Huayu Entertainment: Tianxian really wants to improve

Chapter 404 Liu Yifei, who was underestimated, was only truly excited in the movie theater.
"Should be arriving soon."

Han Sanpin glanced at his secretary.

The secretary immediately went down to make a contact and came back saying, "They are still at the hotel, but they have already gotten up and will come over after breakfast."

The group arrived at Han Sanpin's office.

Han Sanpin said to Gu Bei with some emotion, "It has to be your fame. We invited this Cannes film director before, but he never agreed to attend the event. This time, he actually made a special trip to Kyoto for your film."

"Thérèse Frémaux was criticized by the French film industry for his close ties with Hollywood, while Marco Müller would be closer to China."

Gu Bei picked up his teacup and said with a smile, "Besides, I'm considered a Cannes direct descendant, but I've been exhibiting in Venice for the past two years, which is quite shameful!"

In fact, after entering the 21st century, many European countries began to get closer to Hollywood, since their domestic film market had been almost completely conquered by Hollywood.

The only difference is the degree of closeness.
Since Marco Müller's retirement next year, Venice has become one of the bellwethers for the Oscars.

Marco Müller, the current president of the Venice Film Festival, is more optimistic about Asian films, especially since the decades around the turn of the 21st century have indeed been a period of explosive growth for Asian cinema.

However, even after the explosion of Asian cinema, the overall trend still leans towards Hollywood.
Even if Marco Müller dislikes Hollywood movies, last year's Venice Film Festival brought out veteran directors from the New Wave era, yet the average quality remained worrying. Submitting to Hollywood in the future is perhaps inevitable.

Cannes, however, took a different path.

Thierry Fremo has spent almost half his time in Hollywood since becoming the festival's film director in 2001, yet Cannes is not perceived as disgraceful as Venice.

It's because Thierry was primarily using Hollywood.
The frequent use of Hollywood movie names to open the film festival increases its reputation.

As the top of the three European competitions, Cannes really didn't need to surrender as completely as Venice.

of course,

All of this ended before the pandemic.
The pandemic has dealt a major blow to the film industry worldwide.
Even Cannes couldn't recover for a while and started to slide towards Venice.

After chatting and waiting for a while, Thierry and the others finally arrived at China Film Group.

"Bruce, your previous two films were never completed, so you absolutely cannot refuse the Cannes invitation this time!"

Thierry's eyes lit up when he saw Gu Bei. While shaking hands with Gu Bei, he couldn't help but mutter to himself, "I still regret that Cannes missed out on artists and the city of music!"

The competition between film festivals is quite fierce. The Venice Film Festival had been weak in the previous two years, but it was revitalized by Gu Bei's Golden Age two-part series and has begun to show signs of recovery.

However, Thierry couldn't criticize Gu Bei for choosing Venice.

Both films started filming in March.
The film was completed but post-production hadn't even started when Cannes opened.

Otherwise, given Gu Bei's past record of winning the Palme d'Or, even if the film was completed just two days before the festival's opening, Thierry would still dare to put Gu Bei's film into the main competition.

Cannes had done this before. In 1982, the 35th Cannes Film Festival only put the Liberty Road into the main competition a few days before the opening ceremony. As a result, the Liberty Road won the Palme d'Or, which was a rare double Palme d'Or win in Cannes history.

"Of course I really want to choose Cannes!"

Faced with Thierry's enthusiasm, Gu Bei didn't immediately agree. Instead, he seemed to be taking a calm and collected approach, saying, "But Gravity is my most expensive film to date."

I feel that if it's just about making it to the main competition...

The amount of attention this film has garnered may not meet my expectations.

It’s a bit difficult!

Thierry's smile faded slightly as he made his judgment about Gu Bei.

In fact, film festivals and films collaborate with each other.

The film festival brings together film critics and film enthusiasts, empowering the film industry.
Film, in turn, empowers the film festival; the two influence and complement each other.

However, when it comes to the specifics of gravity, the support of the Cannes main competition is not enough to meet the needs of a $100 million big-budget film. On the contrary, Cannes needs the reputation of Gu Bei, the newly crowned Oscar director.

So either Cannes needs to allocate more resources.

