1990: Starting from Baojia Street

"Sense and Sensibility" is a popular movie at this year's film festival. It is originally adapted from a famous novel, and it has grossed more than 60 million US dollars at the box office in North America. Therefore, the tickets for this show sold out the fastest and best.

Zhou Yan is an "insider", so of course he doesn't have to buy the tickets himself, as someone has already arranged it.

After entering the Movie Palace, Jia Guoping said with a smile, "I also took advantage of you and sat in the front row."

Zhou Yan smiled. In fact, the viewing effect in the first row is not the best. If you want to have a good viewing effect, you still have to sit further back.

As soon as they found their seats, they saw Bregman and his friends sitting nearby.

Basically the main creative staff of "Sense and Sensibility" are here, even Alan Rickman is here.

The movie was about to start now, and Zhou Yan just waved and said hello to them, but did not go over to chat.

Jia Guoping glanced at An Li and the others, "That's An Li, right?"

"Well, it's him. Next to him is the producer Bregman, and the leading actor and actress."

"How many of the creative staff of "The Spring of the Cowherd Class" are here this time? You can't be the only one."

"Of course not. Li Xuejian and Zhu Lin arrived two days ago, and Sister Feng also attended the opening ceremony."

Zhou Yan turned around and looked, "They should also be here to see this, but I don't know where they are."

Before he finished speaking, he saw a few people in the middle waving to him. When he looked closely, it was Xu Feng and the others.

Sitting next to Xu Feng were Li Xuejian and Zhu Lin, and Zhang Youan was also here.

Just as Zhou Yan was about to wave in response, another person waved to him not far away. When he took a closer look, it turned out to be Hou Hsiao-hsien.

There are quite a lot of familiar faces in this scene.

Zhou Yan waved to the two groups of people. The movie was about to start now, so he turned his head and went to watch the movie seriously.

Zhou Yanke was so familiar with this movie that he didn't know how many times he had watched it over and over just when he was composing the soundtrack for the movie. Later, he attended the premiere of the movie and watched it again live.

However, Zhou Yan did not feel bored, because now he watches movies not only from the perspective of an ordinary viewer, but also from a professional perspective.

A two-hour movie, you can watch it over and over again, and every time you can see details that you haven't discovered before. As a master, An Li is very good at adding details to the movie, which ordinary viewers may pay attention to when watching. No, but these things will never be in vain. It is precisely because of the processing of these details that the movie is so excellent.

Now Zhou Yan has lost a lot of direct pleasure when watching movies, but he can find some different kinds of pleasure.

The screening of "Sense and Sensibility" was very successful. When the movie ended, there was endless applause.

As one of the creators, Zhou Yan was also very happy to hear the applause.

When the show was over, An Li and Bregman walked up to Zhou Yan.

"I thought you weren't coming." An Li said with a smile.

"It's not unlikely that he won't come this year. After all, 'Cowherder's Spring' is also a favorite to win the award. We watched this movie two days ago, and it was so well shot," Bregman said.

At this time, Alan Rickman also walked over from behind, "Mr. Bregman is right, "Springtime of the Cowherd" is a very good movie. This movie is simply tailor-made for you." Create, the music in it is so beautiful.”

Bregman laughed, "This was originally a movie that he wrote, directed, and starred in. Of course it was tailor-made."

Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson also came, and the latter said, "I heard that this movie did very well at the box office in China, right?"

"It's okay." Zhou Yan smiled and said modestly, "The main reason is that the original version is very good, and I was just inspired by the original version."

"I have watched the original version of "A Cage of Nightingales". Although the story is generally similar, the feeling is completely different. Especially in terms of music creation, your version is obviously much better." An Li said.

Zhou Yan didn't want to accept this, so he changed the subject and said, "Is "Sense and Sensibility" going to be released in Europe?"

"It was released in Spain yesterday, and today it's being released in Norway, the UK, and Italy, and in a few days it's being released in Belgium, France, and Australia," Bregman replied.

