Made in Hollywood

Back in Los Angeles, Duke took five days off for the crew, only two days off himself, and took John Schwartzman's camera crew and Josh Williams' fireworks crew to the huge Hughes Aircraft Factory Concentrated in the hangar, ready to shoot the explosion without actors.

There are many immersive explosions in the film, such as Bruce Wayne blowing up the monastery of the Alliance of Shadow Warriors.

But few directors will really let actors enter the scene of the explosion to shoot. Some directors pursue the effect of on-the-spot shooting, and may use the dislocation shooting method. However, technical directors like Duke prefer to synthesize, and do not let the actors take too much risk.

The reason is very simple. If an actor is injured, not to mention economic problems, just the delay will make him unbearable.

With today's computer technology, the explosion background and the actor's performance are shot separately and then composited together, which is a very simple job.

"Josh, how's the preparation going?"

Walking into the hangar that was converted into a temporary studio, Duke greeted Josh William, walked towards the model deep in the hangar, and said as he walked, "I only prepared one model, if there is a mistake, The entire filming schedule will be affected.”

"Don't worry, Duke." Josh Williams said with great confidence, "I promise, you can achieve the effect you want in one go."

Explosion, it can be said that Duke first became famous and used to attract audiences, but after "The Matrix", because of the nature of the film he shot, he never bombarded indiscriminately in the film again.

Compared to those films he made earlier, the explosion in the Batman trilogy is definitely a lot more restrained.

Walking to the explosion-proof area of ​​the hangar, a dozen staff are busy around the model that has been built. This is a model that is 20 feet high. Among them, the Shadow Warrior Alliance Monastery is built on the mountainside. This model removes the panorama shot off-camera. The most important feature is a blast scene.

Bruce Wayne blows up the monastery, and also blows up the relationship between him and Henri Ducard.

"John..."

Standing in front of the model, Duke shouted, and when John Schwartzman strode over, he said, "Is the camera set up?"

"The internal micro-camera is OK." John Schwartzman pointed to the boom above the model. "After debugging the No. 1 plane for aerial photography, you can shoot."

Duke urged, "Be careful."

As always, when shooting the explosions, Duke would use a miniature camera to simultaneously film the explosion inside the building, an innovative approach in the early 1990s, but with the success and popularity of several of his films. Today in Hollywood, almost all explosion scenes will use such technology.

Similar to bullet time and explosion time, within Hollywood and even the entire North American film market, this is a film technique with an indelible Duke brand.

Just relative to the original frenzy for the explosion. After the tempering of several filmmaking, Duke has become more calm and objective when shooting, and is no longer the crazy director who worships explosions.

However, when it's time to use the explosion to hit the viewer's visual and auditory nerves. He will still use it without hesitation.

After half an hour, Duke retreated to a safe distance. Picking up the microphone and shouting, "Clear the scene, clear the scene now!"

Except for the people from the Josh Williams bombing team who were doing the final inspection, the other workers retreated to the safe distance line. After another ten minutes, Duke got feedback from Josh Williams, informing him that filming had begun!

"10, 9, 8, 7..." The countdown sound echoed in the hangar, "3, 2, 1, detonate!"

With the sound of the booming explosion, a group of flames rushed upwards. The explosion was quite amazing, but its power was extremely limited. The rising flame was still far away from the ceiling of the hangar, and it lost all momentum and slowly scattered, only in bursts. The smoke of gunpowder rose, was sucked up by the exhaust fan above, and sent to the outside atmosphere.

Josh Williams had long been one of Hollywood's best pyrotechnicians, and he had been carefully calculated and experimented before the explosion, and the resulting effects were basically in line with Duke's requirements.

Duke stood behind the monitor, looked at the footage just shot, nodded with satisfaction, and said to an assistant, "Notify Josh and John for the transition."

He came here today to destroy all the models carefully built by the crew.

The crew moved to the opposite corner of the hangar. The models of the high-speed train and the basement of the building had already been built. John Schwartzman's people quickly set up the camera, while Josh Williams' people stood aside and waited for the film crew. After the work is done, go to place the explosives.

Due to sufficient communication with Josh Williams and John Schwartzman beforehand, Duke just stood on the periphery, professional things are of course left to professionals, and the director is a The scheduler, not the implementer.

