You don't understand the happiness of the director

King Quan told Dorothy, "The name of the movie will be 'Inception.'"

This is a story about a dream thief. Many scenes in the story are taken from his picture albums, which are dreams he once had.

But the point isn’t Inception.

Next, Wang Quan took Dorothy to a movie theater, received two pairs of glasses at the door, and then watched the animated movie "Four-Eyed Chicken."

This was a special event he had paid to apply for, and it was just the two of them.

Dorothy, "I saw this movie. It was an old movie from two years ago."

"Did you watch it in the cinema?"

"Yeah, but it's just an ordinary 2D format. I watched the 3D version of "Jaws 3" when I was a kid. It looked very dizzy and boring. After that, I had no interest in 3D." Dorothy said while watching it .

"What about Disney's Four-Eyed Chicken?"

"It looks fine, I don't feel dizzy." Dorothy said.

Wang Quan pointed to the back, "Technology is innovating. Starting from this movie, new projection technology equipment has been applied to the market, which has effectively alleviated the dizziness of some viewers."

"It looks really good. I feel like the chicken is jumping up and down in front of my eyes." She stretched out her hand.

Then he added, "But this movie doesn't seem to be that profitable, because it is a 3D movie, costing as much as 150 million dollars, but the global box office is only 300 million dollars." Dorothy said, obviously a 300 million-level movie can no longer satisfy her. appetite.

Wang Quan narrowed his eyes and said, "You know so clearly that you are well prepared."

Dorothy, "I know what you want to say since you often whisper "Avatar" in my ear."

"Yes, I want to make this "Inception" into a 3D movie, and I plan to use an IMAX camera to shoot it!"

The first true IMAX 3D feature film was "The Polar Express" in 2004 by great director Robert Zemeckis, the same director of "Forrest Gump", but its box office reputation was only average. Obviously this This new technology didn’t make any waves back then.

Dorothy also first thought of this movie by an old senior from the University of Southern California, "The Polar Express."

"Yes, now the technology is more mature and the effects are more outstanding. When "Avatar" is finished, I can hire its team. And there were very few 3D IMAX screens at that time. There were only 75 in the United States, but these 75 3D IMAX screens, It contributed 30% of the total box office, up to 77 million U.S. dollars! And now there are more than 100 IMAX units in the United States, and there will definitely be more in two years!"

"Two years from now?"

"Yes, I plan to complete this movie in two years!" Wang Quan has always been known as a fast shooter. Two or three movies a year are not a problem, but now he actually has to shoot one movie in two years!

But why two years~

Because Avatar was two and a half years.

So King Quan hopes it will be two years!

"Are you so optimistic about IMAX and 3D?" Dorothy felt like she didn't even recognize Wang Quan anymore. Is this still the profit-seeking Director Wang that she knew? Two years is enough for him to recreate the "Twilight" series!

Wang Quan asked her, "Do you know when 3D movies were born?"

This is not a problem for Dorothy, "There were stereoscopic films as early as the 1920s, but they were quite crude, and the sources of the films at that time have long been hard to find. It is generally considered to be the first 3D stereoscopic feature film. It was "African Adventure" in 1952. Three-dimensional movies had a period of prosperity in the 1950s."

"Yes, at that time, even the great director Hitchcock shot a 3D version of "Telephone Murder". It can be seen that it was indeed popular for a while, but why was it so popular?"

Without waiting for Dorothy to answer, Wang Quan gave the answer himself, "To bring the audience back to the cinema."

Dorothy suddenly realized, yes, that was when television was becoming popular in the United States, and it was also the trough of the film industry.

Film directors and businessmen are trying their best to bring audiences back to the cinema, and 3D stereoscopic movies are one of the measures aimed at television sets.

However, limited by technical conditions, three-dimensional movies failed to become a phenomenon. Later in the 1970s, directors of Spielberg and George Lucas relied on special effects blockbusters to regain the charm of the screen and revive the movies in the trough. industry.

Wang Quan said, "I think it's time to bring lost audiences back to the cinema through innovative technology. In fact, great directors like Lao Si, Cameron, and Zemeckis are also aware of the crisis. Although in recent years, The total box office in North America has been stable this year, but don’t forget that ticket prices are not stable. The increase in ticket prices far exceeds the increase in box office. What does this mean? It means that the audience is decreasing, and this time the loss of movie audiences is the Internet. .”

