Chapter 278 Chinese Aesthetic Style
Chapter 278 Chinese Aesthetic Style
With the help of a large number of experts, the screenwriting work of "Wolf Warrior" continues in an orderly manner.
In addition to the screenwriting work, Wang Hao was also concerned about another thing during the early preparation stage of the film, which was the special effects issue mentioned at the meeting.
The special effects mentioned here do not only refer to computer CG.
According to the content in the "Wolf Warrior" script outline, in this movie, both the good and the bad factions will show surreal powers.
The villain characters still rely more on computer special effects to show their strength, while the "Wolf Fang" special operations team representing the righteous will also possess and use a lot of more modern special military equipment.
These equipment will be more advanced and more sci-fi than the weapons and equipment currently used by the Chinese military.
This requires the Starlight Special Effects Company to design and produce the corresponding prop models.
In particular, the most eye-catching mechanical exoskeleton. According to Wang Hao's overall design of the [Galaxy Cinematic Universe], in the movie universe, the villain organization ETO is more inclined to develop biotechnology because of its organizational characteristics and its environmental protection attributes.
Correspondingly, as the upright party, what they develop naturally is electronic mechanical technology, so that the highlights can be differentiated.
The mechanical exoskeleton in "Wolf Warrior" is designed based on this concept. It exists as a secret weapon of the Chinese military. It will not only play a role in this movie, but also in the subsequent movie universe.
Therefore, for this first appearance, Wang Hao and others naturally had extremely high expectations. They couldn’t say that they could achieve the same effect as “Iron Man”, but at least it should make people’s eyes light up.
The person in charge of this is Jian Yongchang, the chief prop master of Starlight Special Effects Company, who graduated from Beihang University with a major in spacecraft design and is proficient in mechanical design and model making.
He is also a veteran in their special effects company. After being recruited into the company by Zhang Yang, he has contributed a lot to several of Wang Hao's films.
Now, it is naturally safest to leave the matter of the mechanical exoskeleton to him.
Jian Yongchang was very happy about this. After receiving the task, he immediately devoted himself to the research and design of the mechanical exoskeleton.
In this regard, the Chinese film industry really has no experience accumulated. Jian Yongchang initially crossed the river by feeling his way through Hollywood, and through Wang Hao's relationship with Sony Pictures, he got some information from there.
But working in isolation is not an option. Following Wang Hao's suggestion, he quickly turned to his alma mater for help and got in touch with a professor at Beihang University.
With the investment from Galaxy Pictures, they established relevant research topics and also brought in three or four graduate students who were interested in mechanical exoskeletons to join the special effects company and work on it together.
With the guidance and research of a more professional team of scientists, the general model of the mechanical exoskeleton was quickly established.
After looking at the first generation model, Wang Hao pointed out another problem.
How should this mechanical exoskeleton be put into actual combat? And what should the artistic style of its appearance be?
The first problem is easy to solve.
Because the movie "Wolf Warrior" involves military content, they have connections with the military and professors in military academies.
So Wang Hao quickly found two relevant military weapons and tactics professors for the mechanical exoskeleton team and asked them to participate in the work to help enrich and improve this ultra-modern sci-fi weapon.
As for the second point, Wang Hao did not give any instructions at the beginning, but asked the exoskeleton team to conduct several discussions and research first.
In their designs, Wang Hao also saw the shadows of the mechanical armor in "Iron Man" and the recently released "G.I. Joe".
The smooth lines, glossy surface, coolness and sci-fi look really attractive.
However, Wang Hao's few words left them speechless.
“What are our characteristics?”
"If the exoskeleton is designed like this, how will it be upgraded in the future? Or should we refer to the sequel of Iron Man?"
"What about the cost? Have you considered whether the cost of this exoskeleton can be equipped to the army? This is not a big toy of some rich man. If the cost is too high, why not build a few more tanks or planes?"
“Have you ever considered the adaptability of exoskeletons on complex battlefields?
The more sophisticated something is, the more likely it is to go wrong, and on the battlefield, problems often mean something, I don’t need to explain more. ”
This series of questions, like a bucket of cold water, was poured on the exoskeleton team, which had been somewhat complacent, and also made them re-examine their work with a calmer and more rational eye.
The problems pointed out by Wang Hao are indeed not nitpicking.
