"Crazy Stone" can be filmed for three million, and Wu Yuan is still very generous for five million alone.

The six directors selected by Wu Yuan, the scripts they submitted were all movies with urban backgrounds, and most of the plots only revolved around two or three people.

As long as you don't find any big-name actors, it's still very cost-effective to shoot.

The era of light and shadow is currently Wu Yuan's word, and what he decides, the company will immediately implement it.

The next day, these six directors received an invitation to come to the headquarters of Light and Shadow Times for an interview.

Of course, it is impossible to give the money out as soon as the upper and lower mouths touch.

Not to mention the four directors that Wu Yuan knows, Wu Yuan has to see how their basic directing skills are.

Just because the script is well written doesn't mean that the director's level is necessarily good.

On the other hand, the director has a good level, but he can't write a script.

It is still necessary to meet people in person, take a look at the footage he has shot in the past, and then talk to them about film art, so as to have a rough idea.

It's just that for these six directors, being able to meet Wu Yuan in person is definitely the rarest experience in their lives.

This kind of "big shot", even if it is an insider, has admired the name for a long time, and it is difficult to see one.

Xue Xiaolu and Cheng Er, Wu Yuan's senior brothers and sisters, can also communicate with Wu Yuan with a normal attitude, and discuss with him their own film shooting concepts and lens language styles.

But young directors like Li Ruijun, Han Yan, Li Yang, and Liu Meichuan, who are similar in age to or younger than Wu Yuan, are really very restrained when facing Wu Yuan.

However, no matter how restrained they were, they were still able to explain their shooting style and concepts to Wu Yuan in a very orderly manner, and took out the materials they had shot before to give him a palm.

Fortunately, there are no Bi Zhifei-style directors, whether it is Li Yang, Liu Meichuan, or Li Ruijun, Han Yan, who have just graduated, although they are still a little immature, but the directorial level is also above the passing line.

Rookie directors, it's enough to have a passing level or above, feed one or two movies to cultivate and cultivate, and you can almost become a good director.

The premise is to have a good script for them to try.

Before Ning Hao filmed "Crazy Stone", he also filmed "Incense" and "Green Meadow".

There are only a handful of directors like Wu Yuan who took off with their debut film.

He has 20 years of directing experience, not counting, the director who took off in his last debut film is called Chen Kaige.

After Wu Yuan personally interviewed all six of them, he was quite satisfied, so he approved 30 million support funds to them.

At this point, they can go to form the crew and prepare for filming.

Of course, the producers of these six films invested and supported by the Light and Shadow Era must be responsible for the Light and Shadow Era, keeping an eye on the director's money to ensure that these six directors will not fill their pockets.

This is the same as when Wu Yuan filmed "The Night the Comet Comed" was supervised by the producers of the China Film School.

And after the film is made, the copyright and the box office profit (if any) after the release will all belong to the era of light and shadow, and the directors will not get any money, only a guaranteed salary.

This condition is much more ruthless than when Han Dong voted for Wu Yuan at that time.

However, this is the norm in the circle, and it is basically impossible for new directors to get a share of the profits of the movie.

You must know that if you can get investment to make the movies you want to make, these directors who don't have the opportunity to direct independently are already in tears.

Only if all the profits are given to the investor, the investor dares to bet on you, a rookie director!

As for being unfair to these rookie directors?

They were already happy to be able to make a movie without spending a dime.

As long as the film can become famous, win awards or get a good box office, then their future will be bright, how can they still be short of money?

If the movie is not made well, the investors will lose all their money, and they will have nothing to lose.

It's fair who takes the risk and who gets the benefit.

For Wu Yuan, if the 30 million is thrown out, two of the six movies can make money, and he will be able to steal the fun.

Even if the money is all lost, he is mentally prepared and looks very open.

After arranging all the support directors for this first issue, Wu Yuan no longer focused on them.

In the end, whether they can shoot good works depends on their own efforts.

As for him himself, it is naturally more important for him to be busy.

After taking the time to look at the construction of the next two new houses, Wu Yuan returned to his life and work.

For him, his job is naturally to make movies.

The preparatory work for "Gravity" can no longer be delayed.

The production cycle of this film will be the longest film Wu Yuan has made so far, and it may also be the longest in the future.

Because from the beginning of preparations in March 2006 to the release in June-July 2008, it took more than two years!

The reason why it takes such a long production cycle to make this film is simple, because there is no precedent for making such a science fiction movie in China.

Everything is nowhere to be found, let alone any industrialization, not even the primitive manual assembly line.

