Chapter 444 Accent Requirements and Long Shots
Liu Zhou saw that there was no problem with the debugging of the jib, and then came to the actor's side. At this time, the assistant director was explaining the play to the actor.

But when I got to the second floor, I saw two little actors jumping around.

The two children are at the age when they are lively and active. Although Zhang Zifeng has acted in many plays, he is still a child after all. When they meet someone of the same age, they seem to get along particularly well.

This should be something to be happy about, after all, the two of them played brother and sister in the movie, but Liu Zhou quickly pulled the two little guys to his side and said:

"Zi Feng, Xiao Fan, this building is very dangerous. We can't jump around."

He really wasn't trying to scare the two kids. The buildings in this filming area were basically half-set, half-real buildings, with neither cast nor dug foundations.

Now the staff were entering the building to measure the light and set up the scenery, and actors were coming in and out. In addition, all kinds of machinery and equipment were also moved into the building. The two of them were jumping around again. Liu Zhou was really worried, fearing that the building would collapse.

Even though the cast and crew are insured, what good is insurance if someone really dies?

Moreover, "Aftershock" was so popular and attracted much attention from the outside world that any slight disturbance would be widely reported by the media, not to mention casualties.

For example, when Jet Li was filming "The Expendables", his stunt double was killed in an explosion. People were also killed in the TV series "My Captain, My Regiment", and both caused a lot of controversy.

If an accident caused death in "Aftershock", the entire crew would definitely become the focus of public opinion, which would definitely have a significant impact on the filming of the movie.

Liu Zhou doesn't want this to happen.

Now there is no need for Liu Zhou to personally explain the movements and scenes to the actors, as these are the responsibility of the assistant director.

In addition to the actors, the more troublesome ones are the extras. They are not professional extras like in Hengdian. They are ordinary people recruited locally and have no experience in filming.

Movies are not like TV series, which have to be extremely detailed and cannot have any mistakes.

So downstairs, there was also a dedicated assistant director explaining the play to them and directing the extras to move, while also emphasizing over and over again:

"Under no circumstances are you allowed to laugh or look at the camera. If you make a mistake, you have to reshoot."

An hour later, all preparations for the shooting were completed and the actors were in place.

"All teams, get ready. Now we will start the actual shooting.

Turn on the machine, hit the board, and start! "

With a command, the extras began to move and the actors began to perform.

The camera moved from far to near towards the family portrait of the protagonist's family, and finally stopped for two seconds before starting to rotate, aiming the lens at Liu Yifei and Dou Xiao who had just walked into the community.

An old man in the community greeted the two with a smile:
"Xiao Na, are you and Xiao Dou coming back?"

Returning to one’s parents’ home, also known as returning home, refers to a woman’s first visit to her parents’ home after getting married, usually on the third day after the wedding. In the movie, the two people had just gotten married.

Liu Yifei seemed a little shy, smiled shyly and replied:

"Yes, Jianguo and I will go home and take a look."

At this moment, Zhang Zifeng's crisp shout was heard:

"Sister-in-law, sister-in-law!"

The camera lens shook again, aiming at Zhang Zifeng who was leaning against the window and cheering.

She shouted to Liu Yifei downstairs:

"Auntie, catch my plane!"

After saying that, she blew on the paper airplane in her hand and threw it out.

The paper plane did not fall in the yard. With the help of a breeze, it flew up, and the camera lens followed the paper plane and pointed to the sky.

"Crack!"

Originally Liu Zhou wanted to shout "cut" a long time ago. After all, it was the first shot, so he let them perform it in its entirety.

Facing the actors' gazes, Liu Zhou said:
"Some extras just looked at the camera, let's do it again."

After hearing Liu Zhou say this, the assistant director immediately found the extras and told them not to look at the camera.

The shooting started quickly, but the shot still didn't go through. There was no problem with the extras this time, but there was a problem with Zhang Zifeng. The paper plane flew too early and did not coordinate with the photographer.

It was not until the fifth time that Liu Zhou felt satisfied. However, he still did not shout. Instead, he turned the camera to the language instructor next to him and asked:

"Teacher Chen, is there a problem with the actor's accent?"

In Liu Zhou's opinion, accent is part of the character's soul and it must be done well.

If the actor's accent is wrong, the audience will easily be distracted.

