The Best Director

Chapter 127 Adding a Zero

Throughout the month of May, Wang Yang has been writing the script and the shot script of "The Ninth District". In order to design some shots of the third part "human extinction", he has studied the aesthetics of violence, but most of the techniques are applicable to The scene of the battle, and inhumanity does not need any aesthetic feeling, he thinks what he wants is blood, disgusting, unbearable, which makes people shudder all over. (Reading novels)

For this reason, he let go of his mind and let himself think in terms of "devils"; he also consulted a lot of materials about torture in various countries in the world, the Nazi German army in World War II, the Japanese army and other animals, and then he discovered that human beings can really be so disgusting and inhumane , and suddenly understood the emotion of "killing all human beings". But in addition to designing the shots of Viggs killing the human army, he also needs to design how humans brutally study aliens.

When Viggs was about to be decomposed by MNU scientists, he struggled away. He held a doctor hostage and wanted to escape, but the MNU security guards who came over ignored the doctor's life and death, and killed him as he wanted. But Viggs grabbed an alien weapon and fired randomly, and the security guards got out of the way. He fled the room, only to find that outside was a huge research room, the secret place of the MNU headquarters.

In the laboratory, there are adult aliens, children and fetal aliens. They were dismembered alive, skinned and gutted, and injected with various drugs to make them miserable; they were directly crushed by a special meat grinder. For an experiment to extract DNA...

These shots are very important, not just for nausea, but to accumulate the depression and anger in the hearts of the audience a little bit. When the audience followed Viggs' eyes, scanning the miserable aliens in the laboratory, listening Their screams, meeting the clear and bewildered eyes of a little alien child...From that moment on, the audience's position will change.

Wang Yang didn't know how he spent this period of time. His heart was full of depression, irritability and anger. He often woke up suddenly in the middle of the night, disturbing Jessica next to him, and he couldn't sleep. He felt that he was going crazy . As a result of being so invested that he almost trapped himself, he designed a large number of inhumane shots, and the scene of Viggs killing the MNU army madly.

He thinks about "District 9" with these shots, the MPAA will naturally not give the three "G" grades, it will definitely be R, and it may be -17, then he will be in trouble up.

During this period of time, he did not spend all his time on scripts. He occasionally went back to USC to attend lectures, went to the Staples Center with Jessica to watch the Lakers game, and went to Santa Monica on weekends. Go to the beach or you'll really go crazy.

He also hired an art teacher to teach himself lessons, and re-learned sketches systematically. His paintings were too "abstract", and it was no problem to make realistic movies before; but now it is a science fiction movie, and many of the storyboard scripts are imagined. pictures, many complex "big scenes", which require the set designer and others,

And the whole special effects team has a clear composition, and abstract paintings are not enough.

Therefore, many directors have very strong painting skills, such as James Cameron, Tim Burton and others. They all have the ability to hold personal art exhibitions.

Wang Yang's lofty goal is to hold his own art exhibition in New York someday in the future, and it is not the kind of painting of "beetle=bee". As for the appearance of the aliens in "District Ninth", he has already provided Blue Sky Studio with concept drawings and requirements, that is, "cool", "ugly", "vivid eyes", "looks like a human, but one look You know it’s an alien.” At the same time, he reminded that it can combine the characteristics of all beetles and shrimps for fusion.

Although Blue Sky Studios is an animation company, and the animals in "Ice Age" are also cute in style, it doesn't mean that their painting style is only like this. In order to design the 2D image of this alien group, Blue Sky sent more than a dozen image designers to start the design, and also invited an entomologist to help, in order to design a "cool and ugly" alien that is different from the past. people.

The time has entered June, and with the arrival of summer vacation, the hot summer vacation schedule has already arrived, "The Mummy 2", "Shrek", "Pearl Harbor"... the audience in the movie theater laughed and shouted , Media film critics praised and criticized, and the weekly box office charts also had a fierce battle, but these have nothing to do with Wang Yang. There may have been no words "Magic Yang" in the newspapers for a long time, but on August 3, "High School Musical 3" will premiere and officially conclude the trilogy.

The afternoon in Los Angeles is very hot. In Beverly Hills, Wang Yang was wearing a white T-shirt with a spaceship pattern and a pair of jeans. There were not many people on the street. After walking for a while, he came to a bright coffee shop. He made an appointment with Robert Downey Jr., who was released on parole two days ago, to meet here.

Walking into the coffee shop, Wang Yang saw Downey in a blue shirt sitting there. He greeted him with a smile and shouted: "Hey, buddy." Donnie immediately stood up with a laugh, and walked up with his arms outstretched. , smiled and said: "Dude" Under the eyes of a customer and a waiter, the two embraced firmly and patted each other on the back.

"Dude, don't you think blue clothes are not enough?" Wang Yang looked up and down Downey with a smile. He felt like in a gangster movie in Hong Kong, where two "good brothers" in prison reunited after being released from prison. It is also like in "The Shawshank Redemption", Tim Robbins saw Morgan Freeman... Downey glanced at the clothes on his body, shrugged, and said: "I am warning myself .but it looks good, right?"

