Entertaining Children

After talking and laughing for a while, everyone started watching the film.

This time, I said that I was looking at the unedited video material, but when Xiao Yao wrote the script, he used the completed film of "WALL.E" from his previous life in his mind. extra stuff. It takes about two hours to add up all the materials, which is almost equivalent to the length of a general movie after a rough cut.

In order to provide a temporal baseline for video production, Xiao Yao himself performed the initial original dubbing for all the characters.

Tong Luo's company is a special effects animation production company. In the past, it mainly made CG animations and some game special effects for games. Making CG animations and game special effects screens will also involve sound effects. Tong Luo's company also has human resources in this area, so Xiao Yao also handed over the sound effects to the technicians of Tong Luo's company to be responsible for the production. After Xiao Yao performed the initial original dubbing for the character, the technicians of Tongluo Company also completed the production of sound effects when making the video.

The initial soundtrack and sound effects are available, but now these video materials are only the soundtrack, which is completely blank

Although the production of the soundtrack is not carried out, the effect of such video materials will look a lot worse, but it can already better express the storyline of this movie. Both Huang Shi and He Ying are senior actors. It’s not that they haven’t seen the video material before it was released or broadcast. Their judgment ability in this aspect is far beyond that of ordinary people. It is entirely possible to make a basic evaluation and evaluation of this animation film through such material. The level is judged.

Hearing that Xiao Yao not only contributed capital, but was also the director and screenwriter of this animated film, Huang Shi and He Ying were amazed and became more interested in this animated film than before they came here. Even if there is no video material with soundtrack, they watched it very seriously and devotedly.

Xiao Yao's genius is well-known, and they had high expectations for the movie that Xiao Yao spent more than two years making. The feeling is far better than their expectations.

In terms of subject matter, this animated film is definitely a sci-fi animated film. Doing science fiction-type things, whether it is film or television or novels, requires an extremely rich imagination. Whether it is a live-action movie or an animated movie, daring to play science fiction requires a certain amount of courage, and if you are a little careless, you will be criticized for nothing.

However, in this animated movie, whether it is the scenes on the future earth or the scenes in the spacecraft in space, they are all very brilliant. Not to mention the exquisite picture, various details also reflect a strong sense of sci-fi, giving people the feeling that it is at least no worse than those Hollywood sci-fi animated movies.

In terms of themes, this animated film is mainly based on love, but the ruined earth makes people unconsciously think of environmental protection, and the images and behaviors of the humans in the spaceship implicitly satirize some unhealthy lifestyles.

It is normal for young people to make a movie about love and romance, but under the atmosphere of love theme, these questions of great social significance are raised in a hidden form, which shows the ambition and height of the creator on the ideological level , it is hard to believe that this is a script written by a young man in his early twenties. This is the reputation of Xiao Yao's precocity and genius, otherwise Huang Shi and He Ying would definitely doubt whether Xiao Yao really wrote this script.

What surprises and surprises the two of them is that there are many novel, very creative and distinctive features in terms of content, role setting and expression.

Robots cannot make obvious facial expressions and have difficulty expressing emotions. It is very unexpected that this animated film uses a robot as the protagonist to tell the story. I did not expect that the two protagonists of the robot designed by Xiao Yao are still two characters who don't even speak much.

There are many robots in ordinary people's consciousness that have language ability, that is, they can speak. But the two robots who are the protagonists in this movie rarely speak, and they can basically be regarded as the two characters with the least words among all talking characters. The two protagonists are the characters with the least words among the characters who can speak in the whole movie, and they are robots who are difficult to make obvious facial expressions. Whether it is a live-action movie or an animated movie, such a setting is extremely rare, at least Huang Shi He Ying and He Ying have never seen such a movie.

The character setting of such a robot who can hardly speak is likely to make people feel boring. At first glance, it seems to be extremely risky, but after actually looking at it, Huang Shi and He Ying found that such a On the contrary, the setting makes them have a lot more fun while watching.

First, they found that they could still feel the emotional expressions of the two protagonist robots in the movie. In the movie, the robot's emotions are well expressed through the different shapes of the robot's eyes and some simple hand movements, making people seem to see the expressions.

In addition, even if the protagonist does not speak, these materials do not have a soundtrack, and they do not feel bored at all, but feel very exciting and interesting.

