"If you want to make a movie, you have to go through the time when you are young and stupid, and if you know as much as the veterans when you come up, it's impossible. ”

―Jean-Luc Godard

At night, Days Hotel East Beach, where the crew of "Little Beauty of the Daylight" currently stays, Ye Wei also lives here, and he has to deal with some work with the production team at night.

Under his expulsion, after a weekend of observation, it was really nothing serious, my parents had gone back to Los Angeles, and if I followed him, I couldn't give others confidence, and I would have no image. Old George came to be a driver and assistant, he needed to hire a professional personal assistant, and Master Jiya, who played tickets, was really unreliable.

At the end of the day, when his spirit began to relax, Ye Weizhen was a little tired, and the injury was still affected, so he returned to the hotel single room and lay down for a while. Then I got up and opened my laptop and checked my email. Knowing that today is his opening day, the media are reporting it, and many people have sent congratulations by text message or email, and his heart is really warm to watch.

Friends usually send text messages, and most of the emails are from work contacts, as well as elders.

"There is always a trait of a new director, who is eager and brave to express his infinite ideas, and there are no shackles. It's this quality that makes those debut novels look so captivating. When you make your first movie, you are the most nervous and at the same time the most free, and you will miss this feeling for many years to come, so enjoy it, young people. ”

After reading Big Coppola's email, Ye Wei couldn't help but smile, "Thank you, Francis." "Well, dispel the idea of encouraging Gia to drop out of school.

He then clicked on the email sent by Wang Ying, the box office results of "It's All Dai Qian's Fault" are okay, and there are more than 1.4 million North American box office in the six weeks since it was released, relative to the production fee of 1.46 million, this achievement will not make Wang Ying have no films to shoot and can't make money in the theater, but there is still income from the copyright fees for video and TV broadcasts.

"Hollywood is hierarchical, commercialization is everywhere, and it's impossible not to face some persistent or compromising challenges in the middle of it. Most of the time you have to persevere, and other times you have to learn to compromise and express yourself in another way. ”

"Thanks, Wayne, I will. Ye Wei nodded, fortunately, he had not encountered an irreconcilable situation in his creation.

Hey hey George Lucas also sent one, and he opened it excitedly to read:

"Boy, congratulations on becoming a cultural relic, have you betrayed digital technology and tasted the pain of film shooting, haha, I don't put up with that anymore. The next time I see you, your hair will be whiter than mine, and that was given to you by film. You're always welcome back to the digital planet from the Death Star, and you'll soon have nowhere else to go. ”

"Hahaha" Ye Wei couldn't help laughing, George, it's okay, of course it's not as convenient as digital shooting...... Damn, I hate that if you don't have to keep a film, you don't have to change the film, if you don't have those glitches, you won't be two hours off. There are gains and losses, the picture quality and legitimacy of the film.

Hey Ang Lee's email, which came last night, he nodded excitedly again, Ann was not joking, and wrote after saying congratulations:

"When I made the first few films, I saw cinema as a medium to express myself, with a lot of self and not much thought about the audience. The more you make a movie, the more you feel that the essence of the film is a kind of communication inspiration, you just want to stimulate the audience and make them make decisions.

It takes skill to do so, and it's almost impossible and probably not good to do it in the first film, and the first few works are more about the filmmakers themselves, especially small-budget indie films. You will definitely have a lot to say, you have worked so hard to complete the production zuò, and the results that come out are naturally full of personal color.

Even if you're clumsy and unlucky, you still have to make at least 200 decisions a day, fight against time, fight against everything, and if the film is not about you, then what can it be about?

However, don't be afraid to make a decision, no matter what it may be. ”

"Thanks, Ann. Ye Wei felt a sense of strength, Ann was like a prophet, knowing that he had encountered a time problem, knowing that he was hesitating about how to make trade-offs, and then sued him, just move forward bravely, and a text message of encouragement sent by Spielberg also said "Children are free and self-conscious in storytelling, and the director must do this first", hesitating and unable to do this job.