Zhou Yan nodded. In this way, several major ticket warehouses in Europe and Oceania were covered.

This means that the global box office of "Sense and Sensibility" will soon be determined.

Although it will be released in many countries and regions in the future, it will not affect the overall situation. The total population of Europe is not large, and it is mainly concentrated in a few countries. Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain are the traditional big vote banks.

"Then after this awards ceremony is over, the box office data in the past few days should be available."

"Yes." Bregman nodded and said nothing more.

The reason why they scheduled the release date here is of course because they wanted to rely on the Berlin Film Festival to promote the movie, just like they scheduled the release date of "The Sixth Sense" close to the Oscars.

If "Sense and Sensibility" can really win the grand prize at the Berlin Film Festival, it will definitely have a positive impact on the box office in these countries.

Everyone knew this, but Bregman couldn't say it in front of Zhou Yan. After all, Zhou Yan was also their competitor now, and "Spring of the Cowherd Class" was also competing for awards.

In fact, Bregman felt that "Spring in the Cowherd" was really well shot, even better than "Sense and Sensibility". Zhou Yan's talent was fully demonstrated in this movie.

As Alan Rickman said, this movie is tailor-made for Zhou Yan. Music and education are closely related to Zhou Yan.

And compared to the "love" theme of "Sense and Sensibility", the theme of "Spring in the Cowherd" is obviously more profound. He is sure that "Spring of the Cowherd Class" will definitely be a movie that can stand the test of time.

But Bregman does not regard "Springtime of the Cowherd" as a rival in his heart, because their goal is to win the Golden Bear Award at this film festival, and "Springtime of the Cowherd" won the Golden Bear Award The possibility is very low.

Even though the Berlin Film Festival is more friendly to new directors than the Venice Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival, it still won't award the Golden Bear to a director in his twenties.

Zhou Yan is really too young, and his age is his biggest disadvantage.

It is difficult for a director who is not yet twenty-six years old to achieve success in such a major film festival.

If Zhou Yan is not twenty-five years old now, but forty-five years old, then the possibility of him winning the award is very high. You don’t even need to be forty-five. If Zhou Yan is thirty-five now, he is very promising.

...Zhou Yan didn't stay in the movie palace for too long. He quickly returned to the hotel with Jia Guoping.

There was another movie to be screened at the Cinema Palace, but Zhou Yan was not interested, and he was indeed a little tired after a long journey, so he went back to rest first.

In the evening, Zhou Yangang and Jia Guoping had dinner and were chatting in the room when there was a knock on the door outside.

"It should be Sister Feng and the others." Zhou Yan said, got up and opened the door.

But when the door opened, Zhou Yan found Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman standing at the door.

"Emma, ​​Allen, why are you here?" Zhou Yan said unexpectedly: "Are you two just the two of you?"

Allen raised the script in his hand and said, "I've brought the heroine to discuss the script with you."

Only then did Zhou Yan remember that he had promised to help with the soundtrack for his movie "The Winter Visitor". At that time, Allen had said that he would find Emma to play the heroine.

"You two, please come in." Zhou Yan stepped aside.

Entering the room and seeing Jia Guoping, Allen smiled and said hello, "Mr. Jia, we meet again."

"Hello." Jia Guoping responded with a smile.

"Alan is going to make a movie. I will be the soundtrack and Emma will be the heroine. They came to talk to me about the script." Zhou Yan explained.

"Then I'll go back to the room first, and you guys can chat."

Zhou Yan nodded, "Well, you go back first."

Although Zhou Yan didn't think Jia Guoping had any problems here, after all, it involved Alan Rickman's unfinished script, so he still had to take their feelings into consideration.

After Jia Guoping left, Alan Rickman handed the script to Zhou Yan, "I have made some modifications to the script, please take a look."

Zhou Yan took the script and took a rough look at it.

He quickly finished reading the script, because the story had not changed much from before, except that there were a few more details.

It used to be a literary script, but now this one is more like a movie script.

It can be seen that Alan Rickman has been seriously thinking about how to make this script into a movie during this time.