For example, in the nearly 50 minutes before the movie (the original version of the previous life was 40 minutes long, but the material was somewhat more), there were only these two robot characters and a cockroach that could not speak at all. Except for a brief introduction of their names, the two robots basically did not speak, almost giving people the feeling of watching a silent movie. But it happened that the first 50 minutes were the 50 minutes that both He Ying and Huang Shi were most moved by and also very interesting to watch.

In addition, this animated movie also includes a real movie clip starring real people. There have been movies in this world that add animated characters to a live-action movie, but adding clips from other live-action movies to an animated movie is still the first in this world.

It is worth mentioning that the part of the former CEO of the BNL company in the original version of this movie was performed by real people, but Xiao Yao did not find a real person to perform, and changed this character into an animated character, only keeping the real movie clips. , replacing the "Hello, Dolly" segment with an out-of-this-world segment from a classic American musical movie. However, for Huang Shi and He Ying who have never seen the original version of the previous life, just adding the real movie clips is enough to surprise them.

"Awesome!" After watching the footage, Huang Shi and He Ying applauded Xiao Yao sincerely.

Although Xiao Yao wrote, directed, and acted in short films, and shot many amazing MVs, after all, feature films are not the same as short films and MVs. For a young man in his early twenties, being able to produce a feature-length animated film is already a very remarkable thing, but Xiao Yao not only made an animated film, this film can also be seen in many Both of them shocked them greatly, and the two of them had to lament again that Xiao Yao is really a monster whose ability and talent cannot be judged by age.

"Thank you for the compliment!" Xiao Yao smiled, "These are still materials, and there is still a lot of post-work to be done later. In addition, you two don't just praise, if you feel that there is something wrong, you can also say it Remind me, this junior. It will be easier for us to change it before we do it in the later stage."

"Director Xiao, as a director and screenwriter, you are not my junior." Huang Shi smiled, "I think it is very good, there is nothing to change."

"Where's Sister He Ying?" Xiao Yao looked at He Ying again and asked.

"There is nothing wrong with the movie, but I have a problem myself." He Ying said.

"What's the problem?" Xiao Yao and Huang Shi both looked at He Ying.

"You said you wanted me to play the heroine, didn't you?" He Ying smiled, "But the heroine of this movie is the robot Eva. It seems that I didn't say a few words from the beginning to the end. Isn't my task too easy? gone?"

"Do you want to play another role?" Xiao Yao asked.

"Not really," He Ying said, "This character is very cute, I like it very much, and I won't trade it with others. But with just a few words, I feel embarrassed to ask you to pay, why don't we stick to the one in that time?" As I said in the show, this time it was a guest appearance in friendship, and I will help you with this role for free."

"Yo, He Ying, have you saved this guy money?" Huang Shi smiled, "This guy is so famous now, and he has shares in several companies under his name, why do you need to help him save this little money?" ? You have to ask for it!"

"Brother Huang Shi, are you still my brother?" Xiao Yao deliberately looked at Huang Shi angrily and said.

"As far as I know, when you helped Xiao Yao shoot that short film a few years ago, you also starred in it with zero pay. Why didn't you ask him for a pay back then?" He Ying smiled and said to Huang Shi.

"Our situation is different." Huang Shi said, "I didn't want it that time, but he said in advance that he would not be paid, and asked me to help. Besides, he was not as famous as he is now, and he didn't engage in fashion with Yin Xi. brand, he didn’t invent the hand disc to open a musical instrument company, and I didn’t know he had a stake in a modeling company.”

"Also," Huang Shi continued, "all the investment he made in that short film was his own savings, and he didn't ask his family for money. After the short film is shot, it can't be shown in theaters. It has no commercial future and no return. , I’m also embarrassed to mention the money to him. And I didn’t completely star in it with no pay, and later his short film won an award in France, and after selling the copyright to the video site, he also paid me.”

"But I heard from him that he has invested all his income in this animated film for the past two years." He Ying said, "We all know that making animated films is very expensive. Watch this animated film. There are only two investors, except that he is Mr. Tong's company, and I have never heard of Mr. Tong's company."

"Sorry, Mr. Tong, I don't mean any offense," He Ying said to Tong Luo, "It's just that I am also in this circle, but I have never heard of you and your company's name, so I guess your company is not A big, strong company."

"It's okay," Tong Luo smiled and waved his hands, "You're right. My company used to mainly help game companies with CG animation and special effects. It's really not a well-known big company. The investment in this movie , Xiao Yao is the big head, accounting for more than me."

