Every film and television reporter Ding Zhouyang intern reporter Wang Xingping
Edited by Wen Menghua
Yesterday (July 11), the famous director Luc Besson, dressed in black, appeared in Hangzhou and stood on the podium of the "Online Business Conference" hosted by Ali, which was quite surprising. At the scene, Luc Besson came to a "brain-opening" cross-border speech and dialogue.
Luc Besson (Courtesy of the organizer)
Although the theme is about originality and imagination, the focus of attention always inevitably falls on the less "poetic and distant" business problems. As an artist, Luc Besson is also reluctant to talk about the box office, company operations and other issues, which his own operation team cares about for him. But he also has a heavy identity as the founder and actual controller of The Europa, the largest French film company. At the end of last year, Europa embraced the Chinese capital "Jimei Pictures". Talking about money also seems to be what the soul of Europa has to face.
(Per film and television drawing)
Even when the 2,000 e-commerce representatives raised their hands to ask Luc Besson a question, they told the common confusion of all creators when faced with putting their ideas into products: "I am a designer, how can my creativity become a good commodity?" ”
Luc Besson admits that as far as film is concerned, a creative category that is both an art and a cultural product, "if creative artists are allowed to make all the decisions on production, it will definitely be a disaster." On the other hand, if it is all entrepreneurs and financiers who make the decision and put the artist aside, it must not work. ”
A few years ago, Luc Besson said in an interview with the Chinese media that he founded Europa as a company that wanted freedom, and that with this company, different young directors could express themselves freely. In recent years, Europa's corporate performance has not been satisfactory. This year's Europa masterpiece, "Interstellar Agent: City of a Thousand Stars", directed and written by Luc Besson himself, is about to be released, and a big drama about Luc Besson's reputation and the future of Europa Pictures he has built is about to begin.
--"If the characters are not good and the story is not good, that's my problem" --
In Luc Besson's view, the best way to do it is to do its part on the one hand, commercial value on the one hand, and creativity on the other.
"For example, if I decide to spend a lot of money to shoot two seconds of footage, my colleagues in the budget department of our company will come over and say, are you sure, these two seconds are very expensive." I'll weigh it, and if I feel like those two seconds have to be done for this movie, then I'm going to stick with it. ”
As for the future of the film industry, Luc Besson said he had no idea.
"I just know that when the audience makes a choice in front of 15 movies, publicity and marketing are not the key. What people care about is what kind of emotional resonance this movie can bring to us. The most unstable, invisible, and uncontrollable aspects of life are emotions, and my job is to capture people's emotions and return them to the audience. ”
Every film and television: an artist, I am afraid that I am often worried by the people around me, where does the inspiration come from? What to do when inspiration runs out and how do you keep your creativity flowing?
Luc Besson: Everyone's creative inspiration comes from different places, and my inspiration comes from needs.
When I was a child, I was very poor, I didn't have toys, and how to achieve my own fun was through my own creation. So my idea came from when I was very young, I imagined stones and wood as aliens. Tell yourself stories. Sometimes being poor makes you richer. [Laughs]
I started writing at the age of 17 and woke up every morning at 4:30 to write a script. Train your imagination and creativity for decades. It was always bad to start with, wrote a lot of garbage, but stuck with it a little bit. For 30 years, I feel like my writing ability is like learning to ride a bicycle, and once I learn it, I won't forget it. So what is needed most is love, and then persistence.
Every film and television: We were deeply moved by watching your "This Killer Is Not Too Cold" in the early years and became our classic memories, but later on, your works are more science fiction and special effects, and "Interstellar Agent" is also a science fiction movie. How do you think about the choice of genres for science fiction films and realistic themes?
Luc Besson: Whatever the genre, I think the most important thing is the ability to tell stories and the tools to shape the characters, technology is just the means.
Shooting two real people can not use high technology, but to shoot a few non-existent characters, you must use technology to achieve. I don't feel much different, the key is to tell the story I want to tell, and shape the characters I want to portray.
The special effects in Interstellar Agents were cool, but technically I had a team of hundreds of people in the later stages to help me present the solution. In real life, without a computer, I write scripts by hand. I'm not worried at all about technology affecting my creativity. I had a picture in my head, thinking about what the story of these three people was like. If the characters are not good and the story is not good, that's my problem.
Every film and television: You are both a screenwriter, a producer, a director, a producer, how do you balance so many identities?
Luc Besson: A person can play a different role in real life, can be a good sister, a good wife, a good employee, a very good friend. It's just that when a person is in different roles, the way of doing things is different. For me, doing different roles is a different challenge and it's natural.
I also advise young people to try to get out of the safe zone you're familiar with, take certain risks, and explore new areas. If you don't take the risk, of course, bad things won't happen, but nothing good will happen.
Every film and television: Hollywood blockbusters are a long drive in any country and region, while France has always been unique in the world film world. You have made a remarkable contribution to making French cinema a fancy and acclaimed, how did you achieve so well in art and business?
Luc Besson: It's hard to say what's commercial, what's an art film. I think everything that makes a movie has to do with business, because you have to spend money to do it.
I don't think there's any difference between Hollywood studio movies and independent movies. If you watch any movie, don't you have to spend money to buy movie tickets? French cinema looks more artistic, Hollywood is more commercial. But audiences spend the same amount of money to buy tickets to watch, isn't this a more commercial manifestation of French cinema? [Laughs]
No matter what type of film it is, whether it is a literary film or a commercial film, the most important thing is the richness of the film. You will be tired of watching literary films every day, and it will be annoying to watch commercial films every day. So all kinds of movies are needed, and cinemas need to have different types of movies. There is no distinction between good and bad movies of different types, and there is no criterion for judging.