"Mad Max 4", well, Wang Wei will call this movie "Mad Max 4".

This is a simple and crude story, in a word, an iron girl escaped from a group of doomsday bandits with a few big beauties.

The setting of the story is that after a nuclear war, the earth has become a scorched earth, water has become a strategic material, and whoever controls the water source controls everything.

When he learned that the director Lu Le was a female director who had returned from Australia, and that the story was inspired by an unfamous Australian comic, Wang Wei completely understood where that familiarity came from.

Lu Le, the director, is very discerning, she is blunt in the script, and the selling point of this movie is the explosion, violence, desolation, and magnificent visual experience.

In order to achieve the desired aesthetic effect, she planned to shoot the whole desert live scene, and the special effects will be 90% realistic special effects, except for a very small part of the CG production, - from a large truck to a part, all of which must be shot with a rough realism full of the industrial age.

Well, such a hardcore movie has successfully aroused the interest of Shen Zhenyi, a "mechanical family", and the two "mechanical families" hit it off and are ready to "get a machine".

Of course, this is a large-scale project, and about 100 stuntmen are needed alone, and the investment is naturally not small, so it is no wonder that a domestic film company that takes a fancy to this movie is desperate for Shen Zhenyi to bring capital into the game.

Wang Wei also believes that it has investment value, especially that the newly established special effects studio in Dunhuang, Feitian Special Effects, can take over the special effects production business of this film.

……

The Feitian special effects studio is one floor below the Dunhuang headquarters, and it also occupies a whole floor alone.

When Wang Wei walked into the studio, it was like entering a horror museum, with severed feet and broken arms on the table, zombies on the wall, and heads piled up in the cabinet...... It's scary and fun to watch.

This is the special effects team that the studio has assembled for Resident Evil, and in addition to computer CG designers, there are more than 120 people working on a variety of staff, including special effects makeup artists, sculptors, painters, and mechanical special effects technicians.

They had analysed the script and storyboard and filtered out the parts that needed to be used for special effects.

Now while making the model, I confirm with director Ho Wenying the final shooting effect, such as - is it a close-up? How does the camera move, and how much of a scene is needed......

"We wanted to find the sweet spot for combining physical effects and CG. If you make a film that is realistic, rather than full of CG or video games, I think the audience will identify with the story more. ”

Wang Wei was introduced to a middle-aged man with a pair of thin-rimmed glasses and a steady demeanor.

His name is Gao Dongcai, and he is the head of Feitian Studio, and he is also the special effects supervisor of "Resident Evil".

Speaking of which, he was one of the first to develop film CG special effects technology in China, and also set up a special effects studio by himself.

However, as major studios have set up their own special effects departments, his studio has not been able to receive any major work, and can only rely on some small production teams to survive on special effects.

This year, he completely realized that if he didn't hug a thick leg in the film and television industry, the special effects studio would not be able to play.

So he didn't have much resistance to the acquisition of Dunhuang.

Of course, Dunhuang's promise of future equity and dividends is also an important reason.

Although he is a developer of CG special effects, he does not think that CG special effects are all about movie special effects, but should use different special effects production techniques according to actual needs.

This coincides with Wang Wei.

Wang Wei nodded and said: "If there is no accident, the studio will soon have a big job, most of which is physical special effects, and the studio's existing manpower may not be enough." ”

Gao Dongcai smiled when he heard this: "Manpower is not a problem. There are many small-scale studios in China that provide special effects solutions, and we can buy some of them, or we can dig some people, as long as there is a big job. ”

It's good to have a big single job!

To be honest, in the special effects studio, I can best understand the true meaning of the phrase "film is the art of burning money".

Needless to say, expensive equipment like large-scale work wars, just look at the labor - the price of special effects artists is not cheap now, the annual salary of ordinary special effects artists is 100,000 yuan, the annual salary of senior special effects engineers is at least 150,000, and the annual salary of special effects directors like him does not exceed 300,000, don't mention it.

With the current scale of Feitian Studio, the salary needs nearly 20 million a year, and there is no endless big job, can you afford it?

Wang Wei is never worried about not working for the studio, only about their strength: "I have acquired several small studios, how is the team integrated now?" Don't take the order, but in the end the work is stretched. ”

Gao Dongcai almost patted his chest and promised: "It's not a hassle to integrate, I pick absolute doers, they only have technology in their eyes, and they don't have much heart to fix other moths." ”

Wang Wei inspected all the way and agreed with this.

Under his leadership, the team does not set limits for themselves, and imagines how things or effects can be presented in front of the real lens.

This makes the studio full of great ideas.

For example, the zombie dog in "Resident Evil", because it uses a combination of real shooting and CG at the same time, so both sides are very open: someone directly made an animal model of a zombie dog and then let people play it, but in the end, it was found that this was not the best result, and it was still necessary to focus on CG production.

This practice of creating special effects scenes on the spot is always visible in the studio. Of course, it's not possible to create a special effects scene like "Big Bang" in the studio, but more to some seemingly inconspicuous special effects such as wind, smoke, rain, etc.

The studio has also purchased or made a variety of props for this purpose, such as fans, ranging from small fans that can create a breeze to fans that can blow strong winds that resemble tornadoes.

A lot of money is spent, but this is necessary, Wang Wei only hopes to spend money as efficiently as possible.

"When the animation studio moves in, you can also strengthen the technical joint development."

The animation studio, which has decided to break away from Weibo Technology, is ready to move to the next floor of Feitian Studio, which also occupies a separate floor.

The ownership of equity has not affected the relocation, and now a number of office equipment and image processing equipment have been stationed downstairs and installed and debugged, and it is not far from the official start of construction.

Gao Dongcai responded: "Even if you don't say it, I want to strengthen cooperation." Toy Story is great because of the great animators and the great tools we need as a studio. ”

Wang Wei nodded with satisfaction when he heard this.

He believes that whether it is an animation studio or a special effects studio, as long as it goes through a few big projects, it can establish the brand.

And yet—

As the saying goes, those who dig into the corners of people's walls will always dig them.

Just when he was planning to dig up more people and expand the special effects studio, Gu Xiji, the head of the animation studio, came to tell him bad news with an ugly face-

"We've been dug up!"

"What's going on?" Wang Wei frowned slightly.

"Isn't there a change in the ownership of animation studios? Some employees just left, and I didn't care too much about it, after all, it doesn't matter if there are a few more people or a few fewer people. Gu Xiji said with some annoyance.

"Unexpectedly, before I knew it, the number of resignations had reached twenty, and I realized that something was wrong." He said in a hurried tone, "Before I could find the reason, yes, the culprit came out on his own - the people of Lianya Entertainment found me and hoped that I would jump back again." ”

Gu Xiji couldn't help but secretly scold his old club for not doing personnel - "Toy Story" hadn't been released yet, so he stretched out his black hand.

If he had such acumen, would he still need to jump to Dunhuang?

Now he has people in Dunhuang who appreciate him and have resources to support him, heh, they look up to me!

Gu Xiji himself doesn't want to change owners, but it doesn't mean that others don't want to, this time he was indeed negligent.

Unexpectedly, Wang Wei's first reaction was not to blame him, nor to scold Lianya Entertainment, but his eyes lit up-

"Lianya Entertainment is going to enter 3D animation? The original animators will be cut off a lot, so dig them up! ”

……

~~~

(End of chapter)