Chapter 369 Technology is the first productive force

Chapter 369 Technology is the first productive force

Chapter 369 Technology is the primary productive force

In March 2012, ByteDance, founded by Zhang Yiming, received millions of dollars in angel round investment.

On July 2012, 7, ByteDance received US$1 million in Series A financing from SIG Capital Asia Venture Capital.

On September 2013, 9, ByteDance received US$1 million in Series B funding from DST Global and Qihoo.

等到2014年6月1日，字节跳动获得红杉资本、新浪微博基金、顺为资本1亿美元的C轮融资，股份占比达到20％，短短两年公司估值直接达到5亿美元。

In 2016, after ByteDance launched TikTok, they received US$10 billion in Series D financing from Sequoia Capital and China Construction Bank International, with a shareholding ratio of 9% and a company valuation of US$110 billion.

After that, on August 2017, 8, ByteDance received US$1 billion in Series E financing from General Atlantic, with a shareholding ratio of 20% and a company valuation of US$9 billion.

On December 2017, 12, ByteDance received strategic investment, but the specific amount and investors were not disclosed.

On October 2018, 10, ByteDance received US$20 billion in Pre-IPO financing from SoftBank Vision Fund, KKR, Primavera Capital, Yunfeng Fund, and General Atlantic, with a shareholding ratio of 40% and a company valuation of US$5 billion.

On March 2020, 3, ByteDance received a strategic investment from Tiger Global Management. The specific amount and share ratio were not disclosed. The company's valuation reached US$30 billion.

It only took ByteDance 8 years to grow from a million Chinese yuan to billion US dollars!

The speed at which his company expanded was even more exaggerated than that of the Galaxy Group founded by Wang Hao, a reborn person.

You should know that Wang Hao started his business from scratch in 2005, and it has been almost seven years now. He just looked at his company's financial report last month. The valuation of the entire group company is only about billion, and it is not US dollars, but Chinese yuan.

To earn hundreds of billions of US dollars, Wang Hao would have to make hundreds of "Inception" movies.

However, it is not certain whether ByteDance can achieve the same results as Wang Hao in his previous life.

After all, the Toutiao APP under his group company is developing quite well now, and related derivative products are also under development. Even the web version of Douyin video has been launched.

Moreover, compared with ByteDance, Galaxy Group has another advantage, that is, it has a large amount of high-quality content. At the same time, their group itself is also a high-quality content creator, and HaoZuoPian.com is an incubator for content creation.

In addition, Galaxy Group is not short of money. It is now waving its money to poach people from major universities and Internet companies in Beijing. Its development speed is even faster than ByteDance. It is still unknown what the future will be like.

Wang Hao made a special phone call to inquire about the development of the group company's [Media Distribution Business Group] and urged them to attach importance to the Toutiao project. At the same time, when cooperating with LeTV, they should learn more from their experience in operating video websites and prepare for their own video APP in the future.

After finishing his work at the company, Wang Hao continued to devote himself to the directing task of "Gravity".

By April, the film's scenes set inside the space capsule had been shot and produced. The next scenes to be shot would be the more difficult space scenes.

Of course, when we say that this part of the shooting and production is difficult, it is because the difficulty lies in the initial preparation stage. During this stage, the visual effects director of "Gravity" and the photography, art, lighting, props and other departments were extremely worried and could not sleep all night, thinking about how to solve various problems during the shooting process.

After all, this is the first time that Galaxy Pictures has shot a space movie, and the behind-the-scenes team, including the special effects, are all Chinese, without a single foreigner.

This is the first time in China, and it is the first to try it out. It is also the first breakthrough for China Entertainment.

You should know that in the past, any big-budget movies with special effects shot in China often liked to boast in their promotions that they used Hollywood special effects teams.

Like the past "Shushan", "Hero", "Kung Fu", the more recent "Flying Daggers of Dragon Gate", "Painted Skin", and the future "Havoc in Heaven", "The Great Wall", "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons 2", even if some of the special effects of these movies are made by domestic companies, Hollywood special effects companies and personnel will be highlighted in their promotions.

