Chapter 449 The First Artist to Leave Golden Harvest

Just when the outside world was making a huge sensation because of the launching ceremony of Jiahe Film and Television Industry Base, Liu Zhou had already returned to Tangshan in a low-key manner.

Taking nearly half a month's leave was indeed a big problem for the crew. After all, Liu Zhou was the director and the core of the crew. His departure directly led to the shutdown of the crew.

After Liu Zhou left, even the second crew had difficulty filming. After all, without Liu Zhou, no one could decide whether the content they filmed could be used.

However, the Jiahe Film and Television Industry Base is the largest investment project of the Jiahe Group since its establishment. Although it is not as much as the 8 billion claimed to the outside world, it is at least 500 million or 600 million.

Compared with the several hundred million investment in "Aftershock", the film and television industry park is indeed much more important, so Liu Zhou can only suspend the filming of the movie for the time being.

If it weren't for the reasons in Tangshan, Liu Zhou would have needed to stay in Hangzhou for a few more days. Many tasks would have been better handled if he was in charge.

Liu Zhou was away for nearly half a month, and the crew also had almost half a month off, but the actors didn't relax too much and didn't say they were not in good shape for the reshoots.

So a week after returning to Tangshan, Liu Zhou finally completed the filming in Tangshan, brought the crew back to Peiping, and began shooting special effects shots that required synthesis in the studio of Beijing Film Studio.

Although a week has passed, the enthusiasm for the launch ceremony has not dissipated. As the initiator, Liu Zhou has certainly been the target of media attention.

Many media even went to Tangshan to interview Liu Zhou, but he rejected them all.

Now that he is back in Beijing, there are still many media outlets that are determined to stop him.

Liu Zhou still ignored them and put all his energy into the filming of "The Great Earthquake".

In the studio of Beijing Film Studio, Liu Zhou was standing on a ground-crack device explaining the scene to the actors, constantly emphasizing how to move, how to fall, and how to perform.

So far, the scene of the ground cracking has been shot four times, and there are always flaws.

When a big earthquake strikes and the ground cracks, people often cannot stand steadily. The actors should fall down when the ground cracks, but during the performance, the actors either fall too early or too late, and the coordination is poor.

After Liu Zhou finished explaining the play, the makeup artist came over and sprayed soybean powder on the actors' faces and bodies to imitate dust.

After more than ten minutes, all the preparations were completed. Liu Zhou picked up the intercom and shouted:

"Turn on the machine! Hit the board! Start!"

The extras who had already been in position suddenly ran in panic. After only a few steps, they felt the vibration of the ground-splitting device under their feet.

They already had some experience and immediately fell to the ground.

One of the extras sat down on the ground, stunned to see the ground tearing apart in front of his eyes, revealing a huge crack.

The camera lens moved forward along the crack in the ground, all the way to the end of the ground-splitting device. Then the camera tilted up, rose into the air, and aimed at the green screen at the end of the ground-splitting device.

To shoot the special effects shots, Liu Zhou couldn't just do it alone, so he called the director team and the special effects team over.

After shooting this shot, Liu Zhou and the others carefully reviewed it twice. After discussing it, they felt that there was no problem and announced loudly:

"This shot is over! That's all for today's shoot, let's call it a day!"

When they heard Liu Zhou say it was time to call it a day, everyone cheered and put down their work to pack up.

After sorting out the materials shot today, Liu Zhouxian did not leave, but went to the special effects department.

Previously, because earthquake special effects were quite difficult to create, Liu Zhou had to develop a plug-in to handle it.

In order to develop the plug-in as soon as possible without delaying the filming, Liu Zhou sought cooperation in the development of the plug-in with many well-known overseas special effects companies. After spending a lot of money, the plug-in was finally developed before the New Year.

When Liu Zhou was filming in Tangshan, the special effects department was also producing earthquake special effects shots.

After more than two months of overtime work, some shots have been produced, and he went to see how they turned out.

When Liu Zhou and his party walked into the screening room of Golden Harvest Special Effects Studio in the studio, the special effects department responsible for research and development had been waiting for a long time.

After Liu Zhou and others sat down, the person in charge took a deep breath and opened the prepared special effects in the player.

The first thing that appears is a panoramic view of Tangshan taken from the starry sky. The picture is in black and white. It is a monochrome 3D building model and has not yet been colored.

