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Helming Hollywood (Fanfic)

Levin, who had experienced ups and downs in the entertainment industry in his previous life came to Hollywood in 1996 from 2014. It's a slow-paced novel. Unofficial translation of the novel by heracross. Raw version can be found at https://www.uukanshu.com/b/24330/. You can read advanced chapters on my Patreon account: https://www.patreon.com/Sayonara816.

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All Aspects

Levi said that he was going to Disney to find someone to help, which made the special effects staff happy: everyone knew the status of Disney in the circle, and their working group could significantly help the film. The special effects team is still looking forward to it.

Having a good boss is really a good thing for the special effects company. Levi's promise made many people here start discussing with satisfaction.

These people don't pay much attention to Levi's directorship.

In fact, special effects companies don't like to participate in the production of movies very much. They can make some commercials or TV series to make money. These things have low requirements, are simple to make, and can be done easily without worrying about failing.

The production of movies is more troublesome, and the requirements of movie directors are relatively high. Sometimes the production cannot satisfy the director, and they have to rework.

Moreover, when the film was being shot, the director might suddenly come up with an idea at any time and ask for special effects — these things made the special effects staff scold them endlessly, so they didn't have a good impression of the film directors.

However, for investors, they have a good impression: if special effects companies want to grow and expand, one of the biggest needs is to engage in research and development and make their own software. In the process of creating software, the more things need to be considered, the more professional talents will be introduced, and the greater the financial resources will be spent.

The technical team needs a lot of capital investment to maintain the R&D expenses. If there is no financial support behind it, it is easy to break the chain of funds. And once something goes wrong, it is certain death.

It is nothing new for Hollywood special effects companies to often close their companies every three days. If a piece of software development fails, perhaps all the property of the special effects company will be lost. In this case, there is a big boss behind who is willing to pay, which is of great significance.

To this, they are still very grateful to Levi: Among all kinds of people in Hollywood, special effects personnel have the lowest status. They don't even have their own union, and no one wants to protect their rights. Kind of harsh. But this time, they failed to complete Levi's plan. They thought that Levi would blame them, but Levi did not criticize them. Instead, he also found ways to help them, and they are very grateful.

While proud, they are also introducing other technologies to Levi, "Actually, we still have a lot of new technologies. We have used our own "light and dark light model" to make scenes, color changes, Shadows, lighting, stains, humidity, and dust will all be taken into account. In terms of virtual shooting, we can do our best..."

The technicians are still introducing and have not been able to develop a "facial expression capture" from the "motion capture," which is their failure. However, their other technologies have also made outstanding progress.

As far as facial expression capture - motion capture is just emerging; If he wants facial expression capture immediately, how is it so easy?

"You know these things better than me. You can figure out how to do it better. What I need is the effect of the movie. I'll contact Disney. Don't worry. We must do a good job with this movie. There must be no mistakes in these aspects."

Levi showed no sign of impatience as he listened to their introductions: technological advances have been of great help to the film industry. He knows this very well.

And when the staff in the technical department talked endlessly about their own special effects production, a figure rushed in from the door and saw Levi. He also breathed a sigh of relief, "Nick, you are here - come with me. I have something to tell you."

"Bob, what's going on?" Seeing the person coming, Levi also stopped the people from the technical department from speaking again.

"It's not a matter of production... Should you take care of Director Nolan? He has more ideas than Stan Lee, and the discussion of the script is not over yet!" Bob complained, which also made Levi smile bitterly.

It was he who asked Bob to discuss the script with Stan Lee along with the Nolan brothers: neither Stanley nor Nolan was familiar with stage performances, and they were inferior to Bob in terms of line settings and live performances. However, Levi did not expect that Bob, who was originally sent by him to participate in the script negotiation, would also hold back his anger.

"The Nolan brothers hope to make relatively large changes, while Stan Lee hopes to follow the original work as much as possible. It really makes people feel puzzled. What can I write in the script of a commercial movie? It's just such an old three-paragraph thing. I really don't know what is so difficult." Bob shook his head while talking and was quite dissatisfied with the wrangling of the script.