"So I think Xiao Yao has really invested all his savings in the past two years into this animation film." He Ying continued, "In addition to the production of a film, the cost of publicity is not small. This is a good movie, and I hope it will get a good publicity in the future. I'd better save my salary and spend it on publicity. Also, if you have any difficulties in publicity funds, You can find me, and I will do my best.”

"You really don't have any other investors for this movie?" Huang Shi was told by He Ying, and he also remembered the problem of investment, so he turned to ask Xiao Yao. In terms of the effects shown by these materials, it is hard to believe that this can be supported by the funds of an individual and a small unknown special effects company.

"Indeed not." Xiao Yao smiled.

"Is it convenient to tell me how much the production cost is?" Huang Shi asked again, but after asking, Huang Shi immediately added, "It's not convenient."

"It is estimated that the total is less than 200 million yuan." After Xiao Yao and Tong Luo looked at each other, they said a rough figure, "It has cost more than 100 million yuan so far."

The original animated film in the previous life was released in 2008, but Xiao Yao’s film was only produced in 2018 in this life. In horizontal comparison, the production time is at least ten years later. In addition, the technological development of this world is still slightly ahead of the same period in the previous life. Many previous lives were still the leading animation technology in the United States in 2008. In this world for 18 years, not only is it not the United States. Even if it is available in other countries, it is not a leading technology that only big companies have mastered.

In addition to the much lower technical cost, the labor cost of Tong Luo's special effects company in China must also be much lower than that of Pixar Studios in the United States.

The director, screenwriter, character image design, and later soundtrack of this animated film were all done by Xiao Yao himself. Although these are also converted into costs, at least a lot of communication is always saved.

In addition, dubbing, editing, and other post-production personnel will also be found in China, and the cost of these aspects has also been greatly reduced.

Another point is the gap in the amount of material produced. The original version of the previous life was produced according to the general film process, and there must have been a lot of material cut out during editing, but Xiao Yao had a complete film in his mind, and it took about two hours of material to make a film of more than 90 minutes. The cost of dropping is not a little bit.

Animated movies are indeed very expensive. The official production cost of the original animation film in the previous life was 180 million US dollars, and Xiao Yao relied on the above-mentioned advantages to control the production cost of this animation film within 200 million yuan.

"Although it sounds like a lot, it's much less than I expected." Huang Shi said, "But in this case, you have invested at least tens of millions, right? If you have difficulties in funding later and need to invest, I can also count one serving."

"It should be unnecessary." Xiao Yao smiled, "I will do the later soundtrack myself. In terms of publicity, we must find the distribution company. That is their business. It is the cost of the film, not our producer. Cost. In addition, we can also do pre-sale overseas.”

"Don't talk about your money, I haven't even touched my family's money." Xiao Yao continued, "Actually, we thought about finding investors at the beginning, but later on we gradually found that we can persevere. So I didn’t find any more investors. Don’t talk about other investors, didn’t you find out? We don’t even have advertisement placement in this movie.”

The closest Xiao Yao came to attracting investment in making this animated film was after the trip to Germany, where he planned to add a few vehicle shots with BMW logos to the garbage dump in the front part of the animated film, and then ask BMW to sponsor him. . However, after finding out that the funds could be supported later, Xiao Yao finally gave up this idea and decided to make a more "pure" movie.

"That's right," Huang Shi suddenly said, "I just realized that there are no advertisements in this movie! It's the first time I've seen you make a movie like this."

"Is it some kind of mental cleanliness?" Huang Shi laughed.

"This~ barely counts." Xiao Yao hesitated, nodded and said.

Although the production cost of this animated film in the previous life was as high as 180 million US dollars, the global box office has reached more than 500 million US dollars, which is not a loss in terms of box office alone. The film market in this world in 2020 is much higher than in 2008 in the previous life. Although Xiao Yao never thought that the box office of his animation film could reach as much as 500 million U.S. dollars, but the cost of only 200 million yuan, it is basically impossible to make money. Still guaranteed. Xiao Yao tried not to make other investments, and ensured that his own investment accounted for the majority, in order to obtain greater economic benefits in the future.

Of course, these words are definitely not suitable to tell Huang Shiming now, and Xiao Yao’s first movie does have some thoughts about spiritual cleanliness. The bigger the ratio, the better, so I followed Huang Shi's words and admitted it.