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Chapter 306 Special Effects Planning. It is not new for domestic films to find foreign teams, when "Assembly", Feng Xiaogang was looking for the gunfire team of South Korea that completed "Tai Chi Flag Flying", and some other films also used Hollywood special effects teams. However, these people hired the special effects team in Hollywood, which is more of a gimmick, in fact, they didn't spend too much money, and they didn't achieve more good results.

However, Luo Mo is different, what he needs now is a real effect, not a pure gimmick.

Weta Digital has experienced a lot of film shooting and has a lot of experience, and Avatar's special effects production has basically been completed this year, so they now have time to work on this side of the matter.

In terms of special effects development, although foreign companies have completed the most important part of many films, their status is very low. Although Hollywood's various special effects blockbusters can be said to be popular in many places, the special effects team behind all this is often facing the dilemma of imminent bankruptcy...... No way, the pay is really not high.

Many people think that it doesn't cost too much real things to do special effects, especially CG special effects, which are basically done in the computer. In fact, special effects are a whole body of the industry, special effects artists are too tired, some CG special effects even need to use hundreds of layers, and it is continuous, such work intensity is very torturous to their body and mind, not to complete a movie is a torture for them, and the cost is also very large.

In 2013, Life of Pi was a success at the box office, word of mouth and awards, only to be disgruntled by the special effects companies because they felt that their labor was not respected. At the same time, many U.S. special effects companies have also gone out of business, and the situation is very bad......

In such a situation, it is not difficult to find special effects artists from there to work here, and the price is also negotiable.

In fact, many special effects companies in China have begun to have the same competitive situation as Hollywood, and special effects companies that fail in the competition often go out of business...... It's just that China's special effects companies have a big way to make money, that is, training, all kinds of training courses are opened, and the training fees are expensive, 20,000 or 30,000 a year, relying on training, many special effects companies in China have slowly developed and grown, and they also have the ability to undertake foreign films.

But even so, Luo Mo didn't plan to find a Chinese special effects team...... In fact, China's special effects team has reached the international advanced level in some places, but many more places are still far behind. What's more, Luo Mo has now made up his mind to let "Inception" adopt the method of 3D real shooting from the very beginning, this kind of 3D real shooting, there is no such technique in China. Luo Mo is going to use Weta Digital this time, and there are also some Hollywood companies in the future, and there may be a few people in China to join, they are mainly to learn skills, and Luo Mo may use them in the future.

Before really deciding on the 3D real shooting, Luo Mo also considered this problem......

He has seen the information in the mobile hard drive, and knows that after "Avatar" created a milestone in 3D movies, many 3D movies have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, but the level is uneven. Then a "War of the Gods" only has subtitles and 3D effects, which made fans go berserk, and began a craze to boycott 3D films......

Although Luo Mo mainly wants to catch the shuttle bus of "Avatar", he still doesn't want to make a movie with pseudo-3D effects...... At least in some important special effects shots and combat shots, he must make the 3D effect very real, otherwise if everyone mentions the originator of pseudo-3D films, they suddenly think of Luo Mo and his "Inception", then this matter is really embarrassing. And in this case, if Luo Mo shoots a 3D movie in the future, everyone will become distrustful of him......

Therefore, Luo Mo wants to make a real 3D movie, and at this time he wants 3D special effects, maybe he will be opened by the lion, but he must also do it.

Soon, according to the latest negotiation results, Weta Digital will lead several foreign joint special effects companies, plus several domestic companies to form the visual effects team of "Inception", under the leadership of special effects director Chad Taylor, to produce special effects for "Inception". However, their offer is really high, and the price is $28 million......

28 million US dollars, in this era, equivalent to nearly 200 million yuan.

Maybe the special effects of 28 million dollars don't seem worth mentioning in the United States...... But in fact, this is not the case at all, Hollywood blockbusters invest one or two hundred million dollars at every turn, in fact, a large part of their two hundred million dollars is spent on publicity, and the real special effects cost is not too high. Besides, China's technical maniac Tsui Hark, his "Dragon Gate Flying Armor" has just appeared, and everyone says that "Transformers 3" is absolutely complete in terms of 3D effects, and then his "Di Renjie's Divine Dragon King", 3D effects, especially the underwater 3D, are on par with "Pacific Rim", and most Hollywood blockbusters after "Avatar" can be compared.

are such two blockbusters, the 3D effect that sets a new benchmark for Chinese martial arts films, and also found a special effects production team in the United States, but the investment in special effects of "Dragon Gate Flying Armor" is only 50 million, which is only more than 7 million dollars when converted into US dollars, and the special effects investment of "Di Renjie's Divine Dragon King" is only 90 million yuan, which is only 13 million when converted into US dollars......

