Huayu: From charlatan to great entertainer

Chapter 196 The Desperate Third Sister Appears
A 2001 survey report by AFI, an authoritative Hollywood film organization, showed that North American audiences aged 18-40 had the highest level of sensory stimulation for car chase scenes, even surpassing those big names in the $2000 million club.

So we have the scene in "Jurassic World 3" where the hero is chased by a dinosaur while riding a motorcycle;

In "Batman," the hero drives a chariot to chase the villain;

In the final part of Need for Speed, the Saleen S7 races on the road alongside cars like the Koenigsegg Agera R, Lamborghini Sesto Elemento, and Bugatti Veyron Super Sport;
In "The Fate of the Furious", the legendary Ferrari Enzo and the legendary Porsche Carrera GT rolled into the abyss of the valley together, and "the cars were destroyed and the people died".

Not to mention series like "The Fast and the Furious" and "The Transporter," which directly made this subject into a movie rather than a simple clip.

But it is indeed so effective and so popular.

In Hollywood's racing movies, French supercars are Bugatti, German supercars are Porsche, and Italian supercars are Ferrari and Lamborghini.

The model that represents the United States must be the Saleen S7, a top-of-the-line supercar that was born in 2000.

According to Boss Lu's design, this car chase scene lasts 10 minutes.

The very vulgar purpose is to show the audience unparalleled special effects at the beginning and set the shocking tone of the whole movie.

It is also used as a publicity gimmick to attract moviegoers, mainly young audiences.

The first five minutes of the drama took an entire afternoon to shoot.

Since the car chase scenes involve fire and explosions, an extremely harsh working environment is required.

This part of the scene can only officially begin after the special effects team, explosion and car stunt team arrive.

The first day of filming ended quickly, but the road was not wide enough to pass through, and Tom Cruise also arrived at the crew.

They had to wait for the insurance company and the completion guarantee company to work out a shooting plan for the next few days and to check and discuss today's finished films.

In a capitalist country, the rich are the boss. Now, in a meeting, Boss Lu is no longer the most powerful person. The insurance company is the most powerful.

If they say it’s okay, then it’s fine. If any shot doesn’t meet the requirements or has political risks in terms of release, then it has to be cut and reshot.

According to this shooting schedule, Tom Cruise will be able to organize a film screening to find distributors in North America and other regions in about a week, so the more exciting car racing scenes were shot first.

The cramped crew meeting room was full of people. The insurance company was checking the crew's accounts for today and signing and confirming the expenditure receipts, which was also to prevent uncontrolled overspending.

Generally, if a high-profile director modifies the budget, the insurance company will agree as long as it is used for actual film shooting needs and is not excessive.

This system is actually very suitable for introducing co-productions between the mainland and Hong Kong, just like the "Wuxia" in which the investor jumped off the building. How could a straw hat cost thousands of dollars appear in the crew under Chen Kexin's control?

It's really a scam that kills people without any compensation.

After reviewing all the materials, Ryan, the project manager of the insurance company, remained noncommittal and began discussing the arrangements for the car chase and explosion scenes.

"Lu, we suggest that this scene be filmed as soon as possible!"

This is because the insurance company wants to reduce possible risks and shoot the most difficult, dangerous and accident-prone scenes first.

I have no objection to the width of the road.

He had originally planned to include a car chase scene in the 15-minute pre-sale film to attract distributors and facilitate negotiations on price increases and distribution costs.

On October 10, the preliminary preparations for the most important special effects car chase explosion scene in the first twenty minutes of the movie were completed and filming officially began.

The filming location for this scene was a temporarily closed road in the suburbs of Vancouver, and the film paid $12 to the local government for site rental and maintenance fees.

Don't ask why it's so expensive. The fat white lady government official at the city hall will tell you:

Traffic control costs money, the government sends security and police teams to clear the area, patrols the area, garbage removal for surrounding residents, and noise disturbance fees all cost money...

There are also a lot of various reasons that give Boss Lu a headache.

Fortunately, capitalist countries have money to talk, and as long as you are willing to pay, the US military can fly out the F22 as a prop for you.