When they designed this piece, they only considered themselves and did not consider the film story that served as the background for the piece.
To be precise, there is nothing wrong with this mechanical exoskeleton model appearing alone, but if it is placed in the movie "Wolf Warrior", it will appear a bit discordant.
Therefore, Jian Yongchang and others quickly adjusted the design direction and began to make adjustments based on the issues raised by Wang Hao.
This time, seeing that Jian Yongchang and others had learned lessons and gained experience, Wang Hao finally put forward his own suggestions and provided them with guidance.
“The visual requirements for our film, or the entire subsequent film universe, are not to show the future level of science, or our foresight for future development.
Everyone should know that it is our Chinese nature to be down-to-earth.
In ancient mythology, we are a nation formed by clay, and what we value is something that is practical, easy to use and has a high cost-effectiveness.
Therefore, we don’t need to make too many sci-fi settings in terms of movie props, scenes, characters, etc.
In this movie, what the film needs to present is, at most, the near future world that is less than ten years away from us now.
In a situation where there are not many breakthroughs in overall civilization and technology, a mechanical exoskeleton like Iron Man's is obviously unrealistic.
Therefore, I hope that the mechanical exoskeleton presented in this movie will still be more mechanical, structural and industrial in nature.
It must be able to adapt to complex situations on the battlefield, protect the safety of soldiers, improve the soldiers' combat effectiveness, and have a high fault tolerance rate. Even if it is damaged in battle, it will not affect its use.
As for whether the appearance is beautiful or not, it doesn’t matter. As long as it’s a military weapon, what’s wrong with it being stupid, big, black and rough?
And who says that stupid, big, black, and thick things are necessarily ugly?"
As Wang Hao spoke, he took out a few photos and distributed them to everyone in the exoskeleton team.
The photo shows several giant weapons and equipment from the former Soviet Union, as well as sculptures and buildings with distinctive Soviet style.
There is the Soviet-made multi-axle heavy transport vehicle MAZ-22, which is known as the land centipede and has as many as 7907 wheels.
There is the Soviet Navy code-named "Typhoon", known as the world's largest ballistic missile nuclear submarine. There is a powerful and tragic Rzhev Battle Memorial Sculpture.
The "Motherland Calls" statue in memory of the Battle of Stalingrad is 85 meters high and is one of the tallest monuments in the world.
There is also the Crimean Friendship Sanatorium, which is a large three-dimensional structure composed of irregular geometric lines. It is simple and tall, giving off a sense of being from another world.
These buildings and weapons, which rely on the unique industrial aesthetics of the former Soviet Union, give people a strange sense of familiarity and intimacy.
It is like the thick loess land of the northwest, the towering mountains of the Qinling Mountains, and the broad and surging Yangtze River...
That's what it feels like!
Jian Yongchang and others seemed to be instantly returned to their childhood, to the factory building, and to their hometown filled with coal ash and steam boilers, and inspiration gushed out of their hearts.
The smooth and flowing metal armor and the flashy precision parts are removed and replaced with a simple but practical mechanical frame. Everything is based on practicality and people-oriented.
Seeing that the exoskeleton team was on the right track, Wang Hao finally felt relieved.
At this time, more than a month has passed and it is now late June.
In the Chinese film market, "Transformers 2", which was released not long ago, is currently killing it, with the box office reaching 3371 million on the first day.
Following this trend, it is very likely to break the single-film domestic box office record of 3.6 million RMB held by "Titanic".
It is very likely that this movie will take the top spot on the mainland box office rankings in 2009.
Even though there is another movie "Founding of a Republic" with an all-star cast in the second half of the year, Huaying's Han Sanye still lacked confidence and sighed while drinking with Wang Hao.
Because of this, Mr. Han Sanye paid more attention to Wang Hao's new movie "Wolf Warrior" and would ask about the progress of the movie from time to time at the banquet.
After all, the top box office rankings in a country's film history have always been occupied by foreign films, which is a shame for practitioners in the film and television industry.
In response to Mr. Han Sanye's question, Wang Hao also reported on the early preparations for "Wolf Warrior" one by one.
The script of the movie has been polished almost to the point where the art department is working overtime on the related concept design.
Among them, the more important one is the design of the villain organization’s base in the Golden Triangle area. Because it is a jungle environment, these art designers in the north are not very familiar with it.
