Hollywood Road

From the very beginning to the present, Murphy has always been clear that all filming is in the service of editing, and post-editing must be considered when shooting shots.

For any film, the continuity of the story is very important. If the director has editing thinking when shooting, then the editing will be more effective and save a lot of trouble.

The editing thinking during shooting, or the thinking of shooting for editing, can be of great help in post-production.

As a director, Murphy has a sense of editing when shooting, such as how to shoot and which materials to shoot, so that he can make full use of it in post-production.

Movies are crafts, and shots and editing are the characteristics of movies.

From this perspective, if a movie can leave the audience with an indelible impression on a certain scene in the movie, it can be said to be a success.

Frankly speaking, this is also one of the greatest prides of being a movie.

Of course, this is not to say that the use of aerial photography, track zoom and other lens techniques is a good lens. The lens is a language. When using this language, it must fit the story, scene, tone, etc. of the film itself. factor.

There are times when films require difficult camera maneuvers, and there are times when a great shot can be achieved simply by keeping the camera still.

Every excellent shot is built on a well-thought-out basis, and has sufficient motivation and reasons. As long as the shot can fully display the content that the film wants to realize, it is a good shot.

"As far as I am concerned, real photography begins to brew before shooting, and the composition and prediction of the lens have already been considered in my mind."

In mid-October, the filming of the crew ended successfully, and Murphy accepted an interview with the media under 20th Century Fox, "Today we watch the great shots presented by the great films in the history of film, all of which are the hard work of the director and the photographer. .A great shot is like a shooting star, and you can only catch it if you give your all.”

He also said, "Dreams are not just having dreams and daring to think, but also the process of dreaming and thinking."

After the filming ended, Murphy did not stop, and immediately put himself into the post-production work. Due to Jody Griffith's physical discomfort, Murphy decided to do the editing work himself.

In the post-production of this film, there are only a few shots that need to be processed with special effects. Apart from the necessary color correction work, it is basically based on editing.

The lens is the basis of editing, and the editing is the new life of the lens.

Godard once said that the lens is the beginning of film creation. Editing is like dressing up. When the original lens material is placed in front of the editor, the editor is like the greatest magician in the world, presenting a scene to the audience. A beautiful fairy tale about an ugly duckling turning into a white swan.

How to shoot and how to connect, how to stitch them together depends a lot on what the director wants to express. Is it a very tense action scene, or is it a tender romantic scene where the director wants to emphasize the protagonist's facial expressions and movements? Think about what is most important and when to express that most important part.

For example, is a small object in the protagonist's hand or a casual look worth capturing?

Once the film decides to start editing, when editing different lengths of shots, it will be surprising to find that one or two great moments can change the entire feel of the film.

The first thing Murphy edited was the aerial shots used to make the opening scene of the film. After watching all the shots shot again, he quickly determined the editing method.

Murphy started with long shots of downtown Los Angeles, giving them a lead, followed by a black-and-white medium shot, and finally a black-and-white close-up centered on Old Chinatown.

After editing, he felt that it was still insufficient, so he added a positioning shot of a dilapidated slum, so that he could use a short shot to clearly explain the background of the story, which is the most chaotic place in Los Angeles.

In the opening sequence, there will be no characters, but in the subsequent shots, Murphy will directly introduce Diego Rose as the protagonist, so the editing of such shots must be character-centric.

Similarly, before editing, Murphy needs to look at the relevant shots taken again carefully.

How to organize and select materials is not what a good editor really needs to do. To do a good job in editing, you only need to master one thing: you know when to cut.

Murphy never edits based on those so-called "knowledge", but integrates into the film and feels it with his heart.

This is not a commercial film, and the customary editing method in the past is not suitable for such a serious-looking personal biographical film.

From the scene shots, find all the shots of Robert Downey Jr. Murphy put the editing point on Robert Downey Jr.'s eyes. Since this is a memory, the eyes are the key to the editing. The eyes are more than anything else. Can express the emotion of the picture.

This is especially evident when Murphy works with outstanding actors, because they know how to express emotions with their eyes rather than relying solely on body language.

