Hollywood Road

"I took a lot of long shots this time."

In the post studio in the Fox Tower, Murphy told the head of his editing team, "Jody, these long shots are mainly used to show the human heart and the struggling side of humanity. You must pay attention to this when editing. "

Jody Griffith nodded, "I have watched all the shots in the past few days, and I have a general idea. I will first develop a general editing plan, and then we will communicate."

"Yes." Murphy fully trusted Jody Griffith. "You can check this aspect."

During the first period of post-production, Murphy would not participate in the editing, but instead convened a color team, just like in the post-production of "Man of Steel", first all the shots were color-graded and rendered.

Although all the shots were shot in dark and gloomy environmental conditions, to achieve the effect of Murphy's plan, the use of the Da Vinci color palette for color correction is essential.

"The previous movie was very dark, but it's nothing compared to this one."

Before all the work began, Murphy gathered the post-production team together and held a short meeting. "This film hits the darkest side of people and society, showing the collision of ideology and personal philosophy. The tone and darkness of the lens will be the foundation of all this."

The black inside the film should be further set off by the black outside.

As he said, compared to this movie, the darkness of "Man of Steel" and even "The Lost Lover" is nothing at all.

Strictly speaking, this will be the darkest film Murphy has directed since entering Hollywood. Perhaps it is more appropriate to describe it as a dark film.

To achieve all of this, the rendering of the dark tones of the lens is quite critical.

Therefore, Murphy put the Da Vinci color palette at the forefront of all post-production work in order to highlight this requirement.

Murphy has made up his mind to make this film go further on the basis of film noir and become a heavy dark film without any humorous elements!

In the field of paintings, it is difficult to verify the origin of the "dark style", because from Goya's black painting series, Bruegel's "Reaper's Triumph", "Reaper's Triumph", and Boccaccio's Evidence of the existence of the "dark style" can be found in paintings and literary works such as the story collection "Decameron".

Only at the time, these contents were not called "darkness".

Hollywood traditional noir movies, even if the theme is heavy, often give people a special sense of satirical comedy like "The Lost Lovers", but the dark movies are different. Murphy does not know how others see Murphy, according to him. According to my own understanding, this type of film is more heavy and rich in philosophy. In some respects, "The Matrix" and his "Man of Steel" can be classified into this rank.

Of course, "Man of Steel" only touches the skin, and "The Matrix" goes further in this regard.

However, this is not to say how tall this kind of movie is. It’s just that it’s almost hard to see the existence of this type in Hollywood commercial movies with serious homogeneity. According to Murphy’s understanding, the dark style is the same as the noir movie, but One of the branches that the movie was forcibly branched out.

There is no doubt that Christopher Nolan once was a key figure in the dark style of movies that can truly enter the mainstream film circle, and the dark style has even become synonymous with high-powered style.

This style is unique in superhero movies, and it directly or indirectly brings two trends-first, in its contrast, such as "The Avengers" and "Iron Man" are walking in the style of mainstream commercial blockbusters. The film is more joyful and popcorn; second, after "Dark Knight" brings depth and style to DC Comics and Warner Bros., the entire DC universe must follow a unified style and values.

This is no longer a superhero movie, nor does it have the blessing of the master's halo. What Murphy wants to do is to make him more civilian and dark, and its content is heavier than the previous one. The protagonist is not so high. Science and technology will be under greater pressure to move forward, and may be crushed or even completely blackened at any time.

To achieve this style, one is setting and shooting, and the other is post-production.

After setting up and shooting are basically done, post-production becomes crucial.

No one is born proficient in various styles of movies, even Murphy is no exception. Although he and his team have accumulated a certain amount of experience before, he still carefully and meticulously controls every aspect of post-production.

If you want the post-production team to follow this style, you must first understand the characteristics of the dark style.

Darkness refers to the tones of these movies, which have been artificially dimmed. Even the scenes that take place in the daylight are dark and humid.

In this movie, most of the plot takes place in the dark night, which is also in line with the characteristics that New York will turn from a bustling Big Apple into a rotten crime city after the night falls.

And black, mainly refers to the theme and reflection of the movie is black, the story will be closely linked with the words dark, pathological, weird, violent, bloody, mysterious, religious, alternative, etc., even though the main body of the movie is positive. , The protagonist also punishes evil and promotes good, but in the development of the story, the above-mentioned elements are enlarged and exaggerated, thus producing a "black" effect.

