Japanese Entertainment: From special effects actor to action superstar

Chapter 383 Booking Christmas

The third part of the series is still missing some shots, but the second part has been roughly edited.

Gu Ming and Kurosawa Mitsuru and others from "Tochu Production" sat in the viewing room and watched the rough cut of the film.

The miserable twins, the ferocious villagers, and the teammates who are sometimes reliable and sometimes disappointing, just like in the first film, everything maintains the elements of the first film, while making certain additions and subtractions based on Toei's investigation report. The most obvious is that the fighting scenes have been slightly modified, and some more spellcasting parts have been added.

This was the first time Kurosawa Mitsuru saw the finished film. Now, after watching it carefully, he already had an idea of the quality of the film.

If everything goes as planned, the second film's performance will be comparable to the first, and the final box office, if there is no interference from other films, will most likely maintain the same allocated revenue of 600 to 700 million as the first film.

But after adding corresponding publicity, the effect is not certain.

As Kurosawa Mitsumasa was thinking this, the plot was progressing to the end, with the flower fields, the crying twins, and the sister turning into a butterfly.

"what?"

Kurosawa Mitsuru suddenly exclaimed and discovered a big problem.

The red butterflies flying all over the sky and the flower petals created a unique grand scene, and what made him feel incredible was that these somewhat blurry red butterflies showed quite natural trajectories.

This is not as simple as hanging it with a steel cable. If it is directly pulled with a fishing line, the trajectory will appear quite rigid.

It’s just like when Wan Gu is filming fighter jets, they often follow a very regular route. That’s because if they don’t follow this route, it will be difficult to erase the fishing lines in the air when producing optical effects later.

Because the current manual painting technology requires a lot of manpower and material resources to paint each frame of film to achieve that level, the labor cost is astronomical.

Even with Wan Gu's investment of 10 million per episode, it is impossible to spend this much labor cost on production.

But now, the red butterflies that Kurosawa Mitsuru saw were moving in an irregular route, and there were more than a dozen red butterflies moving in such an irregular manner, eventually leaving those tails with a slight red glow on the screen.

This shot lasted for dozens of seconds, with 24 frames in one second, totaling more than a thousand frames. To achieve such a perfect fit, it would have required at least dozens of experienced hands to paint without error.

"How did you do that? Did you really catch a lot of butterflies?"

Gu Ming smiled but said nothing. He just made a gesture of invitation: "Please continue watching."

"That's really mysterious."

Kurosawa Mitsuru muttered something and continued watching.

But on the screen, Gu Ming somersaulted into the field with a nimble hand. The camera followed him the whole time. His wide robe fluttered in the wind. Gu Ming was suspended in the air. He made a hand seal and a fire dragon appeared beside him. From illusory to complete, it lingered around Gu Ming and finally soared into the sky with the magic spell.

This shot lasted nearly a minute.

"how so!"

This time, Kurosawa Mitsuru couldn't control himself anymore and jumped up instantly.

It wasn't just Kurosawa Mitsuru. Inside the screening room, several theater directors belonging to the Toei Cinema chain, producers of Tochu Productions, and others all showed expressions of surprise.

"How on earth did they achieve this look?! Gu Gu-kun, this is definitely not the look a medium-budget movie should produce. If you want to achieve that effect, it's not impossible. Find a few dozen skilled mask workers to apply the mask, and maybe they could do it in half a month, but the cost of that is simply not something we can afford with a 40 million budget!"

You have to know that when Wan Gu was filming the TV series, he invested 10 million yuan in each episode, which was 20 minutes long, and he could only achieve regular movements, and he couldn't maintain the picture for a long time, and it could only last for a few seconds at most.

Even so, it is still a heavy burden that 10 million yuan of funds cannot bear.

But now, what Kurosawa Mitsuru saw was nearly a minute of special effects footage, and the level of detail was so impressive that it was definitely not something that could be painted by just one or two artists. After all, the effects of irregular movement and regular movement were completely different.

Gu Ming just spread his hands as if it was a matter of course: "It's a commercial secret. You won't pursue this point either, will you?"

Whether it is the trailing shadow of the moving red butterfly or the air distortion caused by the burning flames, they are actually all intended to cover up the large amount of lens deviation caused by the lack of equipment precision. Gu Ming spent a lot of thought on this.

If you want to achieve a seamless effect, you can only ask the real Industrial Light and Magic to do it.

After all, the equipment and large number of IT engineers that Industrial Light & Magic invested heavily in were not hired in vain. It took Industrial Light & Magic two years to achieve the technological results. Even if Gu Ming is given the same level of equipment and manpower now, it will take at least a year to achieve that effect.

But fortunately, at least without counting the United States, the film turned out pretty well.

Trade secrets don't last long, but as long as there is a first-mover advantage, that's enough.

When Kurosawa Mitsuru asked this question, he knew that he was asking something he shouldn't have asked, so he could only wave his hand.

"I asked too much. But, if it's at this level, Furuya-kun, I can assert right now that the final scene alone is worth the price of admission, enough to compete head-on with Devil's World Reincarnation! Because even Devil's World Reincarnation can't achieve this level right now! If we had known such technology existed, why would we have done such advance marketing!"

Gu Ming spread his hands.

"Even good wine needs to be hidden away. Without advertising, it's hard to attract audiences with technology alone. We have to let the audience know that we have this technology. So from this point of view, advertising is not a waste."

Kurosawa Mitsuru nodded, expressing his deep approval.

He turned around and looked at the other people in the viewing room.

"Gentlemen, I think this film should be released on December 24th of this year. What do you think?"

Gu Ming also looked at these people.

There was no sign of hesitation on everyone's faces; they made the decision in a very short time.

"There's no problem here, Chiyoda."

"This side of the harbor is also possible."

“Shinjuku is OK!”

“Same as Shibuya!”

Hearing the responses, Gu Ming also breathed a sigh of relief at this moment.

This way, there is no problem.

Due to some influence from the United States, Japan also attaches great importance to Christmas. If a movie is released on Christmas Eve, December 24th, the combined effect of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day will push the box office to a certain peak.

If it were an ordinary ghost movie, it would certainly not be very good, but this film has a lot of comedy elements and a happy ending, so it naturally cannot be compared with an ordinary ghost movie.

Gu Ming looked at Kurosawa Mitsuru, and the two smiled at each other.

So, get ready to sit at home and collect piles of money!

(End of this chapter)