Huayu: Director started with art films

Above the Yangtze River in Wuhan, the wind was blowing fiercely, making the military flags flutter, as if cheering for the upcoming fierce battle.

Warships were lined up on the river, the rams on their bows flashing coldly in the sun, revealing an indomitable determination to move forward.

There are hundreds of sailors on each warship. They are holding weapons, wearing armor, and staring at the enemy with fierce eyes.

The drummers on the warships were focused, holding the drumsticks tightly in both hands. At the command of the general, they began to beat the drums with all their might.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The dull and powerful drum sound instantly broke the tranquility of the river, like bursts of spring thunder rolling on the river, deafening.

The drum beats were rhythmic and one louder than the other, as if urging the soldiers to move forward bravely.

"Kill!"

"Kill Cao the thief!"

"Come on!"

"For Jiangdong!"

"..."

Following the drumbeats, the navy shouted and rushed towards the enemy camp.

For a moment, the shouts and cries of killing on the Yangtze River shook the earth.

The soldiers waved their weapons, the flashes of swords and sabers flickered in the sun, reflecting the waves of the river, interweaving a tragic yet spectacular picture.

The warships collided with each other, making dull "bang bang" sounds, the sound of cracked planks and the cries for help of soldiers falling into the water intertwined together, making a mess.

Li Yishu had been sitting in front of the monitor, watching the battle between the Sun-Liu coalition forces and Cao's army on the warships in front while staring at the monitor.

Director Xie Jin, who was standing nearby, was also concentrating intently on watching the "Battle of Red Cliffs".

This is one of the most difficult war scenes to shoot for the entire crew!

It can be said to be the most difficult scene, because it was set on the river, and we had to film the soldiers falling into the water, the warships being burned, and the fighting between the two armies.

In order to shoot this scene well, the crew prepared a total of 30 cameras, including 20 fixed cameras and 10 mobile cameras, which were specially assigned to photographers to carry behind the soldiers of both armies to shoot close-up shots of the fighting between the two sides.

In order to ensure continuity, Li Yishu also requested a one-shot shoot.

Zhao Fei personally carried the camera and followed behind the Jinfan thief Gan Ning (Zhao Wenzhuo), starting from when he led a small fleet of ships to charge towards the tall warships of Cao's army, until Gan Ning climbed onto the enemy's warships with a hook, and then started fighting until the battle was completely over.

In addition to these camera positions, the crew also dispatched two large cargo ships to carry large cranes as long as 20 meters. This was specially ordered from abroad by the crew in order to shoot war scenes.

One on the left and one on the right, the cranes can capture the entire battlefield from a high altitude.

Seeing that the ordinary battle was almost over, Xie Jin shouted on the intercom: "Group three, get ready, fireworks group, get ready!"

"Ready!"

As the three groups and the fireworks group were ready, Xie Jin shouted, "Shoot! Ignite!"

In an instant, the three groups that had been ready drew their bows and arrows, with flaming arrows on the arrows, and shot towards one of the warships.

Of course, they couldn't hit the target because they were dozens of meters away. Moreover, these bows and arrows were not very powerful. They were just for show.

However, editing and special effects will be done in the later stage to achieve the scene of thousands of arrows being fired at the same time.

In an instant, as the warship was hit by the rocket, a raging fire broke out. The fire spread rapidly with the help of the wind, illuminating the entire surface of the river red.

In the billowing smoke, the figures of the soldiers were looming. They kept fighting despite the scorching fire. Their ferocious faces and resolute eyes showed their determination to face death.

"How spectacular!"

At this time, the shore was already filled with onlookers. Looking around, there were tens of thousands of people densely packed together, almost covering the entire river bank.

I don't know who sighed, and other people at the scene also started whispering to each other.

The crew had reported their intention to film the Battle of Red Cliffs long in advance in order to avoid having any fishing boats leave the river.

Because the crew did not ask for confidentiality, the news that they were going to film a battle between two Chinese naval forces spread throughout Wuhan.

Many people are interested in making movies, let alone filming ancient naval battles.

So many people came to watch the fun. When they started preparing, everyone thought it was boring.
But now, seeing several ten-story ships and dozens of warships that are almost two or three stories high, they are attacking each other on the river, with flames surging and thick smoke billowing, it really looks like that.

"Crack!"

After filming the first round of charge, Xie Jin called for a pause, asking everyone to take a break and letting the fireworks team put out the fire.

Although preparations had been made in advance and iron plates had been installed in the burning area, the flames could not be allowed to burn like this all the time. If the warship was really burned, the losses would be huge.

It's not a loss of a warship, so it doesn't matter even if it sinks.

Anyway, the crew had already prepared to sink a warship, which would make it more realistic, and mainly to avoid possible casualties.

Director Xie Jin said confidently, "How about it, Director, how about the water battle scene I designed?"