Especially some movies used to earn gold coins, such as "Shanghai Fortress" and Colonel Lu's "Bureau 749", the cast and production companies are all written as Hollywood special effects companies and well-known special effects talents who have participated in many Hollywood blockbusters.

However, the special effects of the movies that were made are not even as good as those of movies made ten years ago.

Hollywood special effects have become a golden signboard in the field of domestic films, with fame greater than substance.

But Galaxy Pictures is not like that. They are different from all their domestic counterparts and they insist on localizing special effects.

And they just managed to do it.

From Wang Hao’s first special effects movie “The Shallows” to the present day, in the past five years, the special effects department of Galaxy Pictures has been built up, improved and grown bit by bit from scratch.

To date, the technical strength of their group's special effects department is already at the top level in the country.

And if we look at the international market, they are not much inferior to those large special effects companies in Hollywood.

For example, the last time he filmed "Inception" and this time he filmed "Gravity", both gave people a lot of surprises.

For example, Jing Tian was surprised when he filmed his first space monologue outside the cabin.

Because the shooting scene was actually in a "box".

Of course, according to the special effects department of the crew, this "box" has a special term, called "three-dimensional light simulation device."

However, everyone in the crew still prefers to call it a "light ball" because its appearance looks like a large hollow ball.

This hollow ball is 7 meters high and has sharp edges and corners. If you count carefully, it actually has 12 faces, making it a regular dodecahedron.

Each of the regular pentagons that make up the dodecahedron is made up of 191 LED panels, and each panel has a total of 4096 LED lights.

When the LEDs are on, the panels look like a giant TV screen, or something like the giant commercial LED screens found in sports stadiums.

From a distance, the inside of the ball looks like a kaleidoscope, gorgeous and changeable.

"What is this? Don't we use green screen to shoot special effects?" Jing Tian looked at the huge prop and couldn't help but ask curiously.

In her opinion, filming "Gravity" is indeed a fresh thing, and she can always get different experiences here.

Zhang Hanyu and Liu Huohua who were standing next to her had the same feeling. This set was very different from other movie sets. In the entire studio there was only that strangely shaped light box and a few photographic equipment, and that was it.

Jing Tian may not have much filming experience, but Zhang Hanyu and the others have been on many crews, but they have never seen a crew like this. The big trucks and large props that were needed on the movie set before are no longer needed. Here, they only need actors, light boxes, main creators, and a group of technicians with laptops.

"Once you step into the set, especially into that 'light ball', you will discover how ingenious the design of new-age filmmaking is."

Wang Hao said with a smile, his words full of satisfaction and pride.

"Each pixel in the panel of this 'light ball' is an LED light, all of which are independent and controlled. There are about 180 million of them, and their brightness and color are all controlled by an external computer."

He pointed to the staff members who were walking around the "light ball" with laptops in their hands.

“They projected the scene from the shooting scene onto the LED screen inside the ‘light ball’, which helped to light the camera.

For example, in a moment, Jing Tian has a scene where she is rotating in space, the earth appears in the picture, and the light of the earth shines on Jing Tian.

This kind of light source is complex. If the traditional green screen mode is used, it will be difficult to control this light source during the shooting process, and then we can only hope for post-production.

Now with this, whether we want to adjust the brightness of a light here or there, or change the color, we don’t have to move the lights around like before, we can just control it on the big screen.”

As Wang Hao was speaking, images of the Earth appeared on the LED screens inside the "light ball" at the right time. Combined with the other black screens, the people standing inside the small ball felt as if they were really in outer space.

"I'm afraid this thing is not cheap, right?" Liu Huohua asked curiously.

Wang Hao shook his head.

“Compared to the cost of the entire movie, the material cost of making this thing is actually not that high.

After all, this is just an LED screen, a very mature technology, and it just has more LED lights.

