Director Li Mobai has always felt guilty that the actors consider themselves "tool people". But that's the way it is, over the past forty days of filming, he's "dominated" the actors' performances through the intercom, using code-like words: option A, option B, option C, and sometimes, option D.
Option A may mean fleeing, option B may mean fighting, which is the simplest example, while the actual situation is much more complicated. Receiving these instructions, the actors must immediately enter the corresponding performance state, jumping from one emotion to another, like a never-ending acting test.
These live-action segments are about to become the game screen of Hidden Detective.
"Hidden Detective" is an interactive film and television game actually filmed by real people, telling the story of a young man with amnesia who searches for memories and life directions during the revolutionary years.
1
Actress Pan Mingyun was pressed to the ground by the group performance behind her, and she was waiting for the director's instructions at any time. In this scene, her character is caught by the villain, and her companion is in danger of being executed.
"Option A", director Li Mobai prompted through the walkie-talkie.
Option A means "a companion is dead", and actor Pan Mingyun quickly enters a sad mood. Tears and lines were thrown just right, and she repeatedly called out the names of her companions in a mournful tone.
Through the two display screens, director Li Mobai examines all this. This is the third time the scene has been filmed, and he is very satisfied with the performance of the actors.
"Option B", the director's voice came.
Option B means "Companion rescued". Pan Mingyun lifted his head, stopped the tears, and began to perform the joy of "seeing his companion rescued".
The switch between the two emotions, Pan Mingyun only took thirty seconds, half of which was waiting for the makeup artist to use the foundation to help her remove the tear marks. Next, she will continue to wait for the next "option".
Option A, option B, and sometimes, option C. These words, which only those who are familiar with the script can comprehend, are codes between the director and the actors. In the script, different options mean different performances within the same scene.
Hearing "This is option X", you can immediately make a corresponding performance - after thirty-five days of shooting, such a technique became the instinct of the actors in the crew of "Hidden Detective".
Hidden Detective is a live-action interactive film and television game. Players can decide the direction of the plot through their own choices, through different branches, to reach different endings, and this means that each scene must be filmed.
Pan Mingyun, who played Junko Muto in the interactive film and television game Invisible Guardian, has some experience with similar shooting methods. After her role ended, other actors also began to shoot peripheral plots around this scene: the male lead actor completed the performance of interceding, fighting, and giving up for his companions; and as a "punished companion", actor Chu Xu needed to fight, rescue, and drown separately, which is the most "miserable" of today's actors.
Male starring Li Siyang, female starring Chu Xu
But this is not her deepest impression of an experience, Chu Xu recalled, the previous shooting, concentrated on the need to cry different "options", in order to ensure the shooting effect, the camera also has to frequently change positions, she came back and forth, crying more than a dozen times, that is torture. On the other hand, Li Siyang, who plays the male protagonist Song Zizhao, filmed more than forty similar "bad endings" - death scenes.
Although the filming location is in Hengdian, the birthplace of film and television dramas, the vast majority of the staff here have never experienced this special shooting process. "Hidden Detective" will be performed two to three times as much as traditional film and television dramas, and these film and television materials will eventually be condensed into a drama game with a duration of about three hours.
2
People can quickly understand what "live interactive video game" means, but it is difficult to understand, or to imagine how it is made. For the industry, this is obviously a new thing.
While writing the script for "Hidden Detective", Li Mobai spent two weeks in the company, playing each main line, branch line, and different endings of "Cyberpunk 2077". This game from CDPR, when the discussion broke the circle, Li Mobai wanted to use it to figure out where the "gameplay" he wanted was.
Directed by Li Mobai
It is not easy to grasp the gameplay of live-action interactive film and television games. As an interactive game, "Detroit: Becoming Human" eventually received a user rating of 8.8 at Metacritic, but one of its winning points was the high freedom of full CG; while the interactive drama film "Black Mirror: Pandasnake" produced by Netflix starring live actors was criticized for not having enough interactivity; "Invisible Guardian" scored well, but its main presentation carrier was static pictures.
