The entertainment industry shouldn't be like this

Chapter 176 A new era of animated movies

This is Lin Yongqiang's second time attending a Dunhuang movie meeting, but his identity is very different from the first time.

He has been promoted from a senior film viewing specialist at Sky Cinema, the second largest theater in China, to the director of the film watching department, and is extremely proud in his career.

And this is largely a blessing for Dunhuang.

With his strong recommendation, Sky Cinema has been insisting on high-level films for Dunhuang over the years, so it has made a considerable piece of cake and its market share has quickly approached the largest cinema in China.

At present, Sky Cinema and Dunhuang are considered to be an open "honeymoon period".

However, this is not the main reason why he came to participate in the Dunhuang "Toy Story" movie.

In fact, the industry cannot be said to be one-sided and unfavorable about this animated film in Dunhuang, but it is absolutely nonsense to say how many people believe that it can be as big as the live-action film in Dunhuang.

Animated movies are different from live-action movies after all.

Although Dunhuang claims to present the audience "the first 3D animated film in history", this title does not bring much attention to it.

After all, although three-dimensional animation has been used for special effects production, hand-painted two-dimensional animations still dominate the animated film market. Animators, let alone accept computer animation, sometimes even using computer graphics and editing are opposed by them.

Lin Yongqiang couldn't help but squint his eyes.

One is that after Gu Xiji joined the team and took the lead, he greatly expanded the team and accelerated the advancement from the medium term.

Wang Wei didn't have enough guidance - even if he had time, his animation production experience was not rich; at this time Gu Xiji's leadership role was reflected.

The reactions of other viewers in the theater proved his point--when Lin Yongqiang glanced over, he didn't see anyone feeling impatient or even dozing off.

Lin Yongqiang was shocked - it really pushed animated movies into a whole new era!

In addition, the new modeling technology and grid segmentation technology also gave Wang Wei a great surprise.

The latter is not humble either: "In fact, the production process of Toy Story is far more complicated than imagined..."

"I can't speak anymore," said Lin Yongqiang. "This is really amazing. Only by seeing all this can you understand what it means."

In the early stage, it is story creation, character, scene and prop design, storyboard settings, etc. Generally speaking, in the early stage, it often accounts for more than 40% of the budget for a mature animated feature film.

"By the way, you'd better prepare more goods, otherwise I'm afraid that the surroundings of this movie will be sold out." Lin Yongqiang did not forget to remind him.

Lin Yongqiang couldn't help but look at him sideways.

Wang Wei and Gu Xiji looked at each other and smiled: "You can rest assured that the supply of peripheral products is as much as possible."

Lin Yongqiang knows what everyone thinks of Dunhuang's attempt - this movie failed and would not hurt Dunhuang, but it is just another proven that Lianya Entertainment's unshakable position in the cartoon industry

.

This is interesting!

But Dunhuang wanted to conduct in-depth joint marketing with Sky Cinema on this movie, such as covering the film's product sales department of Sky Cinema.

This is why Comrade Lao Wang, who has always hated overspending, did not complain too much when adding additional investments - this is considered a technical infrastructure, and it is not that it cannot be reused.

After the early and mid-term completion, it is time to render the light effect and material in the final expression), that is, the stage of "the funding is burning every second" -

He doesn't think it's just because of technology - the fresh visual impact brought by technology can only attract the audience for 10 minutes, and next it depends on the exciting plot to capture the audience.

Relying on friendship and status, Lin Yongqiang immediately came to director Gu Xiji and producer Wang Wei to congratulate him, "You brought an epoch-making animated film, how did you do this?"

"The real challenger of Lianya Entertainment has appeared!"

At this time, Gu Xiji's brief introduction came to an end, and this guy was not stingy at all: "...We all say that the more we know about the production process, the more you admire it."

——Previous CG special effects and 3D models in video games were drawn with polygons, which made the surface of some characters look rough.

The animation technicians originally recruited were very skilled in using computers to build three-dimensional models for characters, scenes, props, etc., but if they were asked to design mature movie shots, it would be irritating.

After coming, I found out that Dunhuang not only invited theater film specialists, but also representatives from chain catering, chain shopping malls and other businesses.

They dare to say such things, "as much as you want", which shows that they have long included surrounding production in the overall plan.

Wang Wei answered silently in his heart.

"It's amazing - Dunhuang made a family-friendly animated movie for the first time, and it was a world of joyfulness, with a metaphor for the real society, and these are within the size of the family-friendly story... Children

, teenagers and adults can appreciate the fun of it."

——In fact, Wang Wei suspected that he did not understand the technology at all.

And this is quite fast in the industry because the crew is willing to spend money on equipment and technology.

After the screening, there was even more applause.

