Huayu 1999: Starting with nothing but getting something for nothing

After lunch and checking into the hotel, it was already 2 PM. Yang Che did not take a nap but went straight to the film set with Wu Shixian and A Ming.

The road became more and more familiar as he walked, and the scenery along the way made Yang Che feel as if he were in a Hong Kong movie from the 80s or 90s.

The car drove straight into the school. Yang Che looked around and thought, "Damn, isn't this the place where Xie Tingfeng died at the end of the movie 'The Informant'? It seems that quite a few other movies have been filmed in this area, but I can't remember them all right now."

Of course, Saw was not filmed on location in Hong Kong.

At this moment, a guy came out of the building and waved to the three people who got out of the car.

Upon closer inspection, Wu Shixian introduced, "Brother Che, this is my classmate from the University of Washington. He's the producer of this film, Laurie Torrone, and he helped me find all the actors."

Yang Che took a look and saw that this guy had short brown hair, a face full of freckles, and was 1.9 meters tall.

Speaking in English with a Chinese accent: "Hello, Toruni, thank you for your contributions to the film."

Laurie Torune grinned. "You're welcome, boss."

Afterwards, the group went to the first-floor set and were in the preparation stage.

The set was a bathroom converted from a storage room, and it was decorated quite realistically, with white small tile walls and bloodstains and sewage on the floor. It was wet, slippery, sticky, and dirty, which made Yang Che feel uncomfortable.

Looking at the young actor Wen Ziren, who was communicating with two actors who were chained up, and the extras with bloodstains on their faces waiting to play corpses, Yang Che felt a little dazed, as if he were the creator and this film set was just a bonsai in front of him.

Those two actors are the same two actors from the original film.

Lin Mu, Song Xiaofei, Zeng Jian, Hao Yi, Ma Niu and others greeted Yang Che, who was standing between Wu Shixian and Laurie Toruni, with smiles and laughter.

"Brother Che".

"..."

The three people who were discussing the film turned around and saw Yang Che, who was surrounded by admirers. They realized that he was the film's producer, screenwriter, and supervisor.

After some introductions, Yang Che learned the names of the other two men: Ray Whannell and Gary Elvis, the former being James Wan's classmate.

James Wan was slightly reserved. He looked at Yang Che with admiration and said, "You have redefined horror films. More terrifying than ghosts or mutations is the human being on the verge of life and death."

Leigh Whannell was very excited: "Yang, you know what? James (James Wan) and I talked about similar locked-room murder ideas when we were in school, so when we saw your script, the shock, the joy... I'm so lucky to be a part of this film."

Yang Che thought to himself: This script is not right. Shouldn't you be crying and saying that you are living in my shadow?

"This is fate. Wu Shixian told me about you, saying that you have unlimited creativity and that if I can make money from this movie, I think we can cooperate for a long time."

The two didn't say anything, taking Yang Che's words as mere politeness.

There's not much to say about Cary Elvis. As a struggling actor in New York, a 15-day shoot and a $5000 salary are already a fortune for him. Besides, this Sino-US team, though young and poor, is really professional, and the script is excellent.

Yang Che then left, because the actors needed to get into character and prepare for filming. After all, the schedule was tight, and since everyone was not very familiar with each other, there was no need for idle chatter.

The director of photography is Wu Shixian. After the first two days of shooting, Song Xiaofei and Zeng Jian also knew what kind of effect they wanted: something like a documentary, shot on 35mm film with two cameras.

The first scene was filmed when Adam, played by Leigh Whannell, woke up in the bathtub. Of course, this shot couldn't be filmed in the bathtub; it would be filmed in a bucket and then edited out.

We need to film the scene where the key falls into the drain hole.

The room was only dimly lit, creating a stark darkness that, combined with the creaking of chains, amplified the claustrophobic feeling.

Adam climbed out of the bathtub and found his feet chained. He struggled to no avail and began to cry for help.

"Help! Someone help me!"

In the darkness, he was furious and helpless. After shouting, he finally got a response from the other side.

Suddenly the light was turned on.

The room was bathed in a stark white light from four 4000K fluorescent tubes.

Even though the light wasn't glaring, Adam still couldn't open his eyes for a moment, which meant he had been in the dark for quite some time.

"Okay, Adam, let's do it again. This time I need you to use a bigger range of motion."

Upon hearing Wen Ziren give the order, Yang Che looked at Wu Shixian, who revealed a smug smile. Yang Che shook his head and chuckled as well.

Having a dedicated tool is really satisfying.

During the subsequent filming, Yang Che rarely expressed his opinions, only speaking up when Wu Shixian and Wen Ziren's discussions began to show signs of conflict, and he usually followed Wen Ziren's ideas.

Because that was the original film's shooting plan, which is different from the Chinese version of "My Sassy Girl" and the American-exclusive version of "Saw." The two are very different.

For example, in terms of the actors' performances, if they follow Wu Shih-hsien's requirements, they should have more eye acting and micro-expressions, so that the suspense will be stronger and the audience will be more immersed in the movie; while James Wan requires that all emotions be written on their faces, and that crying, shouting, laughing, and raging should all be outwardly expressed, and even inner emotions such as secret joy should be clearly expressed, and the body movements should be large.

This isn't to say that all American films are this overt. Just look at the difference between Morgan Freeman's performances in "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Seven." Both films use micro-expressions to hide inner thoughts, but the former is extremely subtle, while the latter is very obvious.

The filming progressed extremely quickly. In just one afternoon, Yang Che estimated that they had filmed nearly 10 minutes of footage. How terrifying, simply terrifying.

Of course, the biggest credit doesn't go to the team or the actors for being so great; it's just that the storyboard was there, so the creators didn't need to think much about it, and the actors didn't need to perform any kind of acting.

When Yang Che finished work at 8 p.m. and looked at the discarded film from the previous shoot, he realized why Emma Watson sounded so familiar—she was Hermione Granger from Harry Potter.

She was nine years old at the time, very cute, and her expression of terror was extremely convincing. That face, that expression...

Hmm... I imagine it would make a bunch of older men in the West tremble with fear.