Made in Hollywood

The lengthy shooting process was quite torturous, and post-production was not easy. Although there were very few special effects scenes in "Chicago", after spending two weeks editing the nearly five-hour first-cut sample, Duke and The entire post-production team led by Mike Dawson has completely entered the stage of turtle speed.

"Chicago" is located in what is called an era of miracles, an era of art, an era of spending money, and an era full of ridicule.

This era is also known as the "Jazz Age", and Chicago, as the entertainment capital, is full of sensuality and news hype.

The final film is to show the side of the society where good and evil are reversed, black and white are indistinguishable, and money is paramount in the gorgeous song and dance and the colorful light and color collection.

In order to make the film outstanding, fine editing is essential. As a musical film, "Chicago" has a large number of song and dance scenes, tango, JAZZ, blues, tap... I want to be in the scheduling of various scenes Interspersed with the usual narrative and song and dance performances, to achieve a seamless flow, Duke and Mike? Dawson need to pay a lot of time and energy.

"Song and dance scenes are all expressions of the actors' inner emotions."

Standing in front of the workbench in the editing room, Duke said to Mike Dawson and several editing assistants, "So the singing and dancing scenes are mostly imagined by the heroine, and I asked the editing points to step on the rhythm of the sound. Starting from the emotional point, like live recorded music, it has a certain sense of rhythm!"

As a musical, a large number of dance movements, body language and subtle facial expressions must be assembled through a reasonable lens to achieve a visual impact. The editing of this film is to highlight the expressive power of the event, and to clarify the nature of the whole film and even each scene and each shot.

The selection of action clip points with obvious rhythm can give the whole film a sense of jazz jumping.

In addition to editing, Duke also led people to process the tone of the corresponding shots, so that the color and light of the lighting set during the shooting were more suitable for the needs of the scene.

"Mike. Cut out all the front shots, I want a close-up of the heroine's eyes at the beginning of the film!"

Not to mention that this is a film independently invested by Duke, since "Independence Day", he can get the final editing rights of any directed project. At this moment, watching Mike Dawson working with assistants, he is talking about his requirements. , "Then go directly to Shot 47. Darken the background to accentuate the color of the title 'Chicago'! I want the bright red neon image to be as dazzling as a high-hanging signal light!"

Although he won the best editing statuette, Mike Dawson had no objection, but followed Duke's request and skillfully replaced and cut shots.

Looking at the busy Mike Dawson and others. Duke believes that his team should also make some innovations in technology. For example, digital editing has gradually become popular in recent years, which is far more time-saving and labor-saving than traditional editing methods.

It took a whole morning to complete the opening paragraph of the film. The effect of the release also met Duke's requirements, and the film started with a song and dance. From the close-up of the announcer's mouth, to the momentary cut to the dizzying stage, the background of the stage is the cold tone and the warm tone in the wine pool, which form a sharp contrast and a strong visual impact.

Then, after another cool and warm color conversion. A visionary appeared - Roxy, the movements of Roxy and the cheater were integrated with the dance, music and lyrics on the stage, forming a great auditory and visual impact.

At the beginning of the edited film, the camera has been rapidly switching, accompanied by the band playing, non-stop movement on the dance floor. From the close-up of the human mouth counting "5, 6, 7, 8", to the rocking from the ceiling into the crowd, every shot is matched to the rhythm of the background music.

Duke's intention is very obvious. Such fast-paced shot processing, placed at the beginning of the film, can not only introduce the environment, but also set a bright and strong rhythm for the whole film. The shaping has laid a psychological foundation in the hearts of the audience, thereby mobilizing the audience's emotions and allowing them to watch with peace of mind.

If the film comes up with a slow rhythm full of literary accents and various costumes, the market prospect of "Chicago" is basically over.

Although the professional quality of singing and dancing is limited, Duke is not inferior to any director in controlling the overall production of the film. When shooting, he fully considered post-editing, and the exaggerated and absurd emotional changes of the characters in the shots were matched with the movement transition. Used to provide the perfect emotional editing point for post-production.

Only perfect editing can realistically present the emotional changes of characters expected by the director, select editing points according to the external expressions and emotional expression process of characters in different situations, and pay attention to the exaggeration, rendering and deep-level expression of the characters’ emotions. portray.

The completed sequence in which Roxy has an affair with a furniture salesman uses this editing technique.

After Velma killed her sister, she sang and danced on the stage. At the same time, because of jealousy and envy, Lockheed wanted to seduce a liar furniture salesman to get on the stage.

