Chapter 198: The Directors Guild Visits

After discussing the shooting precautions with Phillipe Lasher and exchanging opinions with Frank Miller, Murphy entered the set surrounded by green screens. Three camera assistants were setting up the cameras, while Helena Espola, along with an assistant, was doing a final check on the arranged green screens.

This type of green screen shooting, which relies more on post-production effects, undoubtedly greatly reduces the workload during preparation and shooting.

Turning his gaze from Helena, Murphy looked to his left and suddenly saw a familiar girl approaching.

Her golden hair was tied simply into a ponytail at the back of her head. She wore a small, somewhat faded and worn cowboy outfit, complemented by a pair of brown leather boots and a pair of high-arched eyebrows on her face, exuding a unique wildness.

This is… Murphy thought for a while and finally remembered. Compared to his memory, she had grown taller, and the wildness about her was even more pronounced.

"Hi, Murphy," the girl greeted him politely from a distance before she approached, "Long time no see, do you remember me?"

"You are…" Murphy watched as she got closer, "Maggie? Margaret?"

Margaret stopped about four feet away from Murphy and tilted her head, "I talked to you on the phone yesterday."

"Oh, I remember now." Murphy apologized with a smile, "I've been so busy lately, I keep forgetting things."

Seeing the girl nod slightly, he politely asked, "What brings you to Los Angeles?"

"I'm on summer vacation." Margaret looked curiously at the green screens around, "I came here for a trip, heard you were filming a movie, so David brought me to see. I've never seen a movie being shot before."

She extended her hand, pointing to the large green screens behind Murphy, "What are these for?"

"They're used to replace the shooting background," Murphy explained simply, not able to fully elucidate to someone outside the industry, and asked, "Would you like me to have someone show you around?"

Having been hosted by her in Australia, now that she was in his territory, he naturally couldn't neglect her.

Margaret thought for a moment and nodded lightly, "Okay."

Murphy waved over Paul Wilson and asked him to find a female assistant to show Margaret around.

Just as the little girl left, Murphy heard footsteps behind him. James Franco, who had no scenes to shoot today, came over in casual clothes.

He stood next to Murphy, looking in the direction Margaret had left, and asked, "Who is that?"

"Don't overthink it, Jim." Murphy warned, "She's David Robbie's sister."

"Hey, Murphy, it's you who's overthinking!" James Franco spread his hands innocently, "I already have Lily, I'm not interested in anyone else."

Murphy patted him on the shoulder forcefully, not wanting to see any unnecessary internal conflicts in his crew.

Soon, the shooting began. Today's main focus was on action scenes, specifically the scene where Seth Rogen's character Mav attacks the police.

The shooting took place against a green screen background, with special effects to be added in post-production. Unlike conventional green screen filming, Murphy planned to use high-speed photography here.

During the preparation phase, he and Phillipe Lasher had conducted experiments, which had also been approved by Frank Miller.

The overall style of the film would definitely match the comics; that was something Murphy wouldn't change. However, certain scenes would be adjusted appropriately. How to make the segmented action scenes from the comics more appealing and comic-like, bringing a unique thrill?

After all, films and comics are different.

"Frank, the action scenes in comics and films differ,"

Standing behind the director's monitor, Murphy discussed with Frank Miller, "In a backdrop as stark as black and white oil paintings, **** blood and flying corpses in slow motion can bring a stronger visual impact. You've seen this in the experimental shots before, and the effect is very good."

"My point," Frank Miller adjusted his cowboy hat, "is to control these shots appropriately. After all, the selling point of the comics isn't just this."

Murphy nodded, "I understand, there will be restraint."

Without restraint, the film would not just be rated R, but could slip into NC-17.

Frank Miller, wise with age, could see that the situation in the crew had exceeded his expectations. As long as the film's style and direction did not deviate from the comics, he rarely commented lately. Moreover, Murphy always consulted his opinion on any changes, showing ample respect.

Moreover, the high-speed slow-motion shots prepared for the action scenes indeed looked outstanding.

