Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1434 Movies no longer need to wait for the cloud to arrive
"Cut! Check the camera. OK, it's passed."

Sure enough, the Hong Kong martial artists Ronald invited pulled the wire very well and steadily. Tom Hanks only needed to focus on the performance, and they would naturally match his pace and remove most of Mykelti Williamson's weight. Otherwise, no one would be able to carry a strong man like him and run unless Schwarzenegger played Forrest Gump.

After the filming was completed, the special effects team rushed to the scene and marked various places. These places were the various positions where the actors ran, and they took a lot of photos to locate them during the later computer processing.

"I want a feeling of people being blown away. This is the detonation point. These two soldiers will be blown away directly backwards. Their upper bodies will fly up quickly, but their lower limbs will not have time to move. The whole person will be pulled backwards and fall over..."

Ronald stood at a location and made a request to the Hong Kong martial artists. He asked them to use the ropes tied to the actors to suddenly pull back to create the effect of being blown away. All the requirements were very detailed.

"That's it? Don't you want to put an explosion point here?" The Hong Kong martial artists looked at each other, a little puzzled by Director Ronald's request. How can the audience accept the blow of the soldier flying without an explosion?

"No, we'll shoot the explosion separately..." Ronald pointed to the other side of the golf course, where a team responsible for fireworks were making preparations.

The two martial artists felt that their IQ was running out. How could Hollywood be like a magic trick? Could the explosion and the flying stunts be shot separately?
"Is that all necessary?"

"They were able to create the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park, so what new technology is this?"

The two men stopped talking and began to wrap a rope around the chests and backs of two actors wearing army uniforms, lying in trenches holding automatic rifles.

"Action!"

The two actors were lying there shooting, and suddenly, they were pulled by the rope and flew out. The whole person's reaction was very sudden, because they themselves didn't know when they would be pulled out.

The level of Hong Kong martial arts is amazing. The way and position of their rope tying are very particular, so it doesn't look strange when they pull it. The strength and speed of their pulling are also very dependent on experience. The force of the two ropes just passes through the center of gravity of the actors, so the two actors really seem to be blown away by a bomb.

"How's the preparation going here?"

“Everything is ready”

"Then let's get started. Prepare to clear the area. Countdown 30 seconds..."

"Action!"

After shooting the explosion, Ronald went to the explosion special effects site on the other side. The staff here prepared a small explosion. The explosion point was not violent, but the effect was amazing.

After a bomb site was blown up, many of the red light bombs prepared inside exploded along the designed trajectory. After the bang, they were all captured by the camera.

"What do you think?" Ronald asked special effects supervisor Van Vliet, who was filming with a home video camera.

"No problem, as long as the height and circumference of the flames reach the explosion scene of aerial bombs during the Vietnam War, it will be fine. For the rest, we can use the special effects software Inferno to match this explosion effect."

"Okay, let's do it again."

This was also Ronald's first time shooting a movie with so many complex special effects, so he had to work closely with the special effects team during the shooting. The explosion point on the scene, the flying posture of the people being blown away, and the time sequence of the detonation had to be shot perfectly according to their design.

Otherwise, it will cause a lot of trouble in post-production. The cost increase is secondary, the most important thing is to waste a lot of time and increase the uncertainty of the film's release.

The large-scale use of computer post-production special effects is still a new thing in Hollywood. This explosion scene took a whole day to shoot. Later, the special effects team will combine the actor's movements, the explosion at the explosion point, and the explosion flame generated by the computer, and then produce the sound of the explosion, and finally generate a synthetic explosion on the screen that is almost flawless and looks like a real explosion.

If we use traditional methods to shoot, such as dropping napalm bombs on the tropical jungle like Coppola did at the beginning of Apocalypse Now, it will take more time to prepare, and many details cannot be precisely controlled.

Moreover, explosions often have unexpected consequences. The direction of some explosions and the shape of the mushroom cloud after the explosion may not be what you think. The explosions produced by computer post-production can be expressed completely according to the artistic thinking of the director.

For example, the week before, Ronald filmed little Forrest Gump and little Jenny praying in a cornfield. When they were hiding from little Jenny's father in a cornfield that was taller than them, the camera would zoom out and rise on a crane to capture a wide panorama of the entire countryside.

When the camera was raised, some staff members released birds to the left of the two young actors. A large flock of birds took off from the ground and flew to the left of the actors, filling the empty sky on that side.

This was originally a designed shot, and the direction of the bird's flight had to be arranged in advance to match the aesthetic of the entire shot. But after three attempts, the bird did not fly in the predetermined direction.

Ronald also discovered that no matter how good a bird trainer is, it is impossible to make a large flock of birds fly in the direction he sets.

So he immediately decided to change this shot into special effects. After shooting the scene where little Forrest Gump and little Jenny were praying together, Jenny wanted God to turn her into a bird and fly away from this outrageous family.

The special effects team superimposed a group of birds on the original film, and then asked them to fly away in groups according to their own design, along the direction she was facing when praying. With little Jenny's pious posture, it seemed as if she was flying away with her.

This is something that is very difficult to achieve in the original Hollywood live-action method. With the complicated camera scheduling, it can only happen by chance if God blesses you.

