Exploiting Hollywood 1980.

Chapter 1437: A New Method of Shooting Special Effects

"Oh, this shoot was really hard. I finished it two weeks beyond the scheduled shooting schedule. Yes... I know it's over budget, but my leading actors and I are in desperate need of rest, otherwise we can't continue shooting."

After completing the DC scenes, the filming of Forrest Gump got into trouble beyond anyone's expectations.

The filming scene was shot after Forrest Gump returned home and followed the agreement with his late comrade-in-arms, Bub, to go shrimping in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, his hometown. Because South Carolina has favorable conditions for filming, the scenes here were moved to Lucy Point Creek in South Carolina.

There is actually a fishing company here, and the owners, Bob and Hilda, were very generous in allowing the crew to borrow their fishing boat and dock for filming.

But no one had told Ronald about the pain of filming on a boat. When the boat was in real water, the waves were very strong and the camera couldn't be placed very steadily.

The entire crew was caught up in endless filming. Even if a shot was shot well, it would be scrapped because of the shaking. After Ronald had found a way to deal with the shaking, there was an even more troublesome storm scene.

The entire shoot was exhausting. Ronald himself could still hold on, but Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise, who played Lieutenant Dan, were exhausted to the limit both physically and mentally.

Finally, Ronald made the decision and resisted the pressure from Paramount's female CEO Shirley Lansing, allowing them to rest for three days, reunite with their families and wait for their mental exhaustion to recover.

Ronald himself also took a day off with his family, but he had a lot of things to do, so he went to Paramount's studio in Los Angeles to see the preparations made by the stunt team there.

Ken Ralston, because of his outstanding work at the Washington Monument, is now in charge of the on-site special effects shooting.

The special effects crew here had done a lot of preparation. Before Forrest Gump mistakenly entered the anti-war rally at the Washington Monument, he was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Johnson. This shot is a combination of computer special effects and real shots.

They first found a video of President Johnson in the past, in which he was laughing happily, and then used a computer to capture the smile for later use.

On the set, they restored all the backgrounds from the original footage, including furniture, other people's clothing, etc. They also found an actor who looked very similar to President Johnson, put on his clothes, and shook hands with Forrest Gump (Hanks didn't come back, so they found a colleague to play the role first) in front of the green screen.

After repeated tests, it was found that as long as the actors extended their hands accurately to the marked position when shaking hands, and then shook them there a few times, a satisfactory picture could be synthesized.

In addition to President Johnson, Forrest Gump also had scenes of shaking hands with several other presidents, including JFK and Richard. Because the latter two could be found shaking hands with people of similar stature to Forrest Gump, it was much easier to replace them with Forrest Gump than Johnson awarding him the medal.

After watching the test footage of the special effects team, Ronald expressed great satisfaction. Next, as long as Tom Hanks can complete these simple non-object performances, these finishing touches of the film and the shots that embed Forrest Gump into history will be able to play their designed role.

Ronald was full of confidence in the proven special effects team, so he relaxed himself and went to play with James Cameron's "True Lies" crew.

"Ah, Ronald. I'm about to start shooting a difficult scene here, you've come just in time..."

Cameron was just about to start filming, and it was a rare free time after several months of intense preparations. The two old friends, both directors, had a rare opportunity to exchange their experiences in making this kind of movie that uses a lot of special effects.

"This movie is like a bull with two heads, one is comedy and the other is action. These days, I have been preparing for how to allocate the weights of the two. The final conclusion is that I can only add a little of what is lacking. So, this is probably the movie with the most intensive special effects and the most action since I became a director."

It turns out that the movie "True Lies" has almost twice as many tough special effects shots as Cameron's previous film, Terminator 2. He made a list and wanted to put all the special effects shots he wanted to shoot but didn't shoot before into this movie.

This list made Ronald scratch his head, such as riding a horse into an elevator and going up to the top floor of a skyscraper to chase the bad guys, or pulling his wife out of the car's skybed on a helicopter that was about to fall off a bridge.

But the most difficult scene to shoot is undoubtedly the Harrier fighter jet hovering next to the skyscraper, shooting the terrorists in the building with machine guns to rescue his daughter. And riding a snowmobile on a snowy mountain road and fighting a large group of bad guys in helicopters, killing them one by one...

