Chapter 325 Cameron's "Routine"

James Cameron said he would give Zhou Yan the entire script, but he didn't seem to be prepared in advance.

When Zhou Yan reached out for the script, James Cameron flipped through his messy desk for a long time before putting together a script.

"This one should be more complete."

Zhou Yan took the script and knew it was incomplete without a close look, because the script had page numbers, and the page number of the script he got started from 5, and there were no 1, 2, 3, or 4 later, which meant that the script was at least four pages short.

However, he took a quick look and found that the missing content should not be much, because the protagonist only started to board the ship on the fifth page, and the first few pages were likely to be various introductions.

James Cameron also knew that there were a few pages missing, and smiled and said, "There are a few pages that can't be found, I'll let Sebadisian fill them in for you later."

Then he found some storyboards for Zhou Yan to see, and this time there were even fewer, only more than 20 pages.

Although I don't know how many pages the storyboard has, according to James Cameron's style, the number of storyboards for "Titanic" must be very large, and these twenty pages are not even a fraction of it.

But Zhou Yan didn't care, as long as he had the script.

"Do you want to go to the filming location to take a look? Maybe the scene will give you some inspiration." James Cameron asked.

"Has the ship been built?"

"Of course."

"I heard that the ship was built one to one?"

"Yes, but only half of it was built."

"Only half of it was built?" Zhou Yan looked puzzled.

He didn't understand, if only half of it was built, how to shoot it, should it be done purely with CG? But looking at the final effect, it should not be done purely with CG, and the current special effects technology has not reached this level.

"The other half can be done with mirrors." James Cameron solved Zhou Yan's doubts.

Zhou Yan suddenly realized that this was indeed a good idea.

Although the effect of using CG alone is not good, you can use the mirror method and then use CG technology to splice the mirrors together.

As for the words and patterns on the hull, they can also be painted with mirror images, and they can be reversed after filming.

The reason why the movie "Titanic" can get such a high box office is that the filming technology of the movie played a big role.

Just the props alone took James Cameron's entire team several years, which is not something that ordinary people can do.

I heard that in order to make this movie, 20th Century Fox got a piece of land of several hundred acres in Mexico to set up a filming location.

They also found the shipyard where the Titanic was built, got the drawings, mobilized more than 10,000 people, and spent several months to build the hull one to one.

This movie, just the early preparations, have burned tens of millions of US dollars in budget.

Zhou Yan flipped through the script, flipped through the storyboard, put both things away, then took out a pen and a notebook, and asked, "Mr. Cameron, do you have any ideas about the soundtrack of the movie?"

"Will you write the soundtrack according to my ideas?" Cameron asked.

Zhou Yan shook his head, "Normally, I don't deliberately pursue the director's satisfaction. But knowing the director's ideas in advance is very beneficial to my work."

In fact, Zhou Yan doesn't care about James Cameron's ideas on the soundtrack at all. Even if Cameron says something of his own, Zhou Yan will only consider it as appropriate.

The so-called consideration is that if Cameron's ideas are the same as Zhou Yan's, then Zhou Yan will adopt them, but if Cameron's ideas are different from Zhou Yan's, then Zhou Yan will not adopt them...

The reason for asking these questions is that I want to learn more about James Cameron's ideas about filming through this topic.

This time, Zhou Yan took on the work of "Titanic", in addition to fame and fortune, in order to learn about James Cameron's filming techniques.

There are many criteria for judging whether a movie is good or bad, and everyone has their own aesthetics. Maybe in the eyes of many people, "The Shawshank Redemption" is better than "Titanic".

But no matter what, when it comes to the technology used in the movie, James Cameron is still the best.

In his movies, the technology is multifaceted, and the props, special effects, and shooting techniques are all ahead of the movies of the same era.

As a movie about a "big ship", some people may prefer "The Legend of 1900", but it must be said that the shooting technology of "The Legend of 1900" is completely inferior to "Titanic" which was shot earlier than it.

