Full-text entertainment peak

Chapter 510

When Gao Shuang arrived at the Yuedong Shipyard again, all the facility construction work had come to an end.

Except for the one-to-one replica of the Titanic, which is the official performance area, the Hongdae is even better than the rest of the scenery!
During the filming of "Sea Pianist", Da Liu rented a place of one square kilometer on the shallow beach in eastern Guangdong, and used a fence to enclose a place to use as a marine filming area.

There are no beaches around this sea area, and there is a natural reef next to the shore, and the direction to the land is completely surrounded by rocky cliffs.

The shallowest part of such an offshore area is more than three meters, and the edge of the one-kilometer area reaches a depth of more than 20 meters.

This depth also makes this sea area appear deep and dark.

It is obviously too shallow to be developed as a seaport here, and the large-scale project of digging mountains and seas is not as convenient as finding a good natural harbor.

Even smugglers are reluctant to dock at such a place, because if they want to leave the shore, they have to climb over a steep cliff that goes up and down for more than ten meters.

If it is to be developed into a tourist beach, this depth is too dangerous.

Because of the existence of reef beaches, there is almost no sand on the coast here, which also causes the seabed drop to drop rapidly from entering the sea.

Only lunatics and professional divers would venture into this place!
Such a closed sea area is completely worthless for commercial development!

But such an environment is just right for "Titanic" to be used to shoot scenes in the sea.

The depth from three meters to more than 20 meters is not a problem. You only need to lay a transparent net bag more than one meter below the water surface in advance. With the deep ocean color and the dark light at night, you can fully capture the feeling of the deep sea.

A huge hydraulic lift was erected near the reef beach on the shore.

A full-scale replica of the poop deck was also built on this hydraulic lift, and the stern alone is over 20 meters long.

With the help of a hydraulic lift, the 20-meter stern can be raised from 0° to 90° in seconds, simulating the raised stern of the Titanic during its real sinking.

At the same time, the disconnected part of the first half can go deep into the sea, and there is no need for post-production animation processing when shooting!

This stern was improvised by the shipyard from the scraps of the previous hulls. The welding is not too fine, and even the painting is a bit sloppy.

The only satisfactory thing is that the deck is really well paved, and the structure of the small half of the top is also decent.

After all, actors have to slide into the sea from above. For the safety of stuntmen, many places are made of foam rubber.

At the same time, a 15-meter-long boat was built not far away.

This small boat is a fine model made entirely of waterproof materials. The middle part can be repeatedly broken into irregular shapes and restored quickly.

This is also the only prop that can repeat full water immersion.

Not to mention the interior part, an independent factory shed was also rented, and almost all the interior scenes of the Titanic were completely reproduced in it.

The background prepared by Lu Jiu and Da Liu's overall team is much more complete than Cameron's continuous incremental construction.

You know, on Earth, the Fox Corporation bought a hundred acres of land, and then built a reservoir to use it as an ocean.

The depth is only a little over one meter.

In order not to take pictures of a real swimming pool without wearing clothes, I had to lay a black rubber pad on the bottom of the reservoir.

It is also because of this that in the final shipwreck, only the sliding mirror close to the water surface and the panning mirror wandering among the victims were used. The panoramic overhead shots are all post-production computer special effects.

And the one-to-one model of the ship Titanic is only half!
Due to the high cost required, Cameron chose to build only the complete starboard side of the Titanic replica.

Moreover, after studying the meteorological data of that year, it was known that the northerly wind blew on the day of the maiden voyage, blowing the smoke from the chimney to the stern.

This caused a major mistake during filming, because the Titanic actually docked on the port side during its maiden voyage, and it was too expensive to build a full port side, so Cameron reversed all the costumes and props indicated in the script from left to right.

For this reason, more than 200 sets of suits with buttons in the opposite direction have been made...

If a character is going to the right in the script, they have to go to the left during the filming, and finally adjust to the correct direction by flipping the camera.

There is no such thing as Gao Shuang's shooting, whether it is full size or miniature, it is completely intact!

So far, the investment in props alone has exceeded one billion.

This has completely broken through the initial assumption that one ship can handle everything, and even broke through Gao Shuang's estimated upper limit to some extent!

