Director of Photography Department of Huayu

Chapter 361 A Tribute to a World-Famous Painting: "Traveler on a Sea of ​​Fog"

In early April, spring arrived particularly late in Chaidan Town.

The afternoon sun barely shone through, bringing a little warmth, but as soon as night fell, the cold wind quickly took over this Gobi desert. Sand and gravel were scattered by the wind, and the howling wind swept through the hills, as if trying to drag people back to winter.

Within the Red Cliff Mars Landform Area, the film crew is making smooth and intense progress in filming, with bursts of laughter echoing across the vast expanse of the set.

"I'm fucking completely finished. This is the conclusion I've reached after much consideration. I'm finished!"

"After waking up, I found good news and bad news: the habitat is fine (yay!), but the return capsule is missing (sob)."

It must be said that Jiang Wen's ability to control these lines is truly innate, bringing a dramatic effect that makes people laugh.

Coupled with his exaggerated physical movements, the entire crew often laughed uproariously.

The filming and collaboration with Jiang Wen was generally pleasant, but Wu Chen also realized that this pleasure did not come without a price.

Because Jiang Wen has an extraordinary desire to express himself—although he intentionally suppressed it, as soon as work was over, this man's enthusiasm remained undiminished. He would often pull him up a small hill to watch the sunset while chatting about the new script and his artistic life.

Dusk comes very early in Chaidan.

Around 5 o'clock, the sun had already quietly set in the west, and the afterglow dyed the Gobi Desert with a strange reddish-gold layer. The world seemed to be wrapped in a filter woven by wind, sand and time.

"Director Wu, if I stand here with a cane, don't I look like a world-famous painting, the kind that's been moved from Earth to Mars?"

Jiang Wen gazed at the desolate landscape under the setting sun in the distance and suddenly uttered this sentence.

Upon hearing this, Wu Chen smiled slightly.

Jiang Wen has a wealth of miscellaneous knowledge in his mind and can always bring up all sorts of wonderful things.

But coincidentally, world-famous paintings were already familiar to him, given his background in photography.

"You mean 'The Traveler on the Foggy Sea'?"

"Wow, that's impressive, you even guessed that?" Jiang Wen turned his head, his expression full of surprise.

Wu Chen gazed at Jiang Wen's figure standing on the red sand dune, his gaze gradually becoming focused: "Actually, what you just mentioned is quite interesting; the imagery actually fits quite well."

Because if he remembered correctly, "The Traveler on the Sea of ​​Fog," a classic work by the German Romantic painter Kasper David Friedrich, tells the story of human loneliness and spiritual sublimity in the face of nature.

At its core, The Martian is, in a sense, a solitary and sublime spiritual quest by humanity on Mars.

The protagonist, played by Jiang Wen, stands alone in the vastness of Mars. His act of planting that green plant is also a questioning of the meaning of civilization and life.

It's not just about individual survival, but about the "lonely person's" steadfast adherence to and gazing upon the flame of civilization, like the traveler in the painting standing atop a cliff, looking towards the distant sea of ​​mist—

Lonely, yet with the world in his heart.

"Huh? You don't actually want to combine these elements to create a scene like this, do you?" Jiang Wen asked curiously when she saw Wu Chen deep in thought.

Wu Chen snapped out of his thoughts, nodded slightly, and his tone gradually became excited:
“I think it’s feasible. You happen to have a scene later where you drive a Mars rover on your own. We can choose a red sand dune and shoot a similar sequence.”

Imagine a desolate Martian wasteland, with swirling yellow sand and an impending storm. The sky is a dark reddish hue. You, in a spacesuit, stand alone on a ridge, your back straight and tall. This scene itself is inherently emotionally charged.

At this moment, he did indeed want to use "world-famous paintings" to achieve a dual transcendence of visual and emotional expression.

"You've really figured it out for me?"

Jiang Wen was taken aback, then his expression lit up.

In the film, paying homage to and recreating world-famous paintings is an extremely effective visual storytelling technique, resulting in many classic scenes in film history.

This is mainly because these famous paintings stand the test of time, often possessing exquisite composition and precise emotional expression. Film, being a visual art, can immediately achieve a unity of compositional beauty and narrative tension by borrowing the compositional elements of famous paintings, enriching the "dynamic visual language" with "static cultural symbols."
When a film references it, even if the audience doesn't explicitly say so, they will subconsciously feel the cultural depth and spiritual symbolism, which will quickly create an emotional impact, such as strong emotions like loneliness, sublimity, piety, and tragedy.

Night fell, and the hotel was brightly lit.

Jiang Wen shamelessly came closer again.

Wu Chen was sitting at the table, engrossed in writing the newly added storyboard, the paper already covered with a series of shooting details.

After all, famous paintings are static, but movies are dynamic, so it's not something that can be solved by simply shooting one scene.

Jiang Wen leaned closer to take a look, raised an eyebrow, and asked in surprise, "Seven shots?"

The paper stated that the main intention of the first shot was to establish a sense of scale in the scene, highlighting the insignificance of the individual and the vastness of Mars.

And what follows is:
Lens number: 002.

Camera position: Medium shot, level shot, slightly tilted back.

Composition: The astronaut is in the center with his back to the camera, his figure upright.

Description: He gazed at the distant dust storm, dressed in a white-gray spacesuit, his helmet reflecting light, his goggles expressionless, only silence remaining.

Intent: To imitate the main visual of "The Traveler on the Fog Sea" and embody loneliness and sublimity.
Jiang Wen stared at the series of camera shots, grinned, and gasped, "Damn, this is putting a lot of pressure on me."

Despite saying that, his eyes were burning with passion.

“If we’re only shooting from behind, it’s not impossible for someone else to take the shots. If you’re feeling too much pressure, I can do it,” Wu Chen teased.

Jiang Wen quickly stopped him: "No, no, no, Director Wu, please don't! Your back view isn't suitable. We have different body types. Let me do it, please let me do it."

How could he give up the possibility of creating a classic scene in film history?

Wu Chen chuckled and handed over the tidied-up camera: "Let me see, do you have any better shot combinations to suggest?"

Although this guy is the lead actor, he's also the director, and he's quite accomplished in film aesthetics. At this point, he's basically just free labor.
"Let me take a look"

"."

At the same time, in Los Angeles, it was morning.

After a night's rest, Christian Bale yawned, sat at home, looked at the dream hierarchy diagram on the table, and prepared to contact Christopher Nolan.

At this moment, in the Syncopy office, Jonathan Nolan is struggling with his brother's script:
"Chris, your character relationships are such a mess, and with this dream hierarchy you've created, oh my god, my head is about to explode."

"So, I need your help!"

Christopher Nolan wasn't annoyed. This idea, which originated in 1999, was finally taking shape, but he was stuck on a key point: his dream hierarchy was a bit problematic.

Just as Nolan finished speaking, the phone on the table suddenly rang. He glanced at it and saw that it was Bell calling. He then quickly answered the phone.

"Hey Christian, didn't you go to China for a cameo role? You're back?"

Bell sounded both mysterious and excited on the other end of the phone:
“Christopher, you won’t believe I got my hands on something in China. Are you at the company now? I have a manuscript on hand that I think you might like.”

"manuscript?"

"Yes, it was given by Wu."

(End of this chapter)