Less than 10 days before the official release of "The Wandering Earth 2", Guo Fan's studio in the East Fourth Ring Road was overcrowded.
By the T-shirt on the body and the state on the face, it is easy to distinguish the recipient from the visitor. Entering the sprint stage, director Guo Fan looks in good spirits, he shuttles through the temple fair-like crowd, arranging work and talking to different people.
Hearing us evaluate him with "radiance", Guo Fan made a joke, "That's because in front of the camera, you turn off the camera, I may be able to fall asleep while sitting." Having said that, Guo Fan also does not want to emphasize his severe lack of sleep, or even believes that this is a less healthy propaganda tendency. He said that burning himself and burning "manpower" has not been his ideal state of "doing science fiction movies".
The dialogue between Poison Eyes and director Guo Fan will be launched soon, so stay tuned
However, even in the state he showed, Guo Fan's eyes were already very different from when DomoreDumou visited the Oriental Film Capital when he turned on a year ago - at that time, Guo Fan was surrounded by a cloud of exhaustion and sadness visible to the naked eye, and a series of expected and unexpected difficulties did not give in half a point because "it was already the second time".
"You know what that state proves, it proves that we're still inexperienced, and we still often go into the state where the first episode was filmed." Guo Fan recalled.
Even so, exhaustion and sadness do not come from the so-called anxiety, because Guo Fan does not have time to be anxious.
From the success of "The Wandering Earth" and from the time they decided to launch a sequel, the expectations on "The Wandering Earth 2" are destined to be unusual. They need to do things, do all kinds of practical things, and many things are not made simple by the foreshadowing of 1, not from 1 to 2, but again from 0 to 1, even more difficult than back then.
Producer Gonger said that if only from a commercial point of view, this is a project that does not need to be thought about and cannot be touched at all. Guo Fan and his team were well aware of the difficulties, but for the second time, they completed the "four-year contract".
(Note: There are no spoilers in this article)
"There's always someone to do"
Before working with Guo Fan on "The Wandering Earth", Gong Geer did not work as a producer. But "The Wandering Earth" is a brand new project for Chinese movies, and Guo Fan has never made a science fiction movie.
Because it was the first time, I was not so afraid. Gonger described doing "The Wandering Earth" as the first time a recruit went to the battlefield, he missed a shot, and the battle was won, "It turned out that the war was so happy." ”
But by the time of "The Wandering Earth 2", Gonger found that the tragedy of the "battlefield" was not at all what he imagined. "You might even think, how did we do it then? Maybe it was really luck at the time. ”
With humility, "The Wandering Earth" is naturally not a movie made inexplicably. The story of 4 years ago, and beyond, is familiar to many people: from chaos to gradual order, from divestment to various supports, the collapse of VFX companies, the whole process has all kinds of chaos. But abruptly, it was a great success in the 2019 Spring Festival stall, because of the special effects results, but also because of the emotional resonance. "The Hope of Chinese Science Fiction Movies" and other titles have poured in.
"The inner change cannot be hidden." Guo Fan told Poison Eyes (id: DomoreDumou) that he and his team did a good job of psychological construction before deciding to do 2, on the one hand, "can not be inflated", everyone's praise is more, this expansion, may not be subjectively controlled, sometimes it happens subtly.
Guo Fan admits that even our obsession with the perfection of a thing may be a manifestation of expansion; On the other hand, they are also mentally prepared to "repeat the mistake they made the first time", "Everyone knows from the beginning that doing this is not from 1 to 2, but from scratch and again." ”
In 2015, China Film announced that it would make three of Liu Cixin's novellas into movies, each with an investment of about 50 million US dollars, and half a year later, the opportunity was placed in front of Guo Fan, who "makes a movie is to make science fiction", but his masterpiece is still "You at the Same Table", Guo Fan finally chose "The Wandering Earth" that best matched his imagination of science fiction films.
When the opportunity came, Guo Fan decided to seize it, and then there was the story of the first four years; In the second four years, Guo Fan experienced another "must try" feeling, although he knew what he was facing.
From a purely commercial point of view, when Guo Fan filmed the first "The Wandering Earth", he had choices similar to "You at the Same Table 2"; When he launched "The Wandering Earth 2", he was at the peak of his reputation, and there were more profitable projects for him to choose. For Guo Fan, the second choice is not much different from the first.
Gong Ge and Guo Fan
Gonger recalled that in the 2019 questionnaire, more than 80% of the audience was eager to see "The Wandering Earth 2", "When encountering such a survey result, it is actually 100% impossible, 100% pit." But Guo Fan probably thought, 'Someone has to do it.' ’”
"Compile mistakes into teaching materials"
Guo Fan said that at that node, he really wanted to "take a step forward and see" to see what else he could try and explore.