However, although they are monochrome, they are all 3D architectural models, and they look quite shocking on the screen.

But the next scene is even more shocking

The ground rippled like water waves, just like a ripple on a calm lake, spreading out from nearby and quickly disappearing at the end of the picture.

Then the houses in the picture began to collapse, first the bungalows, then the brick buildings, and then the concrete buildings.

The collapsed states of the houses were completely different. Some houses collapsed completely, some collapsed in pieces, some collapsed from top to bottom, and some slowly tilted before collapsing...

The camera then moves from a wide panoramic view down to the front, where you can see houses collapsing. When passing by a six-story building, you can clearly see the building collapsing and people falling down screaming.

At the same time, tables, chairs, beds and other things also fell down, which made people feel a little creepy.

The picture continued to move forward and soon came to the house of Liu Yifei and Dou Xiao, and to their room. At this time, the picture began to turn into color.

Because from this part on, the shots are real shots, and the CG shots and real shots will be spliced ​​together in the later stage.

Seeing this, Liu Zhou couldn't help but feel satisfied. There was no trace of shot splicing here.

In the picture, Liu Yifei was a little scared, but fortunately Dou Xiao reacted, shouted "Earthquake" and then pulled Liu Yifei out.

However, because of the earthquake, all the stoves used by residents in the corridor for cooking were gone, and the red-hot coals almost covered the entire corridor.

At this time, Dou Xiao and Liu Yifei didn't care about these things anymore. After a thrilling experience, they successfully ran out of the building.

The special effects shot ended here, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. It was obvious that they had been holding their breath and watching it intently.

"Not bad, very good. The special effects are at the level of a Hollywood blockbuster. The scene is grand and the details are very realistic."

Hearing Liu Zhou's affirmation, the special effects manager breathed a sigh of relief and replied with a smile:

"This is all thanks to your support, Director Liu. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to develop the plug-in so quickly."

"The credit should go to you. The special effects are very realistic. The realism of special effects should be like this, with details full of life. I am very satisfied."

Liu Zhou had emphasized before the filming began, and not only the filming team, but also the special effects team emphasized that the most important tone of this film is reality. In particular, the reality of the details is particularly important. The more realistic the film is, the more touching it will be.

These shots are what Liu Zhou cares about the most and is also what he is most worried about. Now that they have finally come to fruition, his heart is relieved as well.

This is one of the few big scenes in the entire movie, and it is also the key to its box office success overseas. Without big scenes, the movie would hardly sell overseas.

Liu Zhou also has high hopes for "Aftershock", and like "Interstellar", he will release it on a large scale overseas.

The original Feng Kuzi's "Aftershock" only earned tens of thousands of dollars at the North American box office, and almost all of that was contributed by Chinese community theaters.

The main reason why the box office is so low is that there are few special effects shots, and almost all of them are local shots. There are no big scenes, which makes it look particularly stingy. It can't be compared with Hollywood blockbusters at all and has no appeal to overseas audiences.

The large-scale special effects shots produced by the Golden Harvest special effects team overtime are undoubtedly outstanding, and would be equally outstanding even in Hollywood.

From this we can also see that the ability level of Golden Harvest Special Effects Studio has improved significantly. It may not be able to become world-class, but at least it is top-notch second-rate.

Therefore, we still need special effects blockbusters to improve our technical level faster.

The special effects production of the movie "Aftershock" was more difficult than any other movie Liu Zhou had shot before, but it also brought the greatest boost to Golden Harvest Special Effects Studio.

These shots can be said to have reached new heights for domestic films, and are the pinnacle of domestic film special effects so far. Even if put on the international stage, they are still top-notch.

The successful development of the plug-in filled in the most difficult piece of the puzzle of "Aftershock", and the entire filming entered the fast lane.

It is quickly approaching the end of April and most of the film has been shot. It will probably take another month at most to wrap up the shoot.

However, after Liu Zhou finished filming today, he had to ask for leave again. The launching ceremony of the Jiahe Film and Television Industry Base was about to begin, and as the host, he would definitely need to go there a day or two in advance.

This time, the leading actress Zhou Gongzi, Liu Yifei and Zhang Yi also need to go. Although Dou Xiao is also an artist under Golden Harvest, his status is too low now and he cannot participate.

