Hollywood Road

Chapter 665 The Tension of Drama

After adjusting the camera and other departments of the crew were ready, Murphy immediately announced the start of shooting. Like the previous shooting, he continued to personally control an Imax camera, but this time it was no longer a panoramic shooting, but shooting Henry Cavill's close-up. ???

Just like the shooting of other films before, close-up shots are a common means used to shape characters.

This is a critical moment on the eve of the final showdown between Chris Dane and Magic Johnson, and Murphy will definitely give Henry Cavill enough close-ups.

Although not a professional photographer, Murphy has been a director for many years and has unique experience in photography, especially this kind of important close-up shots. Not to mention the ability of the cinematographer, the style alone takes a period of time to get used to. Therefore, apart from Fili Raschel controlling an Imax camera, if there is an extremely important scene, he will personally take the shot.

Imax cameras are more troublesome to operate than ordinary cameras, but Murphy knows very well that to be an excellent photographer, one needs to observe and understand light first, not the camera itself. There is nothing particularly difficult about using the camera. A standard operation is quite easy, but it is more difficult to do a non-standard operation.

Just like directors, most photographers have their own style and preferences. For example, some people like black and white, like to find things in black and white, and also like the change of color depth, and these things can be different every day. Others You may like other things, but the most important thing is to present your own way of imagery after in-depth experience.

This is also an important reason why Murphy himself went on stage to shoot.

A close-up is one of the basic shots in filming. A close-up is always a shot that shows details. Different close-ups also have specific meanings behind them and can play a unique role.

The shooting started soon. According to the shooting plan, Murphy took the lead in giving Henry Cavill a standard close-up. Since Henry Cavill was wearing a mask, the focus of the close-up shot was not his eyes, but his mouth.

Murphy manipulated the camera skillfully, allowing Henry Cavill's face to fill the lens, but he didn't put Henry Cavill in the middle of the frame, but composed the picture according to the golden rule of thirds.

After taking the desired picture, he moved the camera slightly, and then put Henry Cavill's face in the center of the picture. When this shot was shown on the movie screen, it happened that the actor Chris Dann was looking directly at the audience.

Through this lens, Murphy wanted to present a calm and calm male protagonist in a tense situation, which is also an excellent use of close-up shots.

Murphy continues to adjust the camera to let Henry Cavill look slightly out of the way, but the reflection on the black Kevlar helmet forms a one-point perspective composition with Chris Dane in focus, and he uses this close-up to make Cavill Rhys-Dane's search for the magician and the conversation with Sheriff Lynch become even more gripping.

Although he was shooting a close-up shot, Murphy did not remain the same, but used different shooting methods according to different time periods. He zoomed out the camera slightly, and the scope of the view was further expanded, from the top of Henry Cavill's shoulders to the top of his head. It's the widest close-up lens he'll ever use.

Then Murphy advances the camera again, and the picture becomes a standard close-up again.

In post-editing, these medium-range close-ups will serve as a transition bridge from wide-shot to standard close-up, which can make the tension in the scene suffocating.

Here Murphy draws on George Lucas's shooting technique in "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace". Although Star Wars fans are very disappointed with the prequel series, there is one consensus: Darth Moore is definitely a ruthless character. One of the best shots of the film is the close-up of Darth Maul with a bit of zoom-in motion in the final battle scene, just after Darth Maul's lightsaber duel with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon Jinn ends. Cut immediately to this shot, whose composition makes Darth Maul's dominance all the more compelling.

In addition, when Murphy made the filming plan here, he also watched Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining", in which Jack cuts a door and pokes his head through it, and the close-up captures his evil Peeping his expression, at this time he uttered one of the most famous lines in film history: "Johnny is here!".

The cut to the scene from this shot is perfect, because it sucks the audience into the film space and builds the horror in the throat.

Then, Murphy changed the camera again, and the shooting scene became a typical close-up. The close-up mainly switches between Henry Cavill's speaking mouth and firm eyes exposed outside the mask, but most of the time, the close-up The subject of the photo was still Henry Cavill's firm eyes.

In post-editing, such close-up shots are used in the camera cuts with Christoph Waltz, which can easily establish an echo between the characters and effectively enhance the tension of the drama.

In front of the camera lens, Henry Cavill ended the conversation with Christopher Waltz, turned around and walked outside. Murphy adjusted the camera lens in a timely manner, followed up in a close-up manner, and used the movement of the character to create a cut-away effect.

