The Best Director

Chapter 128 Miraculous Yang’s Ambition

"The male lead of "District 9" will be played by Robert Downey Jr. (read the novel)"

When Flame Movie announced this latest news, during this hot summer vacation, media fans suddenly had another thing to talk about. Robert Downey Jr.? Anyone who knows who this guy is also knows that Downey is tied to "drugs, trouble, and self-deprecation." His drug addiction, which he can never quit, has turned him from a hot and popular star to a prisoner who makes fans feel sorry and discourages producers.

And now Miracle Young cast Downey, who had just been released from prison, to play the leading role? It is said that "The Ninth District" will be a special effects production? It's unbelievable that the two are roommates in Rikers Island Prison. Everyone knows this for a long time. Maybe they have developed a deep friendship in prison and become friends in need... But really, is it true that Fantastic Young is not afraid of getting in trouble ?

Anyway, Wang Yang’s fans are very worried about him. Apart from the filming problem, there are also many female fans who are worried that this handsome idol of theirs will be brought down by Robert Downey Jr., such as learning to drink, smoke, or even take drugs. ... On the fan site, female fans commented one after another: "If Yang becomes like that, I will die of sadness", "That would be terrible"

In an exclusive interview with the latest "Variety" magazine, Wang Yang was also asked about "Donnie's drug addiction". In the living room of "Variety Show", looking at the beautiful brown-haired reporter Eve Smyrne opposite, he replied: "I'm not worried, I know Robert's determination to get rid of drugs, and I believe in him. What he needs most now , is everyone's encouragement and forgiveness. We support him, and then we will see a brand new Robert Downey Jr."

After talking about the leading role, I naturally talked about the movie "The Ninth District". Eve looked at Wang Yang with fiery eyes. She tied the hair hanging by her ear and asked in a charming voice: "Magic Yang , What kind of story is "District 9"?"

"Well, I can only say..." Wang Yang smiled lightly, and he understood in his heart that this woman wanted to use beauty tricks to get more exclusive information. But since "Juno" chose the heroine, after auditioning thousands of young and beautiful girls, the beauty trick was of no use to him, unless Jessica did it. He took a sip of tea and said, "I can't disclose it for the time being. But now you are asking, so..."

In fact, this was originally planned to be said in this interview and used for pre-publicity. Looking at the expectant Eve, he smiled and said, "This is an R-rated movie." He slapped his forehead annoyedly, and laughed at himself, "It's over, I've said everything after it's over."

"Wow, grade R?" Eve opened her eyes excitedly, and asked while recording, "Are you sure? It's not grade G but grade R? You know that in everyone's impression, Wang Yang is sunshine. No violence, no sex in his movies...not even a single kissing scene, R-rated by Amazing Young? What's that like?"

Wang Yang couldn't help laughing out loud,

Because he remembered that three years ago, that "dy" said, "That kid doesn't make horror movies? Are you kidding me?" He spread his hands and laughed: "I think they must have forgotten "Ghost Story". Said 'That boy is so gray' Ha, when did I become sunshine?"

Both of them laughed a few times, and he said seriously: "I answered this question three years ago. I want to say that "Ghost Story" is not all about me, "High School Musical", "When Happiness Knocks" ", "Juno" is not. For me, every movie is a new attempt, and every different story has a different way of expression. This time I will let everyone see another me, See a new Wang Yang."

Eve nodded, her eyes continued to stare at him, and she asked, "Can you tell me what kind of R-rated content it is? Could it be drug use?" Naturally, she asked because of Robert Downey Jr.

"No, I can say no." Wang Yang picked up the teacup, took a sip of the clear and slightly sweet tea, and said with a smile: "It's just some violent scenes."

Eve's eyes lit up again for the violent scene, and she quickly recorded it. She chased after the victory and asked: "You revealed that "District 9" has special effects, and now you said it is an R-rated, violent movie. Is it a blockbuster with commercial special effects?" She described it with a smile: "It's full of bloody murders, maybe there are booming explosions..."

"No, no, no, it can't be positioned as a commercial violent movie, absolutely don't understand it that way." Wang Yang interrupted her, pondered for a while, and then explained: "This movie may have many categories, but I have to say it It is a drama film, whether it is violent scenes or beautiful special effects, they all serve the plot of the movie and make the plot better."

He smiled, and said again: "Many people have said this, but I still have to say it again, what is the most important thing in a movie? Story, story, story without this core, no matter how beautiful the special effects are, they are just piled up, all Meaningless."

