Chapter 229: Getting Ready to Start Shooting

After perfectly solving the problem of Chuck and Little Richard, Alex extended an invitation to the two of them, asking one of them to play the role of "Planet of the Apes".

"Boss! What is your film about? Should I be given special care if I take the role?"

Chuck seems to be very interested in this role, but he is more concerned about whether his role will have enough scenes.

Of course, Alex would not agree to his request, and he also said: "There is only one role. You two should discuss who will play it. I won't let you audition. After all, there are not many scenes." And lines.”

Little Richard and Chuck discussed it and finally decided to let Chuck star. Little Richard had his own things to do, so they couldn't be separated.

The roles that Alex gave them were colleagues in the spaceship with the protagonist Taylor in the beginning. The original version had three men and one woman. Three of the men were white, and there were no scenes of black actors appearing.

Now Alex still uses three men and one woman, but he plans to let Chuck play one of the male colleagues, which can be regarded as enriching the number of actors’ races and adding a symbolic meaning that alludes to racial issues.

The male and female protagonists and some important supporting roles have been determined, and the script has been written and handed over to Morris. The rest depends on the preparation work of the special effects team.

Yes, this film requires a lot of special effects makeup, especially the design and construction of the spaceship, the makeup effects of the ape actors, the special effects of the spacecraft flying in space, the special effects of traveling through time and space through wormholes, etc.

"We have to make an unprecedented science fiction blockbuster! We have to make all the special effects so exquisite that they can steal the show. The audience can't take their eyes away after the first sight!"

In a DreamWorks conference room, Alex gathered the film's crew and told them what he wanted to achieve. Alex's standard is to reach the level of computer stunts in the 21st century, but he also knows that doing so is difficult.

In order to make a science fiction film that he could endure, he could only reduce some scenes, and especially emphasized that in the first five minutes, the highest level of special effects must be produced. Only in this way can he achieve his vision of a science fiction movie. Otherwise, he might as well not make this movie.

"But if we do this, most of our expenses will be invested in special effects makeup and special effects scenery! If we do this, it will be a bit putting the cart before the horse. After all, the focus of our film is to tell a philosophical story and also The problem is that the market for science fiction films is not as big as that of epic films, and I am worried that the investment will not be able to recoup the cost."

Wait until Alex finishes speaking. Someone immediately jumped out to question. What the other party said was correct. It also expressed the sentiments of most people present.

For such a person, Alex would not think that the other person was looking for trouble. After all, what he did was quite unprecedented. A shooting plan that makes people unsure. If it had been another film, Alex might not have dared to make a big promise and say that he would never lose money.

However, this Apes movie series had a huge impact in the 1960s and 1970s, with five movies and several TV series produced in a row. Alex was also deeply impressed by this series. When he first watched the movie, it was quite shocking.

Now I have the opportunity to shoot it myself, of course with the best actors, the best special effects and film. After his revision and adjustment, many unreasonable bugs and wrong directions in this film were reversed. He believes that as long as the movie is produced, it will definitely be several notches higher than the original version.

"Have you all seen the epic movie "Ben-Hur"?" Alex did not answer the other party's question directly, but asked a strange question.

"Ben-Hur"? Of course I've seen it, it's a multi-million-dollar movie shot by DreamWorks.

As an employee of DreamWorks, if you tell others that you have never seen the movies produced by the company, it will simply make others laugh. In particular, this movie is not only the highest-invested film by DreamWorks, but also the highest-grossing epic film.

Everyone present nodded, indicating that they had seen the movie.

Morris asked even more strangely: "It's really strange that you ask this question. If anyone here has not watched "Ben-Hur", I will definitely fire him!"

"So before the movie "Ben-Hur" came out, did you think epic movies could have such a high box office?"

The North American box office of "Ben-Hur" is as high as 95 million U.S. dollars. If the global box office is included, it is estimated to be almost 200 million U.S. dollars. Such a high box office is not expected for an epic movie, and it is difficult for even other mainstream movies to achieve it.

This is also something that many people did not expect. When Director William took the script and asked people to invest in the filming, only DreamWorks and MGM had the idea to film it. Faced with an investment of up to 15 million U.S. dollars, many film companies are deterred from spending such a large sum of money.

Especially in this era, Hollywood movies are in a slump, and the movie market has shrunk very sharply. That means companies like DreamWorks are enjoying a better life. Many other movie companies have gone bankrupt, and many more are struggling.

MGM wanted to make this movie because they were on the verge of bankruptcy, and even if they lost money, it would just be another debt, not a big deal. However, in order to unify internal opinions, it was too late to grab it.

