Hollywood Road

After adjusting the camera, the rest of the crew is ready. Murphy immediately announced the start of shooting. Like the previous shooting, he continued to personally control an IMAX camera, but this time it was no longer a panoramic shooting, but a filming of Henry Cavill. Close-up.

Just like the shooting of other films before, close-up shots are a common method used to portray characters.

This is a crucial moment before the final duel between Chris Dann and the Magician, and Murphy will definitely give Henry Cavill enough close-up shots.

Although not a professional photographer, Murphy has been a director for many years and has unique experience in photography, especially this kind of important close-up shots. After several important assistants of Philip Raschel changed jobs, they were newly recruited. Photographers don’t talk about ability issues. The style alone requires a period of time to adapt. Therefore, in addition to Philip Raschel controlling an IMAX camera, if there is an extremely important scene, he will personally take the shot.

IMAX cameras are more troublesome to operate than ordinary cameras, but Murphy knows very well that to be an excellent photographer, you must first observe and understand the light, not the camera itself. The operation of the camera is not particularly difficult. A standard operation is easy, but a non-standard operation is more difficult.

Just like a director, most photographers have their own styles and preferences. For example, some people like black and white, they like to find things in black and white, and they also like changes in the depth of color. These things can be different every day, and others Maybe you like other things. The most important thing is to show your own image after deep feeling.

This is also an important reason why Murphy personally went to shoot.

Close-ups are one of the basic shots in movie shooting. Close-ups are always shots that show details. Different close-ups also have specific meanings behind them, which can play a unique role.

Shooting soon began. Murphy took the lead in giving Henry Cavill a standard close-up according to the planned shooting plan. Because Henry Cavill was wearing a mask, the focus of the close-up shot was not his eyes, but his mouth.

Murphy manipulated the camera skillfully to fill the lens of Henry Cavill's face, but instead of placing Henry Cavill in the middle of the frame, he composed the picture according to the golden rule of thirds.

After shooting the desired picture, he moved the camera slightly, so that Henry Cavill's face was placed in the center of the picture. When this shot was shown on the movie screen, it happened to be the male protagonist Chris Dan looking directly at the audience.

Through this lens, Murphy wants to show a male protagonist who is still calm and calm in a tense situation. This is also an excellent use of close-up shots.

Murphy continued to adjust the lens so that Henry Cavill’s sight was slightly out of the lens, but the image on the black Kevlar helmet formed a one-point perspective composition with Chris Dan as the focus. Reese Dann’s search for the magician and the conversation with Sheriff Lynch became more exciting.

Although he was shooting close-up shots, Murphy was not static, but used different shooting methods according to different time periods. He zoomed out the lens slightly, and the viewing range was further expanded, from the top of Henry Cavill's shoulder to the top of his head. It is the widest close-up shot he will use.

Then Murphy advanced the lens again, and the picture once again became a standard close-up.

In post-editing, these mid-range close-ups will serve as a bridge from wide shots to standard close-ups, which can suffocate the tension in the scene.

Here Murphy borrowed from George Lucas’ filming techniques in "Star Wars: The Phantom Threat". Although Star Wars fans were very disappointed with the prequel series, there was a consensus: Darth Moore is definitely a ruthless character. One of the best shots of this film is the close-up shot of Darth Moore in the final battle scene. Darth Moore’s lightsaber duel with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon-King just ended. Cut to this shot immediately, whose composition makes Darth Moore's dominance even more compelling.

In addition, when Murphy made the shooting plan here, he also watched Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining". In the film, Jack cut a door open and poked his head in. The close-up captured his evil Glancing at his expression, he said one of the most famous lines in film history: "Johnny is here!"

It is perfect to cut into this scene from this lens, because it draws the audience into the movie space and creates a sense of horror in the eyes of the throat.

Then, Murphy changed the lens again, and the shooting picture became a typical close-up. The close-up was mainly switched between Henry Cavill’s talking mouth and firm eyes, but most of the time, the close-up The subject is still Henry Cavill's firm eyes.

In the post-editing, such close-up shots are used in the shot switching with Christopher Waltz, which can easily establish a response between the characters and effectively enhance the tension of the drama.

In front of the camera lens, Henry Cavill ended the conversation with Christopher Waltz, turned around and walked outside. Murphy adjusted the camera lens in a timely manner, followed up with close-up shots, and used character movement to create a far-away effect.