After answering this question, all the information to be disclosed in Wang Yang's plan was finished, so Eve's beauty trick was completely invalidated, but she was already very satisfied with getting these few pieces of information.

As soon as the latest issue of "Variety Show" hit the shelves, media fans who followed "The Ninth District" felt stupid. They couldn't figure out what kind of movie "The Ninth District" was because these elements seemed to be mutually exclusive: Fantastic, R-rated, violent... Could it be a story about beating the paparazzi? It is a pseudo-documentary but it has big production special effects, and it cannot be positioned as a commercial film, but a feature film...

High-budget cult movie (Cult-e)? Yahoo Movies made this one speculation. The so-called cult movies, simply put, are movies that ignore the mainstream market and go their own way. They often have weird themes, unique shooting techniques, very personal style, and are very controversial. Cult movies ignore the characteristics of the market, and they are destined to not get much money, so they are usually produced at low cost, but this does not affect the birth of classics in the slightest.

No matter the United States, Britain, Hong Kong, Japan... there are cult movies everywhere, and the most famous "cult director" in Hollywood is undoubtedly Quentin Tarantino, the director of "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction"; and David Fincher, director of "Seven Deadly Sins" and "Fight Club."

Yahoo Movies commented: "After three academic-style film films, we have indeed somewhat forgotten that Fantastic Young's 18-year-old debut "Ghost Story" is a very significant evil film. It pointed the way for DV movies, created a new pseudo-documentary form, and also created a new way of publicity 'viral marketing', from the movie itself to outside the movie, how Cult is it?"

"And when you think about it, Miracle Yang's cult heart has never stopped beating. "High School Musical" was a school musical that no one dared to touch at the time, and "Juno" was an unsuccessful teenage pregnancy theme. Only "When Happiness Comes Knocking" is all academic. And in the future R-rated "District 9", Magic Yang seems to want to come back, he said violence, he said it was not just commercial... When he When it said it would be a mockumentary, we should have guessed that it would be a high-budget cult film."

The editor of the last comment said with great anticipation: "Sunshine, warmth, and warmth? Let's put them away for now. Maybe a weird and cult director is the real magical Yang."

The idea of ​​a cult movie has won the support of many fans. As for the content of the movie, some fans have speculated that "District 9" is about aliens, because the title of the movie is very similar to a place, that is, the legendary government "Area 51", the base for studying aliens; and in the latest street photos, Wang Yang is wearing a T-shirt with an alien flying saucer pattern.

In the bright and spacious study room, Wang Yang sat in front of the desk. The printer on the desk spit out pictures one by one, all of which were detailed sketches of alien designs. He picked them up and inspected them carefully. The front of the department... Looking at the designs one by one, he nodded with satisfaction from time to time.

This alien is not a simple beetle or shrimp. Its body structure is the same as that of the earth. It walks upright, has no tail, and has very thin and ugly hands and feet. Instead of smooth skin, it has layers of skin. The shells of insects are of various shapes and colors; on the head of the key point, they have the long soft antennae of the beetle on the top of the head, the armor of the neck is taken from grasshoppers, and the antennae of shrimps in the nose...

They all fit the bill, looking grungy and ugly, but cool compared to the usual aliens. When Wang Yang watched the image of Christopher Fussen and his son, he decided to choose this design, leaning on the chair, he said to himself: "What is the name of this alien race?"

However, compared to this small problem, there is still a bigger problem at present, that is, these aliens are just 2D images on paper. To convert them into 3D in the movie and complete the filming of the whole movie, naturally Need the help of a special effects company.

Blue Sky Studio seems to be a ready-made choice. It has often participated in the production of some TV special effects in the past, and also has excellent animation special effects technologies, such as animation technology, radiant flux rendering technology, modeling, bone and hair binding, and so on. But the special effects team of "District 9" couldn't choose Lan Tian, ​​because there were two problems before them.

First, movie special effects are not equal to animation. Some technologies are similar, but some are different, especially the part of technology that connects animation and reality. Why some special effects look fake, and some special effects are seamless. The difference lies in this. And Blue Sky Studio doesn’t have that part of the technology; secondly, the animators of Blue Sky are busy with the production of the final stage of “Ice Age”, after the production of “Ice Age”, “Ice Age 2” or other cartoons will start , they don't have time.

