Hollywood Road

Back in the studio in Los Angeles, the shooting was completely centered around Superman played by Chris Evans, including all the previous shootings, Superman did not have a red cape, such a cape would cause a lot of trouble in real shooting, Murphy simply let It will be added during the post-production of the special effects team.

And the film will also explain why Superman needs such a large red cape, not for comparison, but to assist balance during flight.

Almost all the shooting in the studio is placed in front of the green screen. Chris Evans often cannot understand the specific intention of Murphy to ask him to do some actions, but Murphy does not need him to understand, as long as he is the director It is enough to know which digital special effects these movements should correspond to with the special effects artists from working light and magic.

The shot shot can be said to be a very, very rough initial product, and the degree of completion is not even 10%, and the remaining 90% is basically completed by post-production special effects.

This is Murphy's most digital and CGI film to date.

Throughout the shooting in December, Murphy led the shooting of the crew in the morning and afternoon, and stayed with the special effects artists of Industrial Light and Magic before twelve o'clock in the evening. Although he did not understand the specific content of CGI special effects and digital technology, But in doing so, the two parties can communicate in time, so as to achieve the results he wants in the shortest time.

It is not easy to turn the shots in front of the green screen into the final effect of the movie.

For the action scene, Murphy gave up the fast-slow transition shots of "Deadpool" and adopted the fighting at full speed. The action and editing must be clearly visible.

This is by no means easy to do, and Murphy and the action director team have specially designed the action shooting.

Especially the ending battle scene being filmed in front of the green screen, after Gal Gadot joined, plus the previous Chris Evans and the Russian-born actor of the motion capture villain BOSS, it became a veritable battle. 's brawl.

Often in this kind of chaos, in order to let the audience distinguish each character, Hollywood will make the characters... different colors, sounds mentally handicapped, right? But it is really useful, such as "Transformers" and "Avengers" that Murphy has seen many times.

The Autobots in "Transformers" are colorful, but the Decepticons are all dark metal. The same is true in "The Avengers". It's not so much about creating characters as it is being lazy.

In "Man of Steel", although Superman's clothes are different from the villain's, the color is dark, and in the fast fight, the audience should be able to distinguish them at a glance without visual illusions. In this shot, there is actually no such situation, and the follow-up shot used by Murphy is absolutely indispensable.

From the start up to the present, Murphy has hardly used aerial photography, as well as standard shooting methods such as hand-held photography and shoulder-mounted photography. What he wants is extremely smooth shots, not shaky images, so he uses Most of them are track and Steadicam tracking, which can not only cut the lens frequently in post-production, but also bring stable close-up photography options.

Finally, a large amount of smooth camera image information can be used to form a macro perspective of the fighting scene, starting from a small point, and developing the entire level of the fighting scene.

Another major feature of Murphy's shooting is that Philip Raschel frequently uses the large zoom lens to automatically zoom. The basic principle of this method is that the large zoom lens is very convenient to switch between the large panorama and the close-up. It is used a lot in news events, and it will have a sense of presence.

This shooting technique can significantly increase the realism of the film.

In Murphy's words, "The method in "Man of Steel" is a rigorous on-site report mode of breaking news. It is necessary to use a wide angle to show the overall situation, and quickly push to the protagonist of the news to highlight the main points. The action scenes of the whole film must be full of such The way."

He figured out all the ways to bring "Superman" this seriously unbelievable comic book hero down from the altar,

Let him land, it can be said to be well-intentioned.

Since the film will be released in the summer of next year, it is quite tense for the special effects production. After Murphy finished filming the final battle action scene, he suspended the filming work. Light \u0026 Magic's special effects team took the lead in adding special effects to this part of the scene.

After adding special effects, the completion of these shots has reached 60% to 70%, but it is still quite far from complete completion. Anyone who knows a little about special effects production will know that the first 8 percent of special effects production Ten, only 20% of the time and funds will be spent, while the remaining 20% ​​will use up the remaining 80%!

Many films with small investment and five-cent special effects are often 80% completed, and the remaining 20% ​​is ignored, and the audience seems to think that the special effects are poor.

