[…and now good-morrow to our waking souls, which watch not one another out of fear…]
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Now say good morning to our awakened souls. Two souls trust each other and need not be wary.
This song "the good morrow" is a work by the British metaphysical poet John Donne. What is even more provocative is the previous line of the poem that Yan Qing deliberately concealed:
"If I have ever seen, pursued and obtained beauty, it was all, and only, dreaming of you."
After responding to Professor Weng with good morning and good night, with his head hidden and his tail exposed, Yan Qing continued to do the final preparations before shooting with high spirits. He made an appointment with the Wu Zhi special effects team for a meeting in the busy interior studio.
In order to achieve a better effect of traveling through flowers and chasing the moon and embody the unbeatable martial arts of the East, Yan Qing introduced the special lens language of bullet time in this martial arts film. He arranged for the crew to build a simple green screen in advance.
Scenarios to test and demonstrate the bullet time shooting system.
The prop master made a circular track from a steel pipe to serve as a camera support in advance according to Yan Qing's requirements. The circular track can be freely adjusted according to the actual shooting distance. The shooting object is the center of the circle and the shooting distance is the radius. There are 36 digital cameras densely mounted on the rail.
camera.
Because it is a small indoor scene shooting, and it is necessary to maintain a high-speed shutter to freeze the moment, a stable light source is indispensable. With the help of lighting director Liao Jingyan, Yan Qing used the existing equipment at the Whisper Film and Television Base and used Godox AD200 high-speed lights as the
To trigger the flash, hang a 400w flash on the top light stand as the main light source to ensure the consistency of light received in each frame from different angles as much as possible.
Zhang Yameng, who was dispatching in the play, greeted Zhao Mu: "Body lens?"
After confirming again that the 36 Canon 600d cameras and adapted ef18-55/f3.5-5.6 lenses installed on the ring rails have all been activated and controlled, the drama supervisor Zhao Mu replied via the intercom: "stand ready!"
Zhang Yameng looked towards Liu Yuze again: "Teacher Liu, what's the framing and composition?"
Switching each shot to "mf" mode, the main editor Liu Yuze used the control software that comes with Kafei to call up the "9-square grid" reference line, and double-clicked the viewfinder to switch the laptop screen to the "36-square grid"
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Comparing each frame, he communicated with the camera assistant one by one to manually fine-focus and compose each camera to maintain the consistency of the framing received by each camera.
After confirming that the camera group has been prepped, Liu Yuze responded: "cam-group stand by!"
Zhang Yameng, who was in control of the console, lowered her head and began to do technical debugging. The wireless shutter remote control of this system was connected to 36 high-definition digital cameras in series through the switch in front of her, and the other end was connected to the computer host.
The difficulty of capturing moment-by-moment dynamic images is inherently high, not to mention that they must be coherent. The images must ensure a relatively smooth transition. Every photo taken by each camera on the rail is one frame of the entire video, Yan Qing
As Zhang Yameng has repeatedly emphasized, trigger synchronization and framing composition are particularly important.
After several rounds of synchronous remote control trigger tests, Zhang Yameng reported to Yan Qing that she was ready for trial shooting at any time.
"An embroidery needle that is no more than an inch long, can be said to be blown by the wind, and does not sink when dropped into the water. I have been thinking about how to convincingly express that Dongfang Bubai used it to penetrate Linghu Chong's long sword, and even directly cut Zhongruo
Qianjun's other weapons swing away...and here's what I came up with..."
Yan Qing explained to the confused Wuzhi team: "The most extreme speed is slow. After the embroidery needle flies out, it uses itself as a reference, and everything around it instantly becomes as if time has stopped."
"Relativity?"
Huang Jinbai and Cheng Chaoping both showed great interest: "Let me be healthy!"
"action!"
Following Yan Qing's command, the embroidery needle shot out from the projector. The moment it flew out, 36 cameras were triggered simultaneously to capture the flight process of the embroidery needle and the process of it rapidly shooting into the needle hole of the prop sword.
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At the same time, the switch automatically transmitted the photos back to the computer, and Liu Yuze and Zhang Yameng collaborated to synthesize the photos into videos and display them on the projection screen.
Following this embroidery needle, time seems to have frozen in the lens, stretching 360 degrees, perfectly interpreting the concrete process of the embroidery needle piercing the sword.
"Director Yan uses such lens language to perfectly interpret the strength, speed, and accuracy of the embroidery needle during long-distance combat. It is simply unconstrained and wonderful!"
"Dongfang Bubai gave the embroidery needle tremendous power with just a wave of his hand... His unparalleled martial power combined with this unheard-of exotic weapon meant that what ultimately defeated her was not the Dugu Nine Swords, but love."
In awe, this video, which Yan Qing called a "bullet shot", was played many times. The ppt file on the conference room screen clearly marked all the martial arts design sketches of the "Laughing East" crew.
And thoughtfully add corresponding text descriptions.