"I think their approach is very good, and it's not a bad thing to discuss it seriously." Regarding Bob's complaints, Levi seemed relatively calm.

"What is the seriousness of superhero movies? Isn't it just the first half of the superhero's various inner struggles, and then a woman is caught by the villain and ends the inner struggle to save her. After being rescued, she suddenly realizes how beautiful life is?" Bob said.

The tone was a little dissatisfied, which also made Levi laugh: Indeed, the production of scripts for commercial films is relatively simple, and some people have even summarized these into rules. The so-called screenwriter's book is a guidebook for writing scripts. It stands to reason that it is not difficult to write a script based on these things, and Bob also has the same idea. However, Levi is very clear: the reason why Nolan is a great director is because he does not follow these routines.

Whether this kind of guidebook or the so-called routine rhythm in the book is actually a summary of the experience of previous successful movies. No matter how you write such books, they are actually just routines for writing scripts — in fact, if you look carefully at these books, you will find that what these books summarize is "how to write a story that sells for money." script rather than 'how to write a good script.' Those routines are not for making good movies but for not losing money.

Indeed, any movie has its successful experience, and learning experience can promote people's progress. However, a person can imitate someone else's successful film to produce a similar thing, but it is impossible to write something higher by imitating it.

The art of film is called the seventh art. A good director and a good story must have their own ideas and what they want to show to make a good movie. Blindly imitating others, how can it be possible to make good movies?

These routines, first of all, cannot explain the production of literary films, and secondly, because they blindly follow the predecessors, there is no innovation and development of their own.

It's okay to make a commercial movie with an unexpectedly small investment, but it's impossible to expect to write a classic literary film according to this set, and it's also unrealistic to expect to write a commercial blockbuster with a high box office.

No matter how good the routines are, they are just routines. How can a movie that follows other people's routines without its own characteristics be satisfying?

It is said that superhero movies are easy to shoot, but among the few successful movies, which one does not have its own innovation? Spider-Man spent a lot of pen and ink to describe Peter Parker's hard life, the reboot of Batman improved the significance of supporting roles, and Iron Man began to make the protagonist no longer keen on saving the world.

The success of these movies, which one is not its own s thing? Want to write a script after knowing a rhythm? That's too small a screenplay.

In this world, the most difficult thing is not to sum up other people's success routines, not blindly following others to learn but having your own thoughts.

For the mediocre, it is a way, to sum up the routine and follow the old path of the predecessors. For the genius, the talent is in his own mind, not in other people's books.

Nolan still satisfied Levi in this aspect: Although he is a new director, and the original author he faces is a big man like Stan Lee, for the idea of ​​his own movie, he dared to fight against Stan Lee. This is the insistence of filmmakers. Only filmmakers who have their own ideas and are willing to put them into practice can make the film improve.

"X-Men can be regarded as a comic work, but it can also be regarded as a relatively popular soft sci-fi work. If this kind of work is to be made into a routine movie, it is not difficult to cheat some money at the box office, but if you want to make it into a classic movie, it's not easy. Wait and see; I don't think it's a bad thing to wait."

Bob was still not satisfied; Levi just smiled and patted him on the shoulder violently, "Don't worry, let's go; I'm going to a good place - a fashion designer from New York asked me to meet, and he brought a model to show us the clothes made for the movie."

It can be said that the movie and fashion industries are inextricably linked. The Matrix, which has just been released, has made tight leather jackets, sunglasses, and other dresses a trend for a while, and this has also been seen by many people. The influence of the world on the fashion industry is still considerable. As The X-Men is a big-budget movie, in this regard, people from the fashion industry were naturally invited to design the costumes.

"Do you want to see the clothes or the models? Neither Charlize nor Winona are in Los Angeles?" Bob looked at Levi, and he was very clear about his friend.

"Charlize's in Maine, Winona's in a play in New York, they're not here," Levi replied, "But I need a break now — fighting, special effects, costumes, scripts, and the sound effects, the soundtrack, the cinematography, the locations — everything for the film, I'm exhausted. Let's go; let's relax and enjoy life."

*****

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