Bright Era of China Entertainment

Chapter 307 Gifts
Zhengzheng Zeng flipped through the shot script, trying to find a description suitable for the presentation in the [Special Effects Description] text in the detail table of each shot in the shot script.

"Is there any literary script for me to appreciate too?" Chen Kaige was a little curious about Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei's sci-fi script.

He is also a graduate of Beijing Film Academy. During the graduation season, students form groups of three or four to engage in drama or microfilm, and he knows these things well.

I heard Concubine Liu Yi say that her and Chu Xuan's microfilm works are sci-fi. Facing a theme that has never appeared in China, a theme that is not considered by capital, and a short-term limit due to market box office restrictions, The themes that will appear, face the themes that are restricted by the domestic film and television basic industry.

As a director, he has brought some freshness.

Concubine Liu Yi took out her and Chu Xuan's two literary scripts from her backpack and handed them to Chen Kaige.

"Teacher Kaige." She said.

Chen Kaige took it, and Wang Jinhua flipped through another copy from Chen Kai's singer.

At this time, Zeng Zhengzong found a simple description of the special effects scene, leaned close to Chu Xuan and pointed, "Mr. Chu, there happens to be a similar one in the company's special effects preset library for this scene, can I use it for demonstration?"

Chu Xuan and Concubine Liu Yi looked at it—[The tsunami spread into the city, and the building collapsed. 】

"Okay." Chu Xuan nodded.

"Show me." Tang Jili took the shot script.

"Is there still a storyboard script?" Han Sanping asked.

Concubine Liu Yi nodded, and handed the last shot script to Han Sanping, who took it with her hand.

Zeng Zhengzong was about to demonstrate the production of special effects, Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei followed behind, and the rest of the people followed while reading the script.

All the people present were shareholders, and they only clarified the value of the company through the performance and basic costs of software and hardware, and made plans to merge into Brilliant Times Film and Television Company.

Special effects are a new thing. Except for Han Sanping, a high-ranking boss in Huaying Group, who has an in-depth understanding of special effects, the rest of the people's understanding of this aspect is ambiguous, and occasionally what they learn is specious.

Chu Xuan just proposed to look at the details of special effects production, which was exactly what they wanted. After all, it is a company controlled by themselves, and they also wanted to see the production process of special effects and the level of special effects production.

"These are original paintings." Zeng Zhengzong picked up a stack of drawings.

Everyone looked at it, and each took out some original paintings from the sketches to look at.

"Original paintings are required for all special effects?" Chu Xuan looked down. The original paintings included scenes of ancient buildings, scenes of changing weather, scenes of cracks in the ground, and so on.

Hearing Chu Xuan's question, Zheng Min shook his head and said, "Environmental special effects and scene special effects depend on the original painting, and the fighting special effects between other characters do not need the original painting. In other words, the bigger the special effect scene, the more important the original painting is." Big, some small special effects can be directly synthesized by computer.”

The crowd nodded.

Zeng Zhengzong took out a stack of original paintings from the original paintings, showed them to Chu Xuan, and said, "Mr. Chu, look."

Everyone looked at Chu Xuan together. Chu Xuan took the original paintings and looked at them one by one. The main body of these original paintings was a building that was hit by sea water.

In the first original painting, the sea water is some distance away from the building.

In the second original painting, the sea water gradually moves away from the building.

In the follow-up original painting, the sea water hits the building, and the building slowly collapses.

"There is such a scene in the script of the "Hope" microfilm." Zeng Zhengzong said.

Wang Jinhua, Chen Kaige, Tang Jili, and Han Sanping read the script, and there is indeed such a scene description.

"And then?" Chu Xuan asked.

Zeng Zhengzong put these original paintings into a machine and said: "Scanning the original paintings into the computer is the first process."

As he spoke, Zeng Zhengzong patted a technician on the shoulder, and the technician quickly understood.

In the eyes of everyone, the computer in front of the technician, a piece of software, imported a stack of original paintings they had just seen.

"These pictures appear to be three-dimensional, but they are actually flat in nature," Zeng Zhengzong said.

Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei nodded. The building in the picture has three-dimensional lines and looks three-dimensional, but overall it is indeed a flat figure.

"To turn it into a real three-dimensional, modeling is required, which is also the second step of the process." Zeng Zhengzong said.

