Hollywood Road

After signing an investment agreement with 20th Century Fox on behalf of Stanton Studios, Murphy turned all his energy to the preparation of "Dark City". Went to New York and signed a formal agreement with relevant parties in New York on location shooting.

The film's exterior locations will all be located in New York, while some special effects scenes and interior scenes will continue to be filmed at the warehouse studio next to Venice.

The warehouse studio has once again become Murphy's base camp for filming.

After Kara Firth and Murphy fought, Twentieth Century Fox finally agreed to the imax shooting plan proposed by Murphy. More than 60% of the film's shots will be shot with imax cameras. Due to Murphy's current status and Having just won the Oscar for best director, imax also attached great importance to it. After the crew contacted imax's Los Angeles branch, they immediately carried out internal deployment, and soon sent two huge and bulky imax cameras.

Two imax cameras were set up by Philip Lascher in the largest shooting area for debugging. They are veritable big guys. They are several times larger and heavier than the usual Hollywood cameras. Their weight and volume The increase means that the operation will be more cumbersome and inconvenient.

Standing next to an imax camera, Murphy tried to operate it. After standing up, he said to Philip Raschel, "We have some scenes that need to be shot with an imax camera, and they are all very impactful shots. .”

Turning around the imax camera, Murphy said again, "For example, in the scene where Chris Dann is chasing after riding a motorcycle, I need to show the first perspective with Chris Dann as the starting point!"

"We tied the camera to the front of the car last time to shoot." Fili Raschel frowned, "But the effect is average, and the impact is still not strong enough."

"Yeah!" Murphy nodded and suggested, "Phili, is it feasible to tie this big guy to the front of the plane and take pictures when the plane takes off?"

Philip Lascher thought about it for a few seconds, and said, "It's not easy to handle, the imax camera is too bulky, and the nose of the plane needs to be specially modified."

Murphy immediately made a decision, "I leased a business jet from Gulfstream, how about this, I'll have someone contact them to see if they can provide related services."

These are problems that money can solve.

"Wait, Fili, Murphy, wait."

The people from imax company have been paying attention to the two of them. The voices of Murphy and Fili Raschel are not low, and they all fall into the ears of Tolby Martinez, the representative of imax company on the crew. The person in charge of the production team of imax company hurried over, "I think your proposal is too risky, and it may damage the equipment."

Murphy couldn't help frowning slightly, "Toby, if you want to show the advantages of imax technology, you must build a sufficiently good scene."

Tolby Martinez seemed to want to say something else, but Murphy didn't give him a chance at all, and said directly, "If the equipment is damaged, the crew will compensate according to the price."

Tolby Martinez opened his mouth and finally closed it again. In front of Murphy, his weight was obviously not enough.

Besides, imax cameras are expensive, but not so expensive that a crew with an investment of 220 million US dollars can't afford it.

Since the shooting equipment was leased from imax, Murphy would certainly not be polite in using it. imax has always adhered to the principle of only renting and not selling, otherwise there would not be so many troubles.

Afterwards, Murphy left the studio and went to the representatives of Mercedes-Benz in the crew to discuss matters such as Chris Dann's special motorcycle.

Many similar problems can always be found in the early preparations. This is a stage to solve problems. The more problems encountered at this stage, the less troubles there will be in post-shooting.

From equipment to props, from actors to costumes,

From the shooting plan to the shot artwork, Murphy will participate in and review every preparatory work, and he is also aware of the progress of the entire preparatory work.

Twentieth Century Fox also gave him the maximum support, except for the necessary financial issues, and basically delegated power to two producers, Kara Firth and Gal Gadot.

After looking at Mercedes-Benz's design draft and exchanging ideas with the designer, Murphy went to the office where the pyrotechnics team was located. This time, several leaders of a pyrotechnics team he specially hired were studying the blasting plan.

Different from the previous films, Murphy plans to try a lot of gun battles and explosion scenes in this filming, because in order to conform to the style of the film, all explosions must be shot on the spot, and they cannot be as exaggerated and non-exaggerated as the explosions made by Michael Bay. limit.

"I think dynamite should be dropped."