For example, compared with "The Wandering Earth", "The Wandering Earth 2" has a significant difference in process, that is, the "pre-shooting" matter has been placed in an extremely prominent position.
This is actually not a particularly sophisticated technology, it is just enough to "go through all the processes" in the studio with virtual shooting before the official start of shooting. But technology is technology, application is application, and it is important that movies can become "customers" of technology. With the simplest logical understanding, when the shooting officially starts, you can also be more confident.
From a more macro perspective, it has high significance for a science fiction film that has extremely high requirements for the process and the pre- and post-shots.
But many things are not "prepared" and will be smooth sailing. After the pre-shooting was completed, Guo Fan and his team entered a round of exhaustion ahead of schedule, which was relatively easy to adjust; What is more difficult is that because there are many new ways of working, "The Wandering Earth 2" is bound to continue to touch many "new pits", not to mention, the "old pit" of "The Wandering Earth", "The Wandering Earth 2" may not go.
Guo Fan found the Beijing Film Academy where he once studied, and "borrowed" 20 students to intern on the set, and the main job of the interns was to pick mistakes and record the mistakes made by the "The Wandering Earth 2" team in the process. Some are process, some are detailed. "If you don't look at it, you don't know how to look at it, sometimes you don't think that you can make so many mistakes."
Guo Fan said, "I opened those papers, and this is not right, that is not right. ”
Guo Fan is mainly afraid of forgetting, so it is necessary to record. It's like a student who has studied hard, constantly sorting out the wrong questions. Only by sorting out these mistakes can you make as few as possible next time. In the second half, the students of Hokage went through several reviews and refinements, compressed into two pieces of paper called "Industrial Management Process", which is somewhat like "martial arts cheats", which comes from the extremely valuable on-site experience of "The Wandering Earth 2".
"What we need to pay attention to, how we need to do it, how to arrange production and management, I think this is quite valuable." Guo Fan said, "We still don't know much about this, after two films are definitely not enough, but after several films are sorted out, after sorting out a process, we hope to compile it into teaching materials." ”
"In this way, when these students want to make industrialized films and genre films, they can at least do it with evidence." Guo Fan said.
Industrialization, first "construction site"
Four years ago, "The Wandering Earth" promoted the "industrialization of domestic films" and "science fiction genre films" to a very high level of discussion. Gonger said that he was far from being able to talk about "industrialization", and a joke often made inside was that it was not so much "industrialization" as "construction site".
But sometimes, "construction site" is indeed the basis of "industrialization".
In "The Wandering Earth" four years ago, three sets of spacesuits were shared, one was borrowed by the crew of Ning Hao's "Crazy Alien", and the other two were handmade by artists. By "The Wandering Earth 2", some scenes may appear twenty or thirty people in spacesuits, as in the first part, which is obviously unrealistic.
How to do it is another problem, according to the general idea, this needs to be done with the help of an industrial production system, and it is necessary to find a factory to do it. But the spacesuit is obviously not a regular product of the factory, and the crew needs to provide design drawings.
However, the design drawings of industrial mass production and the design drawings of artistic production seem to be similar, but there is actually a world of difference, and it is necessary to really create a spacesuit that can be timidly under the IMAX lens from the dual perspective of production and use.
It was an extremely difficult road, but the end result also brought benefits to the work, and eventually, The Wandering Earth 2 became a customer of a factory in Shenzhen, which mass-produced the cinematic spacesuit according to the drawings.
The result is that industry feeds back art: the costumes of the film are not only aesthetic, but also industrial. "You think, that's something that can really be used." Gonger said that not only spacesuits, "The Wandering Earth 2" uses a lot of off-the-shelf technology made by other industries, and the film has become a beneficiary and a customer.
Not only the use of external forces, but also more standardized management on the set and even in the entire process. In the first part, Guo Fan had suffered from special effects shots "even the file names were strange", and by the second part, the team already had a complete management system.
The significance of it is that we may have been able to make 1 or 5 "Hollywood-level" visual effects before, but a system that can support mass production needs and is being established.
"It's entirely possible for us to finish a VFX shot, you give me time and I'll pick it slowly." But we often have to become large-scale production, we must look for this process in this scale, the process is very important. Guo Fan said that it is meaningless to "reach the level" of a single comparison, it needs to be done in batches, and it is meaningless to do 1 to do 5, "to do it in batches, do 1,000 with an average level." ”
But other difficulties are still testing them, for example, compared with the resident 900-person crew of the first film, the resident population of the second film has reached 2,000 people, and the increase in the number of people has also brought some unexpected management difficulties. Guo Fan gave an example, for example, lining up to distribute meals at noon, the people in front have eaten, and the people behind may not be able to line up. "Sometimes, whether you can eat hot food can affect morale."
