Chapter 422 Lunar New Year Cannon Fodder

On November 13, Liu Zhou and his party arrived in Mohe City, Heilongjiang Province, the northernmost city in China.

While other crew members were busy with the early preparations for the filming, Liu Zhou took people to check on his cornfield.

Looking at the endless cornfields neatly arranged on both sides of the dirt road, Liu Zhou couldn't help but nod and said:

"Good, very good. It seems they are taking good care of the corn."

This corn field was contracted by the crew earlier, and they hired nearby villagers to plant the corn. Now the corn has just started to form ears, and it is lush green, which looks very refreshing.

After making sure that there was no problem with the cornfield, Liu Zhou also returned to the crew’s residence.

We will take a day off first and then officially start shooting tomorrow.

There are a lot of outdoor actors here, and we need to make arrangements for them one by one.

Liu Zhou planned to finish filming the scenes with the male lead's two children first. They were still in school and had taken leave to come here.

For the male lead’s son, Liu Zhou found Wu Lei, with whom he had worked before, and for the daughter, he found Zhang Zifeng, who was also a child star.

The parents of these two children already have a clear goal at this time, which is to let them enter the entertainment industry when they grow up.

So when their parents received the invitation from the famous director Liu Zhou and saw such a big-budget sci-fi movie, they brought their children over without hesitation, even if they had to take leave.

In fact, many child stars have gone through this. After all, the crew’s shooting schedule cannot cater to your schedule and specifically put your scenes during the winter and summer vacations.

Wu Lei had worked together before, and although it had been two years, he still remembered Liu Zhou, so he was not as shy when they met again this time.

Although Zhang Zifeng is younger, she is very lively, not at all shy, and very sweet-spoken. After being called "brother" by everyone, everyone has a very good impression of this little girl.

After speaking briefly to the two children, he handed them over to Liu Ye. The rest of the filming was mainly about Liu Ye and the two children acting together.

On the second day, we first filmed some simple scenes.

Two kids bickering in a car, a flat tire, chasing a small drone through a cornfield.

It's not difficult for kids to bicker with each other. The scene of chasing the drone was shot from an aerial perspective and was real.

A second-hand Chevrolet Malibu, which has been ravaged by time and has traces all over it.

Cars appear quite a bit in the movie, so all major domestic car brands want to provide sponsorship.

After all, everyone knows that Liu Zhou's movie will definitely be a box office bomb, and it will have no problem exceeding the 700 million box office of "The Martian".

Therefore, it also attracted competition from major domestic automobile brands. At that time, the strength of domestic automobile companies was still relatively weak, and the domestic automobile market was almost dominated by joint venture cars.

Liu Zhou also wanted to use domestic car brands, but this is a business after all, and their bid was still a bit low compared to overseas brands.

In the end, the film's car sponsorship was won by Chevrolet, which was wealthy and the world's largest automaker at the time. It spent a total of 15 million RMB and provided all the cars that appeared in the film.

This dilapidated Chevrolet Malibu will also appear many times in the movie.

Although the two young actors are not very old, they are already familiar with filming. In addition, with the patient guidance of others, the fragmented shots took nearly a week to shoot very smoothly.

Today we filmed the scene when the male lead Liu Ye left, which was also the last outdoor scene for the two children. After that, there was also some indoor scenes and a football play scene at school.

"All parts ready, actors in place!"

"Scene 31, one shot, one time!"

"start!"

On the surveillance camera, Liu Zhou saw Liu Ye walking out of the house carrying two bags, and the protagonist's father-in-law, played by Ni Dahong, asked how the child was.

"fine."

Without stopping or looking back, he replied and stuffed the bag into the car.

Perhaps feeling that his father was about to leave again, Wu Lei, who had been doing his homework with his head down, now raised his head and looked at Liu Ye's back.

After Liu Ye put the things away, he met his son's gaze, a flash of reluctance flashed across his face, and then he came to his son and gave him a man's hug.

"Xiao Lei, help me look after our home."

"Ah."

Looking at his son's determined expression, Liu Ye couldn't help but rub Wu Lei's head, then turned around and got in the car.

"Dad, can I drive this car in the future?" Wu Lei asked calmly and with some anticipation.

"The car is yours, I'll let them drive it back."

As soon as he finished speaking, the Chevrolet, which had been driven for who knows how many times, started.