Although Zhou Yan felt that the script had many shortcomings, he did not point out these shortcomings from the perspective of a director or screenwriter. Instead, he said with a smile, "Actually, the plot of this movie is relatively simple, mainly the lens arrangement and We need to put more thought into the line design. I think there is no problem with the line design now, Emma, ​​what do you think?”

Emma Thompson nodded, "I feel the same way. Allen read the script to me before, and I was deeply fascinated by the story. But to be honest, I want to film what is expressed in the script. It’s not a simple thing.”

"Well, I believe Allen can do this well. When is the movie going to be shot? Is it this winter?"

"Yes, if there are no accidents, we will shoot this winter. We need to find a period of stable weather."

The stories in "Winter Visitor" all take place on the same day, so it's best to shoot when the weather is more stable.

Fortunately, the climate is relatively stable in winter, so this shouldn't be difficult.

There are still ten months left before the movie starts shooting. For Zhou Yan, there is no need to worry. Originally, the soundtrack intervention was relatively late and there was no preparation work in the early stage.

But Alan Rickman attached great importance to it, and he did not regard Zhou Yan simply as a composer. After all, Zhou Yan was an excellent director and screenwriter. He also hoped to get some useful suggestions from Zhou Yan related to filming.

The content of the three people's chat was completely beyond the scope of the soundtrack. From script writing to subsequent shooting, Alan Rickman asked Zhou Yan many questions.

Zhou Yan had a good impression of Alan Rickman, and he also liked the script "The Winter Visitor", so Zhou Yan was very knowledgeable and knowledgeable about his advice.

Sometimes, when you think about things alone, it is always easy to encounter situations where you cannot push forward, but if you discuss it with a few people, you will suddenly become enlightened.

The same goes for Alan Rickman. He had a lot of questions that he couldn't figure out before, but after chatting with Zhou Yan and Emma Thompson for a while, he figured them out.

After all, when it comes to movies, both Zhou Yan and Emma Thompson have more experience than him.

While chatting, Zhou Yan couldn't help but expand a little more and talk about some specific issues.

"Actually, in the first shot, you set the scene where the heroine's mother walks to the door of the heroine's house. But I think you can change the scene, for example, the heroine's mother is walking on the endless snow. Not only will the scene look better, , and it can also reflect the heroine’s mother’s rush and long journey.”

In fact, Alan Rickman's design in the script also reflects the heroine's mother's long journey. For example, the heroine's mother is flushed and panting.

Alan Rickman used a lot of words to describe this scene. If you just read the script as a novel, there will definitely be no problem.

However, such a design may not be good when photographed, because it is not visually intuitive enough and does not stimulate the audience enough.

The lens designed by Zhou Yan can express more things and is more intuitive.

The most important thing is that it looks good.

Whether the shot looks good or not is very important to a movie.

In addition, the processing of the lens is actually even simpler, because to shoot this scene, you only need to fix the lens and directly apply the classic composition.

Putting the boundary line between the snow and the sky at one-third of the screen, and placing the character's feet at two-thirds of the screen, thus dividing the screen into three equal parts, is a common composition used in many movies.

After listening to Zhou Yan's suggestion, Alan Rickman was very pleasantly surprised, "I have been considering whether to make some modifications to this lens. Your suggestion is really great. Moreover, if this lens of yours is used, it will be very difficult in post-production." When making music, you have more room to play, right? ”

Zhou Yan nodded, "That's right. For such a simple and layered shot, it is indeed easier to do the soundtrack. In other words, this kind of shot is more suitable for the soundtrack."

Movies need a soundtrack, but that doesn’t mean that every shot is suitable for a soundtrack. Some movies tend to make a mistake, that is, they like to pile up the soundtrack, and they will put some music wherever they are. In fact, for many shots, some music is added to the soundtrack. Leaving it blank is more appropriate.

For example, between the lens Allen designed before and the lens suggested by Zhou Yan, the former is obviously not suitable for music, while the latter is very suitable. (End of chapter)