Chapter 445 Explosion Effects and Differences

After the exterior scenes were shot, the next step was to shoot the scenes after the earthquake.

This requires that all the buildings in the entire filming base be demolished and arranged to resemble what they would have looked like after an earthquake.

There are many considerations when it comes to knocking down a building. At least it should look like a house collapsed after an earthquake. You can't just knock down the house randomly.

Liu Zhou and the crew members racked their brains to come up with the final solution.

At first, we planned to use blasting, but later we found that the effect of blasting was different from the state after the earthquake.

After many experiments, they finally decided to use the method of demolition and blasting, and found that the final effect of this method was most similar to the state of the building after an earthquake.

However, the building where the protagonist's family lives needs to show the scene of the entire building collapsing in an earthquake, so only explosions can be used.

Liu Zhou specially invited a professional team from a construction company to carry out the blasting and demolition of the houses.

In order to make the state of the collapsed house close to the actual state after an earthquake, Liu Zhou did not let them use an excavator to directly push down the house. Instead, he tied ropes on the walls and pulled the house down mechanically.

The construction company's team worked for two full days to tear down the houses in the entire filming area and arrange them to look like they would have after the earthquake.

In the end, only the building where Mr. Zhou's family lived and the house where Dou Xiao and Liu Yifei lived were left.

The house where the latter lived did not collapse on the first day, but collapsed in the 7.1-magnitude aftershock on the afternoon of the second day, so they had to finish filming the previous scenes and then complete the shooting by blasting.

The collapse of Mr. Zhou's house is the key scene in the movie. The process of the collapse needs to be shown. The house is first made to collapse by explosion, and then corrected and modified through post-production special effects.

There are many special effects shots in "Aftershock". In addition to those large scenes, there are also many detail shots that require special effects synthesis.

For example, if a person is hit by a telephone pole falling from the sky, it is impossible to really use the telephone pole to hit the actor. The actor first acts as if being hit, and then the telephone pole is added in through special effects to synthesize the effect of the person being hit.

When filming, special effects have not yet been started. If the director wants to see the effects, a special painter must draw them.

For example, in the case of the telephone poles just now, the painter can draw the telephone poles and the background, and then add them to the picture to let the director see the effect.

Also, like the paper plane thrown out by Zhang Zifeng at the beginning of the movie, the camera will follow the paper plane. In addition to a short scene of the sky, you can also see the scene of the community and the street from the perspective of the paper plane.

Except for the shot where Zhang Zifeng throws it out, the subsequent flight of the paper airplane requires the use of special effects synthesis.

Because this shot is also part of a long shot, it needs to be spliced ​​later. If Liu Zhou wants to see the effect, he needs a painter to draw the paper airplane.

It was eight o'clock in the evening, half an hour before the explosion. Because the earthquake occurred at night, the explosion scene of Mr. Zhou's building had to be filmed at night as well.

A cordon had already been set up outside the building. Outside the cordon, Liu Zhou was directing the operations, holding a walkie-talkie in one hand and a loudspeaker in the other, nervously watching the various tasks at the scene.

Before this, the special effects team had scanned the building with special instruments. The scanning machine was very advanced. Once it was set up, the entire building became transparent and the proportions of each brick were clear.

After scanning, the special effects team made a 3D model of the building, so that they could use a computer to create the special effects of the building collapsing, and then synthesize it with the real scene of the building exploding to complete the special effects of the building collapsing.

After the assistant director came over to report that the preparations were complete, Liu Zhou raised the megaphone and shouted to the blasting team:

"start!"

After three countdowns,
boom--

There was a muffled sound and the ground shook slightly. Everyone saw the five-story building in front of them begin to collapse inward like a domino while emitting billowing smoke and dust.

In less than ten seconds, the building was reduced to a pile of rubble.

Then the sprinkler truck, which had been prepared long ago, came in and sprayed water at full speed to reduce the dust waves spreading from the ruins.

After the smoke and dust cleared, Liu Zhou walked over to the ruins, took a look, and nodded with satisfaction. The state of the ruins after the explosion was very ideal, which was the earthquake ruins effect he wanted.

The house was not blasted by the construction company's team, but by a professional fireworks blasting team invited from Hong Kong.

