Stephen Rowenstein: "Haven't you guys been to the studio before?"

Joel Cohen: "The first day of filming for 'Blood Labyrinth' was my first time seeing the studio, which I hadn't even visited before. ”

Ethan Cohen: "Everybody's the same, you know, Barry hasn't seen it before. Barry Sonenfeld, the cinematographer of "Blood Labyrinth."

Joel Cohen: "Barry walked to the parking lot and started vomiting, he was so nervous. We're all the same. So are the gaffers, the mixers, everybody is doing this for the first time. ”

Rowenstein: "How did you feel when you first started making films?"

Anthony Jiaguera: "I was very nervous when I shot the first five or six shots. I remember that during the filming of "The Unfinished Yin and Yang", I had the idea that I couldn't hold on anymore, and even years later, during the more than 3 days of filming of "The Genius Ripley", I still felt nervous, very nervous, on the way to the set, every day. ”

Rowenstein: "Aside from sleep deprivation, what was the hardest thing about filming?"

Ang Lee: "Pushing Hands was my first official film, and I felt a lot of responsibility because everyone was looking forward to it and was hopeful about it. For a low-budget production made in New York, hope is the only motivator because you can't afford to pay a lot of wages.

Probably the hardest thing is self-confidence and the trust that others have in you, because the crew must be completely convinced that their director is a genius in order for your idea to be ideally realized. They're doing a great job -- and I certainly love it

But on the other hand, you have a lot of responsibility. Your language, your ideas, you have to be consistent, you have to be clear, and once you have a good idea, people will respect you.

I'm not a megalomaniac or a yelling person, so I have to be prepared a lot. Just standing there, you have to have the power to boost morale and lift people's hearts, and that's what a professional director does. On set, everybody is busier than you, but as long as you stand there, they just need you to stand there, and that's an invisible force. ”

―My L-th Movie》

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As the king of the set of "Little Beauty of Daylight", he commands nearly 50 people in various departments, including two superstars of the 260,000 salary club, and none of the other actors is a fuel-efficient lamp, even Abigier, who is about to be 9 years old, is a talented little actor, and he is a 17-year-old semi-rookie.

Is Ye Wei nervous? Of course

Although this can't actually be said to be his first feature film, it is really very different from the set of "The Wedding is Coming" and "The Exorcism Video".

For the new version of "The Wedding is Coming", except for himself, no one else has many expectations, and because the shooting cycle of the new material is short, the budget is ultra-low, the digital shooting, and there are no big names in the crew, the pressure on the set has always been very light, as easy and funny as the movie itself, and Cage's cameo and two cakes made everyone's nerves tense for some time.

And the exorcism video is like a race that starts sprinting from the first step, in the B day of shooting, everyone is doing things and doing things again, and they don't have time to think about anything at all, and because he is a sole proprietor and a zero big person, he has absolute power, and he can fire whoever he wants to fire immediately, so he is not very nervous.

Yes, he is the first producer and director, one of the investors, and the soul of the project...... However, there is no absolute power, and in the face of superstars and old fritters, he not only needs to explain his intentions, but sometimes he has to try to convince them, which starts from the preparatory stage.

This aspect cannot be solved by power, and a team that looks good can't shoot anything good. The director must have the prestige of a wolf.

Ye Wei has never been a person who lacks self-confidence, but he also knows that he is still a mature director, even if he is a big director, most of them will have nervous problems. He admitted to himself that he was nervous, after all, this was the first formal film feature film, with a medium-sized crew, a budget of 600,000 yuan, and huge expectations from all parties

nervous

When you are nervous, it is easy to make mistakes, and if you make mistakes, what the director has to do is ...... Academies, textbooks, and experiences all speak the same answer:

Of course I know what I'm doing, but you don't know, only I'm right

"Director, this camera position will cause off-axis ......"

At nearly eleven o'clock in the morning, the set started filming for more than two hours, and the opening scene of Oliver watching the video in the lobby, as well as the scene of several characters walking around the hall, was filming the scene of the kitchen scene. Because it wasn't a live shoot, the studio set up provided the most space to shoot, with walls to move, props to be rearranged, and all angles to be used, without the lighting crew having nowhere to stand or the camera not moving.

The kitchen is set in the style of an ordinary middle-class family on the ground floor, and the upper level of the double-decker refrigerator is plastered with photos and labels with something written on it.