The big fight at the end is 60% to 70% of the shots, and it doesn't look very good, and some people from Warner Bros. are quite critical, thinking that the action design is not in line with the kung fu-based development of North America and Hollywood today. The action patterns that come out will deviate from the basic aesthetics of the audience,

In their eyes, the final battle to eliminate Wonder Woman's role is simply bumping and bumping, and it may seem to be the case.

But Murphy, with the power in his hands and the backing of the Warner Bros. board, stuck to his guns.

Just like when it was originally designed, for a character like Superman, letting him play those fancy fights is simply an insult to the audience's IQ, and in the passages that focus on destructive power, Murphy will also add some suitable tricks appropriately.

The action scenes set by Murphy were criticized by those in Warner, as well as the destructive power of Superman and Wonder Woman.

Although the degree of completion of the shots in this section is still relatively low, the amazing destructive power has undoubtedly been displayed. This is not only serious in terms of feeling and vision, but also in fact.

For example, the Wayne Group's building in the Metropolis will collapse like paper in the confrontation between Superman and the villain, and a large number of buildings will be destroyed by three amazingly capable characters.

This is the effect Murphy deliberately pursued. He wanted the action scenes of "Man of Steel" to break the "moral bottom line" of Hollywood heroic movies.

In the studio, several people were sitting together drinking coffee during the break time. Gal Gadot, who barely entered Hollywood, asked curiously, "There is a moral bottom line in the action scenes of mainstream Hollywood commercial movies? Is it true? ?"

"Yes," the odd-looking Nicolas Cage replied, "I can tell you responsibly, it's true! Even the R-rated action movies I've shot in the past have a moral bottom line for action scenes."

Chris Evans knew that Nicolas Cage had a much deeper understanding of this circle than they did, and asked, "Can you be more specific?"

"For example..." Nicolas Cage thought for a while, and said with gestures, "Everyone recalls the destruction scenes in many mainstream big-budget movies. Although they are full of momentum, there are few direct victims of innocent people. It must be the sea or wasteland, the people in distress must be rescued, and the objects of destruction must not indicate the existence of people."

Gal Gadot has seen relatively limited movies and is still remembering, and Chris Evans next to him has already begun to nod.

Nicolas Cage continued, "These are the moral bottom lines of action scenes, but our film..."

Having said that, he shook his head, "Murphy broke all of these."

In the script, it is clearly written that a large number of innocent people are implicated.

Gal Gadot sighed in a low voice. Just as he was about to say something, an assistant director suddenly came to inform him that since Murphy went to the special effects department to communicate with Industrial Light and Magic about the latest problems, today's shooting ended here. They can get off work.

When going to the makeup trailer to change clothes, Gal Gadot sent a text message to Murphy, and the reply she got was to tell her not to wait at night, and he didn't know what time he could go back.

Gal Gadot had to leave Warner Studios first. She knew that if Murphy went to the special effects department, he would be very busy at night.

When Murphy went to communicate with the special effects department, he thought of a new problem. There are a lot of special effects shots in "Man of Steel", but they must be produced and used with certain restraint, and they cannot become Michael Bay-style naked show-offs. .

It's not that this kind of show off is bad, but that show off doesn't fit the theme and atmosphere of the film.

Most directors of commercial films in Hollywood have a habit of showing off their skills. Murphy thinks that many directors are like this. Have a good time, um... It's the mentality of an upstart.

In terms of special effects, it is to make some special effects that can be "visible" to the audience or the boss of the film company. Look... I really spent my money well. When they are almost done playing, they will start to learn how to use special effects .

And those dudes who were "rich" from the beginning did not have this process, such as a few directors such as Spielberg.

The special effects of "Man of Steel" can be divided into special effects for living creatures and non-biological special effects as background props.

In terms of non-biological special effects, Murphy does not plan to use any breakthrough technology, basically it is general rigid body collision, particle system, and synthesis, etc.

But in all the high-speed action scenes, these special effects basically don’t have much room for display. Whether it’s Superman or Wonder Woman, the speed is too fast. In addition, Murphy doesn’t plan to use high-speed slow motion, and the picture will follow Superman’s high-speed rotation.

This is a huge difference from previous action movie special effects.