Liu Ye then said to Ni Dahong:
"Dad, take good care of them."

"Click."

Hearing the shout, everyone looked at Liu Zhou, who couldn't help but smile and said:
"Very good. Let's do another one. Xiaolei, when you say the last line, you need to give people a relaxed expression."

Wu Lei's performance is pretty good. His role is actually not that difficult. He is just a mature boy. His father is going on a long journey, and he pretends nothing has happened and does not make a fuss.

Throughout the entire movie, the male protagonist and his son communicate very little, have very few lines, and even his son appears on screen very little.

Their father-son relationship is somewhat weakened throughout the film, but in fact the boy's feelings for his father are no less than his sister's.

Just as the male protagonist said just now, "Help me watch over our home", he stayed here from beginning to end and never left no matter what happened.

He spent almost his entire life practicing this saying: never leave the cornfield.

I will defend this place to the death, even if it means sacrificing my own children.

When the cornfield was burning, he rushed over to put out the fire without saying a word, driving the car that his father had driven.

The cornfield is the last place that can "keep" my father, and it is also his lifelong belief.

Therefore, this father and son do not communicate much, and the son does not have many scenes, but every scene and every line are not wasted, showing the son's deepest and most profound love for his father.

Doing it again, Wu Lei was obviously more talented and expressed what Liu Zhou wanted very well.

After saving one more line, the three people's scenes in the cornfield were almost over.

Next, they filmed the conversation between the male lead and his father-in-law, each with a bottle of wine. There was no problem with the acting between the veteran actor and the movie emperor, and it ended very smoothly.

While it was still early, Liu Zhou also prepared to finish filming the sandstorm scenes.

This scene also did not use any digital special effects. Liu Zhou shot all the shots that could be shot physically, and if that was not possible, he used physical special effects. If that didn't work, he used a combination of physical and digital special effects.

Interstellar basically achieved the limit of real shooting, and its main feature is just one word: real! Havoc in Heaven, which is known as the pinnacle of domestic special effects, has too many pure digital special effects, causing most of the backgrounds to be distorted, and wasted two or three years of time.

The special effects of this movie were indeed the best at the time, but no matter how awesome the special effects are, they cannot be piled up continuously, otherwise they can definitely be much better than the original.

In order to create a severe sandstorm and keep the sand suspended in the air for a long time, the stunt team used a non-toxic, biodegradable material made of crushed cardboard, which is lightweight.

After all people and equipment had completed protective measures, with Liu Zhou's order, the stunt team that had been prepared immediately sprayed the prepared materials all over the scene, and several fans began to blow.

Within a few seconds, a realistic sandstorm effect was formed at the scene.

A dilapidated Chevrolet drove slowly over from the other end, and the wind and sand hit the body of the car, making a rustling sound.

……

The next day, Liu Ye, Ni Dahong and the two children finished their scenes in the cornfield.

As for the scenes where they were in school, since they were relatively simple, Liu Zhou arranged for the assistant director to shoot them and he would just have to review the materials when the time came.

He stayed to continue filming the scene of burning cornfields. His roles were still those of the male protagonist's children, but they were changed to adult versions.

The role of the adult son played by Liu Zhou was played by Dou Xiao, who was newly signed by Golden Harvest. Although he did not have many scenes, he also made careful preparations for the role.

He deliberately grew his hair medium-length, had an untidy beard, and his face was dark as if he had been smoked. He didn't look like a handsome guy at all.

Liu Zhou was also very satisfied with this. At least Dou Xiao's attitude was very good. He always gave more opportunities to dedicated people.

The role of the adult daughter was played by Yang Mi. Although she had been selected as one of the new four young actresses, she was also happy to play a small supporting role in "Interstellar".

In fact, after this role was released, it was sought after in the circle. Not to mention Yang Mi, even Yang Zi used his connections to find Liu Zhou to try to fight for Huang Shengyi.

At this time, Yang Mi was still inferior to Huang Shengyi in terms of fame.

The reason why Liu Zhou finally chose Yang Mi was because Yang Mi was about to join Golden Harvest.

After Jiahe Group separated the agency department and established a company, Zeng Jia, as the general manager of the agency, had long wanted to do something big.

Among the current female artists of Golden Harvest Group, Zeng Li and Zhang Tong are both about to retire.

