The tall light box stood in the middle of the studio, and countless people were busy around the light box, and when Duke started, the scene quickly returned to quiet, except for the sound of the light box running and the friction of the camera slipping off from the mechanical arm. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Hung by twelve coercion on the cradle of the lightbox, Scarlett? Johnson didn't feel good, the lightbox was stuffy, hot, and isolated, the shooting time was often long, and the whole process was very hard, and if she hadn't been practicing yoga and exercising since last year, she would not have been able to bear it.

Despite feeling bad, Scarlett did her best, knowing that Duke expected too much from her and didn't want to disappoint him.

From the beginning of filming to the present, she only complained to Duke at that lunch, and that was the only time she complained.

The cradle was spinning, and Scarlett felt like she was spinning, and directly above her, the camera controlled by the robotic arm rotated and slipped rapidly, and the bulky IMAX camera was so fast that it seemed to smash into her face.

Scarlett didn't move......

“cut！”

The sound of a stop sounded, and Duke stood up from behind the monitor and shouted into the light box, "Watch your eyes, you have an eye closing movement!" ”

It's an instinctive human reaction, and when it comes to showing the effect of the actor "smashing" the camera, the actor basically doesn't move much, but lets the camera "smash" the actor under the precise control of the robotic arm, and in this scene, the camera has to smash at Scarlett at 40 miles per hour? Johnson, stopped 3 inches away from her, and in the process, Scarlett had to stay motionless.

The brilliant actor can control any of his expressions and instinctive reactions, and after Duke's reminder, Scarlett successfully completed the scene in one go.

Subsequently. Duke rested the crew to prepare for the first half of the film.

Once at the beginning of "Gravity", a space shot that lasted for nearly 18 minutes shocked everyone. Even the most discerning and demanding fans will be imaginative about this camera movement, extremely complex scene scheduling, CG production, and seamless long shots.

But the crew was not prepared to shoot such a long shot. Instead, the lens is split in two, spliced together by two long lenses. The first shot lasts about 12 and a half minutes, and then another shot is connected to make up the entire long shot.

If it's not hard to create a zero-gravity effect, then these long shots are a real challenge, and it's gravity-free long shots.

Gravitylessness, which is where this lens is tricky, is not just showing that zero gravity is tricky. Long shots are inherently difficult, and so is zero gravity, adding the two of them together, no, they don't add them together, they multiply, and things are even more difficult.

Duke and John? Schwartzman has done a lot of discussion and experimentation about this.

The camera movement during these shots is also recorded by the motion capture system to match the CG scene. Duke wanted the camera's movement to be as natural and fluid as possible, so instead of keyframing frame by frame, he chose to use a virtual camera system in a small motion capture studio. John? Schwartzman and his four camera assistants can walk around with this small stand, control camera parameters and composition, and then make some modifications to the recorded tracks. Make it more like it was shot in zero gravity.

Unlike in the past, Duke believes that long shots can be a good way to immerse the audience in the film, and the key to long shots is to be immersive, which can make the whole picture more realistic, more relevant and more straightforward for such a special film.

The fewer editing points there are, the more interaction the audience has with the character, as if the audience were watching what the character was going through in real time.

During the discussion the other day, Duke wanted to try more camera movements, but John? Schwarzman and Mike? Dawson advised him not to do this.

According to Duke's plan. The opening scene ends with the heroine floating into the vastness of space, and I am when she begins to float into the distance. There's no need to set a clip point, the camera can follow her in the same shot. In this way, the two shots of the opening scene can be combined into one shot.

But John? Schwartzman and Mike? Dawson didn't recommend it, they thought it was the best cut point when the heroine floated out, and if it was a chapter in a book, it should be the last sentence of the chapter.

The lengthening of the lens meant that the difficulty of the shot increased exponentially, and they easily convinced Duke with only one reason - time did not allow it!

Yes, time really doesn't allow it, the production cycle of this film is already extremely tight, and Duke has no time to waste.

And he is not the kind of paranoid person, whether it is a long shot or an editing, it must be suitable for the actual situation of a film at the time, the plot itself is equivalent to the cinematography, sound performance and color, they are all a kind of filmmaking tools, so the director has to serve the film, not the story.

