Huayu started as a lecturer at Beijing Film Academy

"Ball Lightning" is a long science fiction novel centered on ball lightning published by Liu Cixin in 2005. It tells the story that on a bizarre rainy night, a ball lightning broke into the home of a young Dr. Chen, and in an instant After reducing his parents to ashes, Dr. Chen decided to devote his life to solving the natural mystery that turned him into an orphan.

But he never imagined that many years later, his research would be included in the "New Concept Weapon" development plan, and the ball lightning he was pursuing would become the ultimate weapon that determines the survival or destruction of the motherland in the next war. Taking advantage of the situation, an icy "blue sun" rises over the Gobi Desert in the northwest, and the world becomes strange and strange. A completely unknown future, under the watchful eyes of space observers, is coming to mankind...

Before writing "Ball Lightning", Liu thought he had liver cancer, so he gritted his teeth and endured the pain and wrote "Ball Lightning", intending it to be his final work. As the "last posthumous work", compared to "The Three-Body Problem" which depicts the magnificent universe, "Ball Lightning" is more like a memoir written by Liu for himself, with a strong sense of reality and immersion.

Among Liu Cixin's many novels, "Ball Lightning" is not the most famous, but in terms of storyline and characterization, it can be said to be second only to "The Three-Body Problem"!

The reason why Gu Zhongyu chose this novel as his first shot at a new milestone in domestic science fiction is that besides really liking this story, there is another important reason.

Unlike "The Three-Body Problem" and "The Wandering Earth", "Ball Lightning" does not require many grand special effects scenes, especially the first half of the novel, which can be filmed in the style of a suspense film or even a horror film! This saves a lot of costs. According to production estimates, "Ball Lightning" can be filmed in two parts. The production cost of the first part can be controlled at around 100 million! Judging from the 670 million box office of last year's box office champion "Tangshan Earthquake", there is still a lot of room for profit with such a production cost.

A few years ago, he also wanted to remake "The Three-Body Problem" and "The Wandering Earth" first, but after carefully examining the domestic special effects companies and production levels, as well as the current domestic film market, he chose to give up this project. Unrealistic thoughts.

It's not that it can't be shot, even if the domestic special effects companies can't satisfy it, he can find people from Industrial Light \u0026 Magic and the digital field. As long as they are willing to spend money and have stricter control, they will definitely be able to shoot it. But the cost is too high!

In the first part of "The Wandering Earth", the special effects were basically produced by domestic companies, which were of high quality and low price. The production cost also reached more than 300 million. If you were to hire Industrial Light and Magic, you wouldn't even think about it if you didn't have a base of 100 million US dollars! The domestic movie box office champion in 2010 was only more than 600 million yuan. According to the rule that the box office must be at least three times the cost to make money, there is no hope of even making a return!

So Gu Zhongyu understood from that time that the development of domestic science fiction films must follow a long-term planning path and cannot be rushed at all. So in 2008, he invested and controlled the special effects company in Hong Kong - Xiantao Digital (which had been responsible for the special effects production of movies such as The Storm, Heroes, and Kung Fu), and then began to cultivate the new generation of special effects he needed. Technical talents, Xiantao Digital has received many domestic and foreign orders in recent years. Although the company is still losing money, Gu Zhongyu doesn't care as long as it doesn't lose too much. He doesn't expect the special effects company to make money in the past few years.

…

After reading the script and production plan of "Ball Lightning", Guo Fan took a deep breath, calmed down his excitement and asked: "Teacher Gu, I don't understand. This kind of big-budget movie with a cost of over 100 million, how can you Why would you want to find me?"

"Then who should I look for?" Gu Zhongyu asked with a smile.

"They should be those directors who are already successful in the film industry!" Guo Fan felt that as a newcomer, he had no advantage at all compared to those big directors.

"For example? Lao Mouzi? Old Monster Xu?" Gu Zhongyu asked back and told Guo Fan his thoughts.

He had considered looking for those big directors before, but after thinking about it for a while, he quickly gave up the idea!

Lao Mouzi?

Gu Zhongyu admitted that he is indeed the best among domestic directors in terms of photography, composition and large-scale scene planning, but making science fiction films?

Anyway, he thinks this guy might not even be able to read a movie script! After all, his cultural level is limited. The pile of science and engineering knowledge and nouns in Da Liu's novels would probably stun him. This is not to blame him. After all, domestic directors have always valued literature over theory. When talking about film theory, You can talk about humanities and history, but if you talk about mathematics, physics and chemistry, basically a junior high school student can defeat them!

Weird Xu is okay. As an outlier among Chinese directors, he has always loved special effects and all kinds of unconstrained plot settings. But the problem is that Mr. Xu has always followed the comprador route when it comes to film special effects. He likes to use foreign film special effects teams for direct use instead of cultivating his own people.

This is in conflict with Gu Zhongyu's cultivation of a domestic special effects team. After all, one of the reasons why he made "Ball Lightning" was to lay the foundation for other future science fiction movies (and the director Xu's salary is too high, at least one thousand More than ten thousand, which is also an important reason why Gu Zhongyu chose to give up inviting Mr. Xu).

After all considerations, Gu Zhongyu still planned to let Guo Fan come. After all, he now has directing experience, and... he is very cheap!

"What you just said may be some of the shortcomings of our predecessors, but it still cannot explain why they chose me?" After listening to Gu Zhongyu's previous explanation, Guo Fan still couldn't understand why he chose him!

Why did they choose you? I can't tell you that you will direct two "The Wandering Earth" movies in the future and become the first person in domestic science fiction movies, right?

Let me think about how to trick you into taking the bait!

Gu Zhongyu adjusted his sitting position and explained in a serious voice: "First, you, Guo Fan, passed the normal college entrance examination and entered a 211 university from SD Province, a province with a lot of internal competition. Your IQ is definitely in the top 5% in the country. Although you are not a science and engineering major, your learning ability is completely fine. Other people in the entertainment industry generally rank in the bottom 30% in terms of IQ. This group of people scored 300 points in the college entrance examination and can solve quadratic equations. If you don't have enough knowledge reserves and academic qualifications, you can't make a good science fiction film!

Second, you like science fiction and have your own understanding of science fiction. Unlike other directors, your understanding of domestic science fiction is still stuck in the works of the last century such as "Death Light on Coral Island" and "Thunder Baby". As the saying goes, only with good consciousness can you have good works!

Third, and the most important point is that I admire you, Guo Fan! The development of science fiction movies requires talents, and our Warring States Films needs talents like you! I believe you can make this movie well, and I believe that the door to domestic science fiction movies must be opened by you, Guo Fan!

Rainbow farts don't cost money! You can give more, I don't believe you won't take the bait!