He pointed to the computer screen and said, "The software can provide a three-dimensional space. The polygonal three-dimensional grid we see is used for wiring, and the wiring lines are used to turn the virtual lines of the plan into reality, forming a real three-dimensional figure. "

He also said: "Modeling is a very time-consuming job, and the criss-crossing and horizontal wiring work is particularly complicated. The finer the model, the less mistakes can be made, otherwise the three-dimensional graphics will show a distorted effect."

Chu Xuan looked at the floor plan in the software, and said, "Is there any final three-dimensional effect on this picture?"

Zeng Zhengzong put his hand on the back of the chair and said to the technician, "Preset map."

The technicians understood in seconds, moved the mouse to operate, created a new three-dimensional space, and dragged out a building from the preset model, and this building was exactly the planar building diagram that Chu Xuan and Liu Yifei had just seen, only at this moment. Graphics are three-dimensional.

The technician drags the mouse to move the three-dimensional graphics in the software to rotate 360 ​​degrees. The boxy building model and the seawater spreading scene are very three-dimensional.

"Each special effects company has its own special effects preset library, and these special effects have international copyrights. If any company directly edits them into its own film and television drama, it can sue for infringement." Zeng Zhengzong explained.

The people listened and expressed their understanding.

"Modeling is to make the plan three-dimensional and the character model three-dimensional." Chu Xuan asked tentatively.

"It can be understood in this way." Zeng Zhengzong nodded, and said to the technical staff: "Play the demo."

The technician operated according to what he said, and pressed the F5 shortcut key, the software changed to play full-screen mode, and 24 frames and 24 pictures started to play.

Under the eyes of everyone, in the scene of a single building, the sea water emerges from the bottom of the video, and then surges towards the direction of the building. When the sea water touches the building, the glass of the building breaks and begins to shake, and then slowly collapses, showing Leaning stance.

"It looks shocking, but it's still a bit fake." Concubine Liu Yi stroked her hair and said.

"The buildings and sea water are gray and white, and there is no light and shadow. It looks like a silent animation." Chen Kaige expressed his opinion.

Zeng Zhengzong smiled and said: "This is just modeling, of course there is no light, shadow and color."

As he spoke, he walked towards a technician next to him.

Zeng Zhengzong pointed to the technician just now, and said: "The original artist is the first process of special effects production, and the modeler just now is the second process of special effects production."

He patted the back of the chair and said: "The next step is the third process of special effects production, which is controlled by the special effects artist."

Original artist, modeler, special effects artist... Everyone nodded to express their understanding.

At this moment, the special effects artist dragged out a special effect from the special effect preset library and placed it at the contact point between the sea water and the building.

Under the eyes of everyone, the contact point between the sea water and the building suddenly exploded into spray.

When modeling just now, the sea water only touched the building, and there was no special effect of the water splash.

Seeing this scene, everyone also understands that the role of the special effects artist is to add special effects one by one to make the scene more detailed and real.

"The special effects are ready-made." Tang Jili said.

"When ordinary technicians practice techniques, they will produce special effects applied to each scene, and use them as a reference when they have corresponding projects, or use them directly." Zeng Zhengzong said.

"The seawater splashes when it touches the building. This is a special physical effect." Chen Kaige said.

"Yes." Zeng Zhengzong nodded.

"It's very expensive to do such special effects." Han Sanping is a person who understands special effects.

"But there is still no light, shadow and color." Chu Xuan said.

Zeng Zhengzong glanced at Chu Xuan and said, "The fourth step is over."

Everyone followed Zeng Zhengzong and came behind another technician.

"The fourth step is the most important part of special effects production, which is the rendering of special effects, which is the responsibility of the renderer." Zeng Zhengzong patted the back of the chair.

The technicians understood it, and imported the 24 graphics of the sea water hitting the building from the shared files of the computer into the renderer software.

Chu Xuan looked at it, and said: "The crew of "Zhu Xian" discussed some special effects with Mr. Zeng. Before the "Hope" micro-movie, Qianqian and I also read a lot of science fiction movie magazines. Rendering that long? One second of special effects in Star Wars that took ten days to render on a thousand computers? That’s 24 hours? I can’t understand it.”

Concubine Liu Yi frowned, and Chen Kaige and the others made a listening statement. This was not only Chu Xuan's doubts, but also what they wanted to know.

Zeng Zhengzong smiled slightly, spread his hands and gestured while saying: "President Chu, if there is a Rubik's cube wall made up of 1 Rubik's cubes in front of you, how long will it take you to clearly see the color of each Rubik's cube and each module in the Rubik's cube wall?" and write it down?"