Another challenge is to make this long shot eye-catching.

The purpose of the film is not to have the audience sit there in dead silence, not to have them sit there and wait for someone to float up and take a close-up.

A long shot is like a ballet, and it can't be boring to deal with for a second.

The director uses the camera to tell the story, from beginning to end, whether it's from the big vista of the environment to the dialogue shot to the single shot to the action shot to another big long shot, it's all talking with the camera, and if you want to tell everything in one shot, then you have to find a way to cover all of these genres.

In the time-consuming and laborious preparation, the previs was approved by Duke, the simulated lighting was completed, and the entire special effects team would do another technical previs to assist Duke in deciding how to shoot each shot and how the images in the preview should be shot on the mechanical equipment and light boxes.

Waiting for George? Clooney and Scarlett? Johnson was ready, and the crew kicked off the filming. In addition to Schwartzman and his four camera assistants, the special effects team used the IRIS robotic arm to manipulate all the camera pans, and all of the actors' action points and camera angle shifts were all precisely calculated and arranged, which was never achieved by a previously programmed shot.

In a continuous long shot, showing a panoramic close-up action scene one after another, you have to find a solution that can show different episodes at the same time in a single shot, which is definitely the most difficult part, so it is very, very difficult to combine zero gravity and long shots.

The whole shooting process was not smooth, and he was stopped by Duke several times, and any small negligence in the shooting would cause everyone's efforts to come to naught, and the length of the shot and the complex effects to be shown determined that everyone from the actors to the technical department would keep making mistakes.

Sensoryly, the shot needs to be flawless and everything needs to be taken care of.

The detail-oriented Duke also referred to the IMAX documentary "Hubble" in the early preparations, and met with NASA astronaut Katie Bush, who served as a consultant for the film. Together, Coleman specialized in the trajectory of the Hubble telescope, the relative positions of the Sun and the Moon according to the time set in the movie, and the model of the Earth.

What did the Earth look like at the Hubble telescope location at the time? What is the position and angle of the sun? He took them all into account.

In addition to Duke, the most time-consuming and energy-consuming person in the shoot is his director of photography and special effects supervisor.

There are many scenes in the long shots, and the special effects team needs to do a visual preview in advance, otherwise they don't know where the light should come from, or they don't know what kind of special effects to use at what moment, Tim? Webb's team spent a lot of time simulating lighting, and the lines between special effects and cinematography blurred.

There is an intersection between the two, but there is no strict boundary.

As a photographer, John? Schwartzman had more special effects to deal with than any other photographer, and for Tim? Webb, the special effects artist, has to deal with more camera problems than any special effects supervisor.

Because in the shooting of such a movie, the two do not need to be so clearly distinguished.

These two long shots were filmed over a period of nearly ten days, from Duke as the director to John? Schwartzman and Tim? Webb to Scarlett? Johnson and George? The two actors, Clooney, were exhausted by torture.

When these two long takes, which add up to nearly 18 minutes, are finally completed, it will be like a graduation ceremony for the makers of the Duke films.

Duke also admits that the rest of the film's shots are not as difficult as these two shots.

These two shots, which are close to 18 minutes, contain all the efforts and breakthroughs in the preparation and technology of the film by the crew - the new lighting method of the robotic arm shot, the new rendering technology of CG space, and the realization of the arbitrary movement of the real shooting perspective, the arbitrary change of character lighting, and the grand and calm beauty of the universe.

With Tim? In Weber's words, when these two long shots end, it is announced that from now on, weightlessness and space are no longer problems in the cinematic picture.

During the filming of the film, Duke and his technical team solved many problems of weightless shooting, and with the assistance of technology, completely renovated the shooting of most Hollywood space exploration films relying on the method of "WIA + green screen + CG post-production".

It is no exaggeration to say that after this, the only thing that can surpass this shooting is really to go to space to shoot live.

The completion of the two long shots also made Duke breathe a sigh of relief, and he deliberately gave the crew two days off, but when the crew reassembled to shoot, a special visitor came to his studio. (To be continued.) )

PS: Ask for monthly passes and recommended tickets!