Chapter 205: Boss Lu Promotes Goods

With major external affairs settled and the public opinion climate relaxed, the hustle and bustle outside was isolated from the *Alien Realm* film crew.

As for the lead actress Liu Liu Yifei, she had the solid foundation laid by Lu Kuan over the past two years, along with the personal demonstrations and practical, hands-on guidance from that veteran actor Li Li Xuejian.

Coupled with the resolution of one difficult problem after another during the filming process, and the crossing of one mountain after another, the young lady was also gradually entering a state of excellence.

Sometimes, Li Li Xuejian and Lu Kuan would watch her performance in front of the monitor, even when judging by the strictest standards.

They could not help but say that she already counted as an actor above the passing line, though there was still a gap between her and the excellent or top-tier ones.

Compared to her classmates in the Beijing Film Academy acting department who were still sophomores, she had experienced the most rigorous *Drummer* and *Alien Realm* directed by Lu Kuan, *Chinese Paladin* by Beijing Film Academy professor Jiang Wei, as well as *The Story of a Noble Family* and *Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils*.

Every day and night of hard study and filming experience, every earnest teaching from strict masters, every minute of film, and every episode of television fed into her.

Even if she were a piece of rotten wood, it would be blooming soon.

Not to mention that Liu Liu Yifei was not stupid to begin with; on the contrary, she possessed a trait that all those top actors had.

Focus.

One hundred percent focus on work and goals.

Thanks to Liu Liu Yifei's rapid growth, the crew's filming progress also accelerated significantly.

November 1st was the Western Halloween, so Lu Kuan simply gave the crew a few days off to recognize and show consideration for the excellent cast and crew members.

On the other hand, he himself needed to return to the special effects company headquarters in Beiping to go over the CG special effects for the scenes filmed in the early stages.

If there were problems, they needed to be adjusted in time to avoid inconsistency in the effects and style between the front and back parts of the film.

Beiping, Butian Film Headquarters.

Lu Kuan stood in front of the DIT console, accompanied by the special effects supervisor specially hired for *Alien Realm*, Joss Williams; the fireworks and explosion effects in the previous car chase scenes were done by his team.

This was also one of the world's top war special effects teams; *Band of Brothers* and *The Pacific* were both works of their company.

Since Butian Film was only contracted for the least difficult part of the special effects segment, this sample footage was sent over from the Beast Logic company in Australia, with Butian Film doing the final touch-ups and finishing work.

In other words, it was like someone else building the house and putting the furniture in, while you, the Chinese company, were responsible for wiping the windows and cleaning up.

It was just that because of the high "tuition" paid by Lu Kuan, the special effects staff at Butian Film were able to follow the entire production process.

In this process, they also poached quite a few Chinese-American special effects artists back from Hollywood; currently, the strength of Butian Film had basically surpassed state-owned enterprises with rigid systems like Hualong Digital.

Besides himself, Lu Kuan also called over the company's signed directors and those in training to learn.

Ning Hao, Xue Li Xiaolu, Jiang Wei, and Wu Wu Ershan.

There was also Lin Yibin, whom he had brought back from the United States; Lu Kuan was determined to tie him to his own chariot.

What *Fast & Furious*? The copyright wasn't even in his hands.

Sign with my company, and I'll throw a bunch of things like *Buried*, *Insidious*, and *The Hangover* at you to play with!

However, there were two "clients" today, following Han Han Shanping into the door of the operation room.

Chen Kaige and Zhang Zhang Yimou.

Although there had been some insignificant little frictions before, everyone was a person of status.

Now that Lu Kuan's industry status was far from that of an unknown person, everyone naturally exchanged friendly greetings on the surface.

"General Han Zong, Director Zhang, Chen Dadao, welcome! Welcome to purchase our special effects services!"

Han Han Shanping laughed, "You kid, you're clearly an artist, so why do you sometimes look more mercenary than a businessman!"

Chen Kaige shook hands with Lu Kuan and also looked him over with a smile, but he felt a bit uncomfortable inside.

Calling Han Han Shanping first was one thing, but why should he be ranked behind Zhang Zhang Yimou?

According to this man's ex-wife, Ms. Hong Huang, the reason Chen Kaige returned to China for development after getting a US green card was because he saw Zhang Zhang Yimou's film *Red Sorghum* win the Golden Bear.

