Made in Hollywood

Seeing her frowning daughter, Xie Li sat on a wicker chair next to her and asked suspiciously, "Honey, what are you worried about?"

Natalie Portman shook her head slightly, "It's nothing, Mom."

Shelly asked tentatively, "Is it next year's Oscar?"

After hesitating for a while, Natalie nodded slowly. Seeing this situation, Shelly couldn't help clapping her hands comfortingly, "Frank Pearson, Cheryl Boone Isaacs and Harvey Wayne Stan is full of praise for your performance, and they all implicitly said that they will support you."

She laughed, "Honey, don't forget who you are and what you have done. With proper public relations, your hope is the greatest."

If it was half a month ago, Natalie Portman would think that these words made sense, but now she shook her head, "Mom, they will support me because I am a Jewish person, and I am the most Jewish person." Representative and self-recognized actress, if there is also a Jewish actress who does as much as I did in "Black Swan", and there are stronger forces behind it, you think I will definitely win ?"

"But, dear, is there such an actress in Hollywood?" Shelly really can't think of anyone born in the same generation who can be compared with her daughter, "You are recognized as the best acting and the best image of the new generation , if the Academy wants to launch a representative of the new generation of actresses, no one is more suitable than you."

"A good image and excellent acting skills can win an Oscar?" Natalie couldn't help asking, "Mom, do you really think so?"

Shelly was dumbfounded, just like she thought that Natalie should have a good chance of winning next year's Best Actress, the role and acting skills are not decisive factors at all.

However, she was not too worried. "The Jewish power in Hollywood will support you."

"No!" Natalie Portman said with certainty, "Some people will definitely support others."

She looked at her mother and said very seriously, "Scarlett Johansson's new film is being filmed, and it is aimed at the Oscars! Don't forget, she is also Jewish. And the driving force behind her is Duke Rosenberg Grid and the entire Warner Group!"

"This..." It was the first time Xie Li heard the news, she opened her mouth and didn't know what to say.

If there was only one Scarlett Johansson, she wouldn't take it seriously at all, but no one could ignore the person behind her, even if the other person's style was never very popular with the academy.

And she won't ignore that Duke Rosenberg himself is an extremely important member of Hollywood's Jewish club. There is also Scarlett Johansson's godmother, who is also inextricably linked with many powerful Jews in Hollywood such as Spielberg.

She looked at her daughter, her originally determined gaze had turned into worry.

"I want to increase the chances of winning." Natalie Portman clenched her fists and said forcefully, "We need to do more!"

Need to do more? What do I have to do? Shelly couldn't think of it for a while.

"Mom, I want a baby." Natalie suddenly said something irrelevant. "To have a child with Benjamin."

"What?" Shelly was very surprised. "Nate, what are you thinking? Having a child at this time is ruining your career!"

"No, I must!" Natalie seemed to have made up her mind, "This is to promote my career!"

Shelley didn't understand what Natalie meant. Just looking at Natalie in surprise, she knew that her daughter was dating that French dancer.

After all, it was her own mother on the opposite side, and Natalie Portman didn't need to cover up too much. She continued, "Mom, as far as I know, Benjamin is still dating her ex-girlfriend..."

Speaking of which, this love was snatched by her, and Natalie would not admit that she belonged to a third party.

"According to my observation, Benjamin likes children very much..." She said seriously, "If there is a child, there will be no problems between us."

"But your career..."

Before Shirley finished speaking, she was interrupted by Natalie Portman waving her hand, and she said, "This is also good for my career."

Natalie Portman lowered her head and looked at the glass of juice on the table, as if seeing her own future. Natalie Portman's eyes became more and more determined, "As long as I can get pregnant as soon as possible, during the awards season, the picture of my pregnancy will Being able to appear in major media, most people in this society are sympathetic and inclined to pregnant women, this will definitely affect the voting choices for a series of awards!"

Xie Li was speechless, but she had to admit that what her daughter said was very reasonable. If an ordinary woman had a dispute with a pregnant woman, almost 90% of them would be on the side of the pregnant woman.

This is a social reality, and the daughter will no doubt take advantage of it.

Natalie Portman is also convinced that if she can move around with a big belly during the awards season, she will definitely be the most powerful contender for the best actress in various awards!

After careful consideration, Shelly still said, "It's best to say hello to Martin."