Chu Xuan and Concubine Liu Yi were startled, and looked at Zeng Zhengzong thoughtfully.

"This is impossible, no matter how long it takes." Concubine Liu Yi shook her head.

Zeng Zhengzong's smile grew stronger, and he said: "The principle of the renderer is to imitate the imaging of the camera in the retina of the human eye. It takes us a lot of time to see a complicated thing, so the renderer imitates the human eye to see a complex thing." Complicated special effects scenes require the use of underlying algorithms to analyze the imaging, and the more time it takes, the clearer, more textured, more textured the image will be, and the more real it will be.”

Everyone was taken aback for a moment, and then suddenly realized.

"Teacher Zeng's explanations are clear and clear, and he is teachable." Chen Kaige smiled gently. Even if he is a major domestic director, he has learned something new at this moment.

"Understood." Concubine Liu Yi said sweetly.

"Understood." Chu Xuan said.

"Mr. Zeng said that rendering is the most important part of special effects production. Why is it the most important?" Wang Jinhua asked, looking away from the script of "Hope".

Zeng Zhengzong patted the technician on the shoulder, signaling him to step aside.

After the technicians stepped aside, Zeng Zhengzong sat down and explained in person.

"I will talk about a few necessary parameter functions."

Everyone watched, waiting for his next words.

"Under normal circumstances, the first step of special effects rendering requires filtering, which is equivalent to software scanning graphics and analyzing them into pixels one by one. This pixel is equivalent to the pixel of the camera."

"Disassemble the pictures captured by the camera into pixels."

Chen Kaige said something.

"It can be understood in this way." Zeng Zhengzong nodded, clicked a parameter with the mouse, and said: "After filtering, add materials."

"Materials include stone, glass, fabric, metal, wood, wallpaper, paint, plastic, leather, hair, and more."

"Like this building, we can add stone on the outside and steel structure metal on the inside. The modeling and special effects are just to make the scene three-dimensional, and the rendering can make the scene solid."

"The third step is environment rendering, adding light and shadow, such as sunlight, sunset light, moonlight, etc."

Everyone nodded and looked at the preliminary light and shadow added under Zeng Zhengzong's operation.

"This light and shadow is too illusory, floating on the surface." Chu Xuan said.

"That's why manual optimization is needed." Zeng Zhengzong said: "According to the requirements of the customer's special effects production level, it is divided into non-optimization, general optimization and fine optimization, corresponding to non-optimization, local optimization and pixel optimization."

"Pixel optimization?" Concubine Liu Yi raised her eyebrows, slightly puzzled.

Zeng Zhengzong turned his head and said: "It is the optimization of pixel by pixel, optimizing the details of light and shadow to be exactly the same as the real light and shadow as much as possible."

"Fuck." Tang Jili couldn't help but swear.

"How many pixels is this building and seawater?" he asked.

Zeng Zhengzong looked at the data and said, "1425 pixels."

"Pixel by pixel optimization, how much time does it take? This is still a scene, there is no other way?" Tang Ji was speechless.

Zeng Zhengzong shook his head and said: "The software is just a simulation, and refinement requires manual work. Even if we let Hollywood's world-class special effects personnel do it, the time cannot be accelerated."

Everyone nodded slowly, and they were also deeply moved. If you don't understand special effects, let's just understand that it is not easy to make special effects.

"For future special effects movies, whoever claims that post-production can be completed in a few months, they will definitely be bad movies." Chen Kaige said.

The corners of everyone's mouths raised slightly, amused by Chen Kaige's words.

"Mr. Zeng, don't be so absolute. There must be a way to shorten the production of special effects." Chu Xuan said.

Zeng Zhengzong was stunned for a moment, and said with a smile: "There is a rendering farm in Hollywood, and tens of thousands of computers are dedicated to rendering special effects to save time. Technicians, and they are all veterans, the production of special effects is absolutely efficient."

"Cough." Chu Xuan said, "I'll talk about it later."

Seeing that Chu Xuan was a little embarrassed, everyone laughed a little.

"The shooting of special effects shots is inseparable from the post-production of special effects. Can Mr. Zeng talk about this?" Chen Kaige asked.

Zeng Zhengzong nodded, smoothed his thoughts and said: "Shooting on the green cloth in the studio requires post-production special effects processing. If I were a special effects director, then I would immediately imagine the special effects screen based on the space of the green cloth.

