At the command of Brian De Palma, the staff picked out one of the copies of "Lola Run" and put it into the film viewer. Then they pressed the button to play it. We all looked at the big screen on the wall.
On the screen, after playing the board, the first thing in the picture is an empty lens.
In the fixed-point overhead view, the bright golden sunlight is projected from the window with two strings of half opened bamboo curtains.
under the strong light, the patterns on the bamboo curtain, Barbie dolls in the corner, and withered flowers on the windowsill all give people a quiet and perfect sense of harmony.
The criteria for judging the quality of film shots are basically the excellence of composition, color, mirror movement and other elements.
In front of the lens, the composition, color and light use has obviously reached an impeccable level.
There is no outsider in the projection room who does not understand the film. Therefore, although there is no first time to see the performance of the actors, it is just such a simple empty shot. Everyone can't help but praise it secretly: beautiful.
The fixed-point empty mirror, about 5 seconds long, lasted three times.
Then, the second shot is still empty.
This time, however, it was no longer a fixed point, but a slow forward push.
In the picture, Lola and her boyfriend are photographed together, with red cards in the shape of radial hearts, scattered sundries on the desk, and excellent light and composition.
Then, the third shot, though still empty, began to move.
Lola's Green Plaid trouser legs are on the left, and the black beer bottle is on the right. In the middle is a little turtle crawling slowly. Compared with the first two empty shots, this shot is more interesting and conveys a restless mood
at this time, people also realize that it should be a group of continuous empty shots.
However, the three shots and three completely different compositions are all full of imagination, which shows the deep aesthetic foundation of the creator.
After a series of empty shots, Laura herself finally appears in the picture.
Seeing Lola's strong color style composed of fiery red hair, blue vest and green trousers, people who first came into contact with the film in the screening room were slightly surprised. This kind of avant-garde image close to cartoon character is rare in Hollywood movies. However, as a result of just a group of perfect empty lens bottoming, these people can't help but regard this kind of alternative as innovation.
There is no sound in the original negative.
The silent screen played for more than two minutes, and people in the projection room responded differently.
Ron McMillan, the producer of "Lola Run," was completely relieved. Having been in Hollywood for so many years, Ron is still able to easily judge whether the sample film is good or bad. Simon's shot is countless times better than the best he has ever imagined.
Well, it's obvious that Simon's directing style is different from that of other directors in recent days, and he's not trying to make a mystery at all. He's a young man with a very high talent for film production.
Katherine Bigelow has seen Simon's extraordinary talents more than once, so she has enough confidence in Simon from the beginning. At this time, she just enjoys the sample film with interest.
David giller just flashed an idea in his heart. He didn't read the little guy wrong.
As for Brian De Palma.
In the whole room, he should be the one with the highest professional quality.
Although Robert Redford and Katherine Bigelow have some directing experience before, they are both very shallow in this aspect.
Due to his professionalism, Brian De Palma was more and more surprised with the demo.
After Simon gave up his cooperation with Orion, Brian De Palma didn't take back his promise to be the executive producer of "Lola Run". He really appreciated Simon as a young man.
However, Bryan De Palma was not without worries.
In the film and television industry, it is very common for a screenwriter to become a director, but it is often a gradual process.
Simon's talent as a screenwriter has just attracted the attention of Hollywood, and he can't wait to become a director. Brian De Palma thinks it's an unwise choice.
So, despite the promise, if the future of "Lola Run" is too bad, Brian De Palma will not allow his name to appear in the subtitle list of the film anyway.
But now, Bryan De Palma has completely let go of his worries.
The first empty scene on the screen made Brian De Palma give a very high evaluation.
From a purely technical point of view, if the strong backlight scene is not handled properly, there will be glare, atomization and other defects in the picture, but Simon's lens has not found any of these problems.
If only this one shot is perfect, it's nothing. Then a series of backlight lenses of Lola standing in front of the window to make a phone call were impeccable in all aspects of technology, which was very rare.Moreover, Brian De Palma is also very sure of Simon's warm yellow tone. Warm yellow can be said to be one of the most relaxing and comfortable colors, and this color scheme is also more cinematic.
