Director’s Legend

Once in the shooting state, Shao Shuaijun is like a different person. Except for the distance between the two crews, he spends his entire day in the studio and projection room, or he works in the special effects team’s office and Weta Digital’s CG team. People discuss issues together.

Weta Digital is the world's leading special effects company. It is a New Zealand company founded by New Zealand director Peter Jackson, who has directed the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and his friends. It is famous all over the world for providing special effects for "Lord of the Rings", "King Kong" and "Avatar".

This time the cooperation with Weta Digital not only provides special effects assistance for "Rise of the Apes" and "Teddy Bear", but also builds a bridge for the cooperation between Summit Special Effects and Weta Digital. Weta Digital wants to open up the Chinese market. Peak special effects can provide good support, and then we will obtain Weta Digital's technology.

To this end, the New Electrotechnical Research Institute has invited Weta Digital’s visual effects director Joe Lightry to serve as a guest professor at the New Electrotechnical Research Institute. Joe Lightry is also very interested in this and agreed verbally. Just waiting for the formalities.

"Joe, I think there is a problem with the sample of this orangutan. It looks too much like a chimpanzee and lacks a form with unique wisdom. I mean, it does not have its own unique behavioral characteristics. It should not be A chimpanzee with red hair." Shao Shuaijun frowned, pointing at an orangutan that was slowly walking on the computer screen.

In order to study the morphology of various orangutans, the CG team led by Joe Lairette can be said to have studied all Discovery Channel videos about apes. In the warehouse of the entire CG group, at least thousands of such discs and tapes are stacked. Even Shao Shuaijun, a layman, is about to become half ape behaviorist.

"Rise of the Apes" will produce more than one hundred apes of various forms, mainly focusing on three species. One is the only orangutan, this orangutan will be designed to speak sign language and is Caesar's titan. Orangutans are distributed in Southeast Asia. They have long red hairs and are slow to move. As males get older, the rims on their faces will become larger and wider. It looks ugly and scary.

The second type is the gorilla, which is rough-looking and huge. There will also be a mature gorilla in the movie, as the number one combat power, becoming a powerful warrior of Caesar leading the apes to escape. But this gorilla will eventually die for saving Caesar.

The third type is the chimpanzee, which is Caesar's breed and the most common in the movie. Chimpanzees are highly socialized animals, closer to humans, with less than one genetic difference from humans.

For the study of chimpanzees and gorillas, the CG group has accumulated a lot of research. After all, they have produced the most popular gorilla movie "King Kong". However, the research on orangutans is not so thorough. Discovery Channel does not have many videos about orangutans. Everything needs to be discussed by the CG group and the director group to outline this big red guy.

"But we don't have enough materials for the orangutan, it is difficult to find the characteristics of the orangutan and incorporate it into the special effects." A programmer in the CG group said, shaking his head.

CG special effects are technological innovations and the most cutting-edge technology for visual presentation. Unfortunately, these lifelike CG effects require a lot of realistic materials. You can't expect these otaku programmers to use their imagination to portray a wonderful nature. This is unrealistic. Only when they see with their eyes and capture the natural scenery with software, can they blend into the special effects shots.

Shao Shuaijun also knows the reason why clever women can’t cook without rice. He pondered for a while and said: "Well, Joe, you Weta Digital send some senior material collectors, I will let the peak special effects and dream-catching special effects people go to Southeast Asia Filming the wild behavior of orangutans."

"In this case, it will cost a lot?"

"It doesn't matter, as long as the film can be made more perfect, the production cost is 10 million more or less, I can accept it."

"Well, I will arrange for someone."

After solving the structure of the orangutan, Shao Shuaijun rubbed his eyes, and almost allocated his spare time for special effects for a whole week. There are still many problems that need to be solved one by one. What's more difficult is that he still has two crews to take care of. Shao Shuaijun felt that his decision to shoot two films at once was hasty.

This kind of pressure, if it weren't for him to be young and in good health, it wouldn't be enough.

However, there is pressure to have motivation. He now feels that he can handle the problem by himself, and he is more able to grasp the core, and gradually resolve difficult problems into small ones. If you better manage the crew, how to mobilize the enthusiasm of the staff and actors, how to arrange the rhythm to speed up the process and so on.

All of this was not realized before, and the human potential was actually squeezed out.

Seeing that January 17th is approaching, Shao Shuaijun had to put aside his work: "Joe, all the special effects materials can be handed over to a few small special effects companies to do it first. Our first solution is Caesar! All power must be placed on facial expressions and motion capture. Moreover, after a while, we will go outdoors to capture real-life facial expression capture. The focus of all work must be shifted to this aspect."