Just do it, Ye Wei got out of bed, sat down at the desk not far away, and looked through a stack of texts with one hand, there are storyboard scripts and worksheets, thinking about which shot materials to cut to make up for the time, each shot in the storyboard is his own painstaking effort, and every time the pen is crossed out, it is like using a sharp knife to scratch the heart, which is sad.

"I can't really do this job," he gritted his teeth, tilted his head and opened his mouth in rage, the most important thing he wanted to cross out was "Abi Shot (the penultimate shot of the day)".

He had to stop, just as a text message came from his phone, picked it up to see if the sender was Nina, replied with a smile, and cheered: "Dinner has arrived."

Love is really the best elixir to treat fatigue, and suddenly I don't feel tired anymore and continue to work

Tomorrow's focus is on the big scene of the "dining room," and the highlight of that is scene 18 of the script, which is the first group scene in the story, a very, very long scene, where Frank, Dewyane, and Cheryl prepare dinner, and then Richard takes his seat, and then Oliver, and then Grandpa, and each character takes a seat, and then there's a scene where they sit down, and then there's their dinner group. Nearly ten pages of script paper before and after, a preset length of 10 minutes, and about 7B minutes after fine editing, accounting for one-third of the first act.

According to his storyboard, it was impossible to shoot this scene in one day, and it would take two and a half days to plan, which was already ideal.

"Little Beauty in the Sunshine" is a group drama story, and it is needless to say how important it is to shoot the first group scene, the internal and external shaping, contradictions, emotional connections and on-screen chemistry of the six characters put together all enter the audience's sight with this scene, determining their impression and interest in the next story.

It is a very test for the actors, although everyone has had a round-table reading session before filming, but after all, it is just a reading meeting, and the performance in front of the camera is another matter.

It is also a great test for the director, whether the group drama is performed well or not depends not only on the actors, but also on the choice and number of shots.

Question 1: How many people are put in the frame, when are there six, when is one, when is one, when is two, three? Question 2, when does someone say a line, does they shoot him directly close-up, or does he react to other characters? Question 3: What is the rhythm of the performance? How is the speed of the recitation of the six people adjusted, and how is the time allocated? Question 4......

Sometimes, the actors are obviously doing a great job on the set, but because the director and editor have made the wrong choice, the effect is that everyone is mediocre; And vice versa, sometimes the actors act mediocre, because of the correct and even magical shots and editing techniques, everyone has a shiny.

Fortunately, this is not a stage play, this scene will not be performed just once, but many, many times, and the actors don't have much pressure, the pressure is all on the director.

Basically, how a director handles scene 18 can be seen how it is level.

If it is the level of TV dramas and TV movies, then a qiē will be relatively simple and fixed, take a few camera positions to switch back and forth, such as a six-person shot of the front/side of the dining table at 6 degrees, a double shot, a three-person shot, and a close-up/close-up of the characters...... The film level will pursue no repetition, pay more attention to the scheduling of scenes, distances and angles, as well as composition, such as the one-third principle.

The three-point composition method is the most basic and practical golden rule in photographic composition, which is to divide the horizontal and vertical parts of the frame into three equal parts, and there is a visual name in Chinese "tic-tac-toe composition method". Placing the subject in the center of the frame is usually dull and boring, but it is better to place the subject at or near the intersection of the thirds line than in an empty space, and the actor's eyes are usually located near the upper third.

Soap operas are not so particular, the more inferior the quality, the more so, of course, because the frame space of the screen is small, there will be more use of the center of the picture is the best situation.

In addition to these, the most important thing is the camera movement, the problem is that everyone is sitting during the meal, they can't walk around, they can't move their buttocks, and it's not easy to move the camera.

Ye Wei has been troubled by this for a while, that is, when the storyboard script was drawn, the camera movement was too obvious, which would seem too formalistic, and even made the audience pay attention to the storage of the camera.

If there is no movement and only hard cutting, it will inevitably be a little dull, he doesn't like it, like the actors did the work, but the director didn't, and wasted the shooting space in the studio.