Perhaps the most famous example in the movie is when Bogdanovich was filming "The Last Picture Show". The male protagonist and the male supporting actor were talking by the river. After they finished their heart-to-heart talk, a cloud dispersed, the clouds and fog dissipated, and a ray of sunlight shone directly on the actors' faces, illuminating everything.

It is said that Akira Kurosawa of Japan would often wait for a whole day for a cloud to be in the required position. This is also the main reason why Toei did not want to invest in Akira Kurosawa in the later period, as it was too expensive to shoot like this.

However, if you shoot similar shots now, you don’t need to wait for the clouds to arrive.

"Are the tracers ready?"

"Okay, but I guess the muzzle velocity of the M16 rifle and M60 machine gun used in the Vietnam War is such that no trace of tracer bullets can be seen on the film."

The head of the gun crew came over to explain to Ronald. The explosion had been filmed for a few days, and today was finally the time to film the most important scene of the Vietnam War, the scene where Forrest Gump and Bubba's company was attacked.

Ronald's idea was to highly condense Forrest Gump's experience in the Vietnam War in his memory, leaving only two parts: the rain and the clear sky after the rain. When the clouds and fog dissipated and the sun shone down, he would directly switch from the marching state to the fighting state.

This is also a common part of the memories of many Vietnam War veterans. Many times you can't see where the enemy is, and suddenly you are involved in a close-range firefight.

Ronald also wanted to scare the audience at this time, so that they would be shocked by the cruelty and horror of the Vietnam War like Forrest Gump. In this way, Jenny's words to Forrest Gump before he went to Vietnam, that he should remember to run fast when he encountered dangers he could not handle, had a realistic basis.

Of course, with the help of Van Vleet's computer post-production special effects, in the second half of 1993, Ronald did not have to wait for the weather to be favorable like Bogdanovic or Kurosawa.

At the beginning, when it was dark, it was pouring rain. This problem could be solved by lowering the brightness of the entire image and the saturation of the colors in post-production. When it stopped raining, the image brightness returned to normal under the sun, perfectly presenting the scene of the attack in Forrest Gump's memory.

"Let's give it a try. If the tracer bullet can't capture it, we can still use post-production special effects. But we need to understand what kind of trajectory the tracer bullet will leave when it flies through the sky..."

Ronald shook his head. In the filming of tracer bullets, that is, the previous alliance, some directors tried it when they could rent the army to help with the filming, but that was a long shot, unlike Ronald's long medium and close shots.

Whether or not the trajectory of a tracer bullet can be seen can only be tested by conducting an experiment.

"Let's take one shot! All departments in place!"

Ronald shouted, this is a very complicated dispatch.

"Squirt!"

Two large fire hoses began spraying the scene, and soon it was like heavy rain on the golf course.

"Attention all departments...Action!"

The camera was pointed at the road in the wasteland, with green palm leaves on both sides. Amid the sound of rushing water, a palm leaf on the right shook, and Forrest Gump and his platoon slowly walked out from it.

Ronald turned his head and looked at the director of photography. Under his command, a group of good guys were working hard to push the camera.

Forrest Gump is in the foreground of the picture, and all the actors are spread out, with their guns pointed diagonally downwards, not pointing at each other to prevent accidental discharge.

When they reached the middle of the dirt road, Ronald waved again, and two workers were quickly operating the fire hydrant.

The water sprayed out gradually became less and less. Tom Hanks, like other actors, looked up at the sky, as if wondering how the rainy season, which lasted for half a year, could just pass like that?

"Whoosh whoosh..."

Suddenly, there was a burst of gunfire and tracer bullets began to be fired from a safe distance, but the shots fired were clearly audible on the spot.

"There's an ambush! Get down and take cover!"

The actor who played Lieutenant Dan began to shout, and Tom Hanks fell to the ground, then turned over and crawled under the roadbed, finding a place to hide for himself on the high and flat road surface.

The camera was next to him, filming this scene, and the sense of presence was very strong.

Just as Forrest Gump was crawling over, a stuntman suddenly straightened his upper body as if he had been hit.

Puff, puff…

Several explosive points buried on the dirt road in case of distress also exploded at the pre-determined time, splashing some soil, as if it was the effect of the enemy's bullets hitting the ground.

"Give me the damn phone!"

During the on-site dispatch, Ronald arranged for Lieutenant Dan to command the soldiers in the platoon to respond at the dirt road where Forrest Gump last hid.

However, except for this military family whose ancestors had sacrificed their lives for America, the other young men who were recruited were all scared and didn't know what to do. They had to raise their hands above their heads, stretch them out, and shoot indiscriminately at the opposite side without aiming until they had used up all the bullets in their guns.

"Gump, Gump, are you okay?"

It was a very chaotic scene, everyone was acting on instinct, only Bob was thinking about his best friend Forrest Gump, he was calling his name while shooting.

"Cut!"

Ronald stopped the filming. This segment of footage was smooth, with both on-site scheduling and camera scheduling being very skillful. It can be said to be the crystallization of Ronald's many years of experience as a director.

There is actually nothing fancy about this scene.