He sat on the toilet and sneered, *That guy was just a cinematographer for me back then, what's so great about him? *

This referred to when, during the filming of *Yellow Earth*, he found his father's former student Guo Baochang, successfully transferred to the Guangxi Film Studio, and specifically requested Zhang Zhang Yimou to be his cinematographer.

At this moment, Chen Dadao's gaze wandered over Zhang Zhang Yimou and Lu Kuan, who were chatting warmly, and he inexplicably discovered that there was one more grassroots nobody he looked down upon.

The last time he saw this Lu Kuan was on the set of Quentin's *Kill Bill* at the Beijing Film Studio.

In the blink of an eye, two years had passed, and he had already grown to this point.

It was just that Chen Dadao did not feel the slightest bit wrong about his reprimand last time, even though *Alien Realm* was a blockbuster worth 75 million US dollars, he still looked down on it.

It was just a special effects film; it didn't rely on the director's personal artistic cultivation, just cold, stiff machines.

And what he wanted was to combine the profound humanistic connotations of his upcoming film *Zhang Wuji* with so-called Hollywood special effects, to let a young upstart like Lu Kuan take a good look.

What is the perfect fusion of art and the special effects industry!

In later times, Chen Kaige took the script of *Zhang Wuji* everywhere looking for investment, established the project at the end of 2003, and officially started filming in May 2004.

Looking at this posture, it was clear that China Film Group had already come on board.

Lu Kuan listened to Han Han Shanping teasing him with a laugh, thinking to himself, *Wait until 'Zhang Wuji' is released, and you'll have a time to cry. *

"General Han Zong is wrong there; film has artistic attributes, but also commodity attributes. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call me a businessman, haha."

Zhang Zhang Yimou also joked, "Little Lu is definitely the best at business among directors, and the best at making films among businessmen!"

Everyone laughed. The employees of Butian Film saw that their boss was so familiar with two famous domestic directors, and they became more confident in undertaking future business.

Chen Kaige felt a bit annoyed watching him chat with everyone with such ease.

"Um, Little Lu, let's not waste time. Shall we look at the work and the effects?"

Lu Kuan sneered inwardly, *'Little' your mother, is 'Little Lu' something you can call me? *

It was just that the special effects company was "poor and short-sighted" right now; the total investment for *Zhang Wuji* was 340 million, and the special effects cost in later times was nearly 100 million. This was all money.

The key wasn't even the money; cultivating this kind of top-tier special effects team was like cultivating Liu Liu Yifei—you had to feed them with films!

Forget it, just treat it as him passing gas.

Zhang Zhang Yimou also came over; he was also here for the special effects of *House of Flying Daggers*, although the requirements were not as high as those for *Zhang Wuji*.

"How about this, let me first demonstrate the effect of this DIT console for everyone."

"Cao Yu, turn it on now and find two people to stand in front of the green screen."

"Yes, Director."

Lu Kuan was truly live-streaming and selling goods!

He led Chen Kaige, Zhang Zhang Yimou, and the others to stand in front of the monitor.

"Both of you know that there is an error between the content seen through the monitor in traditional film shooting and the content actually captured by the camera, especially for directors like Director Zhang who have very high requirements for film color; this point is particularly fatal."

Both nodded one after another; just like film taken by a camera being sent for developing and printing, except for black and white photos, the resulting effect must have errors.

Such errors cannot be seen on small one- or two-inch photos, but what about on a large screen over 20 meters wide and 15 meters long?

"And the advanced part of our technology lies in this."

"First, it can greatly reduce errors including focal length changes and color contrast distortion."

"Second, traditional special effects production requires the film to be developed and printed first, converted into an intermediate film, and then the special effects are done. This brings up a problem!"

"If that segment of the scene is found to be unsatisfactory after developing and printing, it has to be re-shot, which greatly affects production efficiency."

"But this set of technology and equipment of ours can achieve real-time viewing of effects. When shooting with a digital camera, a wireless transmitter is used to send the footage to the DIT workstation."

"Directors, please take a look!"

DIT technology was only born in the United States at the beginning of the millennium; let alone Zhang Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, even many Hollywood directors might not necessarily know about it.

Because in this era, those who shot films with film looked down on those who used digital cameras, feeling it was very low-class.

The two were fascinated, especially Chen Kaige.