After all, these are just props, and there will be continuous expenses during shooting.

Of course, there must be post-production animation that can match the quality of the film...

It is conservatively estimated that the total budget is likely to reach a staggering 20 billion or so!

The nearly [-] million investment in "The Pianist on the Sea" basically equals the upper limit of the investment of Blue Star Films.

Now "Titanic" has completely refreshed this record!

Zou Shan, who has been "lurking" in the crew and witnessed a series of props from scratch, the director of the documentary channel of Zhuaner TV, has already been so excited that he almost went crazy!
The total investment of 20 billion is such a huge investment!
Even if the movie fails in the end, it's still a gamble that will go down in history!
This number is likely to be surpassed by no one in the next ten years.

And he witnessed with his own eyes how... er... the money was spent!
Yes!

He had already witnessed the [-] million expenditure of "The Pianist on the Sea" which equaled the world record.

Witnessed the whole process of a broken ship, from renovation and reconstruction to sinking to the bottom of the sea.

I even witnessed a director perfectly performing an impossible piano piece on the shooting scene.

Now, he has also witnessed the unparalleled pride of the crew of "Titanic" who spent a billion dollars on props.

And will soon be honored to participate in the burning of another one billion huge shooting expenses!
Judging from the current layout, there are reasons to believe that this is a peerless film that is as old as the past.

Anyone who participates will be famous in history, even if they are just witnesses, it is enough to make people crazy!
No matter what other people think, anyway, Gao Shuang is a little numb to spending money now!
Whatever the Titanic needs, hit it hard!

He believes that if one bundle is not enough, two bundles are enough. This bottomless pit will always be filled with banknotes.

Fortunately, Gao Shuang's current economic strength is enough to support him to be so willful!
As for the shooting time of "Titanic", it is expected to be six months.

Compared with Cameron's more than four-year shooting cycle, in the eyes of laymen, the completion of a film in six months is simply a miraculous speed.

But after careful calculation, Gao Shuang felt that he was not drifting.

There are many reasons why Cameron took four full years to film it.

First of all, it took nearly a year to go to the Titanic shipwreck site for "scientific research".

Positioning, diving, and shooting a lot of real scientific research pictures incidentally.

And Gao Shuang was already prepared for this when the last film was filmed!
The Virginia, carrying 1900, sank off the coast of eastern Guangdong...

Before the sinking, Liu made some modifications to the internal structure in line with the decoration characteristics of the Titanic.

And all the exposed parts are evenly sprayed with nutrient solution, and a certain degree of corrosion is made old.

After the feature film of "Titanic" is finished, the Virginia, which has sunk for several months, can perfectly reproduce the stunning performance of a century-old underwater shipwreck.

Various crustaceans crawling over the internal structure, deposited silt and metal corroded by seawater for a long time, even the safe that was found in the heart of the ocean, can easily find the prototype in the wreckage of the Virginia.

These have saved Gao Shuang a lot of time and money.

After all, the difficulty of offshore diving and deep sea exploration is not at the same level.

After Cameron fulfilled his wish of photographing underwater shipwrecks, he was almost stuck in endless financial wrangling for the remaining three years.

The original plan for the filming cost of "Titanic" was 7500 million U.S. dollars, but Cameron forced Fox to increase it to [-] million U.S. dollars.

For more than three years, the release time has been delayed and skipped, and finally forced Fox's bankruptcy plan to be put on the agenda.

You must know that before the Titanic, the most expensive movie on earth was [-] million U.S. dollars. This movie with an investment of [-] million U.S. dollars is also Cameron's "True Lies" starring the governor!
There was an actual AV-8B Harrier in that movie.

The aircraft is pioneered by turning through four nozzles, enabling "vertical take-off and landing".

The rent during filming alone cost nearly 2000 million U.S. dollars, and the pilot who drove the plane close to the tower crane and the building received more than [-] U.S. dollars in stunt remuneration that day.

Company leaders were afraid that "Titanic" would repeat the tragedy of "Heaven's Gate".

The then very expensive film failed financially, resulting in the sale of United Artists.

Some people also expressed doubts about Cameron's directing style, and even suggested that he should be replaced.