If the former only requires a high price and a lot of preparation, and is only difficult but not impossible, Ronald frowned when he saw the scene of the fight in the snowy mountains.

"What's wrong? Which scene do you think is problematic?" Cameron saw his old friend's expression and felt a little nervous, so he asked.

"It's this snow scene..."

"This? I thought you were going to say the Harrier. The connections you introduced me to are very strong. Those Marine Corps pilots are great and their work style is very tough. They never say it's difficult. As long as I ask for it, they can do it.

The snow scene was actually nothing special. I’m familiar with helicopters, and with Arnold’s (Schwarzenegger) skills, it’s no problem for him to handle a fight of this magnitude.”

"That's not what I'm worried about, Jim. I'm worried about the snow..."

"What's the problem with the snow?" Cameron didn't understand at all.

"Let me tell you about the problem with the boat scene I just shot..."

Ronald told Cameron about the difficulties he encountered while filming Forrest Gump Catching Shrimp.

Like Cameron's idea of ​​the snow scene, the shrimp boat scene looked very simple. However, the water, which seemed to be without any problems, brought him endless troubles.

At the beginning, the shaking of the boat caused by the water surface, the shaking of the camera, and the shaking of the actors were all out of sync, making the sample completely unusable.

There was a shot where Forrest Gump climbed up from under the boat and talked to Lieutenant Dan with a smile, and another shot where he jumped into the sea and swam back to the shore after hearing the news that his mother was sick. Climbing up and down caused the boat to shake more, so we had to do a lot of experiments. Finally, we used a tower crane to fix the camera and separate it from the boat to find a non-shaking shooting platform.

The subsequent storm scene was even more difficult. Ronald specially received a jet fighter engine from the US military base and used it as a blower on the scene to simulate the trouble that the hurricane would cause to Lieutenant Dan and Forrest Gump.

But the blowers made filming even more difficult. It was difficult for both actors to perform in such a harsh climate. When the jet engines were close, the actors' faces were deformed by the strong wind and they were unable to speak. When they were far away, the power of the wind and rain was not strong enough. The sample looked like ordinary wind and waves, without the sense of challenge of being on the brink of life and death.

Finally, after a week of trying, we found a solution. We dealt with the wind and rain separately. Jet engines created some strong winds in the distance to stir up the waves on the water surface. In the near distance, we used traditional large blowers to blow at the fire hydrants under the tower crane, creating the kind of heavy rain that blows sideways into your face.

Due to the difficulty of filming, the two actors suffered a lot. After finally finishing the filming, the last scene of the rain and the sun was shining, which was very simple compared to the previous scenes. After the filming was completed, many staff members drank too much at the party. Some people even shouted that if they had to shoot for one more day, they would go on strike.

"If I have learned anything from this, it is to be respectful of natural bodies of water when shooting outdoors. If you want to shoot scenes on a boat in the future, either build a model of a large boat to keep it stable, or use computer special effects for post-production synthesis. Shooting scenes on a boat in a natural body of water is really not a human thing."

"Yeah, yeah, what you said makes sense. I'm a little worried now, too. Will there be any problems on the mountain road? The snow is too thick, and the helicopter will blow up the snow..."

"Or maybe it's too cold. When I was shooting the hurricane scene, I had to take a break after every ten minutes, otherwise the crew and actors couldn't stand it. Once I was soaked in water, coupled with the strong wind, I lost temperature very quickly..."

"Damn, what you said makes sense. I have to think of alternatives. Any suggestions?" Cameron was a little nervous when he thought about the stunts of fighting in the snow, clinging to helicopters, wrestling, explosions, jumping from helicopters onto snowmobiles, and then driving away.

With such intensive action scenes, if the temperature is low and there are strong winds, not to mention Schwarzenegger, even if a real T-800 humanoid robot came, it might not be able to be completed.

"I tell you, I really don't know. At that time, I wanted to follow Roger Corman's advice and tear the shrimp fishing scene in the storm out of the script. It's over, don't shoot it..."

Ronald still feels a lingering fear when he thinks back to those days of hard filming.