At the Shanghai World Expo two years ago, wasn't there an animated Qingming Shanghe Tu in our China Pavilion? This technology is actually not much different from that one.

However, the low cost of materials does not mean that this thing has no technical content. The most important thing is the technicians' simulated control of the light and the synthesis of the background picture materials. This is what is really important.

Of course, you won't notice this, but this is something that the photography, lighting and post-production special effects departments need to take care of.

For those of you actors out there using this device, it has another, more practical function.”

Wang Hao led Jing Tian and several other leading actors closer to the "light ball" so that they could observe the device more clearly.

“In addition to better lighting, another function of this device is to make it easier for actors to get into the role.

In the past, science fiction movies with a lot of special effects generally used the green screen model.

When actors are on a shooting set filled with green curtains or green props, they often need to have strong non-property performance skills if they want to film the scene well.

After all, without the external environment or even the cooperation of the opponent actor, you have to imagine the scene in your mind, and then bring yourself into it, talking to the air or making movements.

This is difficult for many actors who have received professional training, let alone those who have not received professional training. "

Hearing this, Liu Huohua could not help but nodded. He graduated from the Performance Department of the Central Academy of Drama, so he could be considered a professional. Non-property performance was the main content of their usual acting classes, so he naturally understood the difficulty of this very well.

"But now with this, it's different. The panel of the 'light ball' can display images such as space and the interior of a spacecraft. When actors perform in the light box, they don't need to face the green screen to imagine the scene, and they feel more immersive.

Isn't there a scene in the script where we have to get close to the space station?

When shooting that scene, you guys stay in the 'light ball' and you can see the space station getting closer and closer to you. At this time, you need to look at a certain part of the space station, or reach out to grab a door handle.

In the past, when green screens were used, the actors could only imagine that there was a space station and a door handle in front of them. Now, even though there is no door handle on the set, at least you as actors can see what it looks like.

There is another problem in shooting special effects movies. That is, when the director is on the scene, because of the green screen, he actually has no idea what the final effect of the actors' performances will be.

After all, the movie has to be added with special effects in the later stage. Sometimes, even if the actors' performances and the special effects are not very coordinated, the movie has already been shot, and it is very troublesome to rework it, so it can only be acceptable. This makes the special effects parts of domestic movies look very fake.

Now with this, our director can sit inside the monitor and use the pre-processed special effects materials played on the screen to more accurately judge whether your performance is appropriate."

Wang Hao's explanation of the "light ball" actually only briefly mentioned some of its advantages.

Only during the actual process of filming and producing the movie, and through the actual experience of Jing Tian and others, can you feel how excellent this equipment specially developed for "Gravity" is.

It turns out that technology is the primary driving force of production. In the past, there was no such advanced modern equipment used in the shooting and production of domestic films.

With the "Light Ball", the film production department of Galaxy Pictures can be said to have upgraded its arsenal.

Of course, where there are advantages, there are naturally disadvantages.

The image displayed on the inner wall of the "light ball" is still relatively rough, which is actually a defect of the LED light itself, with too low pixels and too much noise.

They also suddenly change color depending on the angle, and the changes in horizontal and vertical angles are different, which produces a very strange effect.

Compared to traditional lighting methods, there were several times when the crew behind the scenes had to soften the LED lights.

However, the lighting director and photographer of the crew also discovered that this kind of strangeness is not a bad thing in many cases.

On the contrary, because there are many lights and they are mixed together, these LED lights can sometimes present better-looking picture effects, which is something that previous lighting modes could not do. This can be considered a pleasant surprise.

Anyway, as the director, Wang Hao can see the integration of the actors and the space background on the monitor, and the actors can also get into the role more easily because of this high-tech prop.

As for those problems, the "light ball" is only auxiliary. When the movie is in post-production, the background played by those LED screens will be adjusted through CG rendering so that the audience will look more real and more like being in space.

(End of this chapter)