But by this time the project had reached a stage where [-]th Century Fox couldn't bring down the entire project by replacing a central character.

Twentieth Century Fox owns the worldwide rental and title rights, but it sold the U.S. distribution rights to Paramount Pictures for $6500 million just to be on the safe side.

Cameron decided to forego his $800 million compensation due to rising costs.

The first week of a movie's release is usually the highest point at the box office, and if the starting point is not amazing, it can almost be a death sentence.

And "Titanic" just doesn't like to take an unusual path, and the box office in the first week can only be described as dismal.

So the producer was about to jump off the building, but Cameron dragged him down from the rooftop.

Fox shareholders and Cameron probably also wanted to die. Unexpectedly, the fateful Titanic exploded from the second week, creating a box office record that has been maintained for many years.

I don’t know whether Cameron spent too much energy, or the shooting cost was seriously overrun and the risk was huge. Although the film achieved great success, Cameron has been lingering in documentaries and low-cost films since then, and it was not until "Avatar" that bloodbathed the film again. boundary.

Because the method of adding funds is too fragmented, many things are done while shooting, and the shooting cycle is delayed again and again.

This stage took almost two years.

For Gao Shuang, who is willing to spend money like crazy, the two years of wrangling can be reduced to almost one year and seven months!

In the end, Cameron spent nearly a year in the animation studio.

You know, on Earth in the [-]s, the level of animation was still very backward.

Movie-level rendering technology Every frame is calculated by the hour.

Four of Hollywood's top rendering studios served Cameron at the same time.

Two studios were dedicated to simulating seawater and smoke.

A studio uses motion capture technology to continuously digitize the actors, scanning the faces and bodies of the performers.

The last studio is dedicated to compositing!
In a shooting environment like Cameron's, the actors' performance and shooting work can only be said to be incidental, and the proportion of time taken up is really not high!
And Gao Shuang is almost a full-real scene, and all the preparations are in place in one step!
Combined with the scale model shooting, the deep sea scene is completely realistic, and there are very few places that need to be processed in the later stage.

Even if animation processing is required, the technical strength of "what do you look at" can greatly compress this process.

The actors even received the full support of the China Film Union, and even won the attention of the World Literature and Art Association after "The Pianist on the Sea" entered the European and American markets.

Under the deliberate promotion of the China Film Association, it has reached a commission with the World Literature and Art Association for a practical training project for exchanges and cooperation among world actors.

The entrusted unit to carry out the training is the crew of "Titanic".

The person in charge of the Asian region is Gao Shuang's old friend, Matthew Anderson!
This also indicates that Gao Shuang can choose actors from all over the world during the filming stage. No matter what skin color, language, or image type, as long as you want it, you can't find it!
If you can't complete it within six months under such superior conditions, it will definitely be the biggest insult to the fast gunner Gao Dao!
"This ship is nothing short of an early twentieth century miracle ship!"

Matthew stood on the bow of the Titanic, facing the vast sea, chatting endlessly: "I can't even describe its size and luxury in words, er, it was undoubtedly the largest cruise ship in that era! The Virginia didn't even look half his size!"

Matthew's statement is of course a bit exaggerated.

The Titanic was at most a third longer than the Virginia.

However, when an object is huge enough, the difference in length of one-third will definitely bring a world of difference in visual perception!

"Standing at this position and looking at the sea, it really feels magnificent!"

Gao Shuang touched the railing, facing the sea breeze, feeling very comfortable.

It seemed that all the negative emotions accumulated in Suzhou disappeared in an instant.

He simply pulled out the railing and "hanged" himself on the outside of the bow.

"Hi! High! What are you doing?"

Matthew was startled by Gao Shuang's sudden movement.

He wanted to pull Gao Shuang into the deck, Gao Shuang's current actions were too dangerous!

The antique Titanic is 175 feet high, which is 53 meters in metric.

What's even more frightening is that it hasn't launched yet, and the whole boat is exposed above the sea level!
If Gao Shuang fell, he would definitely fall to pieces on the intricate steel lock rail below!

Gao Shuang ignored Matthew, took two deep breaths, and shouted to the distant sea: "I am... the king of the world!!!"

(End of this chapter)