In addition, Simon's excellent shot scheduling ability is demonstrated by the use of various shooting techniques in a sample box of quarter and a half length film. In particular, the last one in the sample film, Lola, rushed out of the room and turned all the way to her mother's bedroom and turned to the TV picture again. The moving track of the mirror was absolutely fantastic.
All this is not the most surprising thing for Brian De Palma.
As soon as the quarter and a half sample was finished, Brian De Palma immediately asked Ron McMillan, who was sitting on the other side with some uncertainty, "Ron, has this version of the sample been matched?"
In the era of film, due to the difference of lighting, setting and film quality, the effect of color exposure of each lens is different. Therefore, after the editing of a film, the sample film must be matched one by one by a professional colorist, and a special color scheme for each shot must be set, and then the staff of the development and printing factory should handle it one by one according to the corresponding scheme.
Moreover, most movies generally have to go through at least three color matching to achieve the final screen effect.
It's not hard to imagine how complicated the color matching process would be for a movie with thousands of shots. However, even in the digital age many years later, no movie can escape from the complicated color matching process.
But it's not.
Just now.
But Brian De Palma found that in the four and a half minutes of the sample lens of "Lola Run", there are not many obvious differences in the exposure, tone and other aspects between different lenses.
You know, although they all belong to the same scene, the color, lighting and other aspects of each lens in the sample film are completely different. Therefore, it is a miracle that the uniformity of color and exposure can be achieved between more than 20 lenses without color matching.
Ron McMillan was stunned when he heard Brian De Palma's sudden question. He was puzzled and said, "Mr. Palma, shouldn't color matching be done after editing?"
When they heard the conversation, David giller, who was discussing with Robert Redford about the last camera manipulation in the sample film, suddenly responded. He looked at the darkened screen and immediately turned to the staff beside the film viewer: "come on, play the sample film again."
The screen in the room soon lit up again.
People who are basically aware of something are staring at the big screen on the wall.
Due to the diversion of attention, after playing again, people also found that there are some color differences between different scenes of the sample film.
However, everyone has to admit that the difference is actually very small.
If it is not the starting point of each shot, the feeling of the whole sample film is basically the same as watching a movie.
It can be imagined that if all the shots of the film in the future can reach the current level, it means that after editing in the future, the film may only need a very simple color matching to achieve a perfect film effect.
Has there ever been such a situation in Hollywood's regular commercial films that only one color matching is needed to complete the film?
That's right.
There have been.
The name of that movie is Godfather.
However, it was Gordon Willis, the top Hollywood photographer who was in charge of the godfather, who was proficient in lighting and setting at the same time. What's more, the reason why the godfather only carries out color matching once is not only the excellent quality of the lens itself, but also the reason why it is forced to catch up with the schedule.
Now, a new production cost of only a few hundred thousand dollars, just relying on the quality of the sample lens, can make people feel that the film is likely to only need a simple color matching to achieve the film effect.
How can this not be said to be a miracle?
After a quarter and a half of the samples were released, David giller immediately asked the staff to play another few boxes of samples.
More than 20 minutes later.
As the screen in the projection room darkened again, everyone was silent for a moment.
Then, Robert Redford turned directly to Ron McMillan, with an obvious eagerness in his voice, and said, "Ron, this film, the photographer, the lighting engineer and the set designer, are all introduced to me. I must invite them to my next film."
Hearing Robert Redford's words, David giller and Brian De Palma looked at Ron Macmillan at the same time.
They don't want to miss such excellent talents behind the scenes. Both of them are busy with "Butterfly Effect" during this period of time, and they are not very clear about some matters of "Lola Run" crew.Ron Macmillan was staring at by three big men, but he couldn't help smoking.
That's the demand.
It's a bit difficult.
The photographer is the director himself.
The setting, it seems, was made by the director himself.