Not to mention the accents of Liang Chaowei and Jin Chengwu in Wu Baige's version of "Red Cliff", the most annoying thing is Zhang Zhen and Boss Zhao. They are obviously playing brother and sister, but one speaks with a Taiwanese accent and the other with a Beijing accent. How the hell can they be brother and sister who grew up together?

In contrast, this situation is less common in Hollywood movies. If a movie involves accent issues, the crew will spend several months training before filming begins, and will invite an accent coach to correct the actors' accents.

Once the filming officially begins, the accent director will correct the actors' accents on site.

It has to be said that Hollywood movies have done a good job in details in this area, and English also has many dialects.

The accents of actors in domestic film and television works often distract people from the show. In fact, it is because the crew does not take it seriously and the actors are too lazy to put in the effort.

However, Liu Zhou is not used to this problem. His requirement for all the actors in this play is that their accents must meet the standards and they must speak authentic and fluent Tangshan dialect.

So people like Liu Yifei, Zhang Yi and Hu Jun came to Tangshan early to experience life and learn Tangshan dialect.

Children like Zhang Zifeng who want to go to school also find a special teacher, who trains them for an hour every night to practice Tangshan dialect.

They were all fine and had enough time to practice. The most troublesome one was the heroine, Miss Zhou.

She took over this role before the New Year, and there was only more than half a month left before filming started, and she was the heroine with the most scenes.

Mr. Zhou not only had to master fluent Tangshan dialect, but also had to memorize the lines and understand the role thoroughly. The time was tight and the pressure was high.

However, Ms. Zhou also attached great importance to this role, so after receiving the notice from Liu Zhou, she turned down all announcements and came to Tangshan to experience life while studying the script.

I spent this Spring Festival in Tangshan and have been staying here ever since.

It is said that Zhou Gongzi is a recognized talented and hardworking actor in the industry. Before filming began, she vowed to herself that there was no problem with the role.

Liu Zhou is not sure how well she has figured out the role yet, but at least she has no problem speaking Tangshan dialect.

Liu Zhou was not from Tangshan, so he couldn't understand how they spoke. However, after arriving at the crew, he specially invited several local elderly people from Tangshan to check how well the leading actors spoke Tangshan dialect.

Seeing that they all said it was okay, Liu Zhou was relieved. Among them, Master Zhou really impressed him, and he was ready to correct his accent while filming.

Relatively speaking, he still felt that preparation for the role was more important, so he also told Master Zhou to focus on understanding the role.

But now it seems that Liu Zhou was worrying too much, Master Zhou was more prepared than he thought.

The play "Tangshan Earthquake" has a lot of scenes and requires a lot of extras, who also need to have a Tangshan accent, so we definitely can't look for them in other places.

This is also the reason why Liu Zhou had to recruit extras locally.

"No problem, all pretty standard."

Hearing what the language instructor said, Liu Zhou picked up the intercom and said:
“This shot has passed.”

There were not too many shooting tasks arranged on the first day, but because it was the first day of shooting, the extras needed to be trained and the actors might not have fully gotten into the state yet.

So the filming didn't end until six in the afternoon, after which the extras dispersed and the workers began to tidy up the scene and pack up the filming equipment.

After dinner, Liu Zhou did not rest, but called a meeting of the main creators of the crew in the conference room.

This is a routine formula for most crews, especially large crews. It is an essential step to summarize the shooting and discuss the shooting plan for the next day.

However, there is not much to say about today’s summary, the main focus is on tomorrow’s shooting plan.

Starting from tomorrow, there will be an assistant director leading a film crew to start filming.

For a blockbuster like "Aftershock", the director would not be in charge of every shot personally. Many scenes that do not require the protagonist to show his face are usually handed over to the second camera unit to shoot.

In this way, scenes of different types can be filmed simultaneously in different locations, which can greatly speed up the progress of film production.

In fact, this is not only common in China, but also in Hollywood.

This is especially true for Hollywood blockbusters, which usually have several crews filming at the same time.

For example, when filming Tomorrow Never Dies, the leading actor was filming in a studio on the outskirts of London;

Meanwhile, in another studio, Bond's body double was completing Bond's scene in the water;

In a London shopping mall, a camera crew was filming a scene where Bond was driving a BMW on a rampage, performed by a body double;

The filming crew in the United States was in Florida, filming the scene where Bond jumps out of the plane;
In Bermuda, a camera crew was completing a scene in which Bond drives a speedboat.