Therefore, "District Ninth" needs to find another special effects company. The most famous company in this area is naturally the "traditional powerhouse" Industrial Light and Magic. George Lucas founded it in 1975, and then changed it with "Star Wars". The term "special effects", its technology is extremely advanced, leading the trend, it can be said to be the top special effects company; there is also the digital field founded by James Cameron and Stan Winston in 1990, and since 1997 "Titanic" was a blockbuster.

The core technology in the digital field is the digital synthesis software NUKE, which can seamlessly combine the CG model with the real background; it is almost the best in the industry in using the software developed by de special effects software company (movie special effects magician), including power The technologies of learning plug-ins, implicit surface models of fluid particles, etc. are all its housekeeping skills.

Others include Sony Image, the studio and company (Silicon Image) that is currently doing special effects for "The Matrix 2", and it has participated in movies such as "Toy Story" and "Jurassic Park", but it is not a movie Special effects company, it is a company that produces high-performance computers, but its graphics processing system technology is very powerful, even the US Air Force and NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) are using it.

Unless a giant such as Industrial Light \u0026 Magic is employed for the special effects of a movie, many special effects companies need to be employed. This one handles water waves, that one handles animals, this one is responsible for rendering, and that one is responsible for seamless integration... Facts There are many special effects blockbusters on the screen, even Industrial Light \u0026 Magic dare not say "I'll take care of it all". The "Planet 2" currently in production has 3 other companies participating; "The Matrix" has 7 companies, For "The Lord of the Rings 1: The Fellowship of the Ring", which will be released this Christmas, in addition to Weta Studio, there are 8 other companies involved in the production of special effects.

"The Ninth District" will certainly not be an exception, but no matter how many companies participate in the end, there is one company that will do the leading work in the pre-shooting, shooting, and post-shooting stages. It also went to the visual effects award, and it's the company that District 9 needs right now.

Looking for Industrial Light and Magic? Looking for a digital field? Wang Yang had thought about this problem a long time ago, but he immediately realized that he didn't want to do that. He wanted to own a special effects company for himself and Huoyan Movie. Maybe it's ambition maybe it's ambition, but why not do that? How well he understands the importance of special effects technology in the future, and this future is not far away. Now is the stage of rapid development of digital technology, and the later it is, the harder it is to form a company.

It seems that it is not difficult to set up a special effects company. There are no talents to recruit and no technology to buy, just like waiting for special effects software; but in fact it is not so easy. To develop it again, there is no way to buy these technologies. It is precisely these exclusive technologies that every company can survive and become a member of the special effects production company of a blockbuster film.

The developers of these technologies are generally not recruited, because they own the company themselves; or partner with directors, such as Stan Winston and James Cameron, Richard Taylor and Peter- jackson.

But after all, Wang Yang has been in the film industry for too short a time, and he has never been in contact with these special effects experts before, so he thought about it, and finally hit the idea on Robert Zemeckis. Although Zemeckis is not a master of special effects, he is a pioneer in motion expression capture technology and has a wide network of digital technology

Just like his grandfather recruited old man Wu to join his group in order to obtain the secrets of his family; Wang Yang also recruited Robert Zemeckis, a former idol who is now half-teacher-student and half-friend, in his rhetoric. Develop motion capture technology" and so on. This is not a sweet talk to deceive people. The aliens in "District 9", especially Christopher Fussen's gestures, all need to use this technology. Naturally, the more advanced it is, the better.

However, Robert Zemeckis was not invited to start a company once or twice. Besides, he has a very good relationship with Warner Bros. and Disney. Wang Yang's warm invitation is still under consideration.

It’s just that Wang Yang thinks that whether Robert agrees to join or not will not affect his determination to form a special effects company; even if Robert joins, the company will get resources in terms of connections, not direct support in terms of technology. But how can companies get the technology they need?

In fact, there is still a feasible way, which is what he is doing now, and that is to inject capital to acquire a good special effects company with talents and skills. First share technology with Blue Sky Studio, and then use money to expand its scale, including purchasing the required technical software, recruiting enough employees and talents, and then making a name for itself with a movie.

Then it continues to produce special effects for Flame Films and other companies' films, and at the same time continuously develops technology, then it can embark on a healthy development path and slowly seek opportunities to become a large company.

Fortunately, there are many small special effects companies that welcome other people's capital injection; but unfortunately, their core technology is not enough to quickly expand into a company capable of serving as the special effects team of "District 9". Mark Slanter is still looking for a suitable company, and his vision is not limited to the United States. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries have all entered the list.

