rising director

Although I can’t show my face in the performance capture industry, he was almost nominated for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor with the computer motion capture for Gollum in "The Lord of the Rings". In the end, Oscar believed that his image was modified by a computer. Rejected for not meeting the criteria.

Later, in "King Kong", he did motion capture for the most famous monster in history, and he can be called a generation of performance capture masters.

Wan Xiaohu has invited him to act as a computer motion capture performance for the chimpanzee "Caesar", the protagonist of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes".

0316【The Fourth Film Technology Revolution】

Wan Xiaohu did not plan to visit the filming site of "Avatar". He mainly came to find Weta Digital's special effects team to confirm the shooting date. After the agreed time, he planned to go back to prepare for the crew and casting of "Rise of the Planet of the Apes".During the recent period, he must make full use of it to complete as much work as possible.

After all, for him this year, there are too many important things to deal with. The baby in Quan Zhixian's belly and Su Ya's wedding at sea will follow in the second half of the year.

If you don't work hard now, these tasks will be backlogged until next year, and you will be overwhelmed by then.

However, his plan still didn't follow. James Cameron knew that he had come to the "Avatar" crew, so he came over to the special effects team during the filming break and chatted with Wan Xiaohu in person.

For this famous director, Wan Xiaohu regarded him as his idol when he was a child, and even now, he still admires this director very much.It's not just that James Cameron has achieved world-renowned achievements, but because of James Cameron's focus on movies.

He had heard rumors about James Cameron. This guy was a complete tyrant on the set. When he got angry, he wouldn't give face to anyone, and he often yelled and even beat people on the set.

The staff who worked with him all hated him and scolded him.

However, his harshness on film lenses and his requirement for perfection definitely made commercial directors like Wan Xiaohu ashamed.

In order to shoot "Titanic", under the circumstances of tight budget and opposition, he just spent more than 5000 million US dollars to build half a real ship with the same proportion.He even made his own underwater detectors and went to deep sea diving to photograph the wreckage of the historic Titanic.

If Wan Xiaohu were to take pictures of this, he would definitely be making a fake model, and then casually simulating the wreckage of the sunken ship.

Of course, Wan Xiaohu admires James Cameron's perfect requirements for movies.But I don't quite agree with this idea.In Wan Xiaohu's view, many ways to save money and effort do not necessarily achieve worse results than the strict requirements.What's more, commercial films focus on "how fast and cheap".

Needless to say, peace and prosperity are pursued by everyone.

Many, many parts to be filmed.Only when there are more movies, the scale of making money will increase, one will not make money, the other will make money, and the risk will be shared.More movies will also increase the development of peripheral products and drive the overall industrialization of the downstream.

Hurry up, the progress of filming is fast, like James Cameron.Careful selection, excellence, three to five years to shoot a film, this speed is definitely not up to standard, the investment cycle is too slow.

Only when money is flowing can money be made, and money that cannot be fully circulated is not good money.

The big studios allow a film to be prepared for four or five years, but their way is that they are busy writing the script in the early stage.Cast actors and directors, do some market research.These do not tie up funds.After officially entering the filming stage, it will only take a few months for the publicity to begin, and then to be released quickly.

Let the cash only pass through the filming process, and then recover it quickly, instead of being held back by the film for three to five years.

James Cameron would have made too much money if he hadn't made a movie.Few film companies are willing to invest in him.Take "Avatar" as an example. Filming started in 2005, and it was released in 2009. Such a long period of time trapped [-]th Century Fox's funds in it for four to five years.

If it weren't for the final "Avatar" box office smash.Twentieth Century Fox estimates that there is only one result, following in the footsteps of MGM movies and going bankrupt.

Speaking of this, Wan Xiaohu really wants to thank Cameron for his perfectionism. If it weren't for him holding back [-]th Century Fox, Marvel Comics would really have no way to take back the copyright of Men of War.

"Director Cameron, hello." Now Wan Xiaohu is used to being in a high position, facing his childhood idol, he is still very calm.

Cameron is 53 years old this year. I don't know if his hair is already gray or it has turned gray and looks a little old.Coupled with a height of 1.8 meters eight, it looks very impactful.

"Director Wan Xiaohu, hello, I heard that you came to my "Avatar" crew and did not intend to visit my work, why? You are also one of the investors, you should see my work results." Came Long did not have the slightest courtesy.

Wan Xiaohu said: "I believe you can bring us a very good "Avatar", I'm afraid to disturb your work."

"There is nothing to disturb or not to disturb. Those producers are annoying me like flies every day. I am used to it. Let's go, I will take you to the studio for a visit. I have only recently successfully developed a 3D camera, and the 3D effect is great. Great!" James Cameron's tone was beyond doubt.

This made Wan Xiaohu uncomfortable, but he felt relieved when he thought that this guy had always had such a temper, and besides, he was working for him.

A capable person will always have a temper.