He had already constructed the storyboard for *Zhang Wuji* in his mind; if he could use this technology to adjust and create special effects at any time, it would be simply too convenient!

"Please look at the two actors in the lens. Now I don't need makeup; I will directly render their on-screen effects."

Lu Kuan let the staff demonstrate. Chen and Zhang watched as the colorist placed a huge sci-fi background behind the two.

Ancient trees towering into the clouds, huge corn stalks, and monsters styled after the *Classic of Mountains and Seas*.

These were all materials from *Alien Realm*.

"Little Wang, change the sky behind the characters to a dim yellow, and adjust the surrounding vegetation. I want the solemnity of yellow sand filling the sky."

The colorist manipulated the machine, using the mouse to circle the trees in the picture; the yellow leaves instantly turned into green leaves, and the various elements in the picture were adjusted according to the requirements.

It took no more than ten seconds, and the key was that, damn it, it didn't look out of place at all; it was too real!

Both were shocked into silence.

As for Han Han Shanping, he thought of how Lu Kuan had originally poached the basic talent from Hualong Digital through him. Now, even a layman like him who was only responsible for overall coordination could see it.

This had already far exceeded the special effects level of Hualong Digital...

He really managed to pull this off!

It's just that watching others drink and eat meat always looks good.

He didn't see the arduous negotiations Lu Kuan had with multiple top special effects companies to complete the company's technical accumulation, nor did he see the high equipment and labor costs, and the tuition fees.

This was simply a money-burning black hole.

And it was precisely because of this that he returned to the country in person this time, supervising the special effects CG while going all out to promote his special effects services within the industry.

Not to mention reaching out abroad, at least he would eat up the business in this small plot of land in the country first, trying his best to be self-sufficient.

Lu Kuan continued to guide them to another piece of equipment.

"Just now was the static rendering effect. If you want to complete more complex multi-camera and lens dynamic special effects coordination, you have to use this."

"This is Joss Williams, the special effects supervisor for *Alien Realm*. Next, I will ask him to demonstrate for everyone."

After hearing the translation, Zhang Zhang Yimou greeted Joss honestly; in later times, his *The Flowers of War* also sought out this team, so this could be considered an early acquaintance.

Joss began to demonstrate the TechViz workstation to everyone; it was actually a virtual reality technology software.

To put it bluntly, this was an animation, but this animation would help the director and special effects supervisor make a meticulous model.

Your camera position, movement trajectory, pitch angle, automatic zoom, etc., would all be set very clearly.

Only by completing these preliminary modeling and special effects preparations could the director's dynamic special effects intentions be truly implemented during filming.

If you don't prepare well in advance, it's useless even if you invite Industrial Light & Magic or Weta Digital.

Watching Chen Kaige's restless demeanor, Lu Kuan also acted as a scout for him in advance to prevent his Butian Film from taking the blame for "Zhang Wuji" later.

"Both of you, there is one point in this process that must be noted: the pre-production preparation for special effects is extremely important. If you really want to use this set of technology, the director must provide us with the storyboards for the beginning, middle, and end of the special effects scenes first."

"Otherwise, there will be problems with the connection between the beginning and the end during the process, and it will be very troublesome to modify it later."

Live-streaming sales require a taste test; saying it ten thousand times is not as good as letting them see it once. Lu Kuan signaled for Lin Yi to play a clip of the car chase scene that had just been completed.

Because of the Black Swan incident involving Zhang Zhang Ziyi, the crew had no choice but to drag out the two cars they had previously saved to use them, letting Liu Liu Yifei reshoot this classic scene.

Chen Kaige and Zhang Zhang Yimou were seeing this scene for the first time, while Han Han Shanping had already seen it at a previous pre-sale meeting of China Film.

As the fifteen-minute short film ended, these two Fifth Generation directors were struck speechless by the shocking special effects visuals.

To use an inappropriate analogy, it was like the Boxer Rebellion's braid-wearing soldiers seeing the foreigners' cannons; it turned out that Hollywood's special effects technology had already developed to this extent!

They were still stuck in the primitive age of film!

"Opening your eyes to see the world," Lu Kuan laughed and said, "How is it? Two directors, you can get a discount if you place an order today!"

Everyone laughed upon hearing this.

Chen Kaige also had to admit convincingly: "It is indeed very astonishing. I have to say that we are lagging too far behind in this regard."