These props were made during the preparation period, and for this purpose, the leading actors needed to cooperate with the props team to take pictures, almost all of them were Oliver, who had been selected for the beauty pageant before, and she seemed to have done something amazing wearing a prize flower...... There is no other family in any photo, only a quirky Polaroid group photo, except for Oliver smiling, Dad, Mom, and Brother have no expression, no grandpa.

This is a set carefully designed by the art team under Ye Wei's intentions, revealing a lot of important information in the language of props, showing the state of the family

Oliver is the most important person in the family, everyone loves her and is proud of her accomplishments, but they don't have any success worth sticking to, their lives are failures, and success without family is not really successful. And this family is actually on the verge of rupture and separation, and Oliver is the one who holds them together.

It's not a normal photo, it's a Polaroid photo, and the grandfather you can't see may be the one who took the picture, maybe you don't know where to fool around, which indicates that he will leave in the story, and it also shows that this family doesn't even have the time and mind to take a decent family photo, Richard is full of thoughts about becoming a successful person, and the other members are no better.

Although in the storyboard script drawn by Ye Wei, the details of the upper layer of the refrigerator will appear in the close-up shots of Richard and Cheryl's dialogue, and there is enough time to stay, but it is certain that these details are not noticed and appreciated by ordinary audiences, and only active audiences such as film critics, fans, and peers will rarely set up props.

However, this is artistic creation, if there are no such details, then what is the difference between it and a commercial film? What is the difference between Ye Wei directing or Michael Bay, Michael Angelano? What are the different charms of different directors?

The long lead time isn't just a waste of time, and the anticipation of the awards season isn't just lip service, and the set is just the tip of the iceberg.

The big guys will trust Ye Wei, precisely because his performance in the pre-planning period is really good. Of course, in the process of execution, the art team led by Donald Burt, Adam Kleahausen, Heather Leffler, and Tony Bonaventura really delivered satisfactory homework.

"Off-axis?"

"Ugh. ”

At this time, the kitchen scene was crowded with crew members, and Ye Weizheng indicated to the film crew where to place the camera position for the next shot.

Just as his finger was pointed, Maurer felt that something was wrong, what was wrong? Just as the two camera assistants were about to move the camera, the scene reporter Lynn reminded Ye Wei softly. Lynn is a senior field reporter with more than 10 years of experience in the industry, and her professional ability is very strong.

Everyone was stunned when they heard this, and the idlers continued to be busy without hearing it, and Maurer figured out as soon as he heard it, this camera position was indeed off-axis from the previous shot.

Looking at Ye Wei, who was expressionless, Hanks and Roberts, who were acting in this scene, frowned slightly, and the second producer over there, Peter Heller, art director Donald Burt and others all had worries flashing in their hearts, crossing the axis is a common mistake, but it is also a low-level mistake.

On every set, there are almost daily arguments about off-axis, and in many cases the parties are so noisy that it is not even until the time of editing to decide the winner.

It's not a big deal, but Maurer knows best that Viy rarely makes the mistake of going off the axis, not to mention that it's just started filming, and the morning is refreshed.

Could it be that his injuries still affected his mind?

This is a worrying situation, because the prodigy should now be lying in a hospital bed, not on the set.

People who work with VIY for the first time will inevitably feel a little bit, after all, they are only 17-year-old directors, and it is normal to make more off-axis mistakes than others...

Regardless of whether it is normal or not, there is a proven fact, no matter how old or senior, the more mistakes a director makes on the set, the lower his prestige in this crew, the less powerful the team, and everyone will feel "It's over, he is a general who can only defeat battles".

Especially for a young director, the speed of image collapse and loss of everyone's trust can be very fast. Making mistakes as soon as you start shooting is not a good start.

However, as a scene reporter, pointing out the director's mistakes is one of Lynn's responsibilities.

Why are directors so nervous, anxious, and even painful that they have thoughts of "I can't hold on" and "I'm going to get out of here, the farther away the better", because directors can't make mistakes.

"Haha" Ye Wei understands this, understands very well, and before Lynn's words fell, he reflexively laughed: "No, this has nothing to do with crossing the axis." ", it's overstep...... You really shouldn't make such a low-level mistake, don't make it again

"Oh?"