"I will." Natalie nodded, "We also need him and William Morris to cooperate with public relations."

The next day, Martin Miller of William Morris got relevant news. He had to admire that Natalie Portman's mind was definitely among the top female stars in the circle.

When the time entered mid-August, after intense preparations, "Gravity" entered the shooting stage, and Duke kicked off the shooting at Warner Studios in Burbank.

At the very beginning of filming, Duke used a specially made device - a light box.

"Scarlett..." Standing in front of the light box, Duke asked loudly, "How do you feel?"

Because of the test shooting before, Scarlett didn't feel too uncomfortable when she arrived, and made an "OK" gesture to Duke.

"Pay attention to the picture on the LED screen!"

Another reminder, Duke returned to his director's seat, and the first shot was not too difficult, just a close-up of Scarlett's eyes. In the close-up, her eyes and the reflection on the helmet had to be done Meticulous scrutiny to avoid passing through.

"Gravity" has a lot of close-up shots. If the eye reflexes are not done well, many shots will go wrong. The crew is not the first team to consider this.

In 2004, the special effects team of Industrial Light \u0026 Magic, where Tim Weber was working, had such an idea when making commercials—to design a room with LED screens in the front, back, left, and right, playing corresponding so that the image of the reflection in the eye can be obtained directly.

This idea was extended and eventually became the two major hardware for the visual effects of "Gravity"-one is the full LED screen shooting device "light box", and the other is a large LED screen to solve the problem of light reflection.

Duke's shooting here is that Scarlett looked at the light and shadow of the simulated universe on the LED screen, and the camera captured the reflection in the human eye.

In order to shoot this close-up shot, Scarlett Johansson had to stand in front of a huge LED screen, look at the light and shadow that simulated the universe in the picture, and rely on the camera in front of the LED screen to capture the light and shadow reflected in her eyes.

The area of ​​the eyes is small, and the accuracy of the picture is not high, so the low-pixel LED screen can still guarantee the picture quality, and the collection of this picture and light effect is not only used in the reflection of the eyeball, but also in other mirror reflections. places, such as the space helmets worn by Scarlett and George Clooney.

In the earliest part of the shoot, the difficulty was not the performance of the actors, but the lighting. Due to the problem of lighting, this shot was NG for nearly a morning, and the best solution was not found until before lunch.

"Even if I close my eyes, there are still light bulbs inside."

During lunch, Scarlett also complained to Duke in a timely manner. Duke just patted her hand comfortingly. The filming had just started, and all aspects needed to be adjusted.

Lighting is only representative of a series of problems.

The space environment lighting design process includes three main light sources, the distant hard sunlight, the soft light reflected by the earth, and the occasional reflected light from the moon.

This kind of setting is neither like the real outer space, nor like the inside of the space station. In space, people face darkness, and can only see a part of the sun, a part of the earth, and occasionally the moon.

But if it was shot and produced like this, the nearly 100-minute film in the setting would not have much to attract the audience to watch, so Duke decided to keep changing the lighting.

Therefore, the lighting engineer of the crew needs to constantly deal with the properties of the light according to Duke's requirements. Is the light very hard or very soft, and what is the reflectivity? What about the color?

These seemingly small details can create many different environments.

However, they are still lucky, because the spacecraft moves very fast, and they will experience several days and nights within 24 hours.

In fact, the lighting effects in the shooting follow the movement and rotation of the camera and the characters have very rich and dramatic changes, and there will be a sunset every 90 minutes over the equator.

In the afternoon shoot, there was also a shot showing Scarlett's heroine finally turning into the dark starry sky, with almost no light, only a faint light from the inside of the helmet.

Duke also designed an accurate global trajectory for the characters throughout the development of the plot. For example, in the first scene of the second day of filming, Scarlett’s heroine was above the African desert, and the sun came into view, so the color of the earth It will be warm, and the reflection of her face will be warm.

After filming a few simple scenes, the crew gradually found the feeling, and Duke also began to put the choreographed weightlessness scenes on the agenda.

The zero-gravity scenes nailed certain combinations, which were necessary because the actors in the light boxes were constantly spinning during the shoot.

For example, Duke starts with George Clooney's face and then has to move the camera to Scarlett and she's spinning at different speeds and the camera goes around her and then pulls back to George Clooney because if Stepping back straight to George Clooney, his feet will be the next thing to be photographed. (to be continued ~^~)

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