In recent years, in many domestic military-themed film and television dramas, people are crowded at every turn when they start a war, and the intensity is comparable to the scene of the Spring Festival Railway Station.
Military fans here just put forward their opinions: After the advent of machine guns, the combat formation of the army has been changed, and since the Northern Expedition, China has not been a man-sea tactic at all, but a man-wave tactic, and the direct distance between the troops is tens of meters or even farther.
Someone over there retorted: You know better than the crew? If the actors who play the army are not crowded together, there will only be one or two people in the war movie screen!
As a result, some domestic war films are simply stuffed with people in the lens, here our military fans are a little uncomfortable, before the joke foreign war films on the performance of the Chinese army is almost ugly, in recent years, even their own war films are like this.
A domestic war film in 2016
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="10" > can't shoot people? </h1>
Here is a question: modern warfare is filmed by adults and crowded people, so what do you do when you shoot modern warfare? Stacked Arhats? In fact, the modern war scenes in some excellent film and television dramas are very layered.
Take some huge productions such as "War and Peace" in the Soviet Era and "Battle of Waterloo" as an example, some netizens may feel that they are bullying, and the level of huge productions is too high, so let's look at some small productions:
For example, the 2018 British TV series "Vanity Fair", set in the Napoleonic Wars period, is not even a war film, mainly filmed by the british high society.
The crew filmed a scene of the Battle of Waterloo, through the use of modern technology, it reached the level of the war blockbusters of that year, but this short war scene was not crowded, and it was in line with the characteristics of the Napoleonic era war.
At that time, most of the guns and guns had no rifling, and the accuracy was poor.
At that time, the guns did not have fixed ammunition, no magazine/chain/drum, and the rate of fire was very slow.
There were no tanks and armored vehicles at that time, and the threat of cavalry to infantry artillery was still very large.
Therefore, at that time, infantry generally lined up in dense formations to participate in battle.
However, the army at that time did not reach the point of crowding, the troops and troops were directly spaced, and often lined up in hollow squares to resist the charge of cavalry.
A hollow phalanx in Vanity Fair
Although the above picture imitates the composition of the Soviet version of the Battle of Waterloo, it is indeed remade!
It can be clearly seen that even in the days when the accuracy of the gun was very poor, and it was necessary to hold off the cavalry by raising the bayonet in a line, the combat formation of the army was not so dense.
It can also be clearly seen from this picture that what is not stuffed in the camera and cannot shoot a few people is nonsense. Don't you see that there are thousands of troops and horses in this one? And it's very layered!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="89" > advances in technology</h1>
The current film and television drama shooting technology is much more advanced than the era of epic war films, such as how was the Waterloo Battle scene filmed in 2018 mentioned above?
The crew only used 200 actors and 50 horses playing soldiers, and directly used computer special effects and live-action shooting to shoot scenes of thousands of horses.
The real-life part of this grand scene is actually shot with the camera frame high, and the angle of view is wide, even if the actors playing the army are scattered, they can also shoot the magnificent battlefield.
In the past, the cost of shooting this kind of lens was very high, and in the past, to shoot epic war films, it was necessary to set up a tower of tens of meters to shoot in a fixed camera position, and if you want to move the camera position, you also need to set up an elevated track of similar height.
If necessary, aerial photography is also required in a fixed-wing aircraft or helicopter.
Whether it is erecting towers, elevated tracks, or using aerial photography, the cost is undoubtedly very high.
But now it's very different, and shooting with a drone can complete such an effect.
We've actually been using drones to shoot movies and TV dramas since 2014, but it seems that the war film crew is indifferent to this.
A big domestic director once said:
As long as the crew is equipped with drones, it can replace mobile equipment and various complex photographic equipment. As long as the energy of the drone can hover for 8-12 hours, it is completely possible to use the drone to lift the lights and cameras, and follow the actors according to computer programming, that is, accurate and concise.
Some film and television dramas, such as the many scenes overlooking the battlefield in the 2018 version of Vanity Fair, and some shots in the 2020 Russian war film "The Last Line" skipping the offensive formations of the German mechanized troops from the battlefield, are most likely filmed by drones.
The Last Line of Defense
"Vanity Fair" can allocate not much money to war scenes, "The Last Line" is also a low-cost war film in the end, these film and television dramas can do it, I don't know why some crews can't do it?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="90" > opportunistic? </h1>
Speaking of drones, China's military and civilian drones are quite outstanding, and the US military has even purchased Chinese civilian drones many times to carry out military missions, I wonder why the Chinese crew is so stingy in shooting panoramic war scenes by drones?
By observing some of China's war films, I found that some crews are accustomed to committing such cleverness, ah, not a little clever.
For example, the following one:
A military drama in 2020
17 people plus an infantry fighting vehicle, packed with footage, this 1 infantry fighting vehicle can not hold so many people, and it is so densely packed.
If you put the camera high, divide the 17 actors into several battle groups, and disperse them, the battle scenes are much smarter than this one.
But the crew didn't think so, and their little cleverness was:
Let the actors run in the direction of the audience and attract the attention of the audience,
Get a few more explosions to set off the atmosphere, let the audience sigh that the fight is so intense, no one will look at the whole picture.
I suspect that these explosions were added with special effects, because the explosions were too close and dangerous to the actors.
Instead of playing this kind of cleverness, the crew should use a drone to hoist the camera equipment higher, and then use special effects to copy an infantry fighting vehicle, so that the camera sense is much stronger.
There is also an "excellent TV series" in 2021, and the smoke from the back does not know whether it is the special effects or the fireworks, which still makes the actors rush to the audience, and the most interesting thing is that in this street battle, the characters are actually carrying quilts instead of ammunition supplies.
A TV series in 2021
No wonder the audience commented on the Internet account of the director of this play, suggesting that the director find an electronics factory to work and not shoot the scene.
But the crew apparently didn't want to correct it at all, and they turned off the comments section of the account — your criticism doesn't show it means that the opinions and suggestions don't need to exist.
Looking at some film and television dramas that are not large-scale productions, such as the TV drama version of "Vanity Fair", some of the shots are obviously filmed by drones. For example, the following long shot of the commander riding to the infantry unit on the front line, slowly pulling up from the general's point of view, looking down on the entire huge battle line, and then reaching an infantry unit fighting hard in the front. The breadth of the battle line is self-evident in such a mirror.
Look down on the phalanx
And even if it is a head-up combat scene, some war films also give the answer to how to shoot a sense of layering, such as the Russian movie "Panfilov Twenty-Eight Warriors", the crew let the use of several tanks to pose a level of far, middle and near, with a small number of infantry detachments to shoot a large-scale formation.
Twenty-Eight Warriors of Panfilov
This kind of shot is far more convincing than crowded scenes.
In order to shoot the battle scene as well as possible, several tanks in the above picture are actually just a few green screen frames when shooting, combined with the pictures shot with small scale models of tanks, so that such scenes were made with computer special effects.
Some company executives in the domestic film and television industry are gleefully talking about the production cost of each tank prop car is several million yuan.
If the tank prop car really wants millions of dollars per vehicle, it is recommended that the crew pay the special effects artist to do it, and the tank of "Panfilov Twenty-Eight Warriors" is not a prop car, but a small scale model and computer special effects.
Instead of spending this kind of unjust money, the crew should focus on thinking about how to shoot, rather than closing the comments of the Internet account and continuing to think about the idea of "I am crowded with people in the camera, how can the audience not appreciate my cleverness".
Pay attention to the Guards Infantry Division, pay attention to the military
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