Then Fan Xiaopang and Zhou Gongzi, two of the most popular actresses in China at present, will definitely focus on movies.

As for the other Liu Yifei, when she first joined the team, the route planned for her was also mainly focused on movies.

Therefore, in the field of TV dramas, there are no female artists taking the leading role.

However, in the future plans of Golden Harvest Group, the field of TV dramas will also be the focus of investment, and a lot of resources can be produced.

Therefore, after Zeng Jia sorted out the framework of the agency, the first thing he did was to recruit one or two female artists who focused on TV dramas for the company.

She doesn't want these resources to be sold cheaply to outsiders.

I don’t know if it was destined, but Zeng Jia fell in love with Yang Mi at first sight. He saw similar qualities in her as in Fan Xiaopang.

They have clear goals, are very dedicated, and have relatively high commercial value.

It just so happened that Yang Mi's contract with Rongxinda was due to expire at the beginning of next year, and Zeng Jiayi contacted her, and the two parties hit it off immediately.

At this time, Rongxinda was already on the decline. Although the two Lis had a high status in the industry, they had been gradually abandoned by the market, and the company found it difficult to produce resources.

For Yang Mi, who wants to go further, Rongxinda obviously can no longer provide support for her career.

Don't think that Yang Mi is ungrateful. She has been in Rongxinda for eight years and has made a lot of money for the company, which is enough to repay Rongxinda for making her famous.

What's more, in the past two years, Rongxinda has hardly provided much help, and she has to work hard on her own.

Originally, Yang Mi wanted to join the Hong Kong circle, but now Jiahe has extended an olive branch to her. Only a fool would join the Hong Kong circle.

If Yang Mi had not joined the Hong Kong circle, there might not have been a "Far Cry", and a classic still photo of Yang Mi might not have appeared.

So since Yang Mi was also going to join Golden Harvest, Liu Zhou decisively gave the role to Yang Mi.

The cornfield fire is real, so there is only one chance, otherwise after it is burned, it cannot be re-customized like the warships burned at Red Cliff.

Therefore, Liu Zhou also asked the actors to rehearse many times in advance, and after he felt that there was no problem, he began the formal filming.

All departments and actors are ready.

"Scene 106, one shot, one time!"

"start!"

First there is an aerial shot, showing the huge cornfield being gradually engulfed by fire, followed by a close-up shot, showing a Chevrolet Malibu driving quickly through the smoke-filled cornfield.

Compared to the photos taken two days ago, the car looks much older, and the front bumper seems to be about to fall off as it moves.

As soon as Dou Xiao got out of the car, Yang Mi rushed out of the house with a watch in her hand.

"He's back!" Yang Mi shouted excitedly, "It has always been him, I didn't know before, the ghost is him, Dad will come to save us!"

Looking at Dou Xiao, Yang Mi smiled with relief and hugged him.

The camera turned to Dou Xiao's front and took a close-up.

His head was a mess and his face was pitch black, but his red eyes became the center of the entire shot.

"Pass! Very good, you managed your emotions well, let's keep it for another one."

……

The entire crew stayed in Mohe for nearly twenty days. After finishing the scenes here, Liu Zhou led everyone to fly across most of China and arrived in Su Province.

There is a Ganquan Film and Television Base in Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province. It is not very famous in China and is not as good as places like Huairou, Hengdian, Xiangshan and even the Western Film and Television Base.

However, the Ganquan Film and Television Base has something that no other film and television bases have, and that is a large studio.

The base houses the country's largest studio, with a construction area of ​​6900 square meters. In addition, three studios with an area of ​​more than 3 square meters are under construction.

For the next two months, "Interstellar" will shoot indoor and spacecraft scenes in this large studio.

It was already December now, and just as Liu Zhou and his group were heading to Yangzhou, this year's Lunar New Year box office officially kicked off.

This is the most brutal period of competition in the country every year. It can be said that every Lunar New Year period is a war.

Domestic small and medium-sized productions often dare not participate in the Lunar New Year period, as that would mean becoming cannon fodder for blockbusters. However, everyone wants to take advantage of the Lunar New Year period, which results in a large number of films appearing at the end of November.

However, the situation this year is somewhat different from previous years, because "2012", which was released in late November, makes it inevitable that these small and medium-cost films will be cannon fodder.

(End of this chapter)