"Then, based on the imagined special effects images, remind the actors where to stand in front of the green cloth and how to move."

"Finally, I will suggest to the director which shot should be zoomed in, pushed out, down, up."

"In the end, let the captured picture conform to the parameter simulation of the renderer, so that post-production special effects production will save a lot of time, because the director's shots are shot according to the special effects shots, and if the light and shadow effects are very good, then there is no need to adjust."

Everyone looked at each other with a little understanding.

Chen Kaige stretched out his finger and pointed, as if pointing the country: "So, whether the special effects picture is good or not depends on the director's shooting skills and lighting technology."

"That's for sure. After all, the special effects serve the picture, and the shot is the core." Zeng Zhengzong said without a doubt.

"Special effects are just embellishments, and the core still depends on the ability and artistic thinking of the producer and director." Han Sanping agreed.

Everyone bowed their heads slightly. For any film and television drama, the producer first provides ideas, and then the director shoots it. Even the post-production special effects still need the director to give the picture and camera guidance.

What producers and directors need to think about is if the special effects can be perfectly integrated with the captured images. If the captured images are not good, no matter how good the special effects are, it is useless because they cannot be integrated together.

Therefore, to make a special effects blockbuster, the producer, director, and special effects director are three in one, and the artistic thinking needs to be unified.

After coming this trip, Chu Xuan and Concubine Liu Yi also broadened their thinking and benefited a lot.

"For the 4-minute CG screen before and after the micro-movie "Hope", if you count the top-notch special effects that you can achieve, what is the budget?" Wang Jinhua asked suddenly.

Chu Xuan and Concubine Liu Yi were taken aback, they didn't expect Wang Jinhua to ask such a question, but this question was what they wanted to know, so they turned to Zeng Zhengzong.

Zeng Zhengzong was taken aback for a moment, without looking back, the big boss spoke, he clicked on the calculator with the mouse, and calculated the budget based on his experience.

"On average."

"4 minutes and 240 seconds, the benchmark for movie special effects is 1 frames per second, and the CG picture does not need to be shot with green cloth, so 24 original paintings are required for special effects per second."

"According to the highest standard, the average movie-level original painting is 500 yuan, and 4 original paintings in 5760 minutes is 288 million."

"According to the average rendering time of one frame of movie special effects is 150 hours, the company's 300 computers take half an hour to render one frame of special effects, 1 second of special effects rendering takes 12 hours, and 240 seconds of special effects takes 120 days of rendering, which is 4 months."

"There are 80 technicians, with an average monthly salary of 1 yuan. The salary for 4 months is 320 million yuan, and the performance increase is 20%, which is about 380 million yuan."

"One computer for special effects is 3, and 6 computers are 300 million, which can withstand full-load operation for one year. The special effects of "Hope" were produced in 1080 months, and the computer cost was 4 million."

"A computer with a power of 300 watts consumes 0.3 kilowatt-hours of electricity for an hour, 300 computers consume 90 kilowatt-hours of electricity for an hour, and 4 kilowatt-hours of electricity in four months. According to the enterprise-level power consumption system in Beijing, 26 For 1 yuan, 1.7 kilowatt-hours of electricity is about 26."

"So, the 4-minute CG screen of the "Hope" micro-movie took 4 months. According to the highest standard, the budget is roughly around 1072 million. This is only the cost, not including any additional profit charges."

Everyone was stunned, 4 minutes of special effects are so expensive?It's just the cost.

"How much is it based on outsourcing projects?" Wang Jinhua asked.

"More than 1500 million." Zeng Zhengzong said.

Hearing this, Zhang Jizhong shook his head, gave Chu Xuan and Concubine Liu a thumbs up, and said, "The special effects alone cost 1500 million. Your microfilm is a bit awesome, grand!"

Chu Xuan and Concubine Liu Yi glanced at each other. They didn't expect the special effects of the movie to be so expensive. Adding a few million would almost catch up with the 65 episodes of "Zhu Xian".

Wang Jinhua said with a smile: "Although the special effects company is about to be merged into the bright era, the division of labor and finance of each subsidiary are different. It is calculated according to the outsourcing price, and I will pay for it."

Chu Xuan and Concubine Liu Yi were startled, and turned their heads to look at Wang Jinhua.

Wang Jinhua said to the two of them, "It's a graduation gift for you."

Everyone was stunned, including the staff nearby.

A gift of 1500 million?

This is the atmosphere!

How awesome!
The nearby staff were amazed.

(End of this chapter)