For this purpose, Wang Hao even spent money to have them fly to the Yunnan border for on-site inspection.
And that place will also be the filming location for the movie "Wolf Warrior".
In addition, a dynamic storyboard designed based on the script is also in production.
This can be regarded as the film industrialization technology introduced by Galaxy Pictures from Hollywood. They had already tried to use it when filming "Wushuang" and "Source Code".
After learning and training on several movies, the relevant departments of Starlight Special Effects Company can be considered experts in this field, and they are very familiar with making the dynamic storyboard of "Wolf Warrior".
Moreover, for the more important scenes in the plot, they also used the extremely advanced PreViz technology in Hollywood, which is the so-called visual preview technology, or 3D storyboard.
This technology is more intuitive and convenient than ordinary dynamic storyboards. Like 3D animation, it can take into account the camera settings and the direction and sequence of the actors' performances.
It is estimated that it will take another two months to complete these tasks. By that time, the first phase of the Galaxy Film City project should be basically completed.
By then, they can officially start filming "Wolf Warrior" and go to Yunnan to shoot the exterior scenes first. After the water and electricity decoration of the 5000-square-meter large studio in Galaxy Film City is completed, they can complete the corresponding filming work inside.
Wang Hao and others planned the shooting to take three months, plus the post-production of the film.
If things go well, "Wolf Warrior" should be released during next year's summer vacation or National Day holiday.
If it’s slow, we’ll have to wait until next year’s Lunar New Year holiday.
Han Sanye did not urge Wang Hao and the others about this. Although he had high hopes for Wang Hao's "Wolf Warrior" and hoped that it could suppress the popularity of Hollywood movies in China, he also understood the principle of slow work and fine work.
Especially in terms of special effects, in recent years, because of Wang Hao, domestic film and television companies have not tried to develop in the direction of science fiction films, and have also launched several medium-sized film projects.
However, once those so-called science fiction movies were shown, the gap between them and Wang Hao and his Galaxy Pictures was immediately apparent.
Not to mention the equally brainless plots, even the special effects feel very cheap, and were angrily called "50-cent special effects" by many viewers who have seen the movie.
This has really ruined the reputation of domestic science fiction films, and also made Huaying, which originally wanted to support a few more science fiction film directors like Wang Hao, give up this idea.
As for Mr. Han Sanye's advice, Wang Hao also said that he would keep it in mind and strive to make "Wolf Warrior" a benchmark for domestic science fiction films.
However, as Galaxy Group has grown to its current size, the entire company is no longer willing to revolve around just "Wolf Warrior" and the "Galaxy Cinematic Universe."
According to the company reports provided by Zhuang Xueping, the number of behind-the-scenes workers signed under Xingdou Culture alone has exceeded four thousand, which can be said to be a near monopoly of the behind-the-scenes personnel in the entire northern film and television industry.
Nowadays, the Galaxy Group has already played an important role in the entire Chinese film and television industry. Not only those film companies, but also many TV drama companies have to rely on it.
So in 2009, in addition to the movie "Wolf Warrior", Wang Hao and his company also participated in the establishment of many other film and television projects.
For example, "The Love of Silence" which Wang Hao had previously acquired was adapted into an urban emotional drama by their company this year and directed by Li Qian, a contracted director of Xingdou Culture.
"The Rise of the Qin Empire", which also exists in the copyright library of Star Map Culture, has entered the subsequent finalization stage.
At the same time, a new film called "Detective Di Renjie" is currently under construction.
These three TV series are all led by Galaxy Group.
As for other TV series like "Love Apartment", "Dwelling Narrowness" and "The Disguiser", Galaxy Pictures also used the killer weapon of "behind-the-scenes packaging" to participate in part of the investment and bought the online broadcasting rights of these TV series.
It can be said that even without Wang Hao's guidance, Galaxy Pictures' business is now on the right track.
Wang Hao was also very satisfied with this, and emphasized on praising the TV drama production department of Galaxy Group. He also reviewed and approved their subsequent project planning for "Startling by Each Step", "Love Apartment 2", the Galaxy Cinematic Universe spin-off "I Am a Special Forces Soldier 2", and the web drama "Big Shot", which he approved.
(End of this chapter)