In fact, Zhang Yi, who was very popular with "The Disguiser", felt a little reluctant at this time. If he was not an artist of Golden Harvest, he might not have received the invitation.

At this time, the Beijing Film Studio was also preparing to shoot a scene in which a person jumps out of the window on the third floor of a hotel during a major earthquake and is then hit by a falling sign.

It is impossible to actually drop a sign from the sky and hit the actors when shooting this kind of shot. It can only be shot with a green screen and then synthesized on a computer in post-production.

This shot needs to be shot three times. Once is the building, once is the building wrapped with a green screen, and then the actor falls from the window, and the third time is to place a green dummy at the place where the actor lands, and then the sign falls from the sky and hits the dummy.

After shooting the three shots, remove the green screen and overlap them to get the desired effect.

Liu Zhou invited Huang Xiaoming to make a guest appearance in this close-up shot. Huang Xiaoming happened to be in Beijing and had nothing to do, so Liu Zhou pulled him over to serve as a soldier.

Huang Xiaoming has filmed many costume movies and TV series before, and hanging on wires is commonplace for him. And he was just jumping down from a three-story building, which is not too high, so he seemed very calm.

Jumping off a building scene is generally not difficult, but Huang Xiaoming's shot is a bit difficult.

The difficulty is not to dance beautifully and gracefully, but to make the action of being hit by the sign after landing. The key is to be accurate in timing and position, otherwise it will not be connected with the fallen sign when synthesizing.

Although Huang Xiaoming is a relatively experienced actor, it took him more than ten takes to complete this scene.

At this time, Liu Zhou also walked up to Huang Xiaoming and said with a smile:

"Xiao Ming, thank you for your hard work."

"It's a small matter. This movie has received nationwide attention and I can just appear in it."

"Let's have dinner together later."

"no problem."

In the evening, Liu Zhou invited Huang Xiaoming to have dinner at a private restaurant he often visited.

It has been a long time since the two of them sat down to eat together, but it may be even more difficult for them to eat together in the future.

During the meal, Huang Xiaoming also hinted that he wanted to set up a studio next year, which also meant that he wanted to terminate his contract and leave Golden Harvest to work on his own.

Liu Zhou was mentally prepared for this, but he didn't expect that Huang Xiaoming would be the first one to suggest leaving.

But this is normal, because Golden Harvest has attracted Internet capital such as Penguin, Sohu and even Baidu to enter the entertainment industry in advance.

It also makes the current entertainment industry more prosperous and provides more opportunities, especially popular stars, who are increasingly sought after by capital.

Huang Xiaoming is a man with a good business sense. Besides filming, he has invested in many businesses and made money.

From this we can see that his investment vision is still very good, and he is also the first to discover some changes in the entertainment industry.

Although staying in Golden Harvest would bring more resources, for a star of Huang Xiaoming's status, it is no longer him who looks for resources, but the resources that look for him.

It mainly depends on his vision in selecting films, and he is quite confident in his vision.

So after considering for a while, Huang Xiaoming decided to go out and try his luck.

He must be very grateful to Liu Zhou. Without the support of Jiahe, he would not have his current fame and status.

Therefore, although he wanted to leave, he still wanted to discuss it with Liu Zhou first. If there was no problem on his side, he would terminate the contract and leave early. If he had other plans, he would stay for another two years and leave after the contract expired.

Liu Zhou understood his idea very well. He had never thought that he could tie down his artists forever. It was common sense that people would strive for higher positions.

Moreover, as a friend, Liu Zhou is also very happy for Huang Xiaoming. It is definitely a good thing for him to have better development.

He is now considered one of the most popular stars in the circle. In fact, if he stays, Golden Harvest will not be able to provide as much help as before.

Huang Xiaoming is not as pure as Qin Hao. In addition to being an actor, he is also a businessman.

Liu Zhou is not saying that this is a bad thing. Which male lead in the Chinese entertainment industry is not both an actor and a businessman?

Since Huang Xiaoming has his own ideas and obviously has better prospects for development, Liu Zhou will certainly not stop him.

However, this year marks the 40th anniversary of Golden Harvest, and Liu Zhou plans to hold a big celebration at the end of the year, so he asked us to leave next year.

(End of this chapter)