But not all crews have as ample budgets as "Alien Land", so deserts, abandoned stations, dilapidated ports and other places are often rented.

Of course, there are also some rich guys who are inhumane, such as the Wachowski brothers in "The Matrix 2" who built a highway less than 2 miles long in order to shoot a fight scene...

Lu Kuan is currently communicating with the special effects team, fireworks team, and car stunt team about the plan.

"Everyone, please take a look at my storyboard. The overall flow is that Zhang Ziyi drives the left rear end of her car towards the robber, and Leonardo brakes from the opposite lane to ram them. Then the robber does a beautiful drift to avoid both cars, and Leonardo's car flips over."

"Zhang Ziyi's car then continued in pursuit. She drove parallel to the robbers' car and broke into it through the window. After a struggle, she overpowered the robbers, but her car also rolled forward and crashed."

This is the special effects part. At the end of this scene, Zhang Ziyi will have a thrilling escape in the car, avoiding the fate of dying together with the robbers.

Such scenes are usually arranged at the climax of the film.

However, the eye-exploding scene is shown in the first ten minutes of "Alien Land", and just as an appetizer, it is enough to show Lu Kuan's ambition in the special effects scenes of the entire movie.

"Kevin, our people will follow your team to observe and assist. This is written in the contract. Is that okay?"

Kevin, the leader of Williams' team, nodded with a grin, "Of course, my boss, you paid a handsome fee."

They were the main pyrotechnic effects team for Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan.

The reason why they were hired by Boss Lu to be responsible for most of the fireworks special effects scenes in "Alien Land" was not only because of their commendable business capabilities, but also because they were not selfish and were willing to carry out some technical poverty alleviation work that was not considered a commercial secret.

This is completely different from the Korean team in "Assembly".

At that time, the fireworks team of the Bayi Film Studio and the Korean team worked together to be responsible for the special effects. Whenever they needed to mix gunpowder and set up explosion plans, the team of the Bayi Film Studio would be "asked out".

Pyrotechnicians are an important profession in special effects technology and play a vital role in many blockbuster scenes such as car chases and war scenes.

He was willing to pay Williams' team extra salary in order to cultivate and improve Butian Film's pyrotechnic special effects technology reserves.

Today, Yuan Heping's team was also present and was discussing the scene with Zhang Ziyi, Leonardo DiCaprio and Liu Yifei.

In addition to the special effects scenes, the actions of Zhang Ziyi and Leonardo DiCaprio in this process are also a wonderful part.

In particular, Zhang Ziyi's final thrilling escape is the climax of the first ten minutes of the movie, which can quickly bring the audience into the rhythm of the blockbuster.

Lu Kuan and the special effects director are finalizing the final plan:

"First, from the left rear of the car, shoot the robber's Saleen from the perspective of Zhang Ziyi's car. About 30 seconds in, the camera angle changes to the oncoming Leonardo."

"Give me a rapidly approaching collision angle, like a ghost poking its head out on the road, and then Leonardo flips sideways. Here I want a side flip and a forward roll. Can you do that?"

The special effects director had been impressed by his imagination at the previous discussion meeting. After thinking about it carefully, he made an OK gesture.

"After the forward roll, we shot the car from the side, and then shot Zhang Ziyi's car coming from the opposite direction. The three angles of the Leonardo car gave the audience the strongest visual impact!"

Having money means you can do whatever you want. This time, in addition to the advertiser's model car, the crew also prepared three spare cars.

If a shot fails, keep shooting, don’t be afraid of waste, what you want is the ultimate effect.

Kevin from the Williams team was ready. Their main job was to install gunpowder under the car and press the button when the vehicle reached the preset position.

The real technical barriers in this industry:
One is the gunpowder mixing technology. Different movies and scenes require different colors, flame shapes, flame heights, etc. These details are very challenging to the mixing technology.

The second is experience, being able to detonate at the most appropriate time according to the requirements of the director and crew, otherwise every second will be a flaw sooner or later.

Lu Kuan stood on the set with his arms folded, pre-setting every scene of the scene in his mind and filling in the gaps. Suddenly, Emil came over with a Chinese face.

"Lu, Lin is here."

