Once he entered the shooting state, Shao Shuaijun seemed to be a different person. Apart from traveling between the two crews, he spent all day immersed in the studio and screening room, or working in the office of the special effects team or the CG team of Weta Digital
people discuss issues together.
Weta Digital is the world's leading special effects company. It is a New Zealand company founded by Peter Jackson, a great New Zealand director who directed the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and his friends. It relies on the production of "Lord of the Rings", "King Kong"
", "Avatar" is world-famous for providing special effects production.
This cooperation with Weta Digital not only provides special effects assistance for "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" and "Teddy Bear", but also builds a bridge for cooperation between Summit Special Effects and Weta Digital. Weta Digital wants to develop
For the Chinese market, Summit Special Effects can provide good support and then acquire Weta Digital's technology.
To this end, the New Electronic Technology Research Institute has invited Weta Digital's visual effects director Joe Wright to serve as a visiting professor at the New Electronic Technology Research Institute. Joe Wright is also very interested in this and verbally agreed.
Just waiting for the formalities to be completed.
"Qiao, I think there's something wrong with this orangutan sample. It's too much like a chimpanzee, and it lacks the form of unique intelligence. I mean, it doesn't have its own unique behavioral characteristics. It shouldn't be
A chimpanzee with red hair." Pointing to an orangutan walking slowly on the computer screen, Shao Shuaijun frowned and said.
In order to study the forms of various orangutans, the CG team led by Joe Lerrett can be said to have studied all the videos about apes on the Discovery Channel. There are at least thousands of such discs stacked in the warehouse of the entire CG team.
and audio tapes. Even a layman like Shao Shuaijun is almost half an ape behaviorist.
"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" will produce more than a hundred apes of various forms, mainly concentrated in three species. One is the only orangutan, which will be designed to be able to sign language.
They are Caesar's warriors. Orangutans are distributed in Southeast Asia. They have long red hair on their bodies and move slowly. As males age, the rims on their faces will become larger and wider. They look like
Horrifyingly ugly.
The second type is the gorilla, which has a rough appearance and a huge body. In the movie, there will also be a mature gorilla, as the number one fighting force, becoming Caesar's effective general in leading the apes to escape. However, this gorilla will end up being saved by Caesar.
And lost his life.
The third type is chimpanzees, which are Caesar's species and the most common species in the movie. Chimpanzees are highly social animals, closer to humans, and their genetic difference with humans is less than 1.
Regarding the research on chimpanzees and gorillas, the CG team has accumulated a lot of research. After all, they have produced "King Kong", the most popular gorilla movie. But the research on orangutans is not so thorough. The Discovery Channel has about red-haired orangutans.
There aren't many videos of orangutans, and everything requires discussion between the CG team and the director team to outline this big red-haired guy.
"But we don't have enough material for orangutans, so it's difficult to find the characteristics of orangutans and incorporate them into special effects." A programmer in the CG team shook his head.
CG special effects are technological innovations and the most cutting-edge technology for visual presentation, but unfortunately, these lifelike CG effects require a lot of real-life materials. You can't expect these otaku programmers to use their imagination to depict
A wonderful nature, this is unrealistic. Only when they see it with their eyes and capture the natural scenery with software can they be integrated into the special effects shots.
Shao Shuaijun also knew that it is difficult for a clever woman to make a meal without straw. He pondered for a while and then made a decision: "Let's do this, Qiao, you have several senior material collectors from Weta Digital, and I will ask the people from Peak Special Effects and Dream Chaser Special Effects to go to Southeast Asia.
Photographing orangutans in their wild behavior.”
"In this case, it will cost a lot?"
"It doesn't matter. As long as it makes the movie more perfect, I can accept it whether the production cost is 10 million more or 10 million less."
"Okay, I'll arrange someone right now."
After solving the structure of the orangutan, Shao Shuaijun rubbed his eyes and spent almost all his free time on special effects layout for a whole week. There were still many problems that needed to be solved one by one. What was even more difficult was that he still had two more problems.
There is a crew to take care of. Shao Shuaijun felt that his decision to shoot two movies at once was rash.
If he hadn't been young and in good health, he wouldn't have been able to bear such heavy pressure.
However, only when you are under pressure can you be motivated. Now he feels that when dealing with problems, he is more able to grasp the core and gradually resolve difficult problems into small ones. If he can better control the crew, how can he mobilize the enthusiasm of the staff and actors?
, how to arrange the rhythm to speed up the process, etc.
All of this is something I have never realized before. Human potential is indeed squeezed out.
