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Talking and laughing, the staff quickly sent over a few samples.

Brian De Palma skipped "The Butterfly Effect" and directly signaled to the staff to show Simon's "Run Lola Run" demo first.

Chapter 046 The difficulty is a bit difficult

Hearing Brian De Palma's order, the staff randomly picked one out of several boxes of samples of "Run Lola Run" and put it into the video player, pressed play, and everyone looked at the wall together. big screen.

On the screen, after playing the board, the first thing that appears in the screen is an empty shot.

From the fixed-point upward perspective, bright golden sunlight is projected from the window with two strings of half-opened bamboo curtains,

Under the strong light, the patterns on the bamboo curtains, the Barbie dolls in the corner, and the withered bouquets on the windowsill, all the elements give people a sense of quiet and perfect harmony.

The quality of a movie lens is basically judged by the composition, color, mirror movement and other elements.

The lens in front of me has obviously reached an impeccable level in terms of composition, color and light use.

There was no outsider in the screening room who didn't understand movies, so although they didn't see the actor's performance for the first time, but it was just such a simple empty shot, everyone couldn't help but secretly admired: beautiful.

The fixed-point empty mirror with a length of about 5 seconds lasted three times.

Immediately afterwards, the second shot is still an empty shot.

However, this time it is no longer a fixed point, but a slowly moving camera forward.

In the picture, a group photo of Lola and her boyfriend, with a radial heart-shaped red card, and scattered debris on the desktop, the light and composition are also very good.

Then, the third shot, although still empty, started to move.

Lola's green plaid trousers are on the left, the black beer bottle is on the right, and a little turtle crawling slowly in the middle.Compared with the previous two empty shots, this shot is more interesting, conveying a restless mood faintly

Everyone also realized at this time that this should be a series of empty shots.

However, the three shots and three completely different compositions are all full of imagination, showing the creator's profound aesthetic skills.

After a series of empty shots, Lola himself finally appeared in the frame.

People in the screening room who were exposed to this movie for the first time were slightly surprised to see Lola's strong color style combined with fiery red hair, blue vest and green trousers. This kind of avant-garde image almost cartoon character It's still rare in Hollywood movies.However, due to the set of perfect empty shots just now, these people can't help but regard this alternative as innovation.

Naturally, the samples produced from the original negatives have no sound.

The silent picture continued to play for more than two minutes, and everyone in the viewing room reacted differently.

"Run Lola Run" producer Ron McMillan is completely relieved at this time.Having been in Hollywood for so many years, Ron can still easily judge the quality of the samples in front of him. The shots shot by Simon are countless times better than the best situation he has ever imagined.

Well, it is obvious that Simon's directing style is different from other directors in the past few days since filming started, and he is not playing tricks at all. This is a young man with a very high talent for filmmaking.

Catherine Bigelow has seen all kinds of extraordinary talents shown by Simon more than once, so she has enough confidence in Simon from the beginning, and now she just enjoys watching the samples with everyone.

Just a thought flashed in David Giller's mind, and he really saw the little guy right.

As for Brian De Palma.

In the whole room, he should be the one with the highest professionalism.

Robert Redford and Kathryn Bigelow had some directing experience before, but both had very little experience in this area.

As a professional, Brian De Palma was increasingly surprised as the dailies played.

After Simon gave up his cooperation with Orion, Brian De Palma did not take back his promise to be the executive producer of "Run Lola Run". He really admired Simon, a young man.

However, Brian De Palma was not without worries.

In the film and television industry, the phenomenon of screenwriters switching to directors is very common, but this is often a gradual process.

Simon's screenwriting qualifications have just caught the attention of Hollywood, and he can't wait to switch to director. Brian De Palma thinks this is definitely an unwise choice.

Therefore, although the promise has been made, if the future film of "Run Lola Run" is too horrible, Brian De Palma will not allow his name to appear in the subtitle list of this film anyway .

But now, Brian De Palma has completely let go of his original worries.

The first empty shot that appeared on the screen made Brian De Palma give a very high evaluation.

From a purely technical point of view, if the scene with strong backlight is not handled properly, there will be defects such as glare and fog in the picture, but these problems are not found in Simon's lens at all.

If only this one lens is perfect, it's nothing.Then a series of backlit shots of Lola standing in front of the window and making a phone call are impeccable in all technical aspects, which is very rare.

Moreover, Brian De Palma is also very sure of the warm yellow tone of the film determined by Simon. Warm yellow can be said to be the easiest color to make people feel relaxed and comfortable. This color scheme also looks more cinematic .

In addition, in the samples from a box of four-and-a-half-minute film films, the use of various shooting techniques also shows Simon's excellent lens scheduling ability.Especially in the last shot in the sample where the follower Lola rushed out of the room and then turned all the way to the mother's bedroom and then turned to the TV screen again, the trajectory of the mirror movement is simply unconstrained.

however.

All of this is not the most surprising thing for Brian De Palma.

As soon as the four and a half minutes of the sample was finished, Brian De Palma immediately asked Ron McMillan who was sitting on the other side with some uncertainty: "Ron, is this sample already dubbed?" Passionate?"

In the film era, the samples produced through the initial negative development, due to the differences in lighting, scenery and even the quality of the film itself during the shooting process, the effects of each lens in terms of color exposure and other aspects are different.Therefore, after a movie is edited, the samples must be color-graded for each shot by a professional colorist, setting a special color scheme for each shot, and then handed over to the laboratory staff to process one by one according to the corresponding plan.

Moreover, most movies generally have to go through color matching at least three times in order to achieve the screen effect that the audience finally sees.