As a result, with Alex's intervention, DreamWorks took action one step ahead of others and got "Ben-Hur" in its hands.

At this time, almost everyone was not optimistic about "Ben-Hur" and believed that the investment was too high and it was difficult to recover the cost. Even MGM executives breathed a sigh of relief, thinking they had avoided a wrong decision.

The final result not only shocked everyone's jaws, but also made MGM executives beat their chests and regret that they should have given up "Ben-Hur" to DreamWorks in the first place. If they had gotten hold of the movie, they might have come back to life instead of going into bankruptcy.

Today, MGM has entered the court supervision process and is undergoing bankruptcy procedures. Once these steps are completed. It can be publicly listed for sale, but I am afraid that only DreamWorks can swallow it.

Yes, the MGM film company, which will be famous in later generations, has sunk and its time is running out. During this period, they also came to DreamWorks and wanted to merge with DreamWorks, or even acquire it.

It's just that Morris believes that MGM's business is too big, has too many people, and has too many debts. DreamWorks only wanted MGM's film source. Don't want too heavy a burden. So the proposal to acquire MGM was rejected.

As for the talents from MGM, DreamWorks will of course be selective in absorbing them and will not swallow them all to avoid causing management confusion and indigestion.

The above is the chain reaction caused by a "Ben-Hur" movie. MGM lost it and became a thing of the past. DreamWorks, which got it, is in full swing. Otherwise, they would not have watched MGM go bankrupt before intervening.

At this time, in Hollywood, except for DreamWorks, no film company could swallow MGM alone. Not to mention competing with DreamWorks.

In the conference room, everyone at DreamWorks shook their heads after hearing what Alex said. None of them could have seen such an amazing box office record before "Ben-Hur" came out.

Alex immediately smiled and said: "But I think "Planet of the Apes" can reach or even surpass the box office of "Ben-Hur"! But to achieve such a box office, it must have high-level special effects!"

As soon as these words came out, everyone was so shocked that they could not sit still, but no one dared to stand up and say that this was simply impossible.

Everyone here knows who wrote the script of this movie, and also knows how much the investment is. They just have some doubts about the allocation of funds. As for why the boss is so persistent in pursuing special effects, they don't want to take any more care.

In this way, Alex's request was implemented at all levels. He didn't want the hooded ape in the 1968 version of "Planet of the Apes", but wanted the lifelike makeup effect in the 2001 version.

Just imagine, the big star Hepburn has a plastic gorilla mask on her head. Wouldn't it be too boring? How could it be as good-looking as the makeup effect? ​​After all, in Alex's new script, the ape-man has also experienced thousands of years of evolution and has some signs of considering humans.

Yes, Alex wanted the makeup effects from the 2001 version of "Planet of the Apes," and at least that was guaranteed.

He remembered that the appearance of the female ape-man inside seemed more in line with human aesthetics. Although she still looked like an orangutan, she was a beautiful orangutan after all.

As for the 1968 version, the actors who played the apes all wore hoods. They looked more like ugly orangutans, but their expressions were dull and did not look like living creatures.

Another problem is the residence built by the ape man.

Of the two versions Alex has seen, the 1968 version's ape-man habitat is like a refugee camp, or even worse than a refugee camp. It is small and crude, and it is hard to believe that this is a city of apes that has replaced humans.

As for the ape-man gathering place in the 2001 version, it is simply a devil's cave. The director completely demonized the apes, highlighting their terrifying side, which is more in line with Alex's requirements. If the scenery in the 2001 version was used in the 1968 version, the philosophical nature of the film would be greatly reduced.

Neither of these two versions is what Alex wants. He believes that since in the setting, apes can replace humans and become the masters of the earth, and also inherit the essence of human civilization, then there must be some changes in the life of ape society. expressed.

In order to achieve this effect, Alex decided to redesign an ape city, a city that combines the heritage of human civilization and the physiological needs of apes. Reflecting the relationship between apes and humans, they are the successors of humans.

Alex personally gave a few schematic diagrams in his mind, and then handed it over to the people below to prepare the necessary ape-man city for shooting.

As a result, not only do we have to find someone to design the city, but we also have to build an ape-man city, which is quite expensive.

"Alex, you don't really want to build an ape city, do you?" Morris began to feel a little worried after seeing such a big effort.

"Of course it is! You also know why "Ben-Hur" can be successful! It is because it is more majestic and real than other epic movies, and it can make people feel as if they are actually there. In order to achieve this goal, we must combine everything The props are made to look like they really are.”

There is a reason why Alex took "Ben-Hur" as an example. In order to restore the historical life in ancient Rome, director William spent a lot of money to create various ancient city sets. Even for filming naval battles, he really built several A warship is coming.