After the actors and other departments were ready, Murphy quickly called for the shooting to start. The shooting seemed quite boring; Seth Rogen, in ugly makeup, and a few stunt actors, following the action director's choreography, jumped around in front of the camera. They had to stop every few minutes for adjustments, especially for Seth Rogen's makeup, which was quite troublesome and needed frequent touch-ups.

Following Murphy's instructions, the production team, Phillipe Lasher, and two camera assistants used three of the latest Sony digital cameras to capture every shot in the scene at a high frame rate.

Murphy aimed to integrate the high-speed slow-motion technique used in "300" into the fight scenes of "Sin City."

Though "300" had a fuller color palette compared to "Sin City," both works shared some background similarities. Murphy was much more restrained than Zack Snyder, using this filming method only in the action scenes.

Action scenes are not the key to a film's success, but if done well, they can become a highlight that attracts audiences.

Of course, using high-speed slow motion to film action scenes is a complicated task.

The slow-motion in the film is not simply slowed down, which is the most basic way to create a slow-motion effect. Murphy used high-definition digital cameras to shoot at high speeds, then played back slowly.

Normally, cameras shoot at twenty-four frames per second, and films are also projected at twenty-four frames per second. But when shooting Seth Rogen's action scenes, the two digital cameras shot at ninety-six frames per second, and during playback, they changed to twelve frames per second, easily achieving impressive slow-motion shots.

This setting was not arbitrary but directly related to human visual perception.

Currently, movies adjust the frame rate to twenty-four frames per second during shooting and projection, matching human visual temporal resolution. Although movies are projected discontinuously, they appear continuous to the human eye.

Because of this limitation of the human eye, some faster movements cannot be fully captured, necessitating external help to slow down the action for complete viewing—high-speed photography was developed for this purpose.

High-speed photography is a method of shooting at high speeds with short exposure times, relying on "fast shooting, slow playback" technology to slow down rapidly changing movements to the visual temporal resolution of the human eye, allowing observation. This means that during high-speed photography, the shooting frequency (frames/second) must sync with the rate of motion changes; faster movements require higher shooting frequencies.

This technology has been widely used in Hollywood, from the high-speed slow-motion shots in Michael Bay's "The Rock" to the bullet time in "The Matrix," all of which are considered highlights of their respective films.

After two hours of continuous shooting, Murphy called a break for the crew, giving them a half-hour rest, while he, Frank Miller, and Miramax's assigned editor, Lars Beinert, reviewed the footage already shot.

For Frank Miller, these green screen backgrounds and slow-motion action shots without special effects were not particularly interesting, far from the experimental shots Murphy showed him of a knife passing through a body, drawing blood.

However, even as a layman, Frank Miller knew achieving that effect required more complex post-production work.

In reality, Murphy and Lars Beinert were the ones seriously watching, mainly discussing the editing points of the action shots.

All action shots were filmed with multiple cameras to increase the variety of angles for editing materials, and the editing points of action shots must reflect and amplify the emotional power of the action scenes, a basic principle of action shot editing.

"The characters' reactions and action cues must inevitably lead the plot in different directions."

Sitting behind the director's monitor, Murphy watched dozens of shots repeating on the monitor of Mav going on a killing spree after his fake official is killed, telling Lars Beinert, "They should also help bridge gaps in location and continuity, making the slow-motion parts come alive, skipping the parts you don't want. Ideally, it's best to include reactions from key characters in the scene, from participants to bystanders, into the sequence."

Lars Beinert nodded, "I think the shots taken with push, pull, pan, and tilt movements should not move at the same speed. If edited together, it could lead to distressing incorrect scenes."

"Right…" Murphy fully agreed with Lars Beinert's statement, "We need to be careful about that."

He was about to say more when he suddenly saw Paul Wilson approaching hurriedly, as if there was some urgent matter.

"Murphy," Paul Wilson tried to keep his tone calm, "There are two people outside, claiming to be from the Directors Guild, saying our crew has violated the Guild's regulations!"

Murphy immediately stood up, glanced at Frank Miller on the other side, and frowned, "Paul, go notify Bill and Erika."

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