All the props that need to appear in the movie have to find an artist to be responsible for the draft, and then find a factory to customize.

The artist was known as the art director in the old days.

But over the years, this position became the head of all the art departments behind the film.

In Hollywood, a sci-fi or fantasy or magic blockbuster is bound to be supported by a huge art team.

The person in charge of art direction needs to work with the director and photographer to grasp the specific embodiment of the whole film on the screen.

In other words, whether a film is presented in the end or not, the art director, the director, and the cinematographer each assume a third of the role.

However, such an important position is currently vacant in the mainland film industry.

Of course, the domestic crew has an art team, but there is no art team specializing in science fiction, magic, and fantasy design, only an art team that does historical films.

How to find a good science fiction film art team for "Gravity" is what Wu Yuan needs to do at present.

He personally came to the China National Space Administration and invited several young experts from the space agency as artistic directors.

Then, he relied on his connections to invite several artists with experience in science fiction movie sets from the art team of "Pirates of the Caribbean 2".

In the end, a large number of young graduates from some art academies in China were invited to fill in the basic team members, and a team was barely raised.

The team was provided by experts from the space agency with basic reference materials for the interior scenes of China and the International Space Station, and then the artists invited by Hollywood on this basis designed and constructed a template sample that is more in line with the aesthetics of the film picture in the near future.

Then, ordinary team members hired from domestic art academies drew them into disassembled design drawings one by one.

With the design drawings of each part, Wu Yuan was able to find some factories that cooperated with the space agency to manufacture simulated parts.

Yes, to put it bluntly, Wu Yuan can promote that the setting of his movie is at the "military" level!

In the end, Wu Yuan's props team and set team, which had been trained in the crew of "Pirates of the Caribbean", used these parts and components to build the interior scenes of several space stations in the studio of Huairou Film and Television Base.

The company's special effects department produces various CG models of space locations based on the concept design drawings provided by the art team.

Fortunately, Wu Yuan chose to shoot "Gravity", not "The Wandering Earth".

Compared with the huge amount of work in "The Wandering Earth", "Gravity" only has a few indoor scenes of the space station that need to be restored and built, and the outdoor space station exterior scenes and space environment all have to be replaced with special effects CG pictures.

If he wants to build dungeons, space elevators, planetary engines and other buildings like "The Wandering Earth", I am afraid that he may not be able to complete the art design to the construction of various scenery in ten years.

There is no way, there are still too few professionals in China who can be qualified for this kind of art director, artist and modeler.

Before the preliminary preparation of "The Wandering Earth", 3,000 conceptual designs were made, and 8,000 were followed later.

It took 4 years and 11,000 design drawings to complete the design of the film world and the construction of the real scene before shooting.

In comparison, Wu Yuan's "Gravity" is estimated to require only one or two thousand conceptual design drawings.

Even so, Wu Yuan conservatively estimated that just drawing these design drawings would take half a year for the art team he formed.

This is not counting the time spent by the company's special effects team doing exterior and space CG modeling.

Then set up the scene, and the actors will conduct some astronaut training, and at the end of the year, "Gravity" will be able to start up quickly, even if it will be delayed until next year, Wu Yuan will not feel strange.

This is the difficulty of preparing a sci-fi blockbuster crew from scratch, and everything is difficult at the beginning.

That's it, "Gravity" is just the simplest category in sci-fi blockbusters in terms of set design and CG modeling.

The film has neither mechs, nor lightsabers, nor grand space battleships nor surreal futuristic cities.

There are only a few small space stations.

And this is also the limit of what the domestic film industry can do at present.

You ask Wu Yuan to make sci-fi blockbusters like "Transformers", "The Wandering Earth" and "Pacific Rim" now, even if he has a script in hand, he really can't rely on the domestic film industry to make it

This is beyond the scope of a director's ability, and measures the ability of the film industry and the level of the film industry supported by the director.

But "Gravity" can still give it a try.

Wu Yuan led the art team and art director of the crew with full of fighting spirit, and plunged headlong into the special effects department upstairs in the light and shadow era, and soaked in the studio with the team members every day to discuss the concept design of "Gravity......

Time is like no money, and a month has passed in the blink of an eye.

It wasn't until Zhang Guorong's visit that Wu Yuan, who was scraggy with a beard, was pulled out of the studio.

Director Zhang, who has been playing in the music scene for more than a year, finally remembered that he had changed careers to become a director, and it was time to make a new film.

(End of chapter)