Such problems, during the first "The Wandering Earth", can also be solved with enthusiasm and "dedication", but in "The Wandering Earth 2" and even longer-term Chinese science fiction works, it is impossible to use "dedication". Gonger said, for example, the problem of not eating hot food on the set, you can't bow and apologize one by one, not to mention that there may be 10,000 such problems.
"We're still new to the city, and we still need to keep learning from all sides." Gong Ge told Poison Eyes, "Wu Jing told me, you have to use wisdom to do this." ”
This may become a space for "industrialization" and "sinicization".
"Serving the Audience"
Guo Fan knew what he was doing. Unlike many film directors, Guo Fan doesn't like to talk about "creation" itself. He prefers to talk about process rather than creating; He prefers to talk about service rather than expression.
For example, no matter how successful "The Wandering Earth" was 4 years ago, the priority of "The Wandering Earth 2" often mentioned by Guo Fan and Gong Ge is still "not losing money".
To put it bluntly, only if "The Wandering Earth 2" does not lose money, many ideas and many things of "The Wandering Earth 3" can be better promoted.
If you want not to lose money, you have to satisfy the audience, but the audience is satisfied, and there are quite a lot of dimensions. From "The Wandering Earth" to "The Wandering Earth 2", this kind of anticipation will only become heavier. After the trailer was released, most of the affirmation and expectant voices, some knowledgeable viewers pointed out that in the takeoff screen of the fighter, the jet tube was closed a little earlier, and Guo Fan saw the immediate comment, "Let's change it quickly."
This is just a tiny detail, and such potential challenges are everywhere throughout the "construction" process. The content discussed by scientists in the background, the formulas on the board, the placement of various props, according to the predetermined process, the work of the scientific adviser should be completed at the script stage, but the set will still continue to visit back during the process, and even make calls late at night.
Although the timeline is a prequel to "The Wandering Earth", in terms of narrative perspective, "The Wandering Earth 2" is more grand and more global, and the audience often complains that the Chinese actors in Hollywood movies do not say Chinese, thinking backwards, the overseas actors used in "The Wandering Earth 2", which country is from in the script, and which nationality the actors are, in order to minimize related problems.
The same as the first one, the original author Liu Cixin did not participate in the specific creation of the script, and Guo Fan and Liu Cixin reached a tacit understanding: text and film and television are two carriers, and people who are good at it should do what they are good at; Also the same as the first one, Guo Fan continues to chew on the core of the text of "The Wandering Earth", advancing the refinement of the worldview based on this small novel.
At the script stage, Guo Fan repeatedly imagined what "The Wandering Earth 2" should express.
During the preparation stage of the first film, Guo Fan thought for a long time about "what is the core of Chinese science fiction", and the answer was very close to the difficult understanding of foreign teams "why run with the earth"; In the script stage of the second part, Guo Fan decided to add more things around "people", around the theme of how human beings face "global disasters", to try to empathize with the audience, Li Xuejian's sentence in the trailer "I believe I will see the blue sky again, flowers hanging all over the branches" became the starting point of plot creation.
This is, of course, also a service. Liu Cixin posted on Weibo that the "Wandering Earth 2" team "made a world view summary of more than 100,000 words", which exceeded the number of words in the original text of "The Wandering Earth". Gonger laughed, "It's really not that we want to write so much. It's that if you don't write, the screenwriter will have difficulties, and the live shooting will have even more difficulties. ”
"Establish a contract"
Not far from the diagonal opposite Guo Fan's studio, in the same park, is Lu Yang's free cool whale. "Assassination of a Novelist" two years ago was another peak in the discussion about "domestic visual effects" after "The Wandering Earth".
Guo Fan is Lu Yang's friend, a good friend with their "smelly like", as well as director Rao Xiaozhi, and Xu Jian, CEO of MORE VFX, a leading visual effects company in China.
Two years ago, "Assassination of a Novelist" became the first "visual effects blockbuster" made by a national team, at that time, Xu Jian sighed, different from many people's imagination, this is more of a matter of efficiency, MORE gave Ning Hao "Crazy Alien", want to be a "triad gangster" image, turn to Hollywood's top visual effects company, the first version given by the latter is the godfather of Marlon Brando.
When doing "The Wandering Earth", Guo Fan has encountered this kind of problem more than once, including but not limited to the overseas team's doubts about "why run with the earth".