So this is why those Hollywood blockbusters that don't require much special effects can be completed in four or five months.

Otherwise, if the director has to shoot all the shots, the shooting time will at least double.

Originally, Liu Zhou was planning to have three or four groups shoot together, but as he thought this movie was more important, he decided to just have one crew shoot some less important shots.

Despite this, Liu Zhou still needs to review each shot at night to make sure there are no problems.

After arranging tomorrow's shooting plan, Liu Zhou also announced the adjournment of the meeting.

After that, Liu Zhou was not idle either. He returned to the room and prepared for tomorrow's shooting.

There will be a relatively important scene tomorrow, which is the long shot at the beginning.

The reason why Liu Zhou used a long shot at the beginning was mainly because there were many characters in "Aftershock", and many of them had to appear at the beginning.

For example, Hu Jun. However, at the beginning of the movie, Hu Jun has nothing to do with the protagonist's family. It would be very abrupt to directly arrange his appearance in the camera.

Therefore, Liu Zhou planned to use long moving shots to showcase these characters, paving the way for the subsequent development of the film, while also maximizing the presentation of the style and features of Tangshan in the 70s.

At this point, there are two films whose long moving shots are very classic.

One is Du Qifeng's classic movie "Gunfire" with a very strong personal style. The long shot at the beginning allows the five male protagonists to appear one after another, and also vaguely reveals their professions.

Another one is Stephen Chow's "Kung Fu", which has more than one classic long shot.

The long shot at the beginning allows the three masters in the walled city to appear one after another, and then also shows the basic situation of the walled city.

Another one is that Jiangbao calls the landlady down because he has no water, and then there is a long shot from the landlady's perspective, which is also very classic.

However, there is a very troublesome problem with the use of long shots at the beginning of "Aftershock", that is, the set only has two streets. As soon as the filming location of Nanhu Park is left, there is a modern city outside, which makes the scene exposed.

It is impossible to shoot from the residential area to the train station in one long shot, with continuous shots in between.

So Liu Zhou planned to use digital synthesis to splice different shots together into one long shot.

In fact, this method is not uncommon. It has been used before. For example, the long shot in the movie "Birdman" and the long shot at the beginning of the main theme movie "The Clouds and the Water" were both completed using digital synthesis.

But this also requires Liu Zhou to think carefully. After all, the key to this method is to connect the shots, and the continuity after the connection is very important.

You can't just look at the lens and see if it's fine. If it's not good after it's connected, you'll have to reshoot it.

In fact, Liu Zhou seldom uses long shots when making movies. He has no preference for long shots, and commercial movies generally do not use long shots either.

The advantage of long shots is realism, but their disadvantages are also very obvious. They will slow down the pace of the movie and make the audience feel tired.

Because from the perspective of human visual physiology and psychology, after looking at the camera for 3 to 5 seconds, visual attention will gradually decrease.

Commercial films are all about a fast pace, so Liu Zhou has only shot a handful of long shots in all his years of filming.

If a long shot was not really needed here, Liu Zhou would not have planned to do it. It takes very high requirements to connect short shots into a long shot.

In actual shooting, the direction and speed of camera movement are preset, and all other elements such as actors' movements, performances, car movements and stops, and even houses must be precise.

If there is any mistake, the connection will be lost and we will have to reshoot.

Therefore, before shooting, Liu Zhou needs to make careful calculations on the lens, simulate the movement of the lens with a computer, and then finalize the shooting plan after confirming that it is feasible.

Then we also need to strictly follow the shooting plan when shooting, so tomorrow's shooting will be very detailed.

That night, Liu Zhou prepared until after three in the morning.

However, sharpening the knife does not delay the chopping of wood, and the shooting on the second day went quite smoothly.

The behind-the-scenes team of the crew are all veterans who have followed him for several years, and they can all keep up with his pace. It actually depends on the actors.

Several actors in the film also made sufficient preparations, so these shots were shot smoothly under the guidance of Liu Zhou.

Moreover, the filming of "Aftershock" went very smoothly. It only took one week to complete all the location scenes before the earthquake.

(End of this chapter)