After watching for a while, an assistant came over and whispered in his ear, "Mr. Doug Walter is here."

Hearing that the CEO of Warner Bros. was coming, Duke temporarily handed over the set to Anna Prinz, and walked towards the entrance of the hangar. Before walking too far, he saw Doug Walter coming up.

The two greeted each other familiarly and walked into the hangar.

"Did the filming go well?"

Standing outside the makeshift set, Doug Walter asked, "I heard you had a lot of trouble in Iceland."

"It's mainly the weather." Duke adjusted his jacket a little and said, "The weather in Iceland is harsh in winter, with severe cold and strong winds than in previous years, but fortunately, the crew completed the shooting plan on time."

"I just came over from Marvel Studios." Doug Walter said directly, "I basically reached an agreement with Kevin Feige and Avi Allard that Warner Bros. will become Marvel Studios in the next three years. industry publisher.”

Duke's eyes lit up immediately, "This is good news."

Anyone who knows a little about the industry knows how important a sound distribution channel is for a film.

"Duke..." Doug Walter suddenly sighed, "DC's superhero movies have been sinking for too long, Batman..."

He shook his head slightly. "Bruce Wayne can't survive another big-screen failure."

"I know," Duke said after a moment's thought. "I want to make my movie a success more than anyone else."

How many directors are so weird that they want to see their own films fail?

Doug Walter and even the entire Warner Bros., Duke can guess some of the ideas. DC's superheroes have indeed been sinking for too long. Now that Spider-Man and X-Men are making money in theaters and surrounding markets, why? Maybe not jealous?

And if Duke's assembly plan is successful, it is bound to create unprecedented brilliance for superhero movies.

As the CEO of Warner Bros., Doug Walter must be a busy man. After discussing with Duke the announcement of "War Hour", he took the initiative to leave.

All along, neither of them spoke about the long-delayed negotiations between Duke and Pixar.

In fact, these two closely related negotiations are beyond the control of Doug Walter and the management of Warner Bros. The amount of equity and capital transactions involved is huge, and Time Warner Group has taken over the negotiations.

In fact, it is not complicated at all. If the equity swap between Pixar Studio and Duke Studio and Warner Bros. is completed, Duke and Steve Jobs will get the equity, which will inevitably affect Time Warner Group's holding of Warner Bros., This kind of negotiation involving billions of dollars is never easy, let alone less than a year of formal negotiation, even if it drags on for a few years, it is a normal situation.

Of course, neither Duke nor Steve Jobs would exclude being a shareholder of a world-class media group.

Even in a recent phone call, the two of them vaguely expressed the idea that it is best to enter the board of directors.

Sending Doug Walter away, Duke continued to focus on shooting. This is a post-collision explosion scene. We must control the timing of the explosion between model collisions. Fortunately, Josh Williams has been honed for several years. This aspect The controls weren't much of a problem, and after just one shot, Duke shouted through.

This is the end of today's work. In the next few days, the actors will have a holiday. Duke mainly focuses on shooting explosive scenes. He strives to use these few days to end the shooting of most of the explosive scenes.

After waiting in the office area of ​​the hangar for a while, Duke's car picked up Tina Fey. He got into the car, glanced at the silent female assistant sitting next to him, and said directly to the driver, "Go back to Malibu. "

After the car started and drove onto the road, Tina Fey suddenly reached out and pressed the button, raising the baffles separating the front and rear, as if she had something very important to say to Duke.

"What happened?" Duke asked.

Tina Fey didn't answer immediately. Instead, she opened her briefcase, took out a file bag, and handed it over, "This is what Lawyer Al Ryder asked me to hand over to you."

Duke took it, took it apart, and opened it up. The contents were not secret. They were all about Donald Trump, which was collected by Al Ryder's lawyers who used his fame for profit. evidence.

Under North American law, Duke could demand that Donald Trump pay him a fee from the profits from these activities, but he thought about it and returned the file bag to Tina Fey.

"Put these things on hold for now." He knew that Ivanka attached great importance to her father

Tina Fey obviously didn't want to see Duke and Ivanka go down a road of no return, so she quickly put it away and changed the subject, "The global screening of "Hurricane Rescue" is over, and I've got the latest statistics. "(To be continued~^~)