Looking at the design drawings of aliens one after another, Wang Yang fell into deep thought. It is not easy to integrate a special effects company... At this time, Danny rushed in with a tennis ball in his mouth. Rubbing his head against his thigh, the meaning is obviously "play with me." Wang Yang smiled, put down the design drawing in his hand, got up and said, "Hey, buddy, I don't have time to play with you right now."

He went to the floor-to-ceiling window and opened it, took Danny's ball and threw it on the lawn outside, and it ran away. He looked at it with his arms folded, and said with a soft smile, "You like to play games, don't you? "

game? Wang Yang frowned suddenly, and a thought that had been in his heart for a long time clearly surfaced. Games and video games are an independent industry, and they are also a peripheral of movies. There are movies like this in the past, present, and future. Even though there are few adapted games that are well-received by both parties, he thinks that with the rapid development of digital technology, it is natural that not only the graphics of movies are improving, but the graphics of games will also become more and more powerful.

When the two have more and more in common, when the game industry finds a way to adapt movies, their relationship will become closer, and the sales of DVDs and game discs will affect each other...Maybe video games will become an important perimeter. Furthermore, from a commercial point of view, the film company should not let go of any peripherals, because earning more or less is making money, and this is also a way of publicity.

"" Wang Yang was thinking, throwing out the tennis ball that Danny brought back, thinking about it, "Ice Age" can be made into an adventure game, or a family casual game; "District 9" can be made For action, or first-person shooter games, released in conjunction with the release of the movie...

He suddenly felt a little excited about a good idea, the reason is simple, he likes video games, movies, basketball, games... Who doesn't have several hobbies? He's played a lot of classic games, and a couple of movie adaptations, and fully understands why they flop and are so poorly made.

The main reason is that film companies don’t pay much attention to this peripheral. The current cooperation method between the two is basically that the film company directly transfers the copyright to the game company, but the big company doesn’t like it; so they often find a small company to cooperate with, or Set up your own studio, so whether it is the game system or the storyline, it is no fun. Of course, they don't care, and if they can earn a dollar, they have earned it.

"If "District 9" is made into a game..." Wang Yang looked at Danny who was running from a distance and enjoying the fun of the game, and said to himself: "Then it must not be made in a rough way. Movies must be good-looking, and games must be fun." He smiled He took out his mobile phone, dialed a number, and said, "Hi, Mark, I want to acquire a game development company."

Mark Srant over there was stunned, and said strangely: "My boss, it seems that we are a film company?" He immediately understood Wang Yang's intention, and said: "I also think that the company can develop video games. Peripherals, but boss, you know that our special effects company is still being established, who knows how much it will cost in the end? The studio in Vancouver has just started construction. Should the game company slow down?"

"No, no need." Wang Yang walked out on the lawn, thought for a while, and said to his mobile phone: "It's not the acquisition of Flame Movies, counting my personal acquisition, a game company doesn't need much money, right? I'm not planning to acquire EA." In his current personal account, he has just transferred 15 million before tax. Since it is in the bank, why not make some other investments?

Many people in Hollywood like to invest in real estate, or start their own fashion brand; but he is completely uninspired by these, but video games, he is very interested. He thinks that 15 million should be enough to invest in a good game development company, and if it is not enough, he can withdraw some money from Flame Company in an appropriate amount.

"Your personal acquisition? Wow, it's really exciting. It seems that we will be able to play your game soon." Mark Slant laughed. Wang Yang came to sit down on the wooden chair in the garden, and said with a smile: "I don't know how to develop games, but I can play them. If it's not fun, I won't let it be launched on the market." He said: "Yang, you are really energetic, but I can't do so many things, maybe I should introduce some agents to you?"

Wang Yang also knows the affairs of the flame movie itself, and the special effects company's affairs are enough, and the game company will leave it to others. He nodded and smiled: "OK"

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PS: In 2007, Disney and Robert Zemeckis jointly established the Image-vers-tal (digital image promoter) studio, focusing on motion capture technology films, but "A Christmas Carol" directed by Robert and "The Martian" produced by Robert Zemeckis Mother's Story was a box office failure and a major disappointment for Disney, which closed the studio in January 2011.

But in fact, it has nothing to do with technology. Technology is leading, but audiences have never been very interested in that kind of live-action 3D animation movies. Neither "The Polar Express" nor "Beowulf" were successful. Robert Zemeckis has announced his return to live-action movies in the past two days, co-starring with Denzel Washington on "Airline."