To create the effect of "a stomach full of things to say, but no lines", the male protagonist does not need to speak, but when editing, he connects his eyes with the picture he is looking at, and knows what he is thinking without words.

In addition, for close-up shots showing emotions, Murphy will give a few seconds. This is a typical editing technique for literary films, which is commonly referred to as shots and editing to give the protagonist's emotions a period of time.

The audience usually feels a connection with the characters in the film, because there is enough time to perceive the expressions of the actors before they speak, and of course the expressions after speaking. Murphy has to grasp how long it takes to give this emotion, In many scenes that reflect the emotions of the male protagonist, he gave Robert Downey Jr. a "one shot to the end" four seconds before he spoke, in order to express his inner complexity and struggle.

In order to express the struggle of the leading actor, Diego Ross, in the face of choice, Murphy also edited five scenes with lengths of 15 frames in 4 seconds, 9 frames in 4 seconds, 6 frames in 3 seconds, and 17 frames in 2 seconds. Combined with the multi-camera of 23 frames in 1 second, it creates the effect of stacking and slow-motion. The climax is pushed to the climax with shorter and shorter time, and the emotion reaches the peak. After five shots, each time is deliberately lengthened, and the mood gradually eases.

In this clip, it took Murphy 15 seconds to reach the climax and twice as long to calm down, so that the audience had time to feel the emotions of Diego Ross.

In Murphy's editing this time, 70% of the control is the rhythm. Compared with the fast rhythm of the previous films, the rhythm of this film is quite slow, but when there are many body movements in the picture, the editing rhythm It will be faster, and when walking and daily street scenes appear, it will be close to the rhythm of natural life.

Of course, he will also use some editing techniques appropriately, such as prolonging the time of a seemingly insignificant scene when the storyline is in a hurry. When the anxiety index is about to explode, it is the place to cut.

Editing is a talent-based profession. If you don’t have enough talent, you may be able to become an excellent editor through continuous efforts, but it is basically impossible to become a master.

Murphy still has some talent in this regard.

He edited to construct the story of the entire film has six major elements, and listed them in order: emotion, story, rhythm, visual tracking, spatial continuity and, two-dimensional plane.

These priorities Murphy use as a pattern and editing plan to make sure your film doesn't go wrong in the editing.

Among them, the top three are the most important: emotion, story, and rhythm. These three are essential. After years of field experience, Murphy can see that these three are closely linked, and they play a very important role. Big.

Although he is the director of this film, Murphy tried to keep himself in a more objective state when editing. He did not regard himself as a director, but as an audience, to really feel the various scenes in the middle. Rhythm, details, whether the play is good or not.

Some films are suitable for what kind of editing method they must use. For general commercial blockbusters, the best editing is the one that makes the audience ignore the existence of editing. But such a niche film is different, he must show There is a kind of out-of-the-ordinary editing.

That's why Murphy was so exhausted when editing.

After completing the precise editing of the entire film, Murphy did not relax, but went back and watched the entire film, looking for redundant shots, and then cut them all. Cutting unnecessary shots will make the film smoother.

It took a whole month, and a week before Thanksgiving, Murphy finally finished editing the film, and at the same time cut an official trailer for the promotion department of Twentieth Century Fox.

The production cost of this film is limited, and the investment in publicity, marketing and distribution is also limited. For example, in terms of trailer advertisements, there is only one, instead of the past three to four.

The time is approaching the end of November, and the traditional Thanksgiving holiday in North America is approaching. Although there are many tasks such as dubbing, soundtrack and sound effect editing that have not been completed, Murphy still temporarily put down the post-production work at hand and specially invited costumes Designer, get him and Gal Gadot dressed for the upcoming film premiere.

"The End of the World", directed by Seth Rogen, starring Stanton's partisans and distributed by 20th Century Fox, will land in the North American film market in more than 3,700 theaters on the weekend before Thanksgiving.

This sci-fi thriller comedy, in which many Hollywood stars cameo with their real names, has attracted much attention from the media before its release. Twentieth Century Fox deliberately prepared a very grand world premiere for the film at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood.