On the banks of Xizi Lake, where water vapor and light makeup are always suitable, Bai Suzhen and Xu Xian met unexpectedly, using an umbrella as a medium to slowly unfold a moving and wonderful affair.
Stills from "The Legend of the White Snake".
On May 12th, the first 4K panoramic Cantonese opera movie "White Snake Legend and Love" was screened in advance at the Legendary Cinema of Zhuying Erdong in Beijing. The flexible ink painting of Xian Xia, the Cantonese opera singing voice mixed with popular music elements, and the interpretation of Zeng Xiaomin, Wen Ruqing and other actors, let the audience who watched cantonese opera movies for the first time directly call "amazing"!
The main creator shares the creative concept
The main creative team shared the shooting tidbits of "White Snake Legend and Love" with the audience.
In the exchange session after the screening, the main creative team shared the creative concept, character shaping and shooting tidbits of "White Snake Love" with the audience. Director Zhang Jianfeng admitted that he hopes to establish a new aesthetic system through "The Legend of the White Snake". "In fact, I took some detours at the beginning. Because I think that young audiences like to watch Hollywood movies now, I combined the stills of the Cantonese opera "The Legend of the White Snake" with the Hollywood background, and found that the sense of violation was very strong. Because the Legend of the White Snake took place in the Song Dynasty, it was the highest peak of Chinese art. Its aesthetic concept can be said to be very avant-garde, such as charm, subtlety, simplicity, which is also what we are pursuing now. ”
Director Zhang Jianfeng
As a result, Zhang Jianfeng put the Aesthetic System of the Song Dynasty into the film as the essence of traditional Chinese art, and at the same time, with the help of other classical artistic elements, condensed into a pure oriental aesthetic expression system.
In the film, Zeng Xiaomin's portrayal of Bai Suzhen, who is unswerving and affectionate and righteous, can be described as three points. Her smile and move are both just right and touching. Zeng Xiaomin said that he was very persistent in liking the role of Bai Suzhen. "She has her own ideas about love or life. Whether ancient or modern, she is a very powerful and worthy of our admiration. Dare to love, dare to hate, dare to pursue, dare to express, dare to fight. ”
Starring Zeng Xiaomin
Regarding the film's adaptation of traditional Cantonese opera, Zeng Xiaomin said: "Traditional culture and traditional opera are a seed, and this seed actually takes root in everyone's heart, but you are not aware of it. Director Jianfeng discovered this seed, which will blossom and bear fruit in the future. ”
Producer Sun Jinhua pointed out that the movie "The Legend of the White Snake" has many innovations. "In fact, we are trying to break down the three walls of the stage. The biggest difference between this movie and the biggest movie you've ever seen before is the cinematization of opera. Many of our opera films cannot be regarded as opera films in the strict sense, and they are still in the stage of stage art films. But at the beginning of our creation, our intention was to make a real opera film. Who are we filming for? We are making it for moviegoers to see. ”
Classical fantasy combined with innovative special effects
"The Legend of the White Snake" is mainly controlled by Pearl River Film Group, co-produced by Guangdong Cantonese Theatre and Foshan Cultural Development Investment Management Co., Ltd., directed by Zhang Jianfeng, written by national first-class director Mo Fei, national first-class actor, Chinese drama plum blossom award winner Zeng Xiaomin and national first-class actor Wen Ruqing, and co-starring Wang Yanfei and Zhu Hongxing.
How to use the technique of film to show the essence of opera is a difficult problem in the integration of opera and film. The "singing and doing" of opera has been filmed, and most of the previous opera films have retained more opera stage sense. The movie "The Legend of the White Snake · However, "Love" has taken a different path, launched a bold exploration on the basis of previous opera films, using the world's top special effects to produce and integrate into the Chinese painting art style, and realizing the cross-border integration of traditional art and film language.
According to Zhang Jianfeng, every minute and second presented in the film has a consideration behind the balance between opera art and film art. For example, on the opera stage, the performance of the huge waves is a number of actors waving their sleeves and expressing themselves in a freehand way, but the film presentation cannot do so, it needs to use the film special effects to reproduce the shocking scene of the huge waves, which is in line with the audience's expectations.
At the same time, in order to pursue the ultimate oriental aesthetic presentation and shocking visual effects, the special effects part of the film was jointly completed by the top special effects teams in Australia, New Zealand and Shenzhen, China, and presented the classic bridge sections such as "Thief Immortal Grass" and "Water Flood Golden Mountain" abstraction of the opera stage with a fantasy effect, of which the special effects shot of "Water Flood Golden Mountain" showed the grand picture of the huge waves, and presented it for up to 6 minutes at all costs.
The vivid ink painting of the immortal hero and the amazing wonder of the water flooding the Golden Mountain will bring the innovative display form of the national essence to the extreme.
According to screenwriter Mo Fei, "The Legend of the White Snake" is based on "The Legend of the White Snake", one of the four major folk legends in China, and the film has both the traditional genes of Cantonese opera and is committed to the aesthetic docking of the contemporary public. In the process of creating the script, she has an emotional resonance with Bai Suzhen, and it is precisely the affirmation and firm belief in beautiful emotions that promotes her reshaping of the story and characters of "The Legend of the White Snake" and the creation of the script of "The Legend of the White Snake". At the end of the film, a new interpretation of "the special way of the demon is one and the same" resonated with the audience.
It is reported that the film will be released nationwide on May 20.
Nandu interviewed director Zhang Jianfeng
It is hoped that more young people will re-examine the traditional cultural values and aesthetic heights
4K movies have a great sense of picture realism
Southern Metropolis Daily: "The Legend of the White Snake, Love" is the first 4K panoramic Cantonese opera movie. What are some of the challenges that 4K movies encounter when shooting?
Zhang Jianfeng: 4K actually has no impact on shooting, but it has a great impact on the post-production. Because 4K frame is equivalent to 4 times 2K, it is not a 2 times concept, it is a 4 times concept. Compared to post-production, your data volume is larger, and the operation time, including the generation time, will be longer. For example, if a normal 2K movie is generated for one hour, the 4K movie becomes 4 hours. Because the required picture quality is very high, the cycle of the later period is relatively long.
Nandu: What is the difference in the viewing experience of 4K movies compared to 2K movies?
Zhang Jianfeng: Actually, I made this movie for the first time to see 4K. I like 4K because the 4K image quality is very clear, but it doesn't have that sharp, uncomfortable feeling. On the contrary, I look at 2K now and feel that 2K should be improved, it should become 4K. The feeling of watching the movie, the texture of the realism of the picture, makes you feel very enjoyable.
For example, if you shoot a close-up of the character, the makeup on the face, the headdress worn by the actor, this detail should be very clear, so the production is quite difficult, requiring us to props, costumes, and various jewelry to be very sophisticated, and there can be no flaws or wrongs.
Nandu: There are some scenes in this film that are face-to-face, and the requirements for actors are also particularly high.
Zhang Jianfeng: There are actually very few shots of the face, generally in the middle and close-up shots. Because after all, the golden stage of an opera actor's career is around 40 years old. However, the character requires that Bai Suzhen should actually be sixteen or seventeen years old, and Xu Xian should be seventeen or eighteen. It is difficult for you to let these actors in the most golden stages of their careers play such a young role, and it is difficult to cover them with thick makeup. So you have to devise some ways to avoid some of the problems. For example, Bai Suzhen is sixteen or seventeen years old, and actors will have wrinkles after thirty or forty years old, so in shooting, especially 4K movies, it is even more necessary to be a little farther away, not too close.
Nandu: How many theaters in China can meet the 4K screening conditions?
Zhang Jianfeng: Very little. As far as I know, most theaters should be 2K after the release anyway, and there will be very few 4K.
But I think it's really worth it to do 4K. Because this movie is a big breakthrough as an opera movie, if you leave a 4K film, it is actually a good thing, and everyone can watch more in the future. Because in the future, if it really keeps pace with the times, movie theaters and TV stations will become 4K and 8K, and 2K films may soon be eliminated.
This film is very experimental
Nandu: The original Cantonese opera of "The Legend of the White Snake" is a very successful work. But it's still a long way from the movie. After watching Cantonese opera, what kind of point do you find, and what angle are you going to cut into to turn it into a film form?
Zhang Jianfeng: Actually, I didn't find a point. But because I came from an art background and have been shooting commercials for many years, I sometimes have an impulse to create. I cope with a lot of commercials, all kinds of different styles will cope, I will find a way, but I saw this Cantonese opera I actually can't find the way, so my mood at that time was very desperate. Desperate then don't pick up, right? Wouldn't it be over if I didn't shoot this?
But this despair suddenly turned into a kind of excitement and excitement. I think it's particularly irritating, there's no road in your eyes, just this wall, can't you walk? After you break it, it may be a cliff, fall down and fall to your death. Maybe it could be the Sunshine Avenue. I like to have challenges, I am not afraid of failure, plus I have a little self-confidence after so many years. I will take this case, that is to say, I have to open a road, I see what road I can drive to, maybe there are some changes in the world, maybe not, that is not okay, everyone scolds me. It's such an idea.
Nandu: For the overall aesthetic style of the film, have you tried it several times before?
Zhang Jianfeng: Yes, at the beginning I thought that this movie was made for young people, including myself, who also watched Hollywood movies and American dramas. I think the same is true of young people, the atmosphere of their lives is the atmosphere of Western culture, and if you want them to go into the theater and watch movies, you have to put Western culture in, put Western aesthetics in. Because Zeng Xiaomin sent us a few stills, I took the stills and put them in the hollywood movie environment, which is actually quite beautiful, but when I look at it, I feel wrong, this is ruining our own culture.
Western oil painting is about three-dimensional, light and shadow, layer, depth of field, but our Oriental aesthetics is about plane, charm, connotation, more emphasis is the kind of white space, more implicit a kind of beauty, it also has its own temperament. So why not promote our own temperament, because we are not bad.
For example, the West only talks about simplicity now, but we paid attention to simplicity 1,000 years ago in the Song Dynasty. So we dig out the Oriental culture, refine it, and borrow the Western film technology to express it, and I think the audience should like it.
Fairy ink wind picture.
Nandu: Later we summarized the style of the film as "Xian Xia Ink Wind", exactly? Zhang Jianfeng: Not too precisely. Because the ink wind is part of it. For example, the atmosphere of Bai Suzhen to the West Lake. Many traditional Chinese paintings may be a small boat and a few trees in one painting. I wanted to borrow the moisture of the West Lake to add a sense of wetness, to make the film increase that wetness, to turn it into the feeling of Chinese painting.
But in the future, for example, when you go to the interior of the Golden Mountain Temple or other places, there will be some changes. There are also some similar strokes, such as figures. Because I'm shooting flat light. I also ask for photography, I want to shoot a Chinese thing, China has never talked about three-dimensional, it is about modeling, it is about rhyme, it is about composition. If it is made of the body, it is a Western thing, a Western aesthetic system, not what I want.
He didn't accept it at the time, and I said you think about what Dunhuang is like. Later he hit the flat light. You see that the character modeling is actually flat light, and the whole picture is still relatively integrated, with a sense of beauty of the brush stroke.
Nandu: Will flat light have some restrictions on the language of the lens?
Zhang Jianfeng: Yes, there will be some restrictions. Sometimes there will be some faults, such as the faults of the actor's styling, and some adjustments will be made, but the problem is not too big.
Nandu: We are watching movies now, and it's still like watching a stage play, is this the effect you originally wanted?
Zhang Jianfeng: This is my original intention. The art form of opera is actually very distinctive. Its context should be dominant, it has decided that its art form is like this, you can't let all the actors perform according to the movie, that's completely wrong, I shoot out nothing, the audience will scold me. So I'm going to follow its context and re-implant the movie. But after implantation, you need to master a kind of measure. In the composition of the movie, you have to keep a little sense of stage, for example, my picture, the composition is flat, I want to leave a little sense of stage, because they have the performance there, they have the temperament, they have their position there.
If you watch the movie with a three-dimensional picture with depth of field, the performance will not match. So I'll go in the direction of the opera stage in the texture of the movie. I don't think it's such a perfect attempt because I know a lot of deficiencies in it. I myself see a lot of deficiencies. Because this film is very experimental and very exploratory. I also hope that after the film is broadcast, I will get some suggestions and even criticism from everyone. Not only is it good for me, but it is also helpful for the future development of opera films.
Change from Cantonese opera stage to movie screen
Nandu: The original script of "The Legend of the White Snake" is a Cantonese opera script, what adjustments were made to the plot when filming the movie?
Zhang Jianfeng: Because the script is a stage script, first of all, I have to disrupt time and space. For example, when I was shooting the West Lake here, maybe the camera had to cut to the Golden Mountain Temple, what reaction of the Fahai, time and space must be staggered, this is the movie.
Many plots also need to be changed. Let me give you an example, for example. It has a lot of big singing segments, and the actors just stand and sing all the time. Bai Suzhen and Xu Xian met at the Broken Bridge, and the first time they met, Bai Suzhen fell in love with Xu Xian, xu Xian also fell in love with Bai Suzhen, and the two had a large singing inner monologue. Bai Suzhen sang over there, Xu Xian sang to this side... The two are singing passionately, but they are not singing, and they have nothing to do with each other.
Do you really sing for 5 minutes to see? You certainly don't like to watch. So what to do? Because this singing segment is their inner monologue. When a man falls in love with a woman, he is imagining how beautiful the woman is, how worthy of his love, in fact, he is selfless, and he is acceptable to you to give him any beautiful environment.
So I switched the environment of that scene immediately. From the broken bridge directly into the sky, into a piece of water, there is a big wisteria tree on the surface of the water, the flowers are slowly falling, and then I did a lot of scene transformation, so that the audience has a rich experience, feel their expectations of love, that beauty.
What else is there to change? For example, the epilogue. In the stage play, a bridge is used as a Leifeng Pagoda, Bai Suzhen makes a stop on the bridge, Xu Xian stops below, and the two sing all the time for 15 to 20 minutes. How to change it? Xu Xian stood under the Leifeng Pagoda, he was expecting Bai Suzhen to come out of the Leifeng Pagoda, and after a thousand years, the Buddha flowered Bai Suzhen before he could come out. He entered the dream state while waiting for the Buddha's flower to bloom. In the dream, you see Bai Suzhen's hand and Xu Xian's hand holding together, but Xu Xian did not say, "Hey, you're here?" No, Xu Xian naturally held her hand. Because Bai Suzhen in the dream should have been with him all the time. Then the two men danced on the surface of the water, and the lotus girl swirled and danced around them, which was very beautiful and beautiful. But after the singing, Xu Xian turned around, and Bai Suzhen was gone, still in the tower.
The flowers he imagined were blooming and flying all over the sky, but it wasn't real. He imagined the flowers blooming as he carried the child towards the Leifeng Tower.
The roles should also be changed. For example, Fahai. The characters in the opera are usually black and white, good is good, bad is bad. But the movie role is not set like this, the movie role is to have thickness, there are layers, you have a good side, you also have a bad side, you may change from good to bad, you may also become a good person, the character is three-dimensional is rich.
We are now releasing this movie on "5.20" to have a certain significance, in order to express Bai Suzhen's persistent love for Xu Xian. In fact, my focus is not on this, my focus is on Fahai. Because Fahai is the touchstone of their love. Without Fahai, you can't see Bai Suzhen's so persistent view of love and such a strong expression of Xu Xian; without Fahai, you can't see Xu Xian's remorse; without Fahai, you can't see Xiaoqing, from not liking the human world to liking the human world at the beginning. So Fahai is an important role, so we must establish him well.