This section is made up of two incidents interlaced and edited. When Velma sang and danced on the stage and raised her hands, the camera immediately switched to the men and women who were in love and made similar movements.

This kind of shot assembly can also be said to be a movement transition. In the follow-up work, according to Duke's requirements, there are still many editing methods like this.

Duke is to use the coherence of the singing and dancing movements and the strong visual impact of the movements to match the passion and movement of the whole film.

With the deepening of post-production work, Duke found that if the film wanted to be more brilliant, it also needed to break through the sound limitations of the rhythm and better give the picture a sense of rhythm.

The shots used in the rhythm editing point are generally shots without character language. It is based on the rhythm line of the development process of the event content, and flexibly handles the length and editing of the shot according to the emotions, atmosphere and picture modeling characteristics expressed by the content. The rhythm editing point The role of the film is to use the different lengths of the shots to create a unique rhythm that affects the audience's psychological feelings - either soothing, or peaceful and stable, or intense.

Duke successfully used it in the scene after Roxy was put in a cell.

"Roxy was jailed for murder, starved, cold, and helpless, and she began to cry softly, and then she was awakened by the sound of water droplets."

Because Mike Dawson had something to do temporarily, Anna Prinz fought hard again. Duke brought her to the editing room. The other party was one of his important assistants in his work. Duke explained and taught her some editing very patiently. reasons and experience.

He pointed to the monitor screen and said to the assistant director in detail, "At this time, the screen switched to the feet of the prison guard, who stepped on the iron aisle in the prison forcefully. The picture of water droplets and the footsteps of the warning crossed each other. It can form a rhythmic echo with the picture. Then another prisoner appeared, tapped the window sill with his finger, lit a match, and 6 different prisoners made short voices in turn. The recorded sound was very rhythmic. The screen is also switched immediately following the sound generator.”

Anna Prinz obviously knew Duke's style very well, and immediately understood the purpose of such a cut, saying, "In this way, it can not only bring a strong rhythmic impact to the audience, but also has a clear sense of rhythm visually. So as to create a rush and tense atmosphere for this paragraph and affect the hearts of the audience?"

"Exactly!" Duke nodded.

The assistant director is an important part of the director's control of the crew. Sofia Coppola's departure is unavoidable, and it is difficult for Zach Snyder to say when he will leave. Duke also intends to train Anna Prinz.

While cutting and assembling shots, Duke told her the different editing logic for different scenes, "The fast-paced content and tone of a single shot should be properly combined, and a large number of residual effects can trigger the climax of the film one after another, and achieve the purpose of exciting. "

In the film, the length of the shot significantly affects the expressiveness and appeal of the picture. The primary element of the editing art is to determine the length of a shot. A slightly longer or shorter shot can determine the size of the picture effect. effect.

The so-called "content tone" is a theoretical development curve of psychological appeal produced by the audience's comprehension of the content of the screen and the switching of shots. As shown in the figure, it is an image of a function similar to a parabola, which has its highest point. After this theoretical emotional highest point is passed, it is converted into a decreasing function.

The "residual effect" is based on the editing tone. Usually, the development curve of the appeal of the atmosphere generated by the rapid switching of the lens to the audience is called the "cutting tone", and the "residual effect" is the curve. The corresponding value in the ordinate of .

In actual post-production, it is of course impossible for Duke to quantify the effect of each shot, but when the shot accumulates to a certain number and can convey a certain narrative information, this effect can be clearly seen from the picture. .

In the next clip that Anna Prinz participated in, it was learned from Roxy that his inmate was hanged, and he was facing the final trial, which started until Rosie was acquitted, a 20-minute courtroom. During the trial, the rhythm of the switching of the shots was gradually accelerated, and the content tones accumulated layer by layer, and finally reached the peak of a residual effect.

As Lockheed lost because there was no reporter to interview him, the switching between shots slowly eased, calming the previous tension.

In addition, Duke also used a part of the cut and splice to create a circular narrative.

Usually, the construction of a movie scene requires a set of shots, and in the dynamic process, it is impossible to be flat and straightforward. It is necessary to add some decorative content to make the scene more vivid and rich, or better. Show characters, or highlight emotions, emotions.

The use of cutting and splicing techniques has greatly expanded the space-time relationship of the film. For example, the unfolding of events between the two protagonists, Locks and Velma, at the beginning of the film belongs to the application of this technique.

In short, such a gorgeous and ironic musical film cannot be separated from sophisticated post-production. (To be continued ~^~)