Cameron nodded, "I do have some ideas to tell you. You should know that the reason why I asked you to be the soundtrack director of "Titanic" is because I watched "Sense and Sensibility", and the soundtrack of this movie left a deep impression on me. After watching "Sense and Sensibility", I also watched your other works, such as "Flying Piano Boy", and I found that you can master many styles and complete them very well."

Zhou Yan was even more surprised to hear Cameron praise himself, because from the time he entered the door to now, except for Cameron's a little rude at the beginning, his performance afterwards was very normal, not as difficult as others said.

Little did they know that Cameron also wanted to leave a good impression on Zhou Yan.

The soundtrack artists who have worked with Cameron have a bad relationship with him, because when he is shooting a movie, he never considers the work difficulties of the soundtrack artists.

Many composers think that their work is not valued by Cameron, and their works are not better reflected.

This time, when Cameron chose the composer, he actually had two choices, one was James Horner, and the other was Zhou Yan.

"Brave Heart", composed by James Horner, was the biggest winner of this year's Oscars. The soundtrack of the movie was very successful and attracted much attention.

In the end, Cameron chose Zhou Yan, not because "Sense and Sensibility" finally won the Best Original Score Award, but because Cameron's previous cooperation with James Horner was not pleasant.

The two worked together for the first time when Cameron filmed "Alien".

Cameron's perfectionism and busy production schedule caused Horner to not get enough finished films when composing for the film.

Usually, composers still have to complete their work based on the final finished film, especially when some composers are not involved enough in the early stage. If they don't get enough finished films in the later stage, it will be difficult to carry out their work.

Without a finished film, Horner could only create with those messy materials, so when there was only one and a half months left before the film was released, he had not yet written the soundtrack completely.

In addition, because many of Horner's creations were based on the shooting materials, he would face a problem, that is, the clips for which he created the soundtrack may not be cut into the final film.

For example, Horner wrote the soundtrack for the fight scene of the Alien Queen overnight, but it was not included in the movie because Cameron deleted this clip.

Most composers cannot tolerate Cameron's behavior. No one wants the results of their hard work to be wasted in the end.

Not only Horner doesn't like Cameron, Cameron doesn't like Horner either. He thinks Horner puts the soundtrack too much in the dominant position, and his work efficiency is low, and he can't cooperate with him to complete the work well.

In Cameron's view, a movie is only about two hours long, and not every clip needs to use the soundtrack, so the composer should be able to write it quickly.

And in the early stage of shooting, the composer has a lot of preparation time.

Because of this rift, Cameron finally chose Zhou Yan over Horner.

In addition to this reason, Cameron chose Zhou Yan for another reason, that is, he heard some rumors about Zhou Yan's working method.

Cameron heard that when Zhou Yan was composing the soundtrack for "Sense and Sensibility", the movie had not been filmed yet, and he had already written several pieces of music for the movie.

This fully demonstrates that Zhou Yan is efficient and has a high degree of understanding of movies, which is better than Horner.

Cameron also attributed the reason why Zhou Yan was able to complete the soundtrack work so efficiently to Zhou Yan himself being an excellent director.

Because Zhou Yan is an excellent director, he understands the filming of movies better than ordinary composers, and his understanding of movies is higher than that of ordinary composers.

So, when he saw Zhou Yan just now, James asked Zhou Yan if he had any inspiration when reading the storyboard.

Facing Cameron's praise, Zhou Yan smiled and said, "The work of a composer is to serve the film. My music style depends on the final effect of the film."

Cameron nodded, "There is one thing I want to tell you in advance. I may not be able to guarantee that the finished film will be handed over to you quickly, so you may not be able to see the finished film when you are composing music. In other words, if you are very fast and can write the soundtrack in a very short time, it is no problem."

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "So, I must know in advance what you are going to shoot and how to shoot it. Only in this way can the subsequent work be done quickly."

Cameron shrugged, "You are right about this point. Don't worry, I will tell you anything you want to know. "

Since Cameron said so, Zhou Yan was not polite. He pointed to the storyboard that Cameron had just drawn, "How are you going to shoot this section? How will the camera move? It shouldn't be a real shot, after all, the ship is half built."

