Literary Master: Starting with Refusing to Be a Child Star

Chapter 147 Preparations

The full text of "2001: A Space Odyssey" was serialized in the November issue of Story Club.

On the day the publication was released, the pre-sale link showed that the inventory was declining rapidly in the distribution system backend. This was one of the more obvious fluctuations in recent magazine sales data, and the magnitude and speed of the decline exceeded expectations.

Luo Jinnian didn't check the specific sales figures. He received several emails over the weekend from different readers, most of which focused on the same thing—they hoped that the work could be adapted into a film.

One email, titled "Several Questions Regarding the Feasibility of Adaptation," was sent by a film industry professional. In it, the sender noted that *2001: A Space Odyssey*'s narrative structure and visual space heavily rely on the ability to switch between auditory and visual language. The adaptation challenges lay primarily in three areas: the dynamic representation of weightlessness, managing the pacing of over 8,000 minutes of dialogue-free sequences, and balancing the visual representation of the starchild imagery at the end. The sender concluded the email with, "These are technical issues. But the core question is: Do you have plans to make this film?"

Luo Jinnian read the email but did not reply.

Online discussions are focused on several areas. Some readers are conducting detailed textual analysis, examining the correspondence between the specific year settings at various points in the novel and actual space history.

Another group of readers compared the style of this work with other science fiction works and discussed its potential influence on later works.

Some readers are already discussing the difficulty of adapting the work—mainly focusing on the technical implementation and narrative pacing. Some critics believe that if this work is to be made into a film, it needs to achieve the same level of staging in cinematography and art direction as Kubrick; otherwise, the significance of the adaptation will be diminished.

It's clear that the fans who love it are even more eager than Luo Jinnian himself to have "2001: A Space Odyssey" made into a film immediately.

In late November, Story Club published an official announcement regarding the conclusion of the 2001: A Space Odyssey serialization.

Some comments appeared in the comments section about the adaptation, with many people saying that "this work deserves a cinematic presentation."

Luo Jinnian lingered in the comment section of that account for a while and liked one of the comments.

The message read: "It would be something worth recording if I had the chance to see this story on the big screen."

The "like" was screenshotted and appeared in several discussion threads. Some readers interpreted it as a confirmation signal, and their interpretations tended to be consistent.

[It seems Early Spring Tea intends to make this work into a film, and "2001" would certainly be a suitable choice.]

Actually, I feel that this work, in terms of its writing style, leans more towards a screenplay, so I'm not surprised at all that it's being made into a movie now.

Luo Jinnian did not respond further.

In the same week, at the project approval meeting of Early Spring Culture, Luo Jinnian submitted a proposal entitled "Adaptation Preparation of 2001: A Space Odyssey". Directors Qin and Mo were present at the meeting. The project budget, production cycle, and main creative direction were listed item by item. An appendix included an evaluation of feasible visual solutions under current technological conditions, provided by an external visual effects team. The project was approved.

After the project was approved, Luo Jinnian sent the adaptation plan for "2001: A Space Odyssey" to Director Qin and Director Mo, along with a preliminary technical assessment report. The report, written by an external visual effects team, covered storyboard design, feasibility assessment of visual effects implementation, and budget estimation.

After reviewing the proposal, Director Qin did not express his opinion on the spot. He turned to the production budget sheet in the appendix, where the figures were neatly arranged on the page, covering the estimated expenditures for each stage, including pre-production art design, special effects pre-visualization, set construction, and post-production compositing.

Luo Jinnian said, "This budget is based on the current technical assessment, and room for adjustment will need to be reserved during actual implementation."

Director Mo did not respond immediately. He turned to the third part of the report, which was about "the visual narrative rhythm design of dialogue-free segments." He looked at it for a few minutes and then said, "The first two thousand minutes are without dialogue, which is acceptable in terms of narrative rhythm. But we need to find a way to keep the audience following along without verbal guidance. The initial shot design needs to be precise enough to give the control of the rhythm to the visuals."

A week later, the visual effects team sent over a more detailed concept design document.

The content was very professional; at least Luo Jinnian didn't understand it, so he asked the production crew for professional help to interpret it.

The document contains visual solutions for several key scenarios:

The black stone slab where we first encountered the ape-men, the space station orbiting the Earth, and the stargate passage in Jupiter's orbit.

The space station's design referenced several different engineering structures. The team calculated a rotating structure capable of generating stable artificial gravity based on orbital mechanics and centrifugal force parameters. They included reference sources in their documentation and indicated which parts were derived theoretically.

Luo Jinnian reviewed the plans and their corresponding annotations again.

There was nothing that needed to be withdrawn. He compiled the feedback into a brief explanation, indicating which design directions could proceed directly to the next stage and which required a second version for comparison.

He then sent those comments back to the visual effects team through the internal workflow, adding: "The rotating structure of the space station can proceed directly to the next stage. Other parts retain the option for re-review."

During this period, Director Qin contacted several directors of photography.

The reference materials he provided were not the final draft, but rather some technical notes about "2001":

The movement of the aircraft in a weightless state, the logic of light source distribution in the space scene, and the depth-of-field scheduling scheme for the cabin scene.

There are very few people in China who can film similar scenes, and Director Qin didn't know where to start.

One of the cinematographers raised a very specific question with him over the phone: "Is the lighting in the interior modules of the space station scenes unidirectional or multidirectional? If it's unidirectional, the relative relationship between camera movement and shadow duration will affect the matching of successive shots."

Director Qin wrote down the question and passed it on to the special effects team.

Meanwhile, a studio specializing in physical models sent over a physical model verification plan for the "Stargate Passage" scene. The plan included several preliminary concept renderings and a test video showing experiments using a narrow focal length light source and rotating mirror components in a darkroom. Luo Jinnian did not reply immediately after watching the test video.

Preparations for "2001: A Space Odyssey" are progressing smoothly, with each workflow running synchronously according to plan.

Luo Jinnian created a new subdirectory in that folder, named it "Storyboard Rehearsal, First Version", and then opened a brand new document and began typing out the storyboard description for the first twenty minutes of the scene.

His fingertips continued to tap on the keyboard, the characters extending across the page, recording the first content to be etched from the very beginning of time.