It is not difficult to imagine how complicated the process of color matching will be for a movie with thousands of shots at every turn.However, even in the digital age many years later, no movie can escape the complicated color matching process.

but.

Just now.

However, Brian De Palma found that in the four and a half minute sample shots of "Run Lola Run", there is not much obvious difference between different shots in terms of exposure and color tone.

You should know that although they all belong to the same scene, the color, lighting and other aspects of each shot in the sample are completely different.Therefore, counting repetitions, it is a miracle that this kind of unity of color and exposure can be achieved without any color matching among more than 20 shots in total.

Ron McMillan was stunned for a moment when he heard Brian De Palma's sudden question, and asked with some doubts: "Mr. Palma, shouldn't color matching be done after the editing is done?"

Hearing the conversation between the two, David Giller, who was discussing with Robert Redford the last camera-following technique in the sample, suddenly reacted, glanced at the darkened screen, and immediately turned to The staff next to the viewing machine: "Quick, play the sample again."

The screens in the room quickly turned on again.

Basically, everyone who had already realized what was going on was staring at the big screen on the wall.

Due to the diversion of attention, after playing it again, everyone also found that there are still some color differences between different shots of the sample.

However, everyone has to admit that this difference is actually very small.

If it weren't for the boarding at the beginning of each shot, the whole sample would give people the same feeling as watching a finished film.

It is conceivable that if all the future shots of the film can reach the current level, this means that after the editing is completed in the future, the film may only need to go through a very simple color matching to achieve a perfect film effect.

Has there ever been a situation in which a formal Hollywood commercial film needs only one color matching to complete the film?

That's right.

Appeared.

The title of that movie was The Godfather.

However, it was Gordon Willis, a top Hollywood photographer who was also proficient in lighting and scenery, who was in charge of shooting "The Godfather".Moreover, the reason why "The Godfather" only has one color matching is not only the excellent quality of the lens itself, but also the fact that it was forced to meet the deadline.

Now, a newcomer's new work with a production cost of only hundreds of thousands of dollars, just relying on the quality of the sample footage, can make people feel that the film may only need a simple color matching to achieve the final film effect.

How could this not be called a miracle?

After the four and a half quarters of the samples were released, David Giller immediately ordered the staff to play another few boxes of samples.

After more than 20 minutes.

As the screen in the viewing room went dark again, everyone was silent for a moment.

Then, Robert Redford turned directly to Ron McMillan, with obvious eagerness in his tone, and said, "Ron, introduce me to this movie, the photographer, the lighting engineer, and the set designer. I will definitely invite them to be in my next film."

Hearing what Robert Redford said, David Giller and Brian De Palma also looked at Ron McMillan at the same time.

They are also unwilling to miss such an outstanding behind-the-scenes talent.Both of them have been busy with "Butterfly Effect" during this time, and they are not very clear about some matters of the crew of "Run Lola Run".

Ron McMillan was stared at by the three bosses, but the corners of his mouth couldn't help twitching.

this requirement.

It's a bit difficult.

The photographer is the director himself.

The scenery seems to be made by the director himself.

As for the lighting engineer.

Ok.

This one.

Who is the lighting engineer?

Chapter 047 Situation

In the next few days, the original restlessness and dissatisfaction of the "Run Lola Run" crew suddenly disappeared without a trace. Everyone became more motivated, and they no longer had any opinions on Simon's alternative directing style.

As for why.

Has Brian De Palma seen it? "Carrie" ah, "Scarface" ah.

Live.

David Giller seen? "Alien", "Nine Angry Men".

Live.

Ever seen Robert Redford? "Tiger and Leopard Cub", ah, "Out of Africa".

Live.

For the staff who could only work in low-cost independent film crews in the past, they are all a group of bigwigs in Hollywood.But they all visited the humble crew of "Run Lola Run" one after another.

Moreover, in addition to Brian De Palma, David Giller and Robert Redford also expressed that they can be named executive producers for "Run Lola Run".

This is even more rare.

You know, if you knew that Brian De Palma was going to be named executive producer, everyone would not be dissatisfied at all, and that idiot Josh Wickman would never leave rashly.

Now there are two heavyweights coming again and again.

Who is Simon Westeros?

who cares.

But if you are involved in a production with three Hollywood big names named executive producers: Brian De Palma, David Giller and Robert Redford, this is a real qualification.

In the future job hunting process, if you add such a sum to your resume, you may soon be able to enter the mainstream commercial film circle.

Simon also learned from Ron and Catherine what happened in the Fox Studios viewing room that day, and he rushed to watch the sample in person the next day.

Simon was also very surprised by his own shooting results. He did not expect that he could do so well in advance.As his first directorial work in Hollywood, Simon just squeezed out all the potential of more than a dozen memories in his mind as much as possible.

Looking at the shot samples of "Run Lola Run", Simon even faintly felt that his performance seemed a bit too much.

However, Simon did not restrain himself afterwards.

Now that you've already made your mark, let's be even more edgy.

In addition, thanks to the support of the three big bosses, Simon's command of this small crew quickly became dexterous.

In busy days, time always flies by.

In the blink of an eye, it was the last day of October, the fourth week of filming of "Run Lola Run".

Tonight is Halloween, a very important holiday for Americans, and it happens to be Friday, and the weekend will follow.

Therefore, the festive atmosphere becomes more and more intense.

The crew of "Run Lola Run" filmed the scene where Lola enters the casino in the past two days.

There are casinos in Los Angeles, and Simon went to a casino in the city center to see it.

The city of Santa Monica, however, did not.

of course.

This is not a problem.

The director said that there must be a casino, so there is a casino.

The crew rented a ballroom in a hotel in midtown Santa Monica, and quickly set up the 'casino'.