"Well, it definitely can't be a real shot. This section is mainly done with CG. As for the camera movement..."

After Cameron finished speaking, Zhou Yan asked again, "What about the broken ship, how will it be shot?"

"The broken ship is the most difficult part of the whole play. We dug a huge pool on the scene..."

Just like that, Zhou Yan asked, Cameron answered, and the conversation between the two seemed to have turned into an interview program.

In fact, when answering Zhou Yan's questions, Cameron also felt that something was wrong. He was very confused. Does the soundtrack need to know so many details?

He has worked with many soundtrack directors before, some of whom did not even participate in the early stage. It is the first time he has met a soundtrack director like Zhou Yan who knows everything.

But he didn't say anything. He basically answered all the questions Zhou Yan asked.

Gradually, Cameron realized that as a director, Zhou Yan should also want to know some of their film shooting techniques.

But Cameron didn't think there was anything wrong with it, and even thought it was good, which showed that Zhou Yan was very concerned about the film. If he knew more about film shooting, he would be more efficient in the post-production music, and he didn't need to worry about it.

He didn't want to have to wait for the music to come out after all the other post-production work was done.

As for Zhou Yan, the more he asked, the more surprised he was, because he found that many of Cameron's ideas were really new to him.

Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and even An Li, who studied in the United States for many years, do not have as many "routines" as Cameron.

Cameron is very familiar with modern film technology, so he can think of those special ways to realize the picture.

For example, the scene where the male and female protagonists stand on the bow and "fly", although it has not been filmed yet, Cameron has already decided on the shooting method. It is not a simple use of special effects, but half real scenes and half special effects.

The sunset is a real shot, and the bow and the close-ups of the male and female protagonists' faces are supplemented later, and then modified by special effects.

What surprised Zhou Yan the most was that the long shot of "I am the king of the world" was also shot with "routines".

Zhou Yan was wondering before, how this long shot was shot, because the current technology basically cannot complete such a long shot.

Cameron told him that he could use track movement, rotate the scenery for relative movement, and add green screen to complete this shot.

Zhou Yan shouted that it was awesome, and Cameron really played with the technical aspects.

Of course, if you want to complete this shot, you can't just have routines, you also need money.

Although Cameron did not say how much this segment would cost, he also complained that it was expensive and could not be filmed too long.

If he could say it was expensive, it must cost tens of millions of dollars.

Thinking of this, Zhou Yan could not help but sigh that Guy Ritchie was still running around for a budget of hundreds of thousands of pounds, but Cameron was using the same money to shoot a clip of more than ten seconds.

The two chatted for more than an hour, and Cameron suddenly asked again, "I'm going to the shooting site in a few days, do you want to go with me?"

This was the second time Cameron asked this question, and Zhou Yan did not answer the last time.

This time Zhou Yan shook his head and said, "I'm afraid not, I can't go now, but I should be able to go to the scene when the filming starts."

"I'm sorry, in fact, many of your questions can be answered by going to the scene. And many technical things, other people can give you more detailed and accurate answers."

Cameron understands technology, but he is not proficient in everything. Many things are done by professionals, such as props production. He can only put forward ideas, and the specific implementation depends on the props team.

Zhou Yan nodded, "I will definitely take a closer look at the scene when the time comes."

After talking about it till now, he felt that Cameron was not a difficult person to get along with.

Of course, nothing can be concluded now, because they have not officially entered the working mode.

Just like Zhou Xingchi, when chatting privately, Zhou Yan also felt that he was easy to get along with.

But on the set, Zhou Xingchi was often unreasonable and very stubborn, and he would not listen to other people's opinions at all.

During the filming of "A Chinese Odyssey", although the conflict between Hong Kong and mainland staff was not caused by Zhou Xingchi, as the main controller of the scene, he could not escape the responsibility when there was a problem.

At least on Zhou Yan's set, it is impossible for similar problems to occur.

So, although Cameron gives people a good impression now, he may not be like this when he really arrives on the set. Maybe after arriving on the set, he will "show his true colors". (End of this chapter)