Unlike "Avatar" which is completely indoor model and set shooting, in addition to indoor modeling, "Rise of the Apes" also has a large number of outdoor action and expression captures to eliminate the boundary between visual effects and the real environment. Everything is true and cannot be faulty, otherwise, what is the difference between the new version of the movie and the old version of the movie.

"We are already rushing to work on outdoor portable equipment, and we will be able to make it in a few days. Now we first train Andy Serkis how to work with the camera in the field." Joe Lerett gave a positive answer.

"That's good, I'm going to the "Teddy Bear" crew now, Joe, will you come with you?" Shao Shuaijun asked again. "Teddy Bear" also used capture technology to create the toy character of Teddy Bear. It happened that Weta Digital's CG team was working on "Rise of the Apes". Naturally, "Teddy Bear" was contracted by the way.

"Okay, I also want to see the working group over there, how is the work going."

The two drove to downtown San Francisco together, and it happened that the crew was busy shooting motion capture shots of the teddy bear. The motion capture actor wears tights covered with light spots, doing movements such as climbing a chair and moving a bench. There are 8 cameras around, filming his movements.

Motion capture technology is an animation production method that has only become popular in recent years. Through the light spots on the clothes worn by real people, that is, the signal tracker, the computer records the motion trajectory of each tracker, and finally draws the motion trajectory diagram of these signal trackers on the computer.

Then, through computational processing, this picture line is transformed into a three-dimensional image, and various character sections are added. After refinement processing, the perfect presentation of the special character can be achieved.

The motion capture technology equipment of "Teddy Bear" can be said to be a very low-level equipment that can only capture a rough motion. Fortunately, the movie does not require the teddy bear to be alive, so the performance is very simple.

While studying this motion capture technology, another Scarlett Johansson, who had just finished acting on the set, came to Shao Shuaijun and said hello: "Hi, Shao, when will you get off work?"

While watching the 3D modeling on the computer, Shao Shuaijun said casually: "You can leave work at any time. Today's work is not stressful. Have you finished filming today's scene?"

"Yes, if it's not for get off work, I invite you to dinner." Scarlett said.

"take me Out to eat?"

Scarlett smiled sweetly: "Ryan has come to visit the class. We hope we can treat you to a meal. We have known each other for so long. Ryan hasn't met with you yet. I hope we can chat together. Oh right, Joseph , Giovanni and Laura will also go together."

Checking his watch, it is not six o'clock now, and Shao Shuaijun nodded: "Well, let's have a meal together."

When I walked out of the room, I saw Joseph and a handsome guy chatting enthusiastically. Although this handsome guy Shao Shuaijun met for the first time, he could tell at a glance that he was Ryan Reynolds, Scarlett Johansson’s husband, and the future Green Lantern. . Shao Shuaijun’s first film "Buried Alive", the male protagonist in his previous life was him. It can be said that there is a history.

"Director Shao, hello."

"Hello, Ryan."

After saying hello, a group of people went to a restaurant in San Francisco for dinner. Ryan is a very talkative person, making the scene lively. And Shao Shuaijun belongs to the kind of people who eat and drink, you say yours, I will eat my own. For this kind of gatherings among friends, Shao Shuaijun was first and let go, and went as far as he could, but just immersed himself in eating and drinking.

He is not good at chatting, and he doesn't want to brag about others and talk about things.

After dinner, everyone broke up. Shao Shuaijun watched Scarlett and Ryan get into the car arm in arm and shrugged slightly. He remembered that Scarlett's marriage with Ryan lasted about two years. After the filming of "500 Days with Summer", Scarlett married him and invited Shao Shuaijun at the time, but Shao Shuaijun was supervising the production of "Slumdog Millionaire" in India and did not spare time.

This year, the marriage between the two is estimated to come to an end.

But who cares about this kind of thing, Shao Shuaijun doesn't care anyway.

The next day, Shao Shuaijun went to the crew of "Rise of the Apes" to pick up Freida Pinto, and went to Los Angeles by special plane. Today is January 17, 2010, and the Golden Globe Awards will be presented today. As Summit Entertainment’s first film to hit the Oscars, Shao Shuaijun will naturally help out. This time, the Golden Globe Awards is a head start.

"Slumdog Millionaire" has four nominations for best drama, best director, best screenwriter, and best soundtrack, and Shao Shuaijun's "Stopping Heart" also has a nomination for best soundtrack. Moreover, today, Shao Shuaijun will award the best actress. Last year, the Golden Globe Award gave him two awards. This year he was embarrassed to refuse this small request. (To be continued. Please search Piaotian Literature, the novel is better and updated faster!)