In the past, Hong Kong movies had a lot of explosion scenes, and they are indeed more unique in this area.

Of course, the shot just taken was obviously a bit blown up, but this is not a big problem and can be handled with post-production special effects.

If the problem is serious, we may need to do it again, which is more troublesome and requires building another building of this type.

Fortunately, Hong Kong’s fireworks blasting team was very capable and got it done in one go.

It was the first time for many people in the crew to see a building explode. They seemed quite curious and were chattering about it.

After Liu Zhou saw that there was no problem with the camera, he clapped his hands and said:
"It's time to call it a day. Go home and rest early, especially you, Yifei. You have the most scenes tomorrow, and there are several rain scenes."

"Okay, Director Liu."

Liu Zhou couldn't help but look at the sky. The weather in Tangshan in March was still a little cold, but the movie reflected things that happened in July. The actors needed to wear shorts and vests to shoot rain scenes, and the rain would be very cold on their bodies.

But there is no other way. The movie cannot wait for the weather, so the actors can only overcome it. All Liu Zhou can do is finish the rain scene as soon as possible, but this also seems to depend on the performance of the actors.

After work, someone took care of the filming equipment. At this time, a man walked up to Liu Zhou and said with a smile:

"Director Liu, are you done filming?"

"When are you coming back after the shoot?"

"Just two days ago, I heard that you were filming a movie here, so I came over to observe and learn."

The man was Ning Hao. He had gone to Hollywood specifically to learn how to shoot science fiction special effects blockbusters. He stayed there for more than half a year and spent the New Year in the United States.

"You have been studying for so long, what's the point of observing and learning? The most important thing is practice."

"I plan to take a break first, summarize and digest what I have learned in Hollywood, and then prepare to shoot my first science fiction movie."

"Are you going to write your own original or adapt a science fiction novel?"

"Adapt it. It seems that no one in China can write a good science fiction script except you. Unless Director Liu, you write one for me."

"I don't have the time to write for you now, you should just go and adapt it."

The two got in the same car and on the way to the hotel, Liu Zhou couldn't help but ask:

"How does it feel to be in Hollywood for so long?"

Ning Hao couldn't help but sigh when he heard Liu Zhou's words. "After going to Hollywood, I finally understood why Director Liu said that we must build our own film industry. The gap between us and Hollywood in technology is too big. I feel like it's at least 20 years behind us."

"Oh, is it so big?" Liu Zhou asked with a smile.

"Yes, I was just looking at the world from a narrow perspective before. For example, we hope that the visual effects of the movie will be similar to the feeling of Saving Private Ryan.

But if we shoot with film, even if we use the same film, the same camera, and even the pictures are the same, none of our domestic photo processing plants can produce the same effect. This is the gap.

Two years ago, Darius Konji, the cinematographer of "Se7en", visited Beijing Film Academy and talked about the silver-leaf processing method used in the printing of "Se7en".

After the exchange, the teacher of the photography department approached the technical backbone of the printing factory to adopt the silver-leaving processing method. After many experiments, they just couldn't achieve that effect.

Saving Private Ryan used the same technology, but it was more difficult.”

Thinking of the current situation of the domestic film industry, Ning Hao couldn't help but sigh again:
“The gap between us and Hollywood is not in equipment, but in technology, and we are particularly lacking in excellent technical talents.

Printing and developing are considered good, after all, there are specialized printing factories, and the differences in lighting and art are even greater.

For example, Sony's F900 camera is also used by many people in China, but look at the picture effects produced in our country, and then look at the picture effects of Lucas' "Attack of the Clones".

Others can get 90% of the performance of a machine, but we can only get to %.

We also have our own Golden Harvest Special Effects Studio, which bought a lot of advanced special effects production equipment from the United States, but we also haven't been able to fully utilize the equipment's capabilities.

The main reason is that we lack technical personnel who can fully master these devices.”

"If you can understand these situations, it's worth your trip to Hollywood. But don't be discouraged. After all, they have been developing commercialization for nearly a hundred years, and the gap between us and them is an objective fact.

There is nothing we can do about it, but aren’t we trying our best to catch up now?
When "The Lord of the Rings" was being filmed, no one in New Zealand knew how to do special effects, and the country was very small. Peter Jackson and his team bought computers, recruited people, and formed a team, which led to the current Weta.