These large and small animation technologies are not hindered when applied to live-action movies to create CG special effects. In a sense, this is the greatest value of developing this Toy Story.

However, this did not affect his realization that he was not only watching an animated film, but also participating in the history of animated films.

The question is, can it really attract interest from teenagers or adults?

So, Lin Yongqiang came to watch the movie in person.

Not to mention, the production cost announced by Dunhuang is as high as 80 million yuan!

What is the concept of 80 million to animated movies?

Let me put it this way, Lianya Entertainment's largest investment in animated film in history would not cost so much money if it was just about production.

Because of a certain snail, the creative team of "Toy Story" has avoided many detours in the early stage from scratch, but in the end it has exceeded the scope. There are many reasons.

Needless to mention the core rendering technology, the rendering tool developed for this movie is evaluated in the words of Jiang Lei, a tycoon of Weibo technology. "Even if we count all our peers on the other side of the Pacific, our technology is also the most advanced.

!”

Wang Wei made a "please" gesture and gave the stage to Gu Xiji.

The delicate expressions of characters created by computers are difficult to achieve by hand-painted. When they open their mouths, the lip shape changes like real people, which can drive facial muscle movement and then express complex and vivid expressions.

The crew needs to use more than 200 computers to work 24 hours a day, and it takes 45 minutes to 20 hours to render a picture; every week, the crew can only advance at the speed of completing the production of four or five minutes of clips.

In fact, the animation production process in China and abroad is similar, and they are all divided into front, middle and late stages.

——The advancement of technology is what makes Wang Wei most happy.

The theater chain is the most realistic. They will not waste resources on a movie that is destined to have no prospect just because they are in the "honeymoon period".

Therefore, in the cartoon industry, Lianya Entertainment is the dominant player in China Entertainment and Disney in Hollywood, and they all focus on mainstream two-dimensional animation.

In the stage where characters and props are arranged in the scene, using a virtual camera to shoot different shots, capturing the emotional atmosphere and story focus, he can think of the frame of the lens, specify the position of the camera, and arrange each camera position;

In order to achieve the realistic effect of live-action movies, he even imitates the unique shots of live-action movies, such as ring-shaped shots, used to shoot scenes where the protagonist is surrounded by toys and blames him.

——Buy a lot of money too!

Of course, families with children must be put first. Just look at the name and you will know that this is an animation suitable for children.

"We want to make sure more people see this. Sky Cinema will use this movie as one of the main films of the summer season, and there is no problem in entering our counter of the product department around us." Lin Yongqiang made a quick decision and gave a

The best promise.

With curiosity and expectation, Lin Yongqiang soon ushered in the movie screening.

No one thinks there will be any market for computer-made animations.

Dunhuang's marketing and promotional activities planned for this animated film are really quite large. From the invited merchants, it can be seen that it is not just aimed at families with children.

Although the cost of producing external publicity is 80 million, the real cost is over 70 million. Well, this is more than 10 million than the initial budget.

How high does Dunhuang need to sell at a box office to recover the cost?

——This is the real reason why everyone is unfair about this movie.

Dunhuang obviously has this confidence, and the source of confidence can only be in the movie.

Then, for the first time he felt the magic of 3D animation on the big screen!

A group of cold toys in daily life suddenly became so real—

At first glance, Toy Story is a very simple cartoon, but its plot is not a simple binary opposition, and the two protagonists are not perfect. There is no only truth in the story - growth, friendship, family

It is the topic it wants to explore, and it looks particularly attractive.

"This is simply amazing!"

Because a cruel fact is that in the past five years, except for the few blockbuster cartoons produced by Lianya Entertainment, nearly 20 cartoons released by mainstream film companies or famous independent directors have an average domestic box office revenue of less than 5,000.

Ten thousand people.

If we count from the original idea of ​​production, it took more than three years to complete the production of Toy Story.

This is enough to show that he has a strong prediction of the movie's big sale.

Because he noticed that other film-watching representatives, including business representatives, also smelled business opportunities and discussed cooperation with people in Dunhuang.

This is also the reason why Wang Wei specifically asked Gu Xiji to serve as director—

But if you look at the characters in Dunhuang "Toy Story", you will find that the characters' hands are as smooth as human hands - Wang Wei's impression is that this is the progress that Pixar in that world has only made in "Toy Story 2"

.

This is still the case that he has reduced a lot of preliminary work.

Lin Yongqiang commented silently in his heart.

When watching the movie, the audience may not have noticed the large amount of technical components, but only feel that they are integrated with the film.

——Otherwise, making drawings, designing, making samples, finished products, and launching... For a new toy, it will take at least several months to complete this process.

Even though I have watched the movie, Lin Yongqiang couldn't help but want to complain—

"How confident are you in your own movie!"

...

There is another update today, before 6 pm~~~

(End of this chapter)