Either they go their separate ways, and Gu Bei goes to find a film festival that values ​​him more.

Gu Bei maintained his faint smile.

His options are actually limited. Venice gave him the opening film last year, and it's unlikely they'll give it to him again this year. So he can only look to popular non-competitive film festivals in North America, such as the Toronto and New York Film Festivals.

Gu Bei would be satisfied as long as Cannes was willing to give him the treatment of having his premiere on the second day of the opening ceremony, similar to the treatment given to Mission: Impossible 8.

After all, the Cannes Film Festival is much more popular than the Venice Film Festival, which has been somewhat lackluster in recent years.

"Hello, Mr. Han."

After a brief conversation with Gu Bei, Thierry shook hands with Han Sanpin.

China Film Group and Cannes actually have a good relationship.
However, Thierry, as the Cannes Film Festival director and head of the selection team, had almost no interaction with China Film Group.
Moreover, the film director's position is second only to the film festival chairman, so he could refuse China Film Group's invitation to participate in events without any burden.

"You must be the founder of Rose Pictures?" Thierry smiled and shook hands with Liu Yifei. "You two young people are a perfect team, one in charge of production and the other in charge of directing."

"She's also the female lead in Gravity," Gu Bei reminded her.

"I'm so sorry!"

Thierry glanced at Liu Yifei with a hint of surprise, then began to feign enthusiasm, saying, "I was just wondering how a beautiful lady like you could not become Bruce's muse?"

Gu Bei glanced at Liu Yifei with concern.

This is also why, when he participated in Cannes with Whiplash, he didn't choose to change the producer's name back.

This misplaced attention is even more disheartening than that from haters. Gu Bei experienced this countless times during his transition from writer to director.

Liu Yifei simply smiled faintly at Gu Bei, indicating that she was alright.

She also knows that she doesn't have enough works yet.
The duration of the drummer in Whiplash is too short.
Mei Lanfang's fame overseas is too small.
Only one film, Chick Flick, is somewhat well-known, but it would be too much to ask Thierry to notice such a movie.

Moreover, she has experienced so much since childhood, so being looked down upon is nothing to her.

"Then let's go watch the movie first."

Han Sanpin led the group to the China Film International Cinema next to the China Film Group.

This cinema, built alongside China Film Group, has a history of over a decade.

The exterior of the cinema may be a bit old, but the interior is anything but basic, after all, this is where employees of China Film Group experience the most cutting-edge film projection technology.

"Wait for me." Gu Bei secretly left the main area and went to the ticket booth in front to buy a bucket of popcorn.

When he returned, he saw that the China Film Group and the Cannes team, a dozen or so people, filled the entire fifth row.

So he sat down in the last row, patted the seat, and whispered to Liu Yifei, "Qianqian, come over here."

How casual!

Han Sanpin was a little envious of Gu Bei's carefree attitude and smiled at Thierry.

Thierry, however, didn't care at all.
As a seasoned film selector, he had long known that directors were, in essence, artists.

Don't be surprised by anything that happens; first, wonder if you're being too conventional.

"Is it tasty?"

Gu Bei completely ignored the people in the front row, and simply snuggled up with Liu Yifei in the last row, asking her softly as she ate popcorn.

"Sweet~"

Liu Yifei was a little embarrassed at first.
Even after the lights in the screening room went out, she felt a sweet taste in her mouth and a sweet, cloying feeling in her heart, as if she were trapped in a honey pot.

She casually popped a piece of popcorn into Gu Bei's mouth: "You eat some too!"

"If that's how you put it, then I won't hold back!"

Gu Bei said with a hint of malice.

He put his hand into the popcorn bucket, gently squeezed Liu Yifei's small hand, and felt its soft, boneless texture.

To be honest, he had always really wanted to experience what it felt like to secretly touch a little hand through a popcorn bucket.

Actually, he originally wanted to try it when filming Liu Yifei's scenes in Whiplash, but unfortunately Liu Yifei didn't give him the chance that time. Instead, he can now relive that feeling.

It seems... it really is more fun than just pinching hands!

"Snapped!"

Gu Bei's hand was slapped away by Liu Yifei.

