Chapter 197 Filming in front of the green screen

Chapter 197 Filming in front of the green screen

Chapter 197 Filming in front of the green screen
Huairou Film and Television Base, located in Yangsong Town, HR District, Shangjing City, is a comprehensive tourist area that combines film and television shooting, post-production, entertainment and leisure, and sightseeing.

To be honest, this film and television base was built not long ago, with construction only starting in 2005, but many movies and TV series have chosen to be filmed and produced here.

The large Studio No. 3 used to shoot the movie "Source Code" is naturally also located here.

Since the crew returned from Shanghai, Wang Hao and his team have been staying in this huge studio for more than a month, filming.

What they are going to shoot today is the scene where the male protagonist walks back and forth in the carriage to collect relevant information after he wakes up for the first time.
This part of the scene was quite simple for Bo, after all, he didn't have many lines and all he had to do was walk back and forth in the high-speed rail model.

Because it was still early, Yu Bo and the supporting actors were still putting on makeup. The 1:1 model of the high-speed rail used for filming was already placed on the constructed platform track. Black tape was also pasted on the corners of the model. This was mainly to facilitate the capture of the outline of the train when it was later synthesized with the 3D model.

Outside the windows on both sides of the car, the art team of "Source Code" was busy setting up the green screen that would be used in the subsequent filming.

The film director Wang Hao arrived at the studio early in the morning and is currently discussing issues related to green screen shooting with the photography crew and special effects team.

In fact, the special effects technology of green screen shooting is not some amazing new technology.

In 2024, before Wang Hao's rebirth, green screen shooting was already a common practice in China.

Its application is very common in both domestic films and domestic TV series.

Even with the rise of Tik Tok short videos, many short video makers have begun to adopt green screen technology, and they have used it quite well, surpassing some of the "Dou Qi Hua Ma" special effects.

However, in 2007, green screen is still a high-tech technology that only applies to domestic blockbusters.

Only big-budget productions like "The Banquet," "Curse of the Golden Flower," "Hero," and "The Promise" will use this kind of high-tech.

If we talk about the first large-scale use of this technology in China, we have to mention Feng Dapao’s "A World Without Thieves".

Like Wang Hao's "Source Code", most of the stories in "A World Without Thieves" also take place on a train.

For a blockbuster like this, the shooting period takes at least three to four months. If all the shots are taken on location, given the busy domestic railway transportation, it is simply impossible to have a train specifically for filming run on the railway for such a long time.

In addition, "A World Without Thieves" is a commercial blockbuster, which has extremely high requirements for photography, lighting, etc. It is difficult to achieve that effect through general real-life shooting, and the shaking train is not friendly to shooting work.

So Feng Dapao could only rent a large studio of 8000 square meters near Xiaotangshan in Shangjing, and then built an old green train in the studio that was more than 40 meters long and consisted of four carriages: soft sleeper, hard sleeper, dining car, and hard seat.

Most of the scenes in "A World Without Thieves" were filmed in these four carriages.

As for how the movie finally presents the effect of a train running on the railway, it is naturally shot through a green screen. After shooting, the film is converted into a digital format, the green screen background is removed, and replaced with the real scene shot in Gansu.

To be honest, the shooting method of Wang Hao's "Source Code" is not much different from the production method of "A World Without Thieves".

It's nothing more than that the trains are more advanced, the lighting and shadow texture of the movie are more modern, and the special effects scenes are bigger.

While Wang Hao was communicating with the photography and special effects team, the green screen for filming was quickly set up.

The 6-meter-high and 15-meter-long green screen was stretched flat by the frame, like two green walls, standing on both sides of the train model, sandwiching it in the center. The green screen used for shooting must be stretched flat like this, without any wrinkles or dents.

At the same time, when setting up the lighting, a large amount of light must be used to illuminate the entire green screen evenly and cleanly.

Only in this way can we ensure that no shadows will appear on the screen during the shooting process. Otherwise, during post-production, the image will not be cut out cleanly, leaving unsightly black blocks.

Wang Hao's behind-the-scenes team had learned lessons about these things before, and now they are operating in strict accordance with the industrialized process system, showing their skilled techniques in every detail.

In addition to them, staff from other departments were also busy.

In the dressing room, a sound assistant is installing wireless microphones for the actors who have lines, while also making sure that nothing is revealed.

At the shooting site, Li Kui, who was in charge of the main photography, controlled the latest Red One digital camera (trial model) and adjusted various parameters under the guidance of the manufacturer's staff.

The art staff patrols back and forth, taking inventory and organizing the props within the shooting range according to the list on the management software to see if they are complete and proper.

As for the assistant director, he stood in front of dozens of extras who served as human backgrounds, arranging their positions when filming began.

In this way, everyone performed their duties and there was no noise or chaos on the entire shooting scene. Although it was a large crew of hundreds of people, it was extremely quiet, full of the harmonious beauty of mechanical gears tightly meshing and operating in an orderly manner.

Soon, everything was ready, and Wang Hao sat in the director's chair, looking at the monitor in front of him.

The actors also took their positions and sat on the train model.

Everything was ready. Deputy director Sun Jun, who was in charge of on-site command, looked at Wang Hao. Seeing him nod, he asked the script supervisor to come forward and clap the board.

"Source Code, Scene 102, Shot 1, begins!"

On the clear display, Yu Bo, who played the male lead Zhang Ying, stood up by holding the armrest of the seat as the voice sounded, stumbled across the aisle in the middle of the train, followed the flow of people to the door, and looked out in astonishment.

Of course, the scene outside the train door couldn't be real, but the extras playing the passengers still moved around according to the prior arrangement, as if this was a real station.

"Crack!"

Wang Hao called for a pause and looked at the laptop computer next to the monitor, which showed footage shot by another filming team in a real station.

"The lights on the scene, come here!"

The lighting technician who was called came trotting over and looked at Wang Hao a little nervously.

Wang Hao didn't criticize him, but pointed at the monitor and notebook, and said:

"The light on the male lead's face is wrong. There is a color difference between the design and the actual one. The brightness needs to be lowered a bit!"

(End of this chapter)