Although the current Golden Harvest Special Effects Studio still has some gap with Weta Digital, it is still considered a good special effects company globally.

With this foundation, what we need to do is to shoot more science fiction special effects blockbusters and build up our film industry bit by bit.

Our domestic market is large enough, and in the future, only Chinese-language films will be able to compete with Hollywood films."

"I understand, Director Liu."

"By the way, what does Guo Fan, who went to Hollywood with you, think?"

In order to promote the development of domestic science fiction films, Liu Zhou specially selected several young directors to go to Hollywood to study.

Ning Hao and Guo Fan are two of them, and both are directors under Golden Harvest. Guo Fan is signed to Golden Harvest and does not have his own studio like Ning Hao.

"He felt that he had never made a movie before, so he wanted to make a feature film first to familiarize himself with filming, and then prepare to try making a science fiction film."

"Okay, as long as he has his own plan."

That is to say, Guo Fan signed with Golden Harvest, otherwise how could a novice director consider subsequent film plans? The investment from Virgo would be enough to make them anxious.

In fact, Zhang Zhao was somewhat dissatisfied with letting a new director shoot a science fiction movie.

But seeing that Liu Zhou seemed very optimistic about Guo Fan, a newcomer, he had to settle for the second best and let him make a movie first to see what he could do.

So in fact, even if Guo Fan wanted to shoot a science fiction movie directly after graduating from Hollywood, Zhang Zhao would force him to shoot another type of movie first.

However, now that Guo Fan took the initiative to request it, Zhang Zhao had a preliminary good impression of him. At least he was a down-to-earth person.

After chatting with Ning Hao for a while, Liu Zhou went back to rest.

At five o'clock the next morning, Liu Zhou climbed out of bed.

What is to be filmed today is the scene after the earthquake, which involves a lot of extras and is rather complicated to shoot. As a director he must arrive at the scene early to make the corresponding arrangements.

When we arrived at the set, hundreds of extras had already changed their clothes and were lining up to put on makeup.

The earthquake happened in July and the weather was hot, so the extras naturally changed into shorts and vests.

But it is March now, and it is morning, and the temperature is very low, so the crew gave each actor a green plastic raincoat and a military blanket. At this time, everyone was wearing a raincoat and wrapped in a quilt.

At this time, the main actors had already put on their makeup and changed their clothes. The boys were wearing shorts and vests, while the girls were wearing men's tops and shorts, and some were wearing long johns.

The same thing was that everyone's clothes were dirty, covered with mud and blood.

The situation was similar for the extras. Most of them were dirty and messy from head to toe, with brown mud all over their faces and blood on their hands and bodies. They all looked extremely miserable.

However, today's scene involves nearly 500 extras, and applying scar makeup is very time-consuming. There are only a dozen makeup artists in the crew, so it is impossible to apply clear scar makeup to everyone.

Only the actors in close-up shots have to wear scar makeup, while the actors in distant shots can be treated with simple makeup, such as spraying some blood and smearing mud on their bodies.

Only the twenty or so specially selected as close-up actors needed to apply slightly more detailed makeup.

At this time, Liu Zhou called the executive producer over and asked:

"Are the ginger soup, hot water, dry towels and hair dryers ready?"

"It's ready. The hot water in the bathroom is also ready. The extras can take a hot bath right after filming."

"Just be ready."

The extras looked so dirty that it was impossible to let them go back in such a dirty state, so the crew prepared a bathroom for them to take a shower and change into clean clothes before going back.

Liu Zhou then came to the shooting area, where the crew members were using a crane to lift a sprinkler into the air.

What we are going to shoot today is a rain scene, and Liu Zhou did not deliberately create rain just to create an atmosphere.

Of course, this was actually one of the purposes, but the reality was that it rained in Tangshan after the earthquake, and it rained for a long time.

In fact, a major earthquake is often followed by very heavy rainstorms.

Because the huge energy accumulated in the earth's crust is released by earthquakes and converted into heat, a lot of water vapor on the surface is evaporated into the air. When the water vapor meets cold air, it turns into rain and falls down.

All of this is also based on science.

(End of this chapter)