However, even if it is a man-made concept, it needs to follow certain regulations and styles before it can be established. In Murphy's hands, it will develop in several directions.

First of all, the story is dark, and to a certain extent there will be some pathological elements.

The protagonist—whether it is a positive character or a negative character—most of them will have childhood shadows and traumas. For example, Chris Dan’s father fell into a pool of black chemical raw materials in order to save him. He witnessed it with his own eyes. , A piece of scorched black that was corroded, creating a fear of black.

This kind of shadow and trauma accompanied his maturity and eventually became part of his values, and this kind of trauma would make him use another "pathological" image to show the public. He will always hide in black clothes and black clothes. In the shadows.

Similarly, the behavior of the negative characters is not to repay or retaliate, but a ritual that involves violence and blood to awaken the public. To a large extent, their violence is not related to personal past and enmity. It is related to some kind of redemption and revelation.

Such a villain breaks through the "bad guy" in the general sense. He has the same speculative and philosophical color as the positive character. In many cases, the positive character is caught in a dilemma. This kind of value swing and justice Evil thinking can be described as a dark aspect of film aesthetics.

Secondly, religiousness and the resulting sense of ritual, mystery, cult, incompleteness, and alternative will be the characteristics of the senses and narrative elements in the film. In many paragraphs and plots, the protagonist will pass through the key characters' points. , Or get the top spot in certain ceremonial gatherings and activities before you can enter the next stage.

Such a setting is actually just a process of self-healing and ability upgrading, but driven by the dark wind, a section of the bridge that could have been energetic will definitely become a plot of "climbing up from the mass grave". In the process of becoming a hero, a hero has to go through a series of events to eliminate himself, and then painfully choose to maintain the status quo.

No matter what it is, what its perception of the world is, whether the world needs to be cleaned up and restarted, heroes will never be born heroes.

In this regard, Murphy once watched too many movies about the main theme of the hero's tallness. He has a deep understanding of this aspect and knows how to avoid the kind of unmotivated tallness. The most direct reaction of this kind of thinking is in Chris- For Dan, his initial motivation came entirely from overcoming fear and revenge!

This is a realistic film. It is impossible to be like a Superman movie. The protagonist is born a hero. It is also impossible to deliberately create a "great light and righteousness" to get a "fake sky."

In addition, in the post-production process, Murphy borrowed from many paintings, expressionism, Gothic, and many modern and contemporary oil paintings that can reflect the dark style.

Of course, there is another issue he must consider. This is also the aspect that 20th Century Fox is more worried about-whether the audience can accept this style.

There is no doubt that this style is several times more risky than Murphy's film noir in the past.

If before "Man of Steel", such a dark and heavy film might have been rejected by Twentieth Century Fox during the review stage, but now Twentieth Century Fox is willing to accompany Murphy on the adventure.

The reason is simple, just like Steve Jobs is sought after by countless people.

Another point is that Murphy and 20th Century Fox are very clear that movies are deeply affected by the social environment. Looking at the development and changes of Hollywood movies, it is not difficult to find that they have experienced countless CG special effects and simple brainless popcorn commercial blockbusters. After that, the audience's sense of expectation for those popcorn movies that understate the plot and only pay attention to whether the CG is realistic or not has declined to a certain extent, especially those older audiences, and they are increasingly dissatisfied with the severely immature commercial movies. .

Therefore, this darkened noir film with serious film characteristics and creative tendencies can be said to be produced in conformity with the trend.

Of course, in a movie dominated by such dramatic plots, the character's direction is positioned in the dilemma of "alternation between good and evil", and a strong logic and speculative nature is placed for the villain, plus some spectacle displays. And the story that happened in the dark night, can bring a kind of fresh excitement to the audience.

In this style of movie, the villain is also the key. If the villain is just a facialized character in a popcorn movie, this style will be out of balance.

Reflected in this film, it is that Rainer wants to use his own ideas to take shock therapy to cure New York, while Chris Dan believes that it will only bring destruction. This conflict of ideas on the foster father and son leads to opposition.

This naturally raises the villain's level, or compulsion.

Murphy and Twentieth Century Fox have considerable confidence. Apart from these external elements, they mainly believe that this film can get enough attention under the appropriate marketing strategy.