Seeing that January 17th was approaching, Shao Shuaijun had to put aside his work: "Qiao, all the special effects materials now can be handed over to a few small special effects companies to start with. Our first priority is Caesar! We
All efforts must be devoted to expression and motion capture, and after a while we will go outdoors to capture expressions in real scenes, so all work focus must shift to this aspect."
Unlike "Avatar" where the models and scenery were completely built indoors, in addition to indoor modeling, "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" also used a large number of outdoor actions and expression captures to eliminate the boundary between visual special effects and the real environment, allowing
Everything is real and impeccable, otherwise, there would be no difference between the new version of the movie and the old version.
"We are already working on the outdoor portable equipment and it will be ready in a few days. Now we will first train Andy Serkis on how to cooperate with the camera in the wild." Joe Lerrett gave a positive answer.
"That's good. I'm going to the crew of "Teddy Bear" now. Will you come with me, Qiao?" Shao Shuaijun asked again. "Teddy Bear" also used capture technology to create the toy character Teddy Bear, which is just right.
Weta Digital's CG team was producing "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", so naturally, they also contracted "Teddy Bear".
"Okay, I'm also going to check on the work team over there and see how their work is going."
The two drove to downtown San Francisco together. It happened that the crew was busy shooting motion capture shots of teddy bears. The motion capture actors wore tights with bright spots all over their bodies, doing actions such as climbing chairs, moving benches, etc. Around them
There are 8 cameras 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, signal trackers, a computer is used to record the movement trajectory of each tracker, and finally drawn on the computer
Trajectories of these signal tracker movements.
Then through computational processing, this diagram is converted into a three-dimensional image, and various character sections are added. After refinement, the perfect presentation of the special character can be achieved.
The motion capture technology equipment of "Teddy Bear" can be said to be very low-level equipment, which can only capture a rough movement. Fortunately, the movie does not require the teddy bear to be very vivid, so the performance is very simple.
While studying this motion capture technology, Scarlett Johansson, who had just finished performing on another set, came to Shao Shuaijun and said hello: "Hi, Shao, when will you get off work?"
Shao Shuaijun said casually while looking at the 3D modeling on the computer: "You can get off work at any time. Today's work is not stressful. Have you finished filming today's scene?"
"Yes, if it's not off work, I'll treat you to dinner." Scarlett said.
"Invite me to dinner?"
Scarlett smiled sweetly: "Ryan is here to visit. We hope to treat you to a meal. We have known each other for so long, but Ryan has not met you yet. I hope we can chat together. Oh, by the way, Joseph
,Giovanni and Laura will also go together."
Looking at his watch, he saw that it was just before six o'clock. Shao Shuaijun nodded: "Okay, let's go have a meal together."
When he walked out of the room, he saw Joseph chatting animatedly with a handsome guy. Although it was the first time they met this handsome guy, Shao Shuaijun, it was immediately obvious that he was Ryan Reynolds, Scarlett Johansson’s husband and the future Green Lantern.
.Shao Shuaijun's first movie "Buried Alive", the male protagonist in his previous life was him. It can be said that there is a connection.
"Hello, Director Shao."
"Hello, Ryan."
After saying hello, a group of people went to a restaurant in San Francisco for dinner. Ruian was a good talker and made the scene lively. Shao Shuaijun was the kind of person who just ate and drank. You can tell me what you think.
I eat my own food. For this kind of gathering among friends, Shao Shuaijun also let go. He went as much as he could, but just immersed himself in eating and drinking.
He is not good at small talk, and he doesn't want to brag or gossip with others.
After dinner, everyone dispersed. Shao Shuaijun watched Scarlett and Ruian get into the car arm in arm and shrugged slightly. He remembered that the marriage between Scarlett and Ruian only lasted about two years. "500 Days with Summer"
After the filming of "Slumdog Millionaire" was completed, Scarlett married him and invited Shao Shuaijun, but Shao Shuaijun was in India to supervise the production of "Slumdog Millionaire" and did not spare the time.
This year, the marriage between the two is probably coming 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 Planet of the Apes" to pick up Freida Pinto and flew to Los Angeles on a special plane. Today is January 17, 2010, and the Golden Globe Awards will be awarded today. As Summit Entertainment's first Oscar-winning film,
Shao Shuaijun naturally wants to support the movie, and this time the Golden Globe Award will be the first one.
"Slumdog Millionaire" has four nominations for best drama film, best director, best screenplay, and best soundtrack. Shao Shuaijun's "Heartbeat" also has one nomination for best soundtrack. Moreover, today, Shao Shuaijun also
We want to give an award to the Best Actress. Last year, the Golden Globe Awards gave him two awards. This year, he was embarrassed to refuse this small request. (To be continued. Please search Piao Tian Literature, the novel will be better and updated faster!)