Dorothy sighed, "What you said makes sense. The temptation of the Internet is too great now. There are too many fun things that can make people forget to watch movies. In the United States, which loves movies so much, more than half of the people in the country watch movies every year. I won’t go into a movie theater once.”

Wang Quan, "And online piracy is also very rampant. The speed of piracy circulation is simply shocking. Take "Twilight" for example. Screen recording piracy began online the day after it was released in the mainland. 3D movies can effectively prevent piracy. .”

Although Wang Quan knows from the "Film and Television Library" that 3D movies are just a trend, there are many problems with 3D movies. By 2025, except for Cameron who is still insisting, many directors will basically no longer play 3D, but the 3D trend has Appearance is very important to the mainland film ecology.

Many viewers who are keen on watching pirated movies and have no cinema consumption habits are forced into cinemas by 3D. In just a few years, the box office and the number of moviegoers have jumped several times, becoming the second ticket warehouse capable of challenging North America, the world's largest market.

Therefore, 3D must be developed, and it will not work without it!

At this time, the movie was coming to an end. Dorothy pointed at the screen and said, "If it's just shot like this, I'm afraid it won't be as sensational as you said."

Yes, there are people who have been making 3D movies. If they do well, they will become "Avatar", which will establish a sect and become the savior of theaters, leading a temporary trend.

If it doesn't work well, or can't make any noise, that's "Journey to the Center of the Earth." Apart from forcing cinemas to update their 3D projection equipment and paving the way for the subsequent "Avatar", it just makes a small fortune and leaves no name in film history. .

Wang Quan said, "My script has not been completely completed. When I finish writing it, you can evaluate whether it is worth investing in, or I can attract investment from outside, and Longtou will only do distribution."

"We will definitely have to attract investment from the outside. The minimum investment for production and publicity is more than 200 million dollars. Long Toutou will definitely not be able to afford it, but we can still afford the bulk," Dorothy hugged Wang Quan's shoulders, "Even if you make a mistake in judgment, I’m also willing to go crazy with you!”

"They are indeed good brothers!" Wang Quan hugged Dorothy emotionally.

After returning, Wang Quan continued to polish the script.

In order to film "Inception 3DIMAX", the script had to undergo major surgery.

The original script is already very good. Although it sounds very brain-burning, as long as you don't get distracted and listen to all the key settings, it is actually very easy to understand.

This is a very standard commercial script writing template, very Hollywood.

Start by doing a small task and introduce the basic setting of Inception through a second-level dream.

Then the mission failed, and he was forced by the big devil to work for him, and started to form a team of coders from all over the world. Here is a little lolita, and there is a rough guy. They are not simple characters. They get along with each other, conflict with each other, and understand each other.

Finally, the team is completed, the dungeon is started, and finally successful, the reward is obtained.

This routine has been used in previous movies such as Ocean's Eleven, and will be used in future movies such as Fast Fury and Avengers. It's not new.

What’s new is the concept of Inception, which is perfectly self-consistent and unique, and is worth recalling.

And King Quan has to make a lot of changes.

First, it is necessary to create scenes and special effects spectacles that are conducive to the display of 3D effects. It does not need to be as shocking as Pandora, but it must make the audience realize that watching such a movie in ordinary 2D would be a big loss.

The special effects scenes cannot be changed at a whim. They must be closely related to the plot and cannot be done for the sake of special effects.

In order to show more 3D special effects, King Quan even changed some settings.

Second, the important role of the energy tycoon Saito, Wang Quan, will be replaced by a Chinese character, and his name has been thought of, called Mr. Zhuang.

Not only has his identity changed, but some scenes related to him will also be filmed in Hong Kong and the Mainland, and his plot will become richer, which is very different from the original version. This is definitely a good thing for the Chinese superstar, that is, It became a difficult question who to choose.

Third, the difficulty of understanding the plot needs to be lowered. Although Wang Quan feels that the plot of Inception is not difficult to understand, our audience ranges from 70 to 80 years old and can’t even recognize every word. If we want to gain the broadest audience base, we must tell a story Simple and popular story.

Why is "Avatar" able to sweep the global box office market? Yes, the story is indeed very vulgar and tacky, just like an alien version of "Dances with Wolves", but it is simple enough and does not pick on the audience.