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Embroidery needle: The only weapon used by Dongfang Bubai after he has mastered martial arts. The only martial arts in the world that is fast is indestructible. When the speed reaches the extreme, the needle used for embroidery can also be used to harden a long sword or even a cold iron hook that Woxing can control with all his strength.
Fuso Ninjutsu: Earth-escape technique that comes and goes at will, hidden weapons everywhere, and boomerangs that fly in the wind.
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Star Absorbing Technique: Ren Wo Xing, who was imprisoned in a water prison, looked like a withered pickaxe, but after sucking the bones and marrow of several people, he instantly regained his vitality to embody the Star Absorbing Technique, absorbing the inner energy of others and increasing his own powerful strength.
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"Except for the embroidery needles that are shown with bullet shots, the other fighting designs are all shot with short shots and some special techniques, and then processed with fast editing. The action style I want to pursue is the kind of sharp, weird and changeable, so
As for the action design, I need to ask a few people to think of ways to come up with artistic conception.”
Yan Qing picked up a three-foot green sword and held it in his hands to Huang Jinbai and Cheng Chaoping as a joke. This was actually an antique prop long sword made of PVC that he borrowed from the Yanqi Lake Film and Television Base of Whisper Pictures.
"I hope that the specific fighting scenes will be designed with graceful postures and extended moves, showing obvious dance-like and dramatic characteristics. The movements of Dugu Nine Swords are probably similar to this style..."
The long-term physical training has been very effective. Yan Qing is like a martial artist in Peking Opera, dancing the prop sword tightly between his wrists, showing that he can move freely without leaving the sword.
Yan Qing deliberately drew the wonderful scene of Linghu Chong's night battle with Xiang Wentian in the split-shot sketch of the Dugu Nine Swords.
He used this to describe in detail how he would turn around, flip his wrist and throw the sword from his hand at different angles during the presentation. He then used reverse shots and post-editing to complete the miraculous feat, which is comparable to the special effects production of "the body never leaves the sword, the sword never leaves the body"
, the fighting effect is as graceful as a startling dragon and graceful as a swimming dragon.
"When shooting backwards like this, I am constantly throwing the sword out. After editing and playing it back in the normal order, I will see the sword constantly coming back to my hand from the air. It is always wrapped around my hand and body, and can be retracted and released freely.
Rotate as you wish, thus reaching the state where man and sword become one."
"Reverse shot and forward view? This is a genius idea! Coupled with the scattered dust smoke and blooming blood mist, it shows the invisible sword energy..."
Cheng Chaoping clapped his hands and exclaimed: "In this way, the image of Dugu Nine Swords suddenly stood up!"
"Director Yan's ideas are really wild and unconstrained..."
After carefully studying all the action sketches, Huang Jinbai also sighed: "The so-called Qing Gong is flying on grass. I didn't expect that the touch of reeds can be used to express the etheriness of Qing Gong!"
"To put it in layman's terms, the actor must put on a good display when being hoisted by wires..."
Knowing that he was just picking up others' wisdom, Yan Qing said modestly: "Director Huang, Chao Ping, you are the expert martial arts experts. Many of my ideas are not mature enough and may need to be further improved. In short, I leave it to you two."
"Director Yan is too modest. This is not just a show. In fact, the freehand-style martial arts looks very exciting. We can try to add more dance-like and dramatic movements to fill it in..."
The sedan chair was carried by everyone, and Yan Qing's outstanding martial arts thinking, peace and humble attitude were recognized by Huang Jinbai: "Dean Qian Dejun, teacher Luo Xuyang, and Director Yan are all senior actors with profound drama skills, and Weng Huaijing teaches classical ballet dance."
Well, this fighting style will definitely be easy to interpret."
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Through the shot-by-shot script, the editing ideas were elaborated, special shooting techniques were introduced, moves were broken down and illustrated, and finally everyone reached a consensus on a unified action style - smart and elegant, somersaulting and jumping, high and high, turning the imaginary into reality, and the intangible into tangible.
In this way, Yan Qing did almost every task personally, including location scouting, interior scenery, art, costumes, props, special effects, martial arts, and extras. It was the first time he directed a film with the standards of a commercial film.
On Wednesday afternoon, with the assistance of the production team Shao Qing and Luo Bing, Yan Qing coordinated the management leaders of each group to submit the final version of the requirements list.
Photography, lighting, and sound recording are based on the list of photography, lighting equipment, and recording equipment submitted by them, and they are debugged and try out the equipment provided by Whispering Pictures.
The props team and the art team have also sorted out a list of props, art, makeup, and costumes. These will be arranged by the production team to be purchased or rented as soon as possible. At this point, everything is ready, and all we need is east wind.
On Wednesday night, Yi Yi and two Fuso actors joined the cast as scheduled, and Yan Qing led a team of more than 160 people. After a three-person opening ceremony and a lively opening banquet of 18 tables, "Laughter"
The crew of "The Invincible East" performed their duties and started filming their first night battle.