"Do you know the 3D camera I designed? This is a magical technology that makes movies full of magic. It is completely different from the previous shoddy 3D. I think you will be surprised. Its picture is shocking!" In In the car, Cameron couldn't help showing off.

Wan Xiaohu looked very speechless, is 3D amazing?

大爷连m-3d都见识过了，至于神马4d、5d、7d、9d，大爷也不是没尝试过。大爷可是从2014年重生回来，带领你们这些土包迈向电影新辉煌的牛比人物。

Although Rao despised Cameron many times in his heart, Wan Xiaohu was still shocked when he arrived at the studio.

This studio is also too luxurious, with a huge rocker arm hanging down from the top more than ten meters high, and all kinds of shooting equipment are arranged in a patchwork.Compared with this studio, Wan Xiaohu's previous studio was not even considered as a soil bag.

"Is this the difference between a real blockbuster and the fake blockbuster I made?" Wan Xiaohu smacked his mouth and swallowed. This is the difference between a real big director and an ordinary director.

The next moment, Wan Xiaohu felt ruthless deep in his heart. Sooner or later, he would shoot a real blockbuster and challenge a real big crew.

One day sooner or later!

The actor shooting of "Avatar" was completed in front of the Blu-ray board. James Cameron mainly showed Wan Xiaohu the 3D virtual image photography system he designed.This system is a brand-new shooting equipment invented by Cameron and his photographer, Space, with the support of Sony Corporation.

Shot with two sony hdcf950-hd cameras, the lenses of these two cameras resemble human eyes, which can provide different perspectives of the picture, because they are equipped with different filters, which will remove the image when the subject enters the lens different parts.A parallax illusion is transmitted to the brain, and the three-dimensional perspective obtained by the final sense is established.

In the past, 3D technology was used in movies, but it was fake 3D, and the fake effect produced by fast frame progression would make people feel dizzy after watching it for a few minutes.

"Do you know what a giant's eye and a fly's eye are? It is! Through the adjustment of the gimbal, I can control the 3D photography effect at any time. Ger, you should try it yourself. I have sold it to many directors. I told Shi Ty Spielberg talked about it, I told Christopher Nolan they didn't see the beauty of it, you can!"

Cameron acted like a salesman, urging Wan Xiaohu to try it himself.

Wan Xiaohu has touched a 3D camera.Later generations will soon popularize the bad street, and it is called a 3D version if it is a movie.But standing in front of this elaborate 3D virtual image photography system.It can still be felt that the 3D camera produced by the assembly line is simply incomparable to this hand-made device.

On the two monitors, there are images of incomplete spectra, but they are fused together to form a complete overlapping image.With a little modification, a perfect 3D effect can be achieved.

"Very good." Wan Xiaohu praised sincerely.

"Haha, of course, look at this again, this is also my design. Collaborative camera, see how I built a virtual studio!" Cameron continued to promote.

The so-called virtual studio is a studio that only appears on the computer screen. The actors perform in front of the empty background board, but the computer screen is full of various virtual things, such as forests and mountains.Through this virtual scene, the director can directly observe whether the actor's performance matches the future CG picture.

The core of the virtual studio is the collaborative camera, which is not a camera, but a combined system.It consists of 140 digital cameras spread over the top of the studio to build a performance capture technology platform.

Motion capture technology is to capture the light of the human body through the camera, and the collaborative camera is the motion capture of the studio.

The camera tracks the reflection of the near-infrared spectrum emitted by the on-site LED lights, transmits the captured data to a system, and then combines and analyzes the reflection of the spectrum with the movement of the actors to obtain a three-dimensional model of the entire shot.

These technologies are not new in later generations, but Wan Xiaohu seems to be absolutely epoch-making and full of imagination.

If we say that from silent movies to sound movies, it is the first revolution in film technology.From black and white movies to color movies, this is the second revolution in film technology.From live-action movies to CG special effects scenes, it is the third revolution in film technology.

So what happened in this studio is the fourth revolution in film technology.

Completed the sublimation from two-dimensional images to three-dimensional images, and also broke the difficulty of shooting and framing, so that all incredible shots can be perfectly presented on the screen.

"And this, ger, I heard that you need a lot of gorillas to shoot "Rise of the Planet of the Apes", so you deserve to have the facial capture headset and facial performance capture and restoration system! Oh, you have already told Wei The people from Tower Digital have talked about it, so I won’t introduce more, but don’t you think these 3D photography technologies are very wonderful?”

"Yes, it's wonderful!"

"Will you fall in love with it, ger? Now many people, especially directors, cannot see the future of this technology. This is a great resistance to the promotion of our 3D technology. After all, we want to experience the perfect technical effect , need to promote the construction of 3D cinemas all over the world. I know that you have great influence in the country, we should join forces to promote and occupy the 3D market all over the world!"

Wan Xiaohu opened his mouth, and finally knew the reason why James Cameron brought him to visit here so enthusiastically, hoping to promote 3D technology with him.