Han Han Shanping spoke up: "Fortunately, we still have Lu Kuan to 'learn from the enemy's strong points to defeat them,' haha."

Zhang Zhang Yimou also nodded incessantly; in his films, the sculpting of color is the most meticulous.

In "Red Sorghum," it was as if the red had soaked through the sky;

In "Hero," the duel between Zhang Zhang Manyu and Zhang Zhang Ziyi in the poplar forest featured a strong contrast between the drifting golden leaves and the red clothes worn by the two;

And there was the bright yellow in the "bad film" "Curse of the Golden Flower" that was dazzling to the eyes.

With this set of technology, it would undoubtedly be of great significance for his even more meticulous set design and color grading.

Lu Kuan saw them off outside the door of Butian Film, and Chen Kaige left by car, heavy with thoughts.

Zhang Zhang Yimou smiled and said: "Little Lu, I have been worried that Zhang Zhang Ziyi's absence would cause you difficulties. After watching that scene with Liu Liu Yifei just now, it seems the impact isn't that great."

Lu Kuan said helplessly: "In terms of action scenes, Little Liu is stronger than Zhang Zhang Ziyi, and her English is more fluent, but in terms of acting, there is still no comparison."

"I made some fine-tuning to the script, which is finally making the best of the situation. At least there won't be any major oversights; after all, the audience is still watching Leonardo."

Han Han Shanping interjected: "Zhang Yimou, stop worrying about him. What about your 'House of Flying Daggers'?"

Once these words were out, Zhang Yimou became even more emo.

"Zhang Zhang Weiping went to talk to her. Her pay will continue to be lowered, but the film can wait for her. Now she has transferred to Spain for treatment."

"There are some world-renowned orthopedic doctors there who specifically serve players from top clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona. They have proposed some new treatment plans for her, and perhaps she can return early."

Lu Kuan nodded. This Zhang Zhang Ziyi really almost ruined two film crews!

"By the way, Little Lu, you are free tomorrow, right? The Administration has a meeting..."

Upon hearing that there was a meeting, Lu Kuan refused repeatedly: "I'm not free, Han Zong."

Han Han Shanping acted as if he hadn't heard: "You are free, right? You will need to speak at that time, so prepare yourself."

Gao Cheng, who had come to pick him up, laughed out loud: "We still have to tie Director Lu to the chariot. That bunch of people tomorrow are too good at arguing; we might not even be their match!"

Lu Kuan had a face full of black lines: "What kind of meeting is it?"

Zhang Zhang Yimou and Han Han Shanping looked at each other, both tacitly remaining silent.

"Just wait. Old Tian will contact you; you definitely won't be able to run away."

Lu Kuan vaguely guessed something in his heart, but he couldn't be sure.

It wasn't until Tian Tian Zhuangzhuang strolled over to the AITO M5 with a teacup.

"It is the Administration summoning Jia Jia Kezhang and six other directors, preparing to collectively lift the ban on them."

The faces of the Fifth Generation directors were shrouded in a layer of smoke, making the furrows carved by the years appear even deeper.

I don't know if Old Tian was thinking of his own lost youth.

Lu Kuan understood in his heart.

The mainland film industry has had two major events.

The first was at the 1994 Rotterdam Film Festival, where seven directors, including Tian Tian Zhuangzhuang, committed a taboo and faced a ban.

The second is the present in 2003, when Wang Wang Xiaolei, Jia Jia Kezhang, and others were collectively summoned by the Administration.

The purpose was also very clear.

With the country joining the WTO, the quota limit of ten Hollywood films per year was also about to be broken.

The domestic film industry, whether official or private, realized that it was necessary to promote and transform the reserve of directors as soon as possible to cope with the surging tide of foreign films.

Thus, there was this frank and honest exchange between the film world and the authorities.

It's just that in later generations, the interviews were only conducted within the literary and art circles, and the location was chosen at the Beijing Film Academy. How did it become like a research summary meeting this time?

Tian Tian Zhuangzhuang smoked a cigarette and answered his question.

"It was my suggestion to Director Tong. I have my own selfish motives, and I also told Han Han Shanping; he also supports you."

Lu Kuan was stunned for a moment and laughed self-deprecatingly: "Teacher Tian, with so many leaders there, if I end up spouting nonsense, will you guys be able to cover for me?"

(End of chapter)