Hollywood Road

The Los Angeles area is dry and rainless, with plenty of sunshine, and the sun hangs brightly in the sky almost every day. For most crews, this is an ideal location shooting condition.

But not for Murphy's crew. In his entire exterior scene, there will be no sunlight at all, and the color tone of the lens is completely dark. Sufficient sunlight will only bring trouble. Instead, the crew needs to shade everywhere during shooting. , otherwise, if the film is overexposed, even with the current technology, it will be very difficult to adjust the color later.

"David, the light is too bright, too soft!"

In the shooting of almost every scene, Murphy can be heard shouting, "the light should be harder, and the tone should be darker!"

This film is different from the previous "City of Chaos". The whole story is full of gloomy atmosphere, despair and absurdity. It is a dark and completely desperate personal biopic that is relatively rare in Hollywood.

Murphy never thought about what kind of profit this film would generate. Instead, his first consideration was whether it would be more successful during the awards season. The nature of the film determines that it cannot have much commercial impact, so It is impossible to spread widely, and it is also contrary to Ross's ideas.

Now that he has promised his friend, Murphy naturally wants to do better. If such a niche theme among the niche really wants to become famous and become a world-renowned film, Oscar is the best way and platform to spread it.

In the past, the typical Oscar-winning films with a noir style were not without gains during the awards season.

For example, "Chicago" in 2003, "Million Dollar Baby" in 2005, "The Departed" in 2006, "No Country for Old Men" in 2008...

Of course, these films are not as dark and thorough as Murphy's style, and they are still the mainstream orientation of Hollywood films, and they are not as commercialized as the films directed by Murphy.

Several of Murphy's masterpieces are all black from the outside to the inside, and the value orientation makes the defenders sneer.

Although he has suffered setbacks at the Oscars one after another due to style issues, Murphy is not prepared to make fundamental changes in this film.

Is film noir a tribute to cynicism, or the courage to face the darkness of human nature? Is it identified by visual style positioning? Or should it be determined according to its controlling idea and the overall tone of the story? Is its visual style merely "eerie" or does it have deeper themes?

For these, Murphy has his own understanding.

It must be admitted that film noir is an artistic phenomenon with very film art characteristics, and at the same time it is a very complex film phenomenon. Film noir is not derived from a theoretical concept, but a description and induction of a fait accompli in the production of a certain film industry .

Whether in the studio or on location, Murphy has formulated four basic principles for the crew in the construction and shooting of the scene.

Most of the scenes are lit according to the night scene; the composition prefers to use oblique and vertical lines instead of horizontal lines; the lighting treatment makes the actors often hide in the city night scene, and the faces of the actors are always covered by shadows when they speak, or use light and shadow Segmentation is done on the face; the tension of the camera map takes precedence over the physical movements of the actors.

In addition to these four basic principles, Murphy also used more techniques in field shooting.

After the shooting of the previous few days, Murphy communicated with Philip Lascher and adjusted the shooting method appropriately. They prefer to use low-angle lighting, high-light-ratio lighting, and a very tough photography tone for subsequent shooting. .

In this way, they generally use a relatively solid focus, and generally do not use soft light mirrors or fog mirrors to soften the picture.

For example, Philip Raschel often uses wide-angle lenses and small light holes to obtain a larger depth of field. This kind of depth-of-field lens can easily cause people to feel oppressed.

Furthermore, in some scene layouts, Murphy asked Helena Espora to appropriately add some props with typical black meanings, such as angel pictures, and in the subsequent shooting, let Philip- Raschel employs shaky camera compositions,

The strangely shaped light areas, lines, and objects, such as the light and shadow of blinds, doors, windows, stairs, metal frames, etc., form the separation and extrusion of people.

Especially when using larger angles of elevation and depression.

In almost all of the shots, Murphy asked Fili-Raschel to use oblique and vertical lines instead of horizontal lines to compose the shots. Diagonally split shots can make the world of film noir seem restless and unstable.

In film noir, the light enters the room in strange shapes, and what the audience sees are jagged quadrilaterals, sharp triangles, and vertical slits.

Murphy's treatment of the black elements of this film also has a strong visual element, which is the use of bloody images.

Needless to say in this regard, from the first film to the present, it is his specialty.

