Chapter 243

Cao Yang's graduation matter was actually very simple.

As a pure literary film, "Black Swan" definitely had no problem being a graduation work.

Whether it was Hou Yuan or Old Tian, or even Xie Xiaojing, who concurrently served as the head of the Youth Film Studio, they were all quite looking forward to "Black Swan" being Cao Yang's graduation work.

Everyone knew this wasn't Cao Yang's experimental film, but a pure literary film.

They actually didn't dare to think about the highest award of the European Big Three, just thinking that if they could win an award at the European Big Three film festival, it would be even better.

A student's graduation work winning an award at the European Big Three, for an art school, this was a huge political achievement.

Especially for the three new officials taking office, they liked this even more.

What? That was Cao Yang's graduation work, winning an award wasn't strange?

Heh, don't talk about these useless things, just ask you if he is a student who is about to graduate? Is this a graduation work?

When it's put into the report, it's our school student's graduation work, winning whatever major award...

They didn't know yet that this film was filmed at the invitation of Venice Film Festival Chairman Old Ma, so it must participate in the Venice Film Festival, if it won the highest award again, the school would have something to brag about again.

As for the thesis, it was even simpler.

Just write something like "On the Importance of Script Reading in Film Preparation."

Write it casually, and then put examples like Li Xiaoran, Yu Feihong, Gao Yuanyuan, Depp, etc., and the persuasiveness will be pulled to the full; was there any film-related thesis with higher gold content than this?

As long as one saw that this method produced Berlin Best Actress, Venice Best Actress, Cannes Best Actress, Oscar Best Actor, etc., one couldn't refute even if one wanted to.

Cao Yang went to school to talk to Old Tian and Hou Yuan, because the film was just filmed and hadn't done post-production, and there was no time to write the thesis, so he couldn't catch up with the defense in June, and could only put it in September.

The editor for the post-production of "Black Swan" was still Yang Qian from the Youth Film Studio; he had cooperated with Cao Yang on several films, and could be considered an editor who followed Cao Yang to make a name for himself, and now he was very famous in the industry.

Of course, no matter how famous he was, cooperating with Cao Yang, he followed Cao Yang's ideas completely, was very obedient, and didn't get angry or quarrel with the director because the director pointed fingers.

This was actually the reason why Cao Yang was willing to cooperate with "old people," saving time for running-in and unnecessary disputes.

The film score was also an old person from the Youth Film Studio, who had cooperated with Cao Yang on a film, and his foundation was okay, not the kind of person who mixed food and drink in the unit.

Since it was a film about ballet, the music elements must be combined with the classic ballet "Swan Lake," plus some music to create a tense atmosphere.

"Black Swan" after all had suspense plots, some places needed fast editing to create tension, and it must be matched with tense and exciting music.

Even if he had cooperated with Cao Yang many times, Yang Qian was still shocked.

Since he cooperated with Cao Yang, his fame increased greatly, and many directors came to cooperate with him, some of whom were well-known domestic directors.

But no matter which director he cooperated with, disputes between the editor and the director were inevitable; sometimes the director's explanation wasn't understood by the editor, and the editor's words weren't recognized by the director, and quarrels were also inevitable.

For example, many directors liked to say: "You cut it like this, it's not enough, you have to give me more..."

I'll give you more hammer!

How the fuck would I know what your "enough" is?

Yang Qian had also experienced many such directors who spoke very "implicitly."

But there were very few such situations with Cao Yang; one was that when he cooperated with Cao Yang, Cao Yang was already famous, and he was still a small shrimp, so he could only listen to Cao Yang, and cut it however Cao Yang told him to.

And Cao Yang usually said very clearly, "You cut the X scene Y shot Z frames to..." Yang Qian just followed suit, didn't need to guess the director's intention, and didn't need to be at a loss.

Second, Cao Yang's film shots were really few!

This invisibly reduced a lot of workload.

Cao Yang's film not only had few meaningless shots, but the repetition rate of each shot was also very low.

Most directors would film a small plot repeatedly six or seven times or even seven or eight times, and some would even let actors interpret it in different performance ways.

But Cao Yang was different.

Many of his shots were even filmed only twice, not that one take couldn't pass, but the second take was to keep one!

Commonly known as one take.

This point was even more so in "Black Swan."

Yang Qian discovered a place in "Black Swan" that was different from other directors, that was, the scenes between actors with more scenes were mostly one take.

In very individual cases, either the lighting wasn't good and problems occurred, or unexpected situations occurred, such as other people or things appearing in the camera, and it was worn through.

And the scenes between actors with fewer scenes, or scenes between actors with more scenes and actors with fewer scenes, had to be filmed many times instead.

!

This was really a counter-intuitive thing.

Most directors would repeatedly ponder and film the scenes between actors with more scenes, striving to reach the best, while actors with fewer scenes, as long as they could pass, it was fine.

In a film, the scenes between actors with more scenes must be the most, and it was also a bit like nonsense, otherwise they wouldn't be called actors with more scenes.

So, Yang Qian saw many, many shots with only two takes in "Black Swan," which surprised him greatly.

Of course, such a film also limited the "play" of the editor, you had no choice.

However, Yang Qian discovered through the cut shots that "Black Swan" wasn't that there was no choice, but that there was no need to choose at all.

Because these shots matched together, no matter how you looked at them, they were natural, and it felt like this was the best!

He had been shocked when he cooperated with Cao Yang before, but that was because the protagonist was mostly one take, and the repeated shots filmed were few, which could still be attributed to the protagonist's good acting skills.

Now?

In "Black Swan," besides a Pan Hong with very good acting skills, most were young people, and there were many small actors he hadn't heard of.

Had Director Cao's ability to coach actors evolved to such a point?

Simply terrifying!

"Black Swan" was done in 32 days while Yang Qian was editing, being shocked, and muttering and admiring, and the post-production was almost done.

The reason it was almost done was because editing, music, and other post-production were all done.

But the shots that needed CG, that is, when the female lead finally danced the Black Swan, with her dance, slowly grew black feathers and wings, this place hadn't been completed yet.

Even if this shot was filmed at the very beginning, it was sent to do CG after filming, but this simple thing needed almost nearly three months.

In other words, it might have to wait until late July to be completed.

Cao Yang could only cut the shots without CG first, at least the plot of the film was complete, and it was no problem to be a graduation work.

(End of this chapter)