Wang Yang nodded and smiled and said, "Well, it's nice to see you outside." He punched Donnie on the shoulder again, walked to the coffee table inside, and said with a smile, "I knew some birds It can't be closed." Downey smiled and murmured softly, "Now my record is 18 months."

The two sat down at the quiet coffee table and chatted about the past for a while. Wang Yang drank his coffee, looked at Donnie opposite him, and said, "It's routine, let's show off your acting skills." There was an audition for the lead role in District 9. He laughed and said, "I need to know that you are not rusty." Between his three imprisonments, Downey also starred in leading roles in some small-budget independent films, or in supporting roles in medium-budget films, but he has not acted for almost two years now.

"Rust?" Downey pointed at his chest in disbelief, then shook his finger and said, "Who am I? I'm Robert Downey Jr., a born performer. Young director, let's get started."

"The Ninth District" has a lot of special effects, so its production cycle will inevitably take a long time. After rough estimates, it is initially scheduled to be released at the end of the summer vacation in 2002, and it may also be released in the Christmas time. It will be more than a year later. up. And its pseudo-documentary and a series of viral marketing methods have a premise that the content of the story is absolutely confidential. Before the audience enters the movie theater, they will not know that there is a "transformation". They will probably only know the background of the story, that is, aliens. advent.

So before signing the contract, just in case, Downey will not see the specific script, but the audition has never been just a temporary performance, let alone the long-established "Oscar Best Actor nominee" , It's just a routine test of temperament.

"Now you want to kill some things, they are all life, but you don't care, this is a very insignificant thing in your eyes, um..." Wang Yang took another sip of coffee, and said to Tang, who was listening carefully. Nee continued: "It's also something to brag about, your friend has a video camera filming your 'heroic' deed, so you look at the camera and show everyone how you killed them."

Downey nodded. He thought quietly for a while, then suddenly laughed out loud, with a teasing look on his face, and acted out: "Shoot better! Look, these poor little lives are really them today. On a lucky day, I will kill them very, very gently, with no pain guaranteed..."

"To a lesser extent." Wang Yang carefully observed Downey's performance, and said his request: "Don't be so little Robert, don't be so handsome. You know that this character is funny and gentle. He is an honest man who loves his wife and family. He is ordinary. Some, some stupid. You killed them because of your career, and you will be appreciated by others, your boss's father-in-law, your wife, your friends..."

In Kafka's "The Metamorphosis", the protagonist Gregor is a kind, loyal, little man who loves his family very much and has a sense of responsibility. His father went bankrupt, his mother was sick in bed, and his younger sister had to go to school, so the whole family depended on him. He worked hard, out of breath, in order to pay off his father's debts and make his family live a better life. day. After turning into a beetle, Gregor still worried about his father's debts every day and made his family happy. He is a rare good man.

And Viggs is also such a small person, the difference is that the source of his pressure is not money, but his career achievements. His father-in-law is the president of MNU. Compared with his status as a high-level administrator of the Ninth District, his wife can say It was "married" to him. Wiggs always wanted to make a difference, to get promoted, to hold his head up in front of his boss, his father-in-law, and to make his wife proud.

He is also a good man, but the good side of his humanity, kindness, love for his family, and sense of responsibility are all contributed to what he thinks is a beautiful human being; while the bad side of his humanity is all given to what he thinks is a dirty Trash aliens. But when he began to transform, just like Gregor was abandoned by his relatives, he was also ruthlessly abandoned by his wife and the entire human society.

So he was lonely and struggling, but he still regarded himself as a human being, and still had human selfishness and weakness... But in the end, he abandoned human selfishness and weakness, and gave the alien Christo the good side of human nature. Fussen, and killed the "former self (human army)".

This is a "psychological transformation" after Viggs' physical transformation, but before that, he was still a small person. And Downey's interpretation is a bit too bohemian. Although a character is shaped by the actor's own understanding, and Viggs is the same, but one thing is very important, that is, the man's badness is not because of his bald head. The colonel's pure racial hatred "wants to kill all aliens", he just takes it for granted, and just wants to make meritorious service and get promoted.

Of course, Downey hasn't read the script yet, so Wang Yang directly asked how to act, to see if he can perform that kind of effect and temperament, if he can, there will be no problem.

"OK, I see." Donnie paused, he pondered for a while, his eyes narrowed slightly with joy, and he smiled excitedly: "Look at these lives, if you want to kill them, just like I press this button like this." He imitated his hand movements, not looking at those lives at all, looked at the camera and smiled and said: "They will all die in a hurry, my baby always says I am like this Very handsome."

Wang Yang couldn't help nodding his head. As expected of a "natural performer", Downey understood it too quickly, and he grasped the point of excitement all at once. I haven't read the script and felt it for a long time. The holy king of Wudong Qiankun made the holy king. The king will kill the gods at night and seek the throne of the gods. The young Zhou royal family, martial arts, Qiankun general, kills the gods at night, seeks the throne of the gods, seeks the demon, proud of the world, the strongest abandonment of the ninth heaven It is already very good to have this effect. He smiled and snapped his fingers, and said, "CUT is good. Robert, next is the important part."