As the boss of DreamWorks, Morris is certainly aware of the various difficulties encountered when filming "Ben-Hur". Especially in the pursuit of realism, they invested a lot of manpower and material resources. Just take the naval battle in this film as an example.

When filming "Ben-Hur", in order to create a realistic naval battle scene, DreamWorks decided to create a realistic ancient Roman warship, so the producer found an expert who had devoted his life to studying ancient Roman shipbuilding technology.

However, when the engineers presented it to the shipyard saw the design drawings. He shouted: "It's too heavy! It will definitely sink!"

but. DreamWorks still insisted on building the big ship according to the drawings. The launch was successful at first, but the passing ships stirred up waves, and the big ship was actually pushed over by the waves. at last. They had no choice but to put the big boat into the pond for filming. To keep the boat stable. The hull was also secured with ropes from the bottom of the pool.

Although the big ship can finally sail on the "sea" majestically against the background of the color of the sky, the color of the water in the pool has become a thorny problem, because the dark brown pool water is very different from the sea water.

DreamWorks hired a chemist to dye the water blue. but. After the chemist put in a large bag of dye, instead of turning the pool water blue, a solid hard shell formed on the surface of the water. The crew spent a high price to chip away the hard shell.

Eventually, the crew found the right dye, and the pool water was dyed blue. While filming a battle scene, an extra fell into the water and was dyed blue.

When filming the scene inside the boat, the crew found that there was no room for the huge 65mm camera, so they had to take the big boat out of the pond, cut it in half lengthwise, and shoot it in a studio in Italy. However, the studio space was limited, and the crew had to cut off the oars exposed outside the boat.

However, after a set of shots was filmed, the crew found that the paddle suddenly became lighter and the actors' paddling movements were unnatural, so they sent someone to buy an elastic piston device. This device is usually installed on the door to allow the door to move gently. Automatically shuts down. This device was later installed between the oar and the hull, and the resistance it provided allowed the actors to find the feeling of paddling.

What can be said is that in order to perfectly present "Ben-Hur" to the audience, DreamWorks and Director William had a very difficult filming job, and they almost interrupted the filming several times due to various emergencies.

They persevered and eventually achieved an eye-catching victory. Now Alex is asking Morris to treat "Planet of the Apes" the same way he treated "Ben-Hur."

Alex explained patiently: "This city set is not just used once and then wasted. We will shoot several movies here, and maybe we will also use it to shoot TV series or something. If possible, I would also like to Make it a tourist attraction."

"Okay! Then do as you say!" Morris thought for a moment and finally agreed.

"But in such a big city, there must be many extras, otherwise wouldn't it look too empty?"

After a supervisor on the crew figured it out, he immediately realized that the extras in Ape City were also a problem. After all, it was not like other movies where they could just wear a suit and makeup.

To put on makeup according to the apes in Alex's imagination, it would take more than an hour for each ape. If there are hundreds of extras, then the makeup time would take hundreds to thousands of hours every day. It's really scary if you think about it carefully. The cost of makeup alone is probably a huge expense.

These are not things that ordinary makeup artists can do. You have to find special effects makeup artists to achieve the desired effects.

"Yes, I have asked the special effects makeup artist to prepare to recruit some experienced makeup artists. They will be trained before they can start working!" Alex was already prepared. He also knew that doing so would seem too demanding, but for the sake of When it comes to movie quality, he can't lower his requirements.

In the 1968 version, in order to save resources, the producers not only only wore a rubber hood for the ape's makeup, but also only prepared three styles of clothes to distinguish orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas. Here, the director wants to use this as a metaphor for white people, black people and yellow people, UU Reading www.uukanshu.net and the three factions corresponding to friendly, neutral and hostile respectively.

People of this era could barely accept such an approach, but Alex, who came from a later generation, could not accept such crude special effects makeup at all. Since we want to pursue realism, we should give people the most realistic science fiction movies. He wants to show the real ape society in front of the audience.

After clarifying some key points to the people on the crew, Alex stopped intervening in the following work. There are many things that he no longer needs to do personally. With Maurice following him, he doesn't even need to supervise.

As soon as the work was arranged here, a call came in from the other side, saying that the agent was looking for Alex.

"The director wants to see me?"

In the conference room, Alex looked at the two agents he had met last time and said with surprise.

He originally thought that the agents arrived because they found the body of Crazy Old Man, or because it was related to the unusual activities of the "Kowloon Society". But what he didn't expect was that Director Hoover wanted to talk to him personally. This was really strange. (To be continued