All he did was to calmly draw the audience's attention, so that while they were startled by the sudden exchange of fire, they also saw Forrest Gump dodging bullets instinctively in a very tense moment.

This series of arrangements are from perspectives that are impossible for ordinary human eyes to see, thus making the audience concentrate and follow the camera without blinking, focusing on the center of the picture - Forrest Gump.

Unconsciously, the audience will start to worry about Forrest Gump, hoping that he can turn the danger into safety and escape this disaster.

This is the ability of a skilled director. He doesn't steal the show, doesn't show off his skills, but focuses on the audience's attention and perception, making you anxious and worried, but not distracting from the center of the story, and shouting for the director - this shot is amazing!
If that really happens, the audience will be distracted from the plot, which will destroy the immersive feeling of watching the movie.

"Very good shot..." Director of Photography Tang was also very satisfied and signaled to Ronald that this was OK.

"Okay, take a five-minute break and move on to the next one."

Everyone stood up and just drank some water without leaving the muddy ground.

Ronald wanted them to maintain that adrenaline rush so that they could feel the action when shooting close-ups.

"Action!"

Filming resumed immediately. Lieutenant Dan got the phone and called the headquarters, "Strong Hand, Strong Hand, we are Lima Six... Under attack, listen, we are under attack in the Blue Point Forest. Repeat, the Blue Point Forest is under attack... The enemy has rockets and AK-47s, and we have suffered heavy losses..."

Gary Sinise, who plays Lieutenant Dan, still speaks in the tone of a professional soldier. Under the fierce firepower of the enemy, he remained calm and after reporting the situation, he directed everyone to retreat.

"Throw that thing away, let's retreat... The enemy's firepower is strong, we are suppressed, let's retreat, retreat..."

"Run, Forrest, run!" Bubba is Forrest's best friend in the army. Like Jenny, he sees Forrest standing still and not knowing what to do due to his lack of intelligence, so he starts shouting at Forrest.

Mykelti Williamson, who played Bob, had his face covered with blown-up dirt. He shouted desperately, not caring about opening his mouth as all kinds of dirt got into his big mouth.

The audience can tell at first glance that this is a good comrade who is loyal to his friends. The anxiety on his face and the stress response in the emergency environment on the battlefield were all portrayed very realistically by him.

A camera was filming a close-up of him. Ronald watched from a distance and could only pray that these actors would not waste the immersive feeling of the first take. If they could capture it, it would definitely be the best performance.

Another camera was shooting a close-up of Tom Hanks. All kinds of dirt and grass roots were jumping around him, and Hanks looked puzzled. This scene was beyond Forrest Gump's comprehension.

Forrest Gump was not afraid, he just didn't know what was going on, and he didn't know whether he should stay where he was or run with Bub because Lieutenant Dan didn't give him any orders.

"Retreat, Forrest!" Lieutenant Dan shouted at him, but amid the sound of gunfire and the excessive secretion of adrenaline, Forrest might not have heard it.

Lieutenant Dan was anxious. He rushed over and grabbed Forrest Gump's collar badge. "Run, Forrest Gump, run the fuck away!"

Finally, Forrest Gump remembered Jenny's advice to him: if he encountered a problem he couldn't handle, he should run. He stood up and ran back at the speed of a college football all-star running back.

"Cut!"

The shooting went smoothly, and Ronald hardly needed any guidance or communication, and the actors automatically found the right way to perform.

Especially Tom Hanks, his grasp of Forrest Gump's various emotions in the war, the panic and fear brought about by human instinct, the ignorance of what happened, and the tendency to obey the orders of others that is deep in Forrest Gump's heart, were all performed just right at the right time.

"Fuck, this is an Oscar-winning performance."

The next day, when Ronald came to see the sample film early in the morning, he exclaimed.

Unfortunately, the tracer bullet was not captured because of its high speed. Ronald had to discuss with Van Vliet how to use computer special effects to simulate the trajectory of the tracer bullet crossing the screen.

"Aunt, I'm glad you're here with me to film the Vietnam War scenes, but we're going to shoot in DC in a few days."

After breakfast, Ronald came to find Aunt Karen and wanted her to go home first. The following is the scene where Forrest Gump went back to the battlefield several times and carried many comrades and the dying Bob out of the danger zone.

These were too similar to the experiences of his uncle who died in the Vietnam War and Ronald's father. Ronald himself felt that this was a bit too personal, so for the sake of his aunt's emotional stability, he came to persuade her to leave first.

"Ronnie, I'm leaving first. I'll wait for you to go to DC to film. Donna and Doug are also going to DC, so let them accompany you then..."

Yesterday’s scene was too real. It brought back memories that Aunt Karen had buried for so long that it was a bit too much for her to bear.

"Let's continue with yesterday's scene!"

When it was time to start shooting in the morning, Ronald stood in the mud again. The makeup team tried their best to restore the actors to their dirty looks of yesterday, and then smeared blood and bandages on some of them.

Although today's weather and yesterday's lighting conditions are different, Ronald doesn't have to wait until the same sunlight conditions as yesterday to shoot thanks to the guarantee of post-production special effects. Technology is beginning to make shooting easier.