That is, the pain after Viggs' transformation. Wang Yang thought for a while, then slowly said: "Man, for a certain reason, you have been abandoned by the whole world. Everyone who knows you and everyone who doesn't know you hate you, and some people want to kill you." He thought about the dream of turning himself into a big beetle, and gritted his teeth: "Even your father-in-law will kill you with a gun, and your friends and your beloved wife don't believe you... You are in pain, you want to come back, you want to come back"

Donnie drank his coffee in silence, thinking about his experience of taking drugs, being abandoned by the whole world? The person you love no longer believes in him? He thought of Sarah's choked voice ten years ago: "Let's break up, Robert, you are not the right clothes for me... I thought I could change you, but I can't, I'm fed up." He remembered five Years ago, ex-wife Deborah said to him, "Robert, I'm fed up, let's divorce, Indio will follow me..."

"Why don't you believe me? I will change." Donnie looked blank and painful, his eyes were full of helplessness, loneliness and anxiety. He scratched his hair and said, "I will change, don't give up on me!" .Why don't you trust me, why..."

Watching him perform alone for a long time, Wang Yang suddenly laughed and shouted: "CUT is very good, the routine is over." There is no doubt that Downey played very well. He's just handsome, but he can create his own Wiggs. The only concern was the issue of drug use, but when he was on Riker Island, he had already chosen to believe in Downey, believing that the old guy would be able to get rid of drugs from now on.

"Then I got the role? I can't stand this." Donnie wiped his eyes with a smile, then asked with a frown, "What's his name? Could it be Robert?"

Wang Yang shrugged without answering, took out a pen and a small notebook from his trouser pocket, wrote a series of numbers on the paper, pushed it to him, and said seriously: "How about your salary? "Dony took it over to look at it, and said with a smile: "Magic Yang, this is against the rules, maybe you should discuss the salary with my agent." He looked at the numbers on the paper, and said: "A 2 and 6 zero, or two million."

He chuckled, nodded and said, "It's really rich, I have no problem; I think my agent will agree."

"OK, there is more." Wang Yang took a pen and wrote a number on the notebook again, and said in a serious tone: "Donnie, I believe you can quit drugs, but I also have to think about the company, the crew and myself, so if we Sign the contract, there will be such a clause in the contract." Downey already understood what he was talking about, and smiled indifferently: "I absolutely understand." Wang Yang pushed the notebook to him and said: "If you touch drugs again, If you were caught and returned to Rikers and imprisoned, you will have to pay this amount for the delay in filming and damage to the reputation of "District 9."

Seeing 10 million written on the paper, Donnie glanced at it, then shook his head and laughed, and said, "No, this number can't be done and add a zero." Circled a zero and said, "100 million."

"Robert, you don't need to do this..." Wang Yang looked at the energetic man opposite him with a smile. Zhou royal family will kill the gods and seal the throne in the night, seek the devil, proud of the world, the strongest abandoned young master Zhou royal family, martial arts, Qiankun will kill the gods and seal the throne at night, seek the magic, proud of the world, the strongest abandoned young man, the god-making general of the Zhou royal family, kill the gods in the night Sealing the Throne, Begging the Devil, Ao Shi, Nine Heavens, Strongest, Abandoning the Younger Da Zhou Royal Family, To That Guy's Determination. Downey spread his hands and said with a smile, "What? Dude, don't change my mind. This will pose a much greater threat to 'Old Robert'." Wang Yang laughed and said, "I didn't intend to change at all. Just a hundred million Roberts, and I hope you don't lose it, or I'll die laughing."

"Boy, you won't get it; and 100 million, how can I have so much money? Then I will directly file for bankruptcy." After speaking, Downey also laughed haha. The two laughed for a while, and he proposed Authentic: "It's too boring here, Miracle Yang, let's go to the bar and have a drink or two. Well, it's only in the afternoon... the bar is exciting at night."

Wang Yang refused with a smile, and said: "No, I can't drink other alcohol except beer. If I drink it, I will go crazy." He shook his head self-deprecatingly, and laughed again: "And I have a show tonight, with Jesse Card to watch the Lakers game." Downey shrugged.

Now the NBA has come to the final stage, the Lakers VS Philadelphia 76ers, and his beloved Warriors this season, not to mention making the playoffs, is at the bottom of the Western Conference in the regular season... Fortunately, this year returned to the elite 8, Although it lost to Duke University, which won the championship by 10 points; but LA, which stopped in the Sweet 16, lost by 12 points and won by 2 points.

The two chatted for a while, then paid the bill and left the coffee shop to go home. Looking at Donnie who walked a few steps away, Wang Yang smiled and shouted: "Dude, drive carefully, don't let him get drunk." Donnie over there looked back at him, and suddenly smiled and said, "Hey, what if I'm gay and I'm bound to fall in love with you."

"Shit..." Wang Yang frowned suddenly, and said with a smile: "Some people just want to be scolded to get out of here, old man"