In 2020, the production team had the idea of developing a "fully dynamic live-action interactive film and television game". The main creative team that made this decision has a total of six people, some of whom have participated in the production of "Invisible Guardian", including director Li Mobai. Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the party, they decided to make a theme that can be called "gifts": the story is set in the Republic of China, and the main line is set as "detective".
The synopsis and biographies of the characters were the first to be determined. The plot is based on this and grows like a tree diagram. The key node is the place where the planners and screenwriters believe that users can participate in the interaction, that is, the "interaction point". It may be for you to choose to "go" or "not to go" somewhere, it may be to choose to "punch" or "not out", or it may even be a pluralistic choice in feelings. On the script, they are labeled option A, option B, option C...
An interactive point means multiple options, and the multiple influences and directions that come with it. Each addition of one causes a butterfly effect – the previous ones may be connected, but how does its impact close the story? The script had to be overhauled several times. They always want to make all the story lines make sense, even though it won't be easy.
Some of the options, which may only be different lines, are different points of view spoken by the characters, and do not affect the plot, but are still used by the screenwriters. Li Mobai said: "At least, we have left this space for players to make a choice according to their own ideas when playing." ”
The screenwriters who participated in the script changed three or four batches before and after. The script was overhauled 4 times, and on one of them, they added the "amnesia" feature to the male protagonist. Li Mobai and the planners believe that if the theme of "who am I" is added, the player will explore and find a consensus with the protagonist, which will undoubtedly be of great help to the sense of substitution of the game.
It took eight months, and the script was finalized, and the printed dictionary was more than half the thickness, which was 2-3 times that of the ordinary script.
3
Filming a drama is like a puzzle, its general and proper scene has been planned early, and the only work left is to complete the performance of each scene. For "Hidden Detective", the next focus is on how to realize the content on the script.
The recruitment message of the crew of "Hidden Detective" quickly reached the hands of a large number of actors. On several recruitment public accounts in the film and television circle, "Hidden True Detective" and online drama appeared side by side, with the title of "Large Interactive Live-Action Film Game Recruitment of Actors".
However, most of the actors who came to audition failed to pay attention to or understand the meaning of "live-action movie game". Director Li Mobai had to explain to them again and again what these options on the script meant and how to act. The casting lasted for three months, and the final cast was dominated by young actors after 95.
Niu Liyan, who plays a supporting role, is the oldest among them. She played Qiao Feng's mother in the 03 version of "Tianlong Babu", appeared in the same TV series as Zhou Haimei, and participated in the shooting of 11 movies. But so far, 26 years after her debut, she still has a headache when she sees the script of "Hidden Detective". "We have put in great hardship and mental torture. This is the biggest headache I have had in nearly 26 years since I went from art in 1994 to the present. ”
Actress Chu Xu, actress Niu Liyan
The amount of script content is more than twice that of ordinary movies, the amount of performance is almost three or four times that of a movie, and overall, it is about three times more difficult than an ordinary scene, Niu Liyan estimated.
This view was endorsed by almost all the actors in the crew. Most of them came from the class, and they never learned what is called "to make the audience have a sense of substitution" or "interactive game performance method" in the acting class, and they do not know how to be stopped "five seconds" anytime and anywhere in the smooth performance.
Five seconds is the time given to the player to choose. After each performance, the actors must not relax, but must control their emotions, retain the state of the last second, and settle in front of the camera for five seconds until they shout "cut" to relax. Director Li Mobai asked for this.
The actors didn't get used to it at first. Actress Chu Xu describes this feeling as a "sense of blockage" "Often your emotions just arrive here, then stop, then you get stuck here, and then after 5 seconds, you may have to transfer another emotion, and then freeze frame for 5 seconds." ”
In many interactive games, people can perceive the presence of these five seconds - during this time, the option has appeared on the screen, and the animation performance does not simply pause, but still lasts for a while. This design can make the game experience more coherent.