And now they are opening their mouths like this!

Luo Mo's first reaction was that these guys thought that Chinese film producers were all stupid guys with a lot of money, and they could cheat money casually, and when they were angry in Hollywood, they came here to cheat a lot of money. It's just that although he knows this, he can talk about the price, but it is impossible not to look for them when he is negative, there is no way, China does not have that kind of technology.

Then, Luo Mo rejected the price and let the negotiation continue.

Here I promised to lower the price, but at the same time, I also said their difficulties - the special effects required by "Inception" are too high, not to mention anything else, it is to roll up the special effects in Paris, which is completely unprecedented in film history, and now to make such a CG special effect, you need to go to Paris to collect materials in person, store the materials and then re-CG modeling, and the whole process does not know how much manpower and material resources will be consumed. In addition, Luo Mo needs to pursue real dream effects, so he needs the buildings in those dreams to collapse, and the buildings must be very real......

Luo Mo's need for this was complained about by a lot of people over there, saying that it was really difficult. In addition, it is really difficult to make these pictures such as the collapse of the world, the fierce battle of the snow-capped mountains, and the weightlessness of the elevator, not to mention the 3D effect according to Luo Mo's requirements?

In fact, many of the special effects of "Inception" are more demanding than those of "Dragon Gate Flying Armor" and "Shendu Dragon King", especially some of the unheard of movie effects, which require them to rebuild a way of thinking, and the whole process is difficult. So a lot of their complaints are not untargeted, but Luo Mo, as the producer, must still strive for it.

After more than a week of difficult negotiations, the cost of Inception's special effects production has finally been negotiated, and Weta Digital's special effects director, Chad Taylor, will lead a group of senior designers to the crew to shoot with them, and finalize the final production plan in such an on-location shooting experience. And the cost has also dropped from 28 million to 23 million, but this is also the limit, and there is no way to reduce it.

Now they have been given a deposit of 3 million, and then according to the production progress of the post-production special effects, the remaining 20 million will be slowly paid. The 23 million includes post-production, as well as the rental cost of 3D live-action cameras in 3D real-life shooting, and the cost of post-3D production......

After talking about such things, Luo Mo finally breathed a sigh of relief, and in this way, his team of "Inception" can basically be said to have been built.

He has only seen the movie and script of "Inception", and the specific shooting plan can only be explored slowly, and Nolan is a natural traditional photography paranoid...... As long as he can shoot something with traditional models and so on, he will never use CG, and he has a sense of rejection for CG, especially for 3D after that.

Let's just say that the scene of the street rushing onto the train, if it were replaced by other directors, it was absolutely impossible to use CG to fly, but he just wanted to build a real train and a full-scale model of the street, and then it was still shot in real life...... There are many such examples, and when he was filming "The Rise of the Dark Knight", he still refused to use CG in many places, and he must use miniatures and live-action shooting...... This greatly increased the cost and made it more difficult to shoot, but he enjoyed it.

As an ordinary director, Luo Mo can't do this kind of thing, he will use CG if he can use CG, especially now that he needs 3D effects, then he needs CG even more. In this case, Luo Mo needs CG and many places that he needs to explore with the special effects team, after all, this is a very difficult road.

Now, the special effects team of "Inception" has been completed, plus the expenses of several actors, as well as the salary expenses of other actors, as well as some studios and real scenes that Luo Mo instructed everyone to build, have begun to really invest. With such investment, "Inception" has invested about 200 million yuan so far......

Of course, Luo Mo's actual expenditure was only sixty or seventy million, because many places used deposits, and the actors' salaries were not given until the filming of the movie was completed. And now after Luo Mo revealed the news of shooting a new movie, advertisers immediately rushed over, hoping to insert product placement ads in "Inception".

Now the cost of product placement in "Inception" and "The Hangover" is completely different, "The Hangover" was implanted with 8 million advertising fees at that time, and those advertisers beat their chests when "The Hangover" did not pass the review at the beginning, and then "The Hangover" became a box office hit at home and abroad, and they began to congratulate themselves on their wise vision.

And now, product placement has been very much looking forward to Inception, and the price is many times higher.

PS: Coming back from a night of hangover, alas, another year older.

When I came back, I saw the obscene uncle, the deaf uncle, and the big reward of the dead ancient coin, especially when I saw the king of heaven. Big 8888 reward, thank you, thank you very much! Van Chen's will definitely come on.