From expressionist paintings to film noirs, this kind of visual image is always enjoyed by human beings. They create and watch repeatedly, and develop such a complex, rich and self-contained visual map of film noir, which has the meaning of aestheticism in the sense of Oscar Wilde. .

However, even if a film has created a typical film noir visual style, it is not necessarily a film noir. The decisive factor is the overall tendency of the film's narrative, and the endless gloom and gloom of the controlling idea.

"Damp city streets, dramatic staircases, dark train stations, oblique camera angles, melancholic shadows and dreamy lighting effects..."

During the break, Seth Rogen looked at the shots taken by Murphy and could see many typical dark elements.

"Film noir does have some of the usual signature elements, but those are not the defining factors."

Holding a cup of coffee, Murphy stood behind Seth Rogen and said, "The decisive feature of film noir is not the visual processing, but the desperate tendency and gloomy consciousness presented by the narrative."

He drank a cup of coffee and continued, "In our movie, the theme is not tragedy, but a kind of disorientation and despair."

Seth Rogen immediately thought of a movie he had seen, and said, "The ending of "The Godfather 3" Al Pacino's heart-piercing cry when facing his daughter's dead body was horrific, but it was brought about by violence. Tragedy, not the total sex world of film noir."

Murphy nodded and said, "There is no genre more seductive than her in this kind of movie, full of dark nights, violence, guilt and illegal passion."

In fact, "The End of the World" filmed by Seth Rogen was also influenced by his style, and there are many black elements in it.

"The unusually broad concept of film noir was largely crafted after film itself had already been produced."

Robert Downey Jr.’s voice sounded. The guy hadn’t taken off his makeup yet, and walked over with three steps, and said, “Film noir may be the most creative period in Hollywood history, even if it’s not for its peak works but for its The same is true when measured against average works. You can pick any film noir and it will do better than any random silent comedy, musical, western, etc... Film noir seems to be able to combine every specialty such as The expertise of the director, cinematographer, screenwriter or actor is mobilized. It’s not uncommon for a film noir to be the pinnacle of an artist’s career curve.”

Both Murphy and Seth Rogen looked at this guy, and even Gal Gadot, who was explaining his work to his assistant, looked up.

Robert Downey Jr. walked up to Murphy and laughed, "I didn't say that, but Paul Schrader wrote it in his "Notes on Film Noir."

"That makes a lot of sense." Murphy shrugged and said, "Film noir contains a very strong sense of value. Its narrative and controlling ideas carry a fundamental view of the world. The narrative mode of film noir brings Very invasive and corrosive, it is like a highly contagious virus, when it encounters other bright, rational and warm humanitarian types, it will immediately occupy them and rewrite this type as A subgenre within the film noir category."

Murphy spread his hands and said, "So, knowing the evil in human nature is a kind of good deed, and creating and watching noir movies is also a kind of good deed."

Hearing this, everyone else seemed to be taken aback, showing a look of thinking, only Robert Downey Jr. snorted, and sarcastically said, "You like putting gold on your face too much."

His words immediately reminded Seth Rogen and Gal Gadot, and the two couldn't help shaking their heads and laughing.

Murphy looked at the time and reminded, "Alright, let's start shooting."

Following his order, the originally quiet bar immediately became busy. Tyrese Gibson and Robert Downey Jr. sat in front of the bar, and the two had a brief exchange to prepare for the upcoming filming.

This is the bar where Murphy and Ross often meet. The owner of the bar is also a friend of Ross and is willing to film the location for the crew for free.

What will be filmed here is the scene after Ross becomes a leader of the drug cartel, which is also a very important scene at the end of the film.

In the bar, Murphy asked Feli Raschel to set up multiple cameras and prepare to shoot with multiple lenses.

Under normal circumstances, one camera position can complete the shooting of a specific scene, and use one camera to capture the entire picture.

But for Murphy's shooting, unless there are some special scenes, he seldom uses one camera to frame the view, and basically adds a second or even a third camera.

These auxiliary camera positions mainly capture the entire scene from multiple different angles. The auxiliary screen shot and the main screen together form a complete shot, and then when editing, Murphy can choose materials from different angles for editing.

All the shots are the result of Murphy's careful consideration.

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