Boss Lu turned around and extended his hand with a smile: "Welcome, Justin Lin!"

Justin Lin, whose ancestral home is in Taiwan, China, is a Chinese American and a famous Hollywood director. He later directed 3-6 of the "Fast and Furious" series and is an excellent Hollywood commercial film director.

His film last year, "Better Luck Tomorrow," was nominated for the Sundance Grand Jury Prize. At that time, Lu Kuan participated in the non-competitive unit to cooperate with Harvey's North American release of "The Drummer."

At the film festival, Justin Lin was amazed after watching Boss Lu's Golden Lion Award-winning film.

Later, when the news of the "Alien Land" project spread throughout Hollywood, he volunteered to join the crew as an assistant director and took up his post today.

Justin Lin sighed as he looked at his compatriot who was 10 years younger than him, but since everyone knows things at different times, he came here with the humble purpose of learning.

"Director Lu, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity. I will definitely contribute my bit to the crew." From the tone of this, it can be heard that Chinese people speak. White people will only be like Kevin from Williams' team just now. Boss, I will do my best as long as you pay me!

Lu Kuan wants to develop him into another flagship director in the film industry (the United States).

After all, Emil's ability is there, and he is qualified to make some low-budget films, but he is not yet capable of making big-budget commercial films like "Fast and Furious".

The two exchanged pleasantries for a while, and then Boss Lu found Liu Yifei, which was the part that worried him the most today.

"Have you mastered all the moves?"

Concubine Liu Yi was obviously more nervous than before, and her expression was a little unnatural: "Yeah! I've been practicing for two days, so it should be fine."

The young director stopped teasing her as usual: "Remember, safety first. We asked you to come here to learn, not to be a stunt double. Director Yuan's team has plenty of female stunt doubles."

"Yeah! I know. I want to give it a try. I've been practicing Grotowski's body training for so long, and I feel like my muscle control is up to the task."

Boss Lu nodded: "Okay, if you have any questions, let me know immediately and I will stop immediately."

The little girl gave him a knowing smile: "I see."

Everything is ready.

After all, it is a special effects scene full of dangers. In order to achieve the best visual presentation, Lu Kuan arranged a top-level special effects plan.

Benefits and risks coexist. In this era when special effects technology is not yet highly mature, such a plan also involves risks.

However, the risks are borne by the low-level stage staff and stand-ins, and insurance companies will not let superstars who bear huge premiums take risks.

Boss Lu silently chanted "May you be blessed with infinite blessings" in his heart, praying that everything would go well, and then calmly shouted "Start".

Zhang Ziyi and the robbers' car first appeared in the camera, and then Leonardo's car drove towards them.

When driving to the preset position, there will be a green slope on the ground. The car stuntman will drive through here to cause a rollover, and then the green slope will be removed later. This is the most common way to shoot rollover scenes in this era.

At the same time, the gunpowder device on the chassis of the car also exploded quickly. It was the type that had a lot of noise but little action. Although the fireworks looked high, it was actually not very dangerous.

The Leonardo car rolled rapidly on the ground, and a scarlet flame at the rear quickly rose with a teeth-grinding crackling sound, and then it soared into the air, fell, and stopped with thick smoke.

"Crack!"

The director called for a stop, and the on-site staff quickly took the fire extinguisher to clean up the road in preparation for the next shoot.

This scene was a little bit below expectations, and Lu Kuan called out to several team leaders.

"From the DIT's workstation, I can see that the front-view footage from the recent rollover has flaws. The main problem is that the entry time was too short."

"Here I want a slow-motion special effect that moves from far to near. If I don't enter the scene, half of the front of the car will just hit the audience directly in the face. It's too hasty and abrupt, and it doesn't make the audience feel the tension of being in danger!"

Those present were the top teams in Hollywood and the world in various fields. After a brief discussion for ten minutes, they all took orders and went home to prepare for the next shoot.

There are plenty of backups for overturned and damaged vehicles, and the road is wide enough so there is no need to worry about wasting them. I will keep taking pictures until I am satisfied.