"I just wanted this camera for this shot, and then I had to shoot a few more new shots that I had just come up with, and then I decided which one to use when I got to the editing room. ”

Ye Wei had a smile of "everything is under control", as if he was happy with the explosion of inspiration, once again proving that directors learning to act are absolutely only good, not bad

He knows that he really makes mistakes, every director makes some mistakes, and he is no exception, but he can't say "Guys, I was wrong", he can only say "this is part of the plan", in fact, he can't say that, that has become a term, and whoever says it is equivalent to saying "yes, I know I was wrong, but I don't admit it".

If he had been filming for many days, if he had not been injured, he could admit his mistakes, and now it is not about honesty or modesty, and it is one of the responsibilities of the director to maintain authority.

But none of these people can be fooled, Hanks himself can direct, Roberts can spend more time on the set than his age, well, she is not that old

Ye Wei's mind was racing, and he smiled with a little explanation: "It's like the end of the opposite door, where the narrow kitchen is photographed for a long time, Cheryl walked in, and used a low angle to give people a sense of pressure, what a housewife, guys, let's take action."

"Oh" After hearing the director's words, everyone was relieved, and Lynn made a note on the scene sheet about this shot, "It's not off-axis, one of the many options."

Roberts' expression was different, and Hanks was smiling, whether he made a mistake or not, but the handling was satisfactory.

Many people breathed a sigh of relief, and it seemed that the injury had not affected Viyr Spoon's ability and aura.

Hello risk. Ye Wei exhaled secretly, and suddenly had a physiological reaction of vomiting, I don't know if it was the sequelae of the concussion that did not fully recover, or because of this tension.

However, Lynn just ran out of opinions, but he saw Jennifer Anderson winking at him, so he walked aside with her to talk to the director and assistant director.

Jennifer Anderson said helplessly: "I must remind you that the process has fallen for half an hour...... "After more than two hours of shooting, half an hour has fallen, how much will it fall at the end of the day?

But now half an hour, the cordon has been exceeded

"Uh......" Ye Wei frowned, took today's worksheet handed over by Anderson and looked like he was slandering in his heart, time, time, time

He understood what she meant, did he want to cut out which shots to get half an hour back? But he had just added a few shots to "I'm not wrong...... And looking at it now, she was reluctant to delete any of the shots on it, so she threw the worksheet back into her hand and said seriously: "It's okay, I'll pay attention to it later, it's no problem to rush back for half an hour." ”

"It's better to be like that. Anderson whispered, "Don't add any new shots." ”

Ye Wei shrugged, it's not the first time I've fought with time, but it's so difficult every time, I don't want to shoot "Gone with the Wind" in the morning and Hongtang in the afternoon, and work overtime in the evening? Please, I will work overtime on the first day......

On the first morning, time was short, so it might be better to cut out the shots, because then you would get at least some quality shots in the afternoon, rather than all mediocre shots. But as long as you pull back half an hour in the morning, there will be no such problem for half an hour, which is really a lot for the set.

He looked around at the busy, gritted his teeth, and fought

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Rowenstein: "Are there any other difficulties?"

Ang Lee: "From the first day you started filming, your biggest enemy was time. You've been in a race against time, and that's the first lesson丨I planned to shoot 18 shots a day, but only 9 were shot. After that, it was not possible to shoot all the scenes that were originally planned. So I had to scale down the shoot, because the bigger the scale, the longer it took to set up and rehearse.

At the end of the day, it's all about time. So you have to shoot on a relatively small scale, especially in the case of independent production, shoot fewer shots, shoot fewer scenes, which determines the shooting style of "The Wedding Banquet". I almost went back to the kind of technique taught in the textbooks. This is the experience gained from filming "Pushing Hands".

If you shoot less, you can shoot better. Because if you spend too much time setting up the scene, you don't have time to improve the performance and increase collaboration. I also found out about time, I believe that many directors who make their first work think that their task is to finish the film, not to overrun the deadline, it is a heavy burden, and sometimes you forget why you want to make a movie. You have to keep reminding yourself: no, it's too mediocre.

In my experience, you can't shoot every shot flawlessly. In fact, that kind of movie may not be good either. You have to pick out the right segments, and you have to give yourself plenty of time for the rest of the plot to achieve what you want to achieve. ”