and asked, "Have you ever thought about who the target audience of this play will be?" ”

"I thought this movie would appeal to kids and young people in their twenties."

Duke said something that happened during filming, "The military sent some people to help us." I was working with them on the first day on set, and I was a little embarrassed......"

"I said to the forty or so soldiers, 'Hey, everybody, I know I'm going to say something funny, but imagine there's a 40-foot-tall robot standing here, and he's going to take off and land there.'" They immediately asked, 'Which robot?' Red Spider or Megatron? Instead, I was taken aback - how did these guys from the army know this? At that moment, I understood that Transformers affected a much wider audience than I had previously thought. ”

The female reporter pointed to the poster of Optimus Prime and the transformed truck, and said, "You changed the shape of Optimus Prime, and many Transformers fans were furious because of it, and there are even rumors that you have received death threats?" ”

"No, I just got a lot of really interesting feedback."

While it was true that someone had mailed something like that to the studio, Duke didn't take it to heart at all, "What do they say, 'Damn it, Duke?'" Rosenberg, you ruined my childhood dreams; Duke? Rosenberg, I'm going to kill you. I understand their feelings, you know, people are always full of love and pampering nostalgia for their childhood. ”

Speaking of this, Duke couldn't help but laugh, "To be honest, they only have that cartoon in their minds, and very few people are willing to seriously think about how Transformers should actually look because they don't want to leave their childhood memories behind." ”

"Duke, at the beginning of this year, several directors in Europe slammed you for not wanting to make progress......"

Seeing that the time was about the same, the female reporter asked a sensitive question, "They criticize you for not making movies at all, and you are destroying the art of film." ”

"I don't think so, I'm proud of the style of the film I've chosen."

At the beginning of the year, the media did hype up this incident, but Duke was busy with the post-production of "Transformers" and didn't bother to respond at all, and those so-called European directors did not hype themselves in this way.

Duke thought about it for a moment, and then said, "I'm very happy in life, and the people who attack me don't really know me, they think I'm not engaged in art. For example, a foreign correspondent from Hollywood came to me in the morning and she asked me directly, 'Aren't you going to turn to art cinema and make something more valuable?' ’”

He spread his hands, "I said, 'Are you kidding?' The image of Optimus Prime hanging behind me took the energy of an entire group of artists, and an action blockbuster was much more difficult than going to the South of France to shoot a low-budget art film. Just like Optimus Prime, making an object that doesn't actually exist look like it has a soul and intelligence, that's the essence of art. Strangely, many people think it's a simple trick. (To be continued.) )

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