Gu Bei: ???
He turned and glanced at Liu Yifei.
She stared intently at the screen in front of her, which was now showing the movie "Gravity," gently pinching a piece of popcorn and pushing it into her mouth with a delicate finger. Clearly, she was currently only thinking about food.

Gu Bei was immediately indignant!

He waited patiently for Liu Yifei to come and get the popcorn again, this time capturing her hand directly and forcefully squeezing his fingers between hers.

Liu Yifei was already used to it and naturally spread her five fingers.

When their fingers intertwined,

Liu Yifei then realized what was happening, looked down at their tightly clasped hands, and asked softly, "What are you doing?"

Gu Bei gripped her hand tighter, feeling the slightly elastic muscles in her fingers.

He smiled, picked up a piece of popcorn, and fed it to her lips: "It's so much more exciting in the movie theater! We don't usually have many opportunities to go to the movie theater together. There are too many people during the Chinese New Year. This time, our dream has finally come true!"

Liu Yifei tensed up slightly. The movie theater, a place that was both open and not so open, dim and not so dim, did give her a different feeling.

only……

She looked up at the ceiling of the screening room: "There are night vision cameras here, so you can see everything clearly."

Gu Bei whispered in her ear, "It's okay, our people are in the monitoring room."

The copying of gravity is currently top secret.
Therefore, even the most legitimate and politically connected cinemas under China Film Group Corporation,

There were also people from Gubei who specifically kept an eye on the projectionists and the monitoring room.
This is to prevent the copies from being leaked and to prevent internal employees from taking photos secretly.

This actually serves to safeguard the two bosses' little romantic interests.

Hear this,

Liu Yifei looked up and rolled her eyes at Gu Bei.
Then she leaned softly into Gu Bei's arms, letting him feed her the pills one by one.

The two people behind them were very affectionate.

Han Sanpin, who was marveling at the 3D effects of gravity, which were even stronger than Avatar from earlier this year, turned around and saw Thierry frowning.

Could it be that they don't think it's good?

Actually,
Thierry had some doubts.
This is actually a film by Gu Bei. Has he started exploring new narrative styles again?
Based on Thierry's understanding of Gu Bei, besides being an artist, Gu Bei particularly likes to make a strong first impression. For example, the oppressive dialogue with the devilish teacher in the opening of Whiplash and the five-minute opening dance in La La Land are both highly personal openings.

But in the opening scene of gravity,
For a full three minutes, not a single actor was seen.
There is only a realistic Earth where you can see every hair and a Shenzhou spacecraft getting closer and closer.

But as I watched, Liu Yifei and Cheng Long, dressed in heavy spacesuits, were having a slow conversation...

Thierry began to sense that something was wrong.

It's been a full ten minutes now, and so far there haven't been any obvious signs of editing in the opening sequence.
This is... a single, continuous shot!
Although the prevailing view is that film is an art of montage,
But the film industry will never lack directors who pursue the use of one-shot techniques.

A single, continuous shot doesn't provide the same sensory stimulation to the audience as complex montage.

Instead, it uses the one-to-one passage of time to gently iron out the wrinkles in the audience's brain, making the emotions flow incredibly smoothly, as if they spontaneously welled up from the depths of the audience's hearts.

Before Thierry could think it through,
The pace of the conversation quickened, immediately making him realize that a crucial plot point was about to unfold.

Gu Bei's masterful use of sound in his previous works was on full display here, with the actors, lines, and shots blending seamlessly, leaving Thierry in awe.

What amazed him even more was that

Gu Bei maintained a single, continuous shot throughout the entire satellite debris attack sequence.
If editing cannot enhance the audience's sensory stimulation, then use 3D effects to bring sensory stimulation to the audience. Combined with the smooth emotion of a single take, the viewing experience can be even better.

Thierry continued watching.

After the thirteen-minute one-shot sequence ended...
What followed was a one-woman show by Liu Yifei, with the camera almost shoved right up to her eyes.

Coupled with Gu Bei's skillful camera work, the interplay of light and shadow, and glare,
Liu Yifei's eye acting, however, remained remarkably consistent.
It perfectly portrays the emotions of a female astronaut desperately trying to survive.

Seeing Liu Yifei's performance, Thierry finally understood: "I understand now why Bruce chose her to play the female lead!"

(End of this chapter)