director of the millennium

After taking a tour around the filming area of ​​"Mulan" in the Jiaozuo Film and Television Base, Wu Yuan was very satisfied.

As one of the top commercial film directors in Hollywood, Wu Yuan's words are naturally effective. Even though the crew is made up of a group of foreigners, they dare not disobey him, let alone have any opinions on Wu Yuan's decisions.

So even though the main set designers are all blond-haired, blue-eyed foreigners from Hollywood, they all have to listen to several consultants and arrange the shooting scene according to the consultants' requirements.

These consultants are all professional history professors invited by Wu Yuan from domestic universities. Some are responsible for studying architecture, some are responsible for studying clothing, and some are responsible for studying makeup...

Although there are only three or five of them in total, they can command hundreds of foreigners to do things.

Under their direction, the arrangement of the shooting scene was quite consistent with Wu Yuan's impression of the classical era. As for whether it was exactly in line with the background, to be honest, Wu Yuan was not sure. After all, he was not a historian and could only trust professionals.

After walking around the scene, he returned to the hotel first.

The next day, the large group that set out a day later met up with Wu Yuan and others at the hotel.

The shooting period at Jiaozuo Film and Television City was 15 days. The crew directly booked an entire not-too-large hotel to ensure the best protection of the crew's privacy and no outsiders would be allowed in.

All the main actors lived on the same floor to ensure that embarrassing things like the glow-in-the-dark script wouldn't happen.

Well, it's not that the actors can't visit each other to discuss life, but it's to ensure that their visit won't be photographed by paparazzi who sneak into the hotel.

Of course, because the part of the play was set in Jiaozuo Film and Television City, there were no actors like Cheng Long, Gong Li, Huang Xiaoming, Hu Ge, Zhu Yilong and others participating. There were only a group of relatives from the Hua family and their hometown in the county acting as extras, so the leading actors had relatively free time and didn't even have to report to the shooting site every day.

Although people like Huang Xiaoming, Hu Ge, Zhu Yilong and others have joined the crew obediently, they are very free every day. However, the two big names, Cheng Long and Gong Li, have not joined the crew yet and will join the crew for filming when they arrive in Hulunbuir.

The only exception is Zhang Hanyu, because his role is a young general who comes to the Hua family to recruit soldiers, and he also plays a role similar to that of Teacher Hua Mulan, so some scenes need to be filmed.

After gathering these actors with roles to play, "Mulan" officially started filming at the Jiaozuo Film and Television Base at noon on the 6th.

Well, there was no opening ceremony.

Hollywood movies don't use red cloth and incense burners.
As for the launch press conference, Wu Yuan omitted it. After all, you can't expect Hollywood reporters to travel to China to attend a new movie's launch press conference during this sensitive period and then fly back.

Compared to the Hollywood movies Wu Yuan has filmed before, this "Mulan" is the most low-key one.

But he believes that the final performance of this movie will definitely not be low-key!
"Okay, one more guarantee!"

"Brother Hanyu, smile more relaxedly. You should treat Hua Mulan as a child."

"Great, everyone take a break!"

Wu Yuan looked at the images fed back by the monitor with satisfaction, waved his hand, and granted the crew some time to relax.

There's no way around it. The staff from Hollywood are so spoiled. Not only do they have to work eight hours a day, but they also have to have time to relax in between.

But he did have something to do at the moment.

Xiao Zhang, Wu Yuan's former assistant who had been promoted to the director of his assistant office, was walking towards him with a nervous look on his face.

"What's wrong? Is there something wrong?" Wu Yuan glanced at him and asked curiously. "Director Wu, your work email has received an important letter."

Since learning his bad habit of rarely checking his email, Wu Yuan has handed over his work email to his assistant team.

Because this work email address is basically used by people overseas to contact, Wu Yuan has arranged for his assistants to politely refuse any project that invites him to cooperate or direct a movie, and ignore other messy things (referring to seeking unspoken rules.)

Only important matters that require his personal review before a decision will be reported to him.

As for what is important?
Of course, it includes things like invitations from the six major Hollywood studios and invitations from major film festivals.

So, when Xiao Zhang mentioned his work email, Wu Yuan's expression immediately straightened up, "Why, which film festival invited me to participate again?"

The end of the year is approaching, and it is now award season all over the world. Especially with the outbreak of the epidemic in the middle of the year, many important film festivals have been postponed to the end of the year, making this year's end even busier.

But Wu Yuan usually doesn't attend these film festivals unless he has any works. Even if he is invited, he is only invited to present awards or serve as a judge.

"There is an important invitation from the Tokyo International Film Festival." Xiao Zhang pushed his glasses and said.

"Tokyo International Film Festival?" Wu Yuan raised his eyebrows, "Then I'm not interested either."

"Well, Director Wu, I'm not inviting you to participate. I'm inviting you to be the chairman of the jury for the main competition unit."

"Oh?" Wu Yuan was a little interested now. "This year's Tokyo International Film Festival just ended. Does that mean they are inviting me to be the chairman of the jury next year?"

"The invitations are quite early. Normally they start inviting people in February or March every year."

Tokyo International Film Festival is one of the largest and most watched film festivals in the Japanese-speaking world.

But this film festival has the word "international" in its name after all. It is not a film festival that only focuses on Japanese films. It is mainly committed to discovering excellent Asian and international films, and is more inclined towards Asian films. Every year, many excellent Asian films are selected.

The Tokyo International Film Festival is very respectful of Chinese films and has set up a special "Golden Crane Award" during the Chinese Film Week. Although it is not a main competition unit, it is set up specifically for Chinese-language films. This is the only one of the 14 international A-class film festivals in the world that gives face to Chinese-language films in this way.

In addition, Chinese-speaking actors and directors are also frequent visitors to the Tokyo International Film Festival. They not only attend the festival, but are also frequent members of the jury.

The chairman of the jury alone includes Gong Li (2003), Zhang Yimou (2005), Chen Kaige (2013), and Zhang Ziyi (2019).

There are even more Chinese-speaking actors and directors who have served as judges, and the list could number twenty to thirty people.

It is not surprising that Wu Yuan was invited to be the jury chairman of the 2020 Tokyo International Film Festival.

It can also be seen that the organizing committee of the Tokyo International Film Festival attaches great importance to it. In the past, they would only start inviting guests in February or March, but this year they invited Wu Yuan in November, which shows that they are determined to get him and are prepared to spend five or six months to train him.

"Tokyo International Film Festival." After hesitating for a few seconds, Wu Yuan did not ask Xiao Zhang to refuse directly, but decided to think about it.

The Japanese market is still very important to him, so he has to give them face. (End of this chapter)