Millennium director

Three million was enough to make "Crazy Stone", so Wu Yuan was still quite comfortable with five million per person.

The six directors selected by Wu Yuan all submitted scripts for movies with urban backgrounds, and most of the plots only revolved around two or three people.

As long as you don't hire any big-name actors, it's still very economical to shoot.

The Light and Shadow Era is currently Wu Yuan's decision, and whatever he decides will be implemented immediately by everyone in the company.

The next day, these six directors received invitations, inviting them to the headquarters of Light and Shadow Times for interviews.

Of course, it is impossible for the money to be given away just by touching the words.

Leaving aside the four directors that Wu Yuan knew, Wu Yuan had to see how their basic directing skills were for the two unearthed relics.

Just because the script is well written does not necessarily mean that the director is good.

On the other hand, there are a lot of directors who are good but can’t write scripts.

You still need to meet the person in person, take a look at the material and footage he has shot in the past, and then talk to them about film art, in order to have a rough idea.

But for these six directors, meeting Wu Yuan in person was definitely the rarest experience in their lives.

This kind of "big man" is a name that even those in the industry have admired for a long time and are rarely seen in person.

Xue Xiaolu and Cheng Er, Wu Yuan's senior brothers and sisters, were able to communicate with Wu Yuan in a normal manner and discuss with him their film shooting concepts and lens language style.

But young directors like Li Ruijun, Han Yan, Li Yang, and Liu Meichuan who are similar to or younger than Wu Yuan are really very reserved when facing Wu Yuan.

However, no matter how cautious they were, they were still able to explain their shooting style and concepts to Wu Yuan in a very organized manner, and showed him the materials they had shot before.

Fortunately, there is no director like Bi Zhifei. Whether it is the newly graduated Li Yang, Liu Meichuan, Li Ruijun, or Han Yan, although they are still a little immature, their directorial skills are also above the passing line.

As for new directors, it is enough if they have a passing level or above. If they are trained and trained by one or two movies, they will almost be able to become a pretty good director.

The prerequisite is that there must be a good script for them to try out.

Before Ning Hao filmed "Crazy Stone", he also filmed two "Incense" and "Green Grass" as a training film.

There are only a handful of directors like Wu Yuan whose debut film took off.

Not counting him as a cheater with 20 years of directing experience, the last director whose debut film took off was Chen Kaige.

After Wu Yuan personally interviewed all six people, he was quite satisfied, and then he approved 30 million support funds to them.

At this point, they can assemble the crew and prepare for filming.

Of course, the producers of these six films invested and supported by the Light and Shadow Era must be responsible for the production of these six films. They will keep an eye on the directors' money and ensure that these six directors will not line their own pockets.

This is the same as when Wu Yuan was filming "The Night the Comet Came" and was supervised by a producer from the China Film School.

After the movie is made, the copyright and the box office profit after the release (if any) will belong to the era of light and film. The directors will not get any money, only a guaranteed salary.

This condition was much harsher than when Director Han voted for Wu Yuan.

However, this is the norm in the industry. It is basically impossible for new directors to get a share of the movie profits.

You know, if they can get investment to make the movie they want to make, these directors who have no chance to direct independently will already have tears in their eyes.

Only if all profits go to investors can investors dare to bet on you, a new director!

As for being unfair to these new directors?

They can shoot the movie without spending a dime, so they are already very happy, okay?

As long as this movie can become famous, win awards or get good box office, then their future will be bright. How can they still be short of money?

If the movie is not made well and the investors lose all their money, they have nothing to lose.

Whoever bears the risk gets the benefit, it’s a fair thing.

For Wu Yuan, if he spends the 30 million and makes money from two of the six movies, he can enjoy himself secretly.

Even if he loses all his money, he is mentally prepared and is very open-minded.

After arranging the supporting directors for this first phase, Wu Yuan no longer focused on them.

In the end, whether they can produce good works depends on their own efforts.

As for himself, he is naturally busy with things that are more important to him.

After taking the time to see the construction status of the next two new housing projects, Wu Yuan refocused his life on work.

For him, his job is naturally to make movies.

The preliminary preparations for "Gravity" can no longer be delayed.

The production cycle of this movie will be the longest among the movies Wu Yuan has made so far, and it may also be the longest in the future.

Because preparations started in March 2006 and it was released in June-July 2008, it took more than two years!

The reason why it took such a long production period to make this movie is simply because there is no domestic precedent for making this kind of science fiction movie.