How do you get the seated conversation of this scene in motion?

Different directors will have different ways, and some directors will say "I don't want to exercise".

And Ye Wei's way involves solving another problem with the script.

In the script, when it comes to the beauty pageant, there are some scenes where other little girls laugh at Oliver, like the one waiting in line for Miss California's autograph:

Cheryl took Oliver by the hand and led her to the back of a line where six little girls and their mother were in line. A girl standing in front of them turned to stare at Oliver, as if gauging the strength of her opponent.

Oliver smiled: Hello......

The girl in front of her quickly turned around and didn't say a word.

Oliver takes the attitude of others in stride. She also turned to look at the other girls in the room, all of them extremely groomed. Oliver, on the other hand, was still dressed in the same outfit she wore when she traveled, with raw denim shorts made of denim and black Converse high-tops.

Two twin sisters are laughing and chasing each other.

Oliver looked at them, and then the twins realized she was watching them.

They whistled to each other and laughed. Oliver smiled and responded to them kindly. Finally, the twins approached Oliver.

Twin Sister One: Are You Losing Weight?

Oliver: What?

Twin Sister One: Are You Losing Weight?

Oliver: No......

Twin Sister 2: Don't think about losing weight (you won't make it).

They laughed again, and ran away. Oliver was confused.

Cheryl was a little angry, but she didn't know what to do.

For a while, Ye Wei was thinking about whether to make this scene, as well as all the scenes of Oliver and the little players.

Because what is the purpose of these scenes? If it is only to depict the meanness of other children and the simplicity of Oliver, so that the audience is filled with righteous indignation and are addicted to the fragments that explode, it is just the setting and processing of commercial films, and it is worthless in terms of art.

Ye Wei asked Michael Hente, what is the screenwriter's intention here? Arndt said that it was one of the modifications made by the focus movie to make the story more commercial, and there was no originally, this paragraph is a bit like a youth campus commercial film, there will always be a mean school girl and her sisters, the heroine is bullied and rectified, and then explodes.

But the positioning of "Little Beauty in the Daylight" is an independent literary film, and this setting is not necessary, even if it is filmed, most of them will not be used in the editing room

However, it is not without literary cells, the meanness of the little girls is the result of the erosion of their childlike innocence by the beauty pageant chasing fame and fortune, and they have more darkness than sunshine in their hearts, and those darkness comes from the influence of adults, and Oliver is at the beginning of this stage.

If you shoot from this angle, you can use these scenes in a way that emphasizes literature and art over commerce.

However, there are other problems in the script that hinder this angle, these problems are not aware of Ye Wei when he first read the script, at first he only felt that such a commercial literary story was too rare, but when he officially went to do an in-depth dissection as a director, he found some deep confusion in the setting.

Darkness corresponds to sunshine, little adults correspond to simplicity, and meanness corresponds to beauty.

When you compare meanness with simplicity, it's not obvious and imprecise, and the effect is that the girls are bullying Oliver, and they're in big trouble.

The enemy is Ms. Jenkins, the adults who are obsessed with fame and fortune, and the set of values of the mainstream society that succeeds and fails, not a bunch of children. Only with clear and precise contrasts can children not be enemies and be thought-provoking on the question of "why are little girls mean?"

The problem is that they are mean, Oliver is not beautiful, and the story is obviously beautiful. The whole script has not rendered the beauty of Oliver's heart, she is an innocent, naïve and simple little girl, she says that boys are stupid when they fall in love with boys, she is greedy and likes to eat ice cream, she wants to be recognized by her father, she wants the family to be happy, this is ordinary enough, there is self-evident kindness. But can there be a little bit of ordinary beauty, belonging to the flash of that childlike heart?

Another chaotic setting is Miss California, who is one of Oliver's idols and is portrayed as a kind woman in the script, who answers Oliver's question "Do you eat ice cream?" and says "yes, I love ice cream." When Oliver took the stage, the audience was laughing and boosing, and she "scanned her surroundings sternly, feeling uncomfortable for Oliver," and at the end of the performance, she was one of those who stood up and applauded Oliver.

