America 1987

Chapter 128 Psychological Pressure

After finishing filming Catherine's scenes, David decided to immediately film the final gunfight scene in the movie.

There's no other reason than to rekindle my creative passion and rediscover that primal excitement while filming.

It is said that when writing a book, some authors will adopt a two-part writing approach to reactivate their inspiration when they encounter writer's block or lose their creative passion.

David had thought about the underlying logic behind this and found that it was indeed a feasible path, mainly for two reasons.

First, when writing a single novel, a person's brain will be trapped in a fixed theme, character settings, and story rhythm for a long time, thus forming a closed loop of thinking. The connection of creative neurons will gradually solidify, and it is easy to fall into a state of burnout and lack of inspiration.

When you switch to creating a completely different work, it's like forcibly breaking this fixed thought process, activating the previously idle creative brain regions, and allowing the brain to re-establish new information connections. This is what cognitive science calls "the essence of inspiration is the unexpected reorganization of different information modules in the brain."

Another reason is that it can effectively reduce the psychological pressure of creation.

When working alone, authors are bound by strong goals such as "must write the current main story well" and "must ensure full attendance and data," and this anxiety inhibits the activity of the brain's default mode network (the core area of ​​creativity).

When authors publish two books simultaneously, they essentially have an additional "stress-free creative outlet." They don't need to have overly high expectations for the success of their new books, which allows the creative areas of their brains to relax and enter a positive cycle of "writing first and then generating inspiration."

In layman's terms, it avoids the "internal friction of perfectionism." When writing two books simultaneously, the author automatically accepts the state of "writing a mediocre first draft of one of them first." After letting go of the shackles of perfectionism, the threshold for starting to write is greatly reduced, and the writing becomes smoother and smoother, constantly generating new inspiration in the process of writing.

However, every advantage has its disadvantages. Most ordinary authors' typing speed is not fast enough to support a stable daily update for two books. In order to reach the word count, it is easy to padded content and the quality will decline, which will consume the reader reputation that the old book has worked hard to build.

Of course, the most important thing is that many people start a new book with a lot of freshness, but they will encounter a bottleneck in their new work after a while. The new project that was originally intended to "save passion" will eventually become a new creative burden, leaving them exhausted from writing on both sides.

Besides, David makes movies, he doesn't write novels. I've never heard of a director making two films at the same time. Well, no, Wong Jing seems to be able to, but he's a special case and not suitable for this study.

So he chose to film the most exciting scenes first to get himself excited.

After parking the car, David got out, while Pierce leaned against his own car, looking like he had been waiting for a long time.

"You want me to come here to find you?"

Pierce asked in surprise, "You're the one who said I thought Huggins was dead."

The white lights in the distance suddenly went out, and both of them turned to look in that direction.

"Let's go quickly."

After looking around, David calmly said, "It's too late."

After saying that, he took a shotgun out of the car. It looked like a Remington M870 shotgun that had just been introduced in 1950.

Due to its high reliability, excellent cost performance, and compatibility with multiple ammunition types, it quickly entered the US police market upon its introduction. At the same time, it was also adopted by the Los Angeles Police Department as supplementary equipment and subsequently became the mainstream shotgun in the US police force for a long time.

Pierce didn't carry a rifle, only a revolver, which fits his character perfectly.

The two retreated, intending to go around to the back of the house to leave, but there were guards there, so they had to retreat again.

After entering the dark house, the two immediately began using various objects to block the light from the leaking windows.

"You suspect it's a trap, yet you still came?"

Pierce asked casually as he worked.

The reason for asking this question was because the other party was too calm, and because of the shotgun and ample ammunition they were carrying in the car.

"So much bad has happened here," David explained, "and all the grudges will finally be settled here."

"clip."

"for you."

David casually tossed one to the other person.

"I just want to catch up with my father," Pierce muttered to himself.

David turned to look at him and said calmly, "Your chance has come."

"He died in the line of duty, right?"

The two looked at each other and smiled.

Just then, a figure flashed past the window next to Pierce.

He reacted quickly and immediately fired a shot in that direction.

Then they were targeted and attacked from all directions, with bullets coming from all sides. David and Pierce had no choice but to lie still on the ground for the time being.

A burly man burst through the door and saw Pierce lying on the ground, about to raise his gun to fire, when David blasted him away with a burst of bullets.

As expected, all the firepower outside was concentrated on this place again.

Germany.

David and his companion moved to either side of the window, lifted the sofa blocking the way, and fired several bullets at the enemy standing in the window.

However, David was clearly getting anxious at this point. Even after Pierce had already fired two shots at the enemy, he still finished him off with a shotgun.

It's really a shame to waste so many bullets on an enemy.

Gunfight scenes and action scenes share the same core experience: both aim to provide viewers with intense sensory stimulation and are core components of action films. Many classic works combine gunfights with close-quarters combat to create more layered battle scenes, such as "Flash Point."

Therefore, spatial and visual logic are points that need special attention when shooting gunfight scenes.

Among them, the 180-degree axis principle is the core bottom line of the spatial logic of gunfights. It draws an invisible 180-degree dividing line between the two sides of the battle, and all camera positions can only shoot on the same side of the axis.

If you cut directly across the axis, the left and right positions and directions of movement of the characters in the preceding and following shots will be reversed, which will confuse the audience about the characters' positions and thus disrupt the spatial continuity of the scene.

Therefore, the main perspective of the gunfight scene just now was always the two main characters inside the house.

"Is the reason for not filming anyone outside at all to avoid visually revealing the number of enemies?"

On set, Catherine asked.

Actually, Catherine could have left after filming all her scenes, but David thought about it and decided to keep her around, otherwise he would be too bored without anyone to talk to.

Why do you ask that?

“Isn’t that right?” Catherine argued logically. “If a detective from the criminal investigation team really wanted to bring people to kill you, how could he only bring such a small number of people, to the point that you ended up killing him instead?”

"So how many people do you think he should bring to be a reasonable number?"

Due to the impact of World War II, the size of the US military and police force had actually shrunk significantly by the 50s.

For example, the total strength of the U.S. military peaked at over 1200 million during World War II, but after the war, it was rapidly demobilized on a large scale, and by 1947 the total strength had been reduced to about 150 million.

At that time, the Los Angeles Police Department had 21 precincts, and the number of detectives in each segregated unit was generally in the range of single digits to more than twenty, which is significantly different from the modern police force configuration for segregated units.

"That's not a small number," David explained. "Just counting the seven or eight people that Pierce and I hit in the movie, Dudley is a corrupt cop and he can't really control the entire police force. It's already quite impressive that he was able to find two carloads of people in such a short time."

"I have a question. Why did you design a shotgun for yourself, but a pistol for Pierce?"

"Because I'm handsome," David said matter-of-factly. "I'm definitely playing the most handsome male lead in the whole movie, so I'll definitely use the coolest weapon in the final battle."

"Are shotguns cool?"

Handsome, of course he's handsome.

David touched the rifle beside him. The polished walnut stock and handguard, paired with the blued metal magazine and barrel, had clean and simple lines without any unnecessary design. It exuded a retro and exquisite feel.