Murphy and pyrotechnics chief Michael Beltz discussed the film's most important explosion scene, advising, "Try to use a few bullets and some gasoline to make the explosion, as the script says."

Michael Beltz folded his chest with one hand and raised his chin with the other. "If you use a model to shoot, there is a certain degree of uncertainty about the gasoline explosion."

"Models must be used for shooting." Murphy said as concisely as possible, "The special effects team of Weta Studio is making models, and we will communicate with you later."

"Give me some time and let Weta Studio make a few more models." Michael Beltz frowned slowly, and then let go, "I need to do some experiments so that I can achieve the best results when shooting .”

"There is one more." Murphy looked at Michael Beltz and said seriously, "You study how to completely blow up a large hospital."

Michael Belz had read the script of the explosion scene, and immediately realized that Murphy wanted to shoot it, and asked, "Are you really going to blow up the hospital?"

"That's right." Murphy simply explained, "I've asked people to search for a suitable hospital that is about to be demolished, or a building similar to a hospital."

For the realistic style of the film, he really worked hard.

Murphy then went to see the actors, mainly James Franco, whose magician role was crucial.

However, walking into a studio, Murphy saw James Franco in a straight magician's gown flipping through the script and thinking hard, and left without disturbing him.

Facing his character script, James Franco was thinking about the character of the magician.

Undoubtedly, the role Murphy set up puts the evil side of human nature into infinity, and forms a set of unique logic in this way, making the role of the magician extremely crazy and... amazing!

"There is someone as perverted as Murphy..." James Franco couldn't help shaking his head, "It is only possible to design such a perverted and wonderful character."

Thinking of this, James Franco looked down at the script and read it again.

In this role script, the magician shows a kind of madness, madness without bottom line and principles, madness to the peak of evil.

And what about the culmination of evil? In the pinnacle of evil, evil is not a means, but an end. The culmination of evil is pure, not for money or sex, not for any other purpose, creating evil and performing evil itself is the only pursuit.

The evil of the magician is such pure evil, nothing else, he just wants to create a "higher taste of evil" for this city. In James Franco's view, compared with the magician, even "Seven Deadly Sins" "The crimes of the anonymous person in" are not "high taste evil", because there are too many additions to evil.

In some respects, the magician is actually an evil Puritan. In his eyes, crime for money, power, sex or any other purpose is actually a blasphemy against "evil", and evil can only be found in his hands. is pure.

In the hands of the magician, evil and chaos become a work of art, and he plays evil as a painter paints a picture and a musician composes music. So from the beginning to the end, no matter what the circumstances, he has maintained an arrogance and self-satisfaction as a demon.

The behavior of the magician in the script looks crazy and chaotic at first glance, but it is not difficult for James Franco to analyze that this character has a fanatical thought that breaks through everyone's bottom line.

Faced with such a role, James Franco sometimes feels powerless, and feels that his acting skills and status may hardly reach the level of a magician.

"It's really difficult to successfully portray this role!"

James Franco closed the script, stood up and took a few steps, sighing to himself, "Murphy, you dug such a big hole, just wait for me to jump into it!"

He stood there, thinking quietly for a while, knowing that he had to do more preparations for this role.

Then, James Franco left the actor's rehearsal room, found Murphy who was staying in the director's office, and directly made a request.

"Murphy..." James Franco pulled a chair and sat down, and said to his friend across from him, "From tomorrow onwards, I won't be on set for the time being."

"Not coming to the crew?" Murphy asked curiously, "Why?"

"I think the magician is a very special character."

When it comes to the character that will be portrayed in front of the camera lens, James Franco has no laughing and joking appearance before, and is extremely serious, "I want to find a quiet, completely undisturbed environment and spend some time studying this character. "

Hearing this, Murphy couldn't help but look at James Franco. In Fu Lanlan's eyes, there was a kind of fanaticism when an actor meets a character he really likes.

Murphy thought for a while, "That's good."

"See you later."

James Franco stood up and wanted to leave, but was stopped by Murphy, "Wait, James."

"Anything else?" James Franco asked.

"Hmm!" Murphy stood up and said, "It's very important!" (To be continued...)