And "Inception" is obviously meant to pick the audience, otherwise it wouldn't be possible given the huge success of Nolan's "The Dark Knight", which raked in $530 million in North America, and the new "Inception" has a stronger star cast, but Not even 300 million.

At this stage, Wang Quan is making movies just to be seen by a wide audience and to gain more box office, so the threshold for movie viewing must be lowered. It is not just for elementary school students to understand, but at least for junior high school students, you must be able to understand.

the last point……

The last thing I haven't thought about yet, first of all, the two sequels of "Twilight" will be shot for three or four months. He will use this time to perfect the script and start making hand-drawn storyboards for "Inception".

For this reason, he specially found a powerful executive director to share the work with him. The director's name was Catherine Hardwicke. At this time, she was still unknown in the industry. After all, she was famous for her work "The Twilight Saga". 》Already belongs to the royal power.

Because she was not well-known, she readily accepted the job as long as the price was right and she was interested in the subject matter. This was already a very good resume for her.

Wang Quan will give her some less important scenes. When Director Wang leads the team to Italy for filming, Catherine will start filming the campus part in Vancouver at the same time. Wang Quan hopes to finish filming the two movies in three months.

His passion for "Twilight" has obviously been absorbed too much by "Inception", and now his mind is full of how to build a wonderful dream world.

When "Twilight" was about to reach 200 million at the box office, Wang Quan flew to Italy for filming with the male and female protagonists of "Twilight 2", the supporting actress Ashley Greene, and Anna and other actors. This time Anna will play a new vampire.

At the same time, the "2007 Forbes Global 100 Celebrities List" was announced in Forbes magazine, and this was the first time that Wang Quan appeared on this list.

The list was published in June, which probably captures the results from last year and the beginning of this year. This is the period when King Quan made crazy gains with its three movies, so the ranking is not too low.

Generally, it is difficult for this kind of list to attract attention in China. They are all people that ordinary people don't know very well. What's the use of caring about them.

But because Wang Quan, a Chinese man, was on the list this year, it attracted a lot of attention. On the day the list was released, it was reprinted by several portal websites such as Sina.

Yang Mi was visiting Teacher Acheng's house at this time. This old man was really interesting. He was an old naughty boy who knew a bit about everything. From what he said, he seemed to have delivered food when he went to the United States. He was really talented.

Yang Mi came over to ask Teacher Acheng to observe her and create a heroine character based on her own characteristics. In Wang Quan's words, "This will make it easier for you to act."

It's so considerate. Isn't this just lying down to win? No, I won without even lying down in front of Brother Quan. Liu Yifei, what are you going to fight with me for?

While we were chatting, Teacher Acheng’s grandson looked at the computer and shouted, “Grandpa, a friend in the United States sent you an email.”

Acheng said, "Oh, let me take a look."

He went over to check it out and found that it was the Forbes ranking list, global version. His friend specifically asked him to pay attention to a Chinese friend.

When he clicked it open, he smiled and asked Yang Mi and Yang Tianzhen to take a look.

"what?"

Acheng smiled and said, "Come and see Xiao Wang."

Wang Quan has already been on the Chinese list before, ranking second behind Yao Ming.

And on this global list, King Quan’s ranking has dropped again.

Yang Mi has no problem reading English, "Is this the Forbes 100 Celebrity List? Global?!"

"right."

"My brother Quan is on the list!"

"It's not surprising~"

Yang Mi immediately squeezed her grandson away and looked up from below. Acheng smiled bitterly, "Look faster from above."

Yang Mi obeyed her orders. Judging from the above, the first place is host Oprah, with an income of 260 million U.S. dollars, and the second place is golf player Tiger Woods, with an income of 100 million U.S. dollars.

The third place is Madonna, a singer.

At fifth place, Brad Pitt, we finally have a movie star.

At No. 10, Steven Spielberg, the first director appears.

The 12th place is a TV series "Grey's Anatomy". This is okay, which opened Yang Mi's eyes.

Finally, Yang Mi found Brother Quan in the 19th place.

It’s only one place higher than the 20th-placed Golden Retriever Trump~

(Today I mainly review "Inception", read the commentary, watch the documentary of "Inception", and study the history and shooting of 3D movies. I'm late again. Sorry, I have to continue doing this work)