"Hahaha, this is the only way if there is no other choice." Cameron remembered Roger Corman's typical action. If there was not enough time to shoot, the difficulty was too high, or the actors' performances were not up to standard, he would tear up the pages that exceeded the plan and budget and delete the scenes on the spot.

However, when I heard that Ronald was going to use blue screen shooting and computer special effects post-production synthesis to shoot Forrest Gump's many special effects scenes, I was also very interested and asked Ronald a lot about the content.

This practice of combining real-life shots of actors with historical archival images, or special effects models and computer-generated images, has become a new direction for Hollywood blockbusters since Jurassic Park.

Especially this giant dinosaur, which has been overwhelming in all the markets around the world. Ambitious commercial film directors in Hollywood are all focusing on the visual wonders that this special effect can create to study whether it can be combined with their own strengths to create unprecedented images.

……

After visiting Ronald's special effects studio, Cameron also found it novel and decided to work on the special effects for Forrest Gump after filming True Lies.

By the time work started the next day, Tom Hanks had largely recovered his spirits. He ran to Paramount's studio to listen to the special effects engineers introduce the shooting methods.

"So that's it? How do you want me to make a movie? How do I make this?"

Tom Hanks didn't expect that the movie Forrest Gump would require him to give such a strange performance. Since he entered the industry, he has never shot such weird special effects.

On the TV nearby, President Johnson was awarding a soldier a medal. This was a sergeant major named Sammy L. Davis. His family experience was more like Lieutenant Dan's than Forrest Gump's.

This man's grandfather served in the Spanish-American War, his father served in World War II, his brother served in the Korean War, and he himself participated in the Vietnam War. When the enemy was only 25 meters away from his artillery position, he still fired and fired at the enemy's mortars.

Later, he used an inflatable boat to rescue three injured American soldiers along the Mekong River (this part is similar to Forrest Gump), and was awarded the highest honor of the US military, the Congressional Medal of Honor (there were only four people in his group who were awarded the medal by Johnson).

He was chosen because he is about the same height as Tom Hanks. When the time comes, Sammy L. Davis's head in the handshake and award ceremony scenes can be replaced with Tom Hanks's.

Because of the coincidence in the heroic deeds of the two people, when the crew contacted Sammy L. Davis, he happily authorized them to use the footage.

"That's it, Tom. Take a look at this footage of their test." Ronald showed Tom Hanks the footage of the sergeant and the special effects engineer after their heads were swapped.

"Oh, that's really surprising. Can this effect be achieved just like that?" Tom Hanks was really surprised.

"Yes, the effect is very good. But the premise is that you have to completely follow the arrangements of the special effects team and shoot it the way they say."

"OK, since you don't mind, I'll listen to them." Tom Hanks glanced at Ronald.

According to Hollywood tradition, on the set, the director is the one who has the final say. The people below have to do what he says. How to shoot this shot, how to put the camera, how to act, everything is subject to the director's decision.

Some actors can give their own opinions on performance, and the director of photography may also express his own ideas. But once the director makes a decision, everyone has to follow it. No director will give up the final decision on the set.

For this kind of special effects shooting, it was the special effects team rather than the director who told the actors how to shoot, which made Tom and Hanks feel strange.

"That's not the case, Director!"

As soon as the first take was taken, the special effects team came over to discuss with Ronald. Tom Hanks stood aside, reached out his hand, shook hands with the stuntman opposite him, and then the two began to talk.

"I heard you were injured. Where was your injury?"

"In the ass."

"Oh, that must be very beautiful, I would like to take a look"

But the handshake and conversation scenes had to be done strictly according to the original footage. There couldn't be any mistakes.

It was the first time for Tom Hanks to shoot this kind of scene, and he had no experience, so he and the actor who played President Johnson kept getting the rhythm wrong.

"Let me think about it. Maybe we can play the footage from that year here synchronously so that the actors can see the actions on TV and match the rhythm." Ken Ralston, the head of special effects photography, whispered his idea to Ronald.

"Just do as you say...you take charge of the next one..." Ronald thought it was feasible.

When the people at the scene heard this, they all looked over and wondered what had happened to the director, why he gave away all his directorial power.

"Action!"

Ronald watched Ken Ralston finish his instructions and just said start. Sure enough, after his instructions, the shooting went much more smoothly.