Martial arts, for another reason, also need to stay these five seconds. Tian Yifan, the actor of "Bad Woman Zhuang Xiaoman" in "Invisible Guardian", played a lot of scenes in this play, and it is said that "I have played with ta in every role", but she still can't adapt to this kind of "pause" in the performance, especially in the play.
In the script of traditional film and television, the play is generally only explained in one or two sentences, and the rest is handed over to the martial arts instructor. But a fight scene in "Hidden Detective" reached a maximum of six pages.
This is because the script was written by tearing apart all the martial arts shots. Every punch, how to swing, is exquisite. Basically, every time an actor makes an action, he has to stop for 5 seconds, and then continue.
In order to be innovative in the gameplay, the team made this design. Li Mobai's expectation is that every time the player clicks on the screen, the action will be carried out one step, and there will be "success" and "failure" judgments, as well as QTE.
These special points that are different from traditional film and television combine to make the script like a DND rule book. Before filming began, all the actors read the script together for ten days, and it lasted until two or three o'clock in the morning every day.
As for the difficulty of actual performance, it is another dimension. The emotional transition should be fast, the performance should be paused, and the amount of lines should be large and complicated. Young actors generally say, I never learned this in school. Old actors tend to shake their heads, "It's harder to adapt."
After a few days of actual shooting, some of the field staff really understood the meaning of "film game" and how it was filmed. A big brother who has been working in the field for sixteen years, has seen big winds and waves in Hengdian, and he has followed the crew of all types of traditional films and television, costumes, modern, and even war films, but for the first time he heard that the movie also has a "game version".
4
From the perspective of cost alone, it is not very cost-effective to use film and television to make games. Mature engines such as Unreal Engine 4 can use machines and brain power to simulate brilliant battle scenes, such as explosions, fights, and corpses in one place. But in the film and television category, these have to be piled up with real money and silver.
The daily shooting is all about burning money. In a parade, there may be two hundred people in the group performance, and the head is charged. The crew sends red envelopes all the time, playing actors who have played corpses and dead people, and the staff must stuff red envelopes into their shoes, which is the industry of the film and television circle. After several "heavy casualties" scenes were filmed, the roadside was full of shoes with red envelopes.
The male protagonist Li Siyang is the hardest hit area of the red packet, and you can take out the red packet from almost any pocket of his body. In the last thirty days or so, he has "died" forty-three times. These scenes, which end with his death, will eventually be presented as the "bad ending" of the game. He is the protagonist of the game, and all the scenes are unfolded with him as the main body, without exception.
From eight o'clock in the morning to one o'clock in the morning, it was his standard working hours, and there was no weekend break. One staff member said don't ask them what day of the week it is, there is no such statement here.
During this time, the male lead actor travels in various scenes and studios, acting as the "tool man" in the story - he calls himself. In a way, he is indeed an important "tool" to advance shooting.
In many scenes, the director will ask the cinematographer to use some camera positions that are rarely seen in traditional film and television, but in any case, the male protagonist must appear in the shot. This allows the viewer not to feel too detached. The "subjective perspective of the third person" is one of the means by which Li Mobai emphasizes the gameplay of "Hidden Truth".
Li Mobai believes that in essence, "Hidden Detective" may neither be a game nor a movie, but in general, under the premise of not ignoring "gameplay", the expression of the plot still depends more on the "audiovisual language" of the film, so it is exquisite to shoot.
The sense of substitution is the most important. To allow players to watch the "broadcast" at the same time, but still can appreciate the fun of the game, and can also feel that "they are the protagonist of the game", always ready to make a choice for "themselves". Playing the scene so tossed, is for this.
The production team also designed a "search" gameplay, so that players can find some key items in the scene, which must also be shown with live-action images. Therefore, in many scenes, it is necessary to shoot the picture of "the protagonist picking up something and looking around". And how to look through the objects, how to show this scene, must be exquisite: not only for the male protagonist to see, the audience must also see.