Murphy used a very wide-angle lens to reduce the viewing range of standard close-ups, but at the same time he combined wide-angle and close-ups to convey richer visual information.

In fact, it all depends on being able to use the right visual language to help the narrative at the right point.

Henry Cavill walked out of the set, Murphy also finished shooting, stood up from behind the camera, and said, "Okay! This one is over!"

Then he said to Henry Cavill and Christopher Waltz, "Henry, Chris, you guys performed very well!"

As in the past, when Murphy was filming, the encouragement given to the actors greatly exceeded the scolding.

Murphy looked at the time and said, "That's all for today's shooting!"

He delegated the follow-up work to the assistant director Michelle Williams. Accompanied by the press and public relations staff of Twentieth Century Fox and IMAX, he walked into the temporary press hall on the outermost periphery of the set.

According to the plan made last week, Murphy will accept joint media interviews in order to cooperate with the promotion of the film.

In addition to "viral marketing", Twentieth Century Fox did not relax its conventional publicity methods. The film "Dark City" is still the Hollywood film that uses IMAX the most. IMAX is also using appropriate resources to promote this film. .

The topic of this joint interview mainly revolves around IMAX technology.

"Director Stanton..."

At the beginning of the interview, it was probably at the instigation of IMAX. A reporter wearing gold glasses couldn’t wait to ask, “You’ve used IMAX cameras to shoot in your projects several times. Do you like this technology very much?”

"I especially love shooting with IMAX cameras,"

To the reporter's recorder, Murphy did not hesitate to recite the answer he had prepared before, "Because it can enlarge and relax the picture, and maximize the scale. In the previous "City of Chaos" and In other films, I have already experienced its extraordinary skills. Through continuous learning and research, our technology has become more and more mature, and the exposure index and other aspects can better serve the film. The continuous update of technology allows us The level of shooting has also been continuously improved."

Nowadays, a large number of IMAX cameras are used to shoot a film, which is already one of the selling points, and these words are also for publicity.

"Murphy..." another middle-aged reporter asked, "Can IMAX technology effectively improve the audience's viewing experience?"

"Yes! There is no doubt about it!"

After confirming this argument, Murphy explained in detail, “In terms of picture and sound quality, IMAX technology provides an immersive movie-watching experience, because the format and clarity of the picture show the kind of image in front of humans. The wide-ranging and immersive feeling, coupled with the high-fidelity surround sound, makes it difficult to forget the emotions. We spent three months working with Sony Electronics and IMAX to reorganize the viewfinder on the camera and improve the lens In this way, even in the dark environment of the machine, you can shoot extremely high-quality pictures. All these improvements have achieved many details that our previous two films could not achieve.

However, during the filming of the film, the bulky phantom.65.IMAX camera caused Philip Raschel and his photography team a lot of trouble, just erecting these big guys on the camera and elevator used for shooting. Enough enough, the crew had to re-cut and weld on the elevator in order to place these cumbersome guys more firmly.

When shooting the ground scene in the studio, because the camera cannot enter, the crew placed a thick aluminum plate on a miniature moving track to build a horizontal working platform for the phantom.65.IMAX camera camera.

In all scenes filmed with IMAX cameras, Murphy requires dual-camera shooting. At least two of the three technicians assigned by IMAX to the crew must be on the set to assist Philip Raschel’s camera crew to deal with some Highly difficult shooting operations, and temporary repair work to ensure the smooth progress of the crew.

In general, in terms of film loading, film movement and operability, the phantom.65.IMAX camera is no different from other cameras, but there will be many unexpected situations when changing the film, which will cause the card to malfunction. If the card phenomenon is too great In serious cases, this phantom.65.IMAX camera can only be temporarily taken out of work and dragged to the IMAX branch workshop in Los Angeles for professional disassembly and repair.

To a certain extent, these cumbersome big guys are more delicate than ordinary cameras, and the total number of IMAX cameras in the world is also extremely limited. If both phantom.65.IMAX cameras fail, Murphy will either suspend shooting, or Use a normal film camera instead.

In Murphy's hands, the phantom.65.IMAX camera is mainly used to shoot action, panorama and impactful lenses, and other ordinary lenses are mainly used for ordinary digital cameras.

Even now, the cost of IMAX cameras remains high. Using IMAX cameras throughout the process is both inconvenient and too extravagant.

As this interview appeared in the newspapers, Twentieth Century Fox also promoted another viral marketing plan.