Chapter 200 Everything Is Difficult at the Beginning, and Making a Science Fiction Movie Is Even More Difficult

Three million is enough to make "Crazy Stone", so Wu Yuan is still very generous to give five million to each person.

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

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

At present, Wu Yuan is the one who has the final say in Guangying Times. Whatever he decides, the company will immediately implement it.

The next day, the six directors received an invitation to come to the headquarters of Guangying Times for an interview.

Of course, it is impossible to give the money just by talking.

Let's not talk about the four directors that Wu Yuan knows, and Wu Yuan has to see how good the basic skills of the two directors he discovered are.

A good script does not mean that the director is necessarily good.

On the contrary, there are a lot of directors who are good but can't write scripts.

You still have to meet the person in person, look at the material pictures he has shot in the past, and talk to them about film art to get a rough idea.

But for these six directors, being able to meet Wu Yuan in person is definitely the most rare experience in their lives.

This kind of "big shot" is a name that even people in the industry have long heard of, but it is difficult to meet.

Xue Xiaolu and Cheng Er, Wu Yuan's seniors, can still communicate with Wu Yuan in a normal manner and discuss with him their filming concepts and lens language styles.

But young directors like Li Ruijun, Han Yan, Li Yang, and Liu Meichuan, who are about the same age as Wu Yuan or younger than him, are really very restrained when facing Wu Yuan.

However, no matter how restrained they are, they can still explain their shooting style and concepts to Wu Yuan in an orderly manner, and take out the material works they have shot before for him to appreciate.

Fortunately, there is no Bi Zhifei-style director. Whether it is Li Yang and Liu Meichuan, who have just graduated, or Li Ruijun and Han Yan, although they are still a little immature, their directing level is above the passing line.

For new directors, it is enough to have a level above the passing level. After one or two movies, they can become a pretty good director.

The premise is to have a good script for them to try their hand.

Before filming "Crazy Stone", Ning Hao also filmed "Incense" and "Green Grassland" as training works.

There are only a handful of directors like Wu Yuan who took off with their debut works.

He is not counted as a director with 20 years of directing experience. The last director who took off with his debut work was Chen Kaige.

After Wu Yuan personally interviewed all six people, he was quite satisfied, so he approved 30 million yuan of support funds for them.

At this point, they can set up a crew and prepare for filming.

Of course, the producers of these six films invested and supported by Light and Shadow Times must be sent by Light and Shadow Times to be responsible for keeping a close eye on the directors' use of money to ensure that these six directors will not embezzle.

This is just like when Wu Yuan filmed "The Night the Comet Came", he was supervised by the producers of the China Film Group.

After the film is made, the copyright and the box office profits after the release (if any) will all belong to Guangying Times. The directors will not get any money, only a guaranteed salary.

This condition is much more ruthless than when Mr. Han invested in Wu Yuan.

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

You know, these directors who have no chance to direct independently are already in tears when they can attract investment to make the movie they want to make.

Only when all the profits go to the investors, the investors dare to bet on you, a new director!

As for the unfairness to these new directors?

They are very happy that they can make a movie without spending a penny.

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

If the movie is not made well, the investors will lose all their money, and they will not lose much.

Who bears the risk and who gets the benefit, it is a fair thing.

For Wu Yuan, if two of the six films can make money after spending 30 million, he will be happy.

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

After arranging the first batch of supporting directors, Wu Yuan no longer pays attention to them.

Whether they can make good works in the end depends on their own efforts.

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

After taking time to see the construction of the next two new housing estates, Wu Yuan put the focus of his life back to work.

For him, his job is naturally to make movies.

The preparatory work for "Gravity" can no longer be delayed.

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

Because it took more than two years from the preparation in March 2006 to the release in June-July 2008!

The reason why it takes such a long production cycle to make this movie is simple, because there is no precedent for making such a science fiction movie in China.

There is no trace of anything, not to mention industrialization, even the original manual assembly line is not there.

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

In the old Hollywood, an artist was called an art director.

But over the years, the position evolved into 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 can be 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" estimated that only one or two thousand concept design drawings were needed.

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.