Everything is traceless, not to mention industrialization, not even the original manual assembly line.

All props that need to appear in the movie must be produced by an artist and then customized by a factory.

In old Hollywood, artists were called art directors.

But over the years, the position became the head of all the art departments behind the film.

In Hollywood, a science fiction, fantasy, or magic blockbuster is bound to be supported by a huge art team.

The person in charge of art direction needs to work with the director and photographer to grasp the specific form of the entire film on the screen.

In other words, whether the final effect of a movie is good or not, the art director, director, and photographer each play one-third of the role.

However, such an important position is currently vacant in the mainland film industry.

Domestic film crews certainly have art teams, but there are no art teams that specialize in science fiction, magic, or fantasy design. There are only art teams that work on historical films.

How to find a Hollywood-level science fiction film art team for "Gravity" is what Wu Yuan needs to figure out now.

He personally came to the National Space Administration and invited several young experts from the space agency to serve as art directors.

Then, he relied on his personal connections to hire several artists from the art team of "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" who had experience setting up science fiction movies.

Finally, a large number of young graduates from some domestic art schools were invited to fill the basic team members, and a team was barely formed.

For this team, experts from the space agency provided basic reference materials for the interiors of China and the International Space Station. On this basis, artists invited by Hollywood designed and constructed near-future template samples that are more in line with the aesthetics of movie images.

Then, ordinary team members hired from domestic art academies drew disassembled design drawings.

With the design drawings of each component, Wu Yuan could find some factories that cooperated with the space agency to manufacture simulated components.

Yes, to put it bluntly, Wu Yuan will be able to promote that the scenery of his movie is of "military industry" level!

Finally, Wu Yuan's props team and scenery team, who had trained on the "Pirates of the Caribbean" crew, used these parts to build the interiors of several space stations in the studio at the Huairou Film and Television Base.

The company's special effects department produced various CG modeling of space exterior scenes based on the concept design drawings provided by the art team.

Fortunately, Wu Yuan chose to film "Gravity" instead of "The Wandering Earth".

Compared with the huge amount of work in "The Wandering Earth", only a few indoor scenes of the space station in "Gravity" needed to be restored and constructed. The outdoor space station exterior scenes and space environment all had to be replaced with special effects CG images.

If it were like "The Wandering Earth", where he had to build underground cities, space elevators, planetary engines and other buildings, he might not be able to complete everything from art design to various scenery construction in ten years.

There is no way, there are still too few professional talents in China who are qualified as art directors, graphic painters and modelers.

Before the preliminary preparations for "The Wandering Earth", 3,000 conceptual designs were made, and a further 8,000 were followed up.

It took 4 years and 11,000 design drawings to complete the design of the movie world and the construction of the real scene before filming.

In comparison, Wu Yuan's "Gravity" probably only required one or two thousand conceptual design drawings.

Even so, Wu Yuan conservatively estimated that it would take him half a year to form the art team just to draw these design drawings.

This does not include the time spent by the company’s special effects team on exterior scenes and space CG modeling.

Then the scenes will be set up, and the actors will undergo some astronaut training. "Gravity" will be launched soon by the end of the year. Even if it is delayed until next year, Wu Yuan will not be surprised.

This is the difficulty of preparing a science fiction blockbuster crew from scratch. Everything is difficult at the beginning.

At this point, "Gravity" is just the simplest category among science fiction blockbusters in terms of set design and CG modeling.

This movie has neither mechas nor lightsabers, nor majestic space battleships or surreal futuristic cities.

There are only a few small space stations.

And this is the limit that the domestic film industry can currently achieve.

If you ask Wu Yuan to make science fiction blockbusters such as "Transformers", "The Wandering Earth" and "Pacific Rim" now, even if he has the script in hand, he really can't rely on the domestic film industry to make it.

This is beyond the scope of a director's ability. What is measured is the film industry capability and the level of the film industry behind the director.

But "Gravity" can still be given a try.

Wu Yuan was full of ambition and led the production's art team and art director, and then he plunged into the special effects department upstairs in the Light and Shadow Age. He spent every day in the studio with his team members, discussing the concept design of "Gravity" …

Time seemed to be free of charge, and a month passed in the blink of an eye.

It wasn't until Zhang Guorong's visit that the unshaven Wu Yuan was pulled out of the studio.

Director Zhang, who had been back in the music scene for more than a year, finally remembered that he had switched careers to being a director and it was time to make a new film.