What is the role of Miss California? Can you be beautiful and win a beauty contest if you eat ice cream?

It was the sudden Emma cameo mission that made Ye Wei clarify the problem, "eating ice cream can be beautiful" is enough, there should be no "eating ice cream can also win beauty contests", this view is not suitable and unreasonable to appear in this story.

Because the bigger theme is to see through the essence of beauty pageants: life is one beauty contest after another, but fame and fortune are not the true meaning of life.

Therefore, eating ice cream and beauty pageants are opposites, the former is a "hell to hell, as long as I want to fly, I can fly" lifestyle, and the latter is a "winner, loser" lifestyle that follows the rules.

Miss California can't be a good person, she can only be an enemy. When the responsibility of "eating ice cream can be beautiful" is taken away from her, and then the positioning is changed:

In this beauty pageant, Oliver is the early stage, the little girls are the middle stage, and Miss California is undoubtedly the late stage. She is a hypocritical person, a completely childlike adult champion, an incorrigible mean ghost, and the future of the little girls and Oliver on this pageant road is the epitome of every adult who has no sunshine in his heart.

So, when a little flying insect with a bee or moth or something broke into the venue, causing all the little girls except Oliver to scream in disgust, and then was slapped to death by Miss California laughing, the little girls cheered, and Oliver was stunned and confused......

In this way, her confusion provokes the audience to think.

This is not enough, Oliver is confused because she has a different attitude towards the little flying insects, or life, contrary to the law of the jungle, believing that every life deserves to be respected, whether beautiful or ugly, whether successful or unsuccessful.

So, when a fly flew into scene number 18 and flew around the table, and Richard was going to slap it to death, Oliver shouted no

Is there any little flying insect that is more annoying than a fly? If there is a flying insect beauty pageant, it is an absolute loser. But Oliver didn't want to kill such a little fly, because she was a child who had not been polluted by the "beauty pageant".

Flies and bees, ordinary kids and pageant winners, sunshine and darkness, good and ugly.

This not only changes the chaotic setting, but also increases the camera movement appropriately through the flight of the flies and the reaction of the crowd. In the case of scene 18, it is also possible to shape them through the different reactions of the people, and once again reveal the condition of the family - there is no cleaning to attract flies.

You have to pay attention to how to shoot, don't let the flies annoy the audience, Ye Wei doesn't plan to use the subjective or bystander perspective of the fly, the camera perspective will not leave the six people, and it is not involved in the whole process, after causing two or three shots to move, don't worry about it, this is the role of flies in lens scheduling.

All the scenes of flying insects can only be completed with post-production special effects, otherwise who will teach him how to direct the play with flies?

This is Ye Wei's handling of this group scene and this script, some people may disagree, but guess what?

"Oh no...... My heart"

When he crossed out another shot on the work list, Ye Wei screamed a few times in pain, and with such a stroke, he would never have the opportunity to see the combined effect in the editing room.

At this time, the doorbell rang, he got up and walked, and through the door, he saw a young and graceful girl, Nina who came to visit after gymnastics training. He suddenly opened the door, looked puzzled and amazed, and asked, "Beauty, who are you looking for?"

"Hey ......" Nina first laughed, and when she saw that he was acting really, she wanted to laugh and stop laughing, her expression was charming, and her eyes were full of electricity, "I have a question for you."

"What?" Ye Wei let her into the guest room. Nina leaned over to him, caressed his face with one hand, took his right hand with the other, her eyes fluttered, and she said softly, "Do you want to know what I wore in my jeans......?

"Hahahaha" he couldn't help but laugh, making her pout coquettishly. This is really ruining the atmosphere, anyway, I know that she is not real, and she can't do that until she recovers, she said, there are some things that the director's girlfriend has the final say, he laughed and said: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's me who is wrong, is it really not?" ”

"Guess what"