In one episode of the game, the male protagonist needs to pull down the curtain that covers the plaque. In traditional film and television, directly shoot the scene of the male protagonist pulling the curtain, and perhaps give the plaque a close-up, and the scene will pass.
And Li Mobai demanded that before pulling the curtain, there must be a pause. In the game, through the player's operation, the protagonist's action of pulling the curtain will be triggered - the curtain is pulled down and the plaque is exposed, so that the player has the feeling of "completing this action by himself".
This is the biggest advantage of interactive film and television, and it must be grasped well. "Snap, pull down this thing", Li Mobai imitated the action of pulling the curtain: "How much fun do you say it can be?" In fact, it is not fun, it is to make you have emotional resonance. Even the slightest emotional resonance. ”
Tiny, but also important. Li Mobai has some obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is not good news for the actor. In his mind, he had pre-constructed his visions for each scene, and he needed actors to restore them.
A line may be repeated more than a dozen times. In the process of filming a "prison scene", the actor was tied to a shelf, and his fingers were too bent to work. The state is too relaxed, no. There is too little blood on the hands to do.
In another cutscene, there is only one shot: a man pushes the door in, holding a short knife, and stabs deep into the camera.
Since the original actors could not be present, the crew called another staff member to temporarily star. And this simple shot, shot seven times before passing. Because the director has clear requirements for the angle of the knife: on the screen, the knife surface should be slightly inclined, showing a bevel with a blade, rather than a point or a line, so that there will be a reflection on the knife surface - knife light.
5
On the fortieth day after the boot, "Hidden Detective" had a thrilling finish. Some people are thin, some people are fat. The former is because of tiredness, the latter is because of too much stress. Only the weight of the actors did not change, and in order to maintain a good photogenic weight, they had to constantly control their diet. Handing the actress a bottle of Coke, it must go through the layers of inquiries from the staff: are you sure it is sugar-free?
Without the support of fanatical feelings, it is difficult to persist in these forty days of shooting.
Stress, homesickness. The costumer of the crew of "Hidden Detective" wrote the first sentence on the title page of the script: "XX (name) wants to be a mother." The aunt of the crew who manages the box lunch said that every crew member, at the end of the shooting period, when cleaning up their room, will find a large number of unopened express boxes, which are the product of shopping and decompression.
But in addition to the physical fatigue - a 96-year-old staff member has begun to eat liver protection tablets, and everyone has gained a lot. The actor is no longer afraid of some performances that quickly switch emotions, and director Li Mobai has also obtained a large number of shots and clips such as he expected.
Over the next few months, that's what happened to the material. Li Mobai will no longer be a director, but transformed into a game producer, and these images will be used as the content of "Hidden Detective", which will be added to the UI, embedded into the program, become the screen of the game, and then the players will dominate the direction.
Everything is still unknown, and no one knows what the game will be like. The actors are most confident about this, they say, the effect must be good. Like the filming process of interactive dramas, the production and design of the game do not have much experience to refer to, and with a frenzy, they can continue to move forward on this unknown road.
Director Li Mobai said: "In fact, I still want to say that we can play a pioneer and set a precedent."
Regrets are there, flaws are there. Initially, the script was longer, and in order to ensure the completion of the works in the limited budget, the team had to cut the plot and ensure that it was streamlined. Some of the expectations of the scene before filming were not fully realized in the end. As the founder of the production team of "Hidden Detective", Hao Longxiao has always expressed regret about this.
No one has done it, but someone will always do it. Therefore, they expect and are convinced of success. Some signs also seem to illustrate these:
This is the story that Hao Longxiao often tells.
That time he flew to Hengdian, just out of Yiwu Airport, looked up, it was a group of geese skimming above his head, from north to south, flocks of geese. As described in the textbooks, adult glyphs, he emphasized. Later, he entered the group and found that the cover of the script was printed with a line from the play, saying that the big geese flying south were "just like what I saw."
Many people think that the flying geese flying south is a good sign.