What are my settings? Fahai is not a bad person, he has his own beliefs, and what he stands for is his creed. His creed is the Heavenly Principle, the Heavenly Principle. The so-called Tenri may not be intimate, and the demons cannot intermarry, this is his belief, he is a defender, he is very persistent. Then it makes sense for Bai Suzhen to fight with him. Bai Suzhen is not challenging Fahai personally, Bai Suzhen is challenging the feudal kind of impersonal Tianli and Tiantiao. Bai Suzhen has meaning, and her concept of love is great.
The figure of Fahai also has thickness. After Fahai beat Bai Suzhen, he actually had a sense of loss, and he felt that a pregnant woman had beaten him several times for love. In the film, Bai Suzhen has never won, and has been losing the battle. The Thief Immortal Grass was defeated, the Buddha Hall was defeated, and shui man jinshan was defeated, but she kept fighting. Fa Haixin said how this woman clings to this, is it that the heavenly principle I believe in is wrong? He began to question himself. It was snowing in the sky, so I used a metaphorical technique, the snow drifted on Fahai's hand, and the snowflakes were slowly melting.
Symbolically, he also began to question whether he wanted to stick to this rule. Until the end, back in the Buddhist hall, his little monk let Xu Xian go, and he did not blame the little monk. His faith began to crumbl.
Nandu: In the performance of the actors, from the opera stage to the film stage, what changes have been experienced?
Zhang Jianfeng: I ask actors to cross-border operas and movies. When you bring a singing voice with a body, it can be an opera, it can be a more externalized performance, but when the singing voice and body are not, you have to use your eyes to convey your emotions.
Zhang Jianfeng: They are very strong, Bai Suzhen, Xu Xian, Xiao Qing, and Fahai have done a very good job, and the emotions in their eyes are particularly full. Bai Suzhen really cried several times when she said Xu Xian. For example, the moment Bai Suzhen was covered by the Leifeng Tower, Xu Xian and Xiao Qing were blocked out by the rapid waves, bai Suzhen was suspended by the Leifeng Tower air waves, and when she wanted to roll her up, she looked at Xu Xian and looked at Xu Xian sadly. She didn't have much of a show, in fact, she didn't have much of that sad expression, just with her eyes. I told Xiao Min that you acted so well, and the film was performed to the highest level, and that was it.
Including the play, we have a stand-in for the movie play, and 99% of Xiao Min's play is her own, very dedicated. So I feel particularly lucky.
Hope will have a repercussions in the hearts of young people
Nandu: When Guangdong Province started to make Cantonese opera films, it should also have a wish to promote intangible cultural heritage. I think the movie "The Legend of the White Snake" may be like Bai Xianyong's "Peony Pavilion", so that a very old art form can be promoted among young people.
Zhang Jianfeng: This is the responsibility of our generation. I hadn't seen Bai Xianyong's Kunqu opera "Peony Pavilion" before, because I took "The Legend of the White Snake", I watched it on the video and thought it was very good. From the actors' performances to the design of the whole costume, the art feel is particularly great. I think he really should make a movie, and it would be a shame not to make it. But its plot is far from the movie, too long. One of the advantages of "White Snake Love" is that it conforms to the hollywood movie three-stage style, and it has both up and down, so it has a certain degree of commerciality.
Nandu: Finally, let's talk about your expectations for this movie after its release.
Zhang Jianfeng: I actually expect many young people to go to the cinema to see this movie. If they can like this movie, they will revisit the value of our traditional culture and its aesthetic height.
We now live in an atmosphere wrapped in Western culture. The East has an aesthetic height, and compared with the West is not low, we should dig it up, to like it. So I hope that after this film is released, it will attract a lot of young audiences, including middle-aged audiences, into the cinema to see where the aesthetic height of our culture is, whether we can like it, if you like it, you can promote it or pass it on.
That makes sense for me. In the past few days, I have also seen some messages from the b station and the circle of friends, and everyone is looking forward to the film. So I was also very excited, I did not expect so many people to react. In fact, when it comes to box office and ratings, I don't think much about it. I really expect a response in the hearts of young people.
Special feature writing: reporter Huang Qian, intern Yu Xin