The Wandering Earth uses a total of 2,200 VFX lenses, and by The Wandering Earth 2, there are 3,300 regular VFX shots and more than 1,000 facial VFX. This time, domestic visual effects companies have become the absolute main body to do this, and "cohesion" does not have much metaphysical meaning here, but is more about efficiency.
"Those who understand special effects know that the sky is not the most difficult of special effects, the most difficult thing is biology, it is people." Guo Fan said, "Sometimes the audience will feel fresh when they see it, but they will not notice it in detail. ”
This type of special effects is not only the most difficult, but also "unnoticed" is the best result, and once found abnormal, it often means failure. From a gimmick point of view, the value for money is quite low; From a business point of view, the same is true.
Guo Fan told Poison Eyes that although it is "not cost-effective" no matter how you look at it, it has indeed helped a lot in the imagination of the plot and even in the future work. "Now that we know what our goal is and how we should do it, the next step is how we can optimize his processes and make him do better."
Guo Fan said that if "The Wandering Earth 2" does not lose money, then when doing "The Wandering Earth 3", you can "continue to do this". And the cost reduction brought by continuous exploration can also apply the visual effects technology of the face, such as the "facial visual effects" related to age changes, to more movies, "We will no longer limit actors because of age, we can solve these problems in many ways." ”
It's only about the result, but the most important thing for the audience is the result. Conversely, the more viewers understand this, the more marginal effects will be superimposed, which is a process in which Chinese audiences and Chinese science fiction continue to communicate and grow together.
When explaining this process, Guo Fan likes to use the word translation, and he feels that even if two people with the same mother tongue stand together, many things need to be "translated". For a genre film creator, what is more important is to reach some kind of contract with the audience.
"For example, if we say a romance film, a comedy, we will know what it looks like as soon as we hear it. But for Chinese science fiction films, we are still too small in quantity, too few to establish such contracts. More films are needed to come out, and a contract needs to be reached with the audience. ”
Guo Fan is already destined to spend ten years linking a series, and the day when the real contract is reached is regarded by him as a certain end point, or an important node. "If one day I actually see this genre established, I think I will be quite happy."
"It represents a mission"
Recalling the questionnaire that 80% of the audience hopes to see "The Wandering Earth 2" and "hopes to continue to see the progress of Chinese science fiction films in "The Wandering Earth 2", Gong Ge sighed with some emotion: "Do you know what this means?" This is no longer a simple task, it represents a mission. ”
Actions speak louder than words. Guo Fan has devoted himself to the two "The Wandering Earth" in recent years, with almost no rest and extra company time. "The driving force is love. I just like science fiction, and I can't shoot anything else. Guo Fan said.
But making science fiction well, for the current Chinese films, itself is also a blue strand. Every time they think of the audience's expectations, Guo Fan and Gong Ge feel afraid, but it is so difficult that it cannot be explained. Gonger said, "It's that you do your best in every link, and you can only do it without falling off the chain." ”
The other day, Gonger accidentally saw an emoji with a line that read, "We don't do this because it's simple." Gonger thought the next line would be "but because it makes sense" or something like chicken soup, but instead it said, "Instead, we thought it was simple."
Gong Geer remembered himself, although the team never thought that this was a simple thing, but still a little afraid to imagine how such a film was made.
"We didn't think it was easy, but we knew it was hard because 1 was hard, and we knew that 2 would be much harder than 1, but in the end, it was much harder than we thought." Gonger said.
Gonger estimated that compared with the first part, the overall amount of "The Wandering Earth 2" is about 5-7 times, of which the basic difficulty is 3 times, and the amount of scenery just changed from 100,000 extended square meters to 1 million extended square meters, which is ten times.
Gonger paid tribute to his old partner. And Guo Fan, who is too busy to close his eyes, does not have time to spend too much time thinking about his "mission", he thinks that he does not stop, keep doing, his today is more progressive than yesterday, which may mean that the Chinese science fiction film today is more advanced than yesterday. Specifically, "The Wandering Earth 2" is a little more advanced than "The Wandering Earth", in order to make "The Wandering Earth 3" (if possible), and even other Chinese sci-fi genre films, also improve.
Two years ago, Guo Fan recalled his psychology after the release of the first "The Wandering Earth", "It used to be 'nonsense', and when "The Wandering Earth" landed, I felt that I began to stand at the foot of the movie. Now, when the same question was thrown to Guo Fan, he waved his hand and said, "At that time, you can count me as young and frivolous, but now I feel that I am far from the mountain!" ”
But the mountains, right there.