Murphy uses a very wide-angle lens to reduce the frame size of the standard close-up, but at the same time he combines the wide-angle and close-up to convey a richer visual information.

Really, it all comes down to being able to use the right visual language at the right point to help the narrative.

Henry Cavill walked out of the set, and Murphy also finished filming, stood up from behind the camera, and said, "Okay! This one is over!"

Then, he said to Henry Cavill and Christoph Waltz, "Henry, Chris, you are doing very well!"

As in the past, when Murphy was filming, he would encourage the actors much more than scold them.

Murphy looked at the time and said, "That's the end of today's shooting!"

He handed over the follow-up work to the assistant director Michelle Williams, and he himself, accompanied by press and public relations personnel from 20th Century Fox and Imax, walked into the temporary press hall at the outermost edge of the set.

According to the plan made last week, Murphy will accept a joint interview with the media in order to cooperate with the promotion and marketing of the film.

In addition to 'viral marketing', 20th Century Fox did not relax its conventional publicity methods. The film "Dark City" is still the Hollywood film that uses Imax the most. Imax is also using appropriate resources to promote this film. .

The topic of this joint interview mainly revolves around Imax technology.

"Director Stanton..."

At the beginning of the interview, probably at the behest of Imax, a reporter wearing gold-rimmed glasses couldn’t wait to ask, “You have used Imax cameras in your projects several times, do you like this technology very much?”

"I'm a big fan of shooting with Imax cameras,"

Facing the reporter's recording pen, Murphy recited the answers he had prepared before without hesitation, "Because it can enlarge and relax the picture, and maximize the scale and proportion. In the last "City of Chaos" and In other films, I have already experienced its extraordinary skills. Through continuous learning and research, our technology has become more and more mature, and the exposure index and other aspects can better serve the film. The continuous update of technology allows us to The quality of photography is constantly improving.”

Nowadays, a film is shot with a large number of Imax cameras, which is already one of the selling points, and these words are also for publicity.

"Murphy..." Another middle-aged reporter then asked, "Can Imax technology effectively improve the audience's viewing experience?"

"Yes! There is no doubt about it!"

After confirming this argument, Murphy explained in detail, "In terms of picture and sound quality, Imax technology provides an immersive movie-watching experience, because the format and definition of the picture are the same as those presented by human eyes. The expansive, immersive feeling, coupled with the high-fidelity surround sound, makes it hard to forget. We spent three months working with Sony Electronics and Imax to restructure the viewfinder on the camera and improve the lens , In this way, even in the dim environment of the machine, you can shoot extremely high-quality pictures. All these improvements have achieved many details that we could not achieve in the previous two films."

However, during the shooting of the film, the bulky cameras caused a lot of trouble for Philip Lascher and his camera team. It was enough to set up these big guys on the camera trucks and lifts used for shooting. Not re-cutting the welds on the lifts to hold these hunky guys down a bit more securely.

When filming the ground scene in the studio, because the camera car could not enter, the crew placed the thick aluminum plate on the micro-moving track, thus building a horizontal working platform for the camera camera.

In all scenes shot with Imax cameras, Murphy requires two-camera shooting. At least two of the three technicians sent by Imax to the crew must be on the set to assist Philip Lascher's camera crew to deal with some problems. Difficult shooting operations, and temporary repair work to ensure the smooth progress of the crew's work.

Generally speaking, the camera is no different from other cameras in terms of film loading, film movement and operability, but there will be many accidents when changing film, which will lead to card failure. If the card phenomenon is too serious, this camera The camera can only be taken out of work temporarily and dragged to the workshop of Imax branch in Los Angeles for professional disassembly and repair.

To a certain extent, these bulky big guys are more delicate than ordinary cameras, and the number of Imax cameras in the world is extremely limited. If both cameras fail, Murphy must either stop shooting or switch to ordinary film camera.

In the hands of Murphy, the camera is mainly used to shoot action, panoramic and impactful shots, and other ordinary shots are mainly shot by ordinary digital cameras.

Even now, the cost of Imax cameras remains high, and it is inconvenient and too extravagant to use Imax cameras throughout the process.

As the interview hit the press, 20th Century Fox pushed yet another viral campaign. 8 For more exciting novels, welcome to visit our Reading Academy

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