Justin Lin was secretly shocked watching from the side. If Lu Kuan was not satisfied, hundreds of thousands of dollars would be turned into dust. It was so fucking exciting.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to shoot a car chase scene like this, it’s really exciting!
Boss Lu keenly caught his expression.

"Doesn't it look good?"

"Hmm! It was so exciting to film. I can't imagine how amazing it will be when it's actually produced through post-production special effects and the footage is processed and presented to the audience!"

"When making movies in Hollywood, you get what you pay for. As long as you find the right team and are willing to spend the money, $100 million will produce the same results as $100 million, and $1000 million will produce the same results as $1000 million."

“Money doesn’t lie!”

Justin Lin laughed when he heard this, thinking that Director Lu didn't look like a director who had made two art-style films that were selected at the European Film Festival.

With the experience gained from the previous shoot, the second shoot went exceptionally smoothly.

"Click! Passed!"

There was a small cheer on the set. The first step was considered a success. The next step was the fight scene with real actors in the car.

The car chase scenes and action scenes were shot separately, and the first stage ended with Leonardo's car rolling and exploding.

The next stage is more difficult and tests the actors' action skills.

For example, when the two cars were parallel, Zhang Ziyi had to break the window from the driver's seat of the right car to get into the left car. After a fight inside the car, she narrowly escaped as the vehicle lost control and exploded.

Of course, it is impossible for the actors to actually perform the movements while galloping, so this part was also done in front of the green screen for post-editing.

Only the final scene of the thrilling escape from the explosion of the robbers' car required the actors to walk through fireworks and black smoke.

This is also the part where Lu Kuan is most worried about Concubine Liu Yi, but the little girl insists on trying it herself.

Zhang Ziyi personally performed the part where the window of the parallel car was broken, because most of the shots were of her side and front face, and using a stand-in might not necessarily produce good results.

"Get ready, start!"

Zhang Ziyi opened her beautiful eyes wide, and skillfully drove the car until it was parallel to the other car. She suddenly turned the front wheel to the left, and sparks flew from both cars.

She seized the moment when the two cars were parallel to each other and jumped through the window, then started fighting with the robber in the car.

"Click! Passed!"

"Ziyi, you fought beautifully."

Zhang Ziyi also breathed a sigh of relief: "Thank you, Director."

This scene was completed neatly and smoothly, obviously due to the good foundation she had laid in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Hero".

Lu Kuan picked up the intercom again: "Next section, Xiao Liu, get ready."

Liu Xiaoli had just given her daughter countless warnings, mainly because the scene was too spectacular and she could even feel the heat of the flames in the waiting area.

During the actual filming, Liu Yifei would not be so close to the fire. As long as she did not go crazy and rush towards the fire, generally speaking, she would be fine.

But... what if?
What if the car door suddenly can’t be opened?
What if the fireworks get blown into her hair by the wind?

Although the probability is small, it is not impossible for something to happen.

"Repeat, Xiao Liu, safety first."

Concubine Liu Yi heard his hint, but was too nervous to speak.

She kept repeating the action sequence in her mind, trying to get it right in one go.

The scene starts from where Zhang Ziyi just ended, filming the fight between Liu Yifei and the gangster from behind.

As for the stand-ins, the two don't look alike enough from the side, and the side and back are just passable.

She learned simple eighth-level boxing moves from Yuan Heping, who then mixed in some moves from Ah Fei, a man who came out of the underground boxing market.

A set of kung fu routines that are very suitable for female performances were refined and summarized to fit the character of the heroine who is proficient in ancient Chinese martial arts.

Because this is the Chinese element in the movie that is most familiar to North American audiences, this part will also be used as a hype and publicity gimmick when promoting the movie.

This places high demands on action actors.

The fighting must be good-looking and give the audience the visual feeling of real punches hitting flesh. It cannot be like some older kung fu films that are mostly fancy moves.

This is also the requirement after communication between Boss Lu and Yuan Heping, and it is also a challenge for the latter.

Yuen Woo-ping is a leading figure in this field. Throughout his decades-long career, he has been constantly exploring the reform and transformation of kung fu films.

This cooperation with Lu Kuan is also an opportunity.

(End of this chapter)