"As expected, you are Director Xie!"

Li Yishu gave a thumbs up and praised, "Before, I couldn't tell just by looking at the storyboards, but now that it's filmed on location, the effect is really good. I believe that after post-production is completed and the film is released, it will definitely amaze the audience!"

Li Yishu naturally believed in Xie Jin's talent in filming water battle scenes. He still remembers how spectacular "The Opium War" he filmed was.

Although the Battle of Red Cliffs does not seem as grand because it did not involve hot weapons such as artillery like the naval battles in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the shock brought by the decisive battle with ancient cold weapons is actually more exciting than that with hot weapons.

Especially when seeing the ancient military formations and scenes of thousands of people charging forward, even a dog would want to stand up and charge into the battle formation with a sword.

"Haha, I spent more than half a year working with many history professors, experts, and literature to design it, and it finally lived up to my expectations!"

Xie Jin was filled with emotion. In order to film the Battle of Red Cliffs well, he spent a lot of time and energy studying this water battle scene.

"Jingle Bell……"

Just when Li Yishu was about to say something, his cell phone suddenly rang. When he picked it up, he found that it was Han Sanping calling.

Li Yishu said with a smile: "Hey, Director Han, how come you have time to call me? Aren't you busy cleaning up the mess for Director Chen?"

Xie Jin, who was standing by, smiled but said nothing. They had just booked a time slot in Wuhan two days ago to watch the movie "The Emperor and the Assassin" with the main creative team.

After all, it is currently China's first historical blockbuster with an investment of 300 million RMB.

Since both are historical themes, it is natural to see how the opponent shoots.

Xie Jin used to have a very good impression of Brother Chen Kai. "Yellow Earth", "King of Children", "Singing While Walking" and the previous "Tree" are all works with great ideas.

But you won’t know how shocking this movie “The Emperor and the Assassin” is until you see it.

The characters are confusing, the well-known Zhao Ji was changed into a childhood sweetheart, and Zhao Ji was made to run to the State of Yan to find Prince Dan, and the emperor deliberately arranged for an assassin to kill herself, thus having a legitimate reason!
But can’t she be called Yannu?
Qin Shi Huang and Prince Dan were childhood playmates. They had a good relationship because Prince Dan was a hostage in Handan, Zhao State.

There was a girl named Yan Qingmei, which also makes sense.

Even if she was not a Yan girl but a Zhao girl, why couldn't she change her name? Why had she to be called Zhao Ji?
Anyway, the movie was terrible and Xie Jin was very disappointed.

"so serious?"

Listening to Han Sanping's words, Li Yishu couldn't help but frown: "Doesn't that Kadokawa Book Company know that it's normal for movie investments to fail?"

Han Sanping said angrily: "Of course this is normal, and the people from Kadokawa Bookstore have nothing to say, but they are now accusing Brother Chen Kai of abusing his power for personal gain, deliberately exaggerating the investment share, and lining his own pockets, and accepting kickbacks in the project of investing in the construction of the Qin Palace!"

Read the error-free version at 69shuba! 6=9+shu_ba is the first to publish this novel.

"Then what are their demands? They can't be asking for Brother Chen Kai to go to jail, right?"

Li Yishu frowned. He didn't know whether Brother Chen Kai had taken kickbacks, enriched himself, or abused his power for personal gain. If he insisted on saying no, that would absolutely be a lie.

Han Sanping said with a headache: "They didn't say whether they had any demands or not, they just asked us to give them an explanation, and they also threw the problem of the movie's box office failure on Brother Chen Kai and the crew."

Kadokawa Shoten itself is a cross-border investor. For them, even if they completely break up with the Chinese film industry, it doesn't matter. The worst that can happen is that they won't invest in Chinese films or come to China to invest in business.

Anyway, of the bookstores that opened here before, except for a few in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou that are still in business, most of the others are either closed down or on the verge of closing down.

The company failed to enter the Chinese market, and it had liquidity problems in Japan due to the poor box office performance of "The Emperor and the Assassin". So naturally it would try to recover as much of the losses as possible.

"What about Brother Chen Kai?" Li Yishu asked back.

Han Sanping said: "What can he do? He is having a headache now. Anyway, from what I heard from him, he probably didn't embezzle anything, but he did have some other things."

This is right!

It is simply impossible to invest hundreds of millions of dollars without taking kickbacks or doing something else.

Take Li Yishu for example. Although he did not do anything to enrich himself, he did arrange for Jiang Qinqin, Yu Feihong, Gong Li and others to make guest appearances. To be honest, this can be considered as abusing power for personal gain, but it's open and aboveboard and no one says anything about it.

Li Yishu thought for a moment and asked, "What is the total box office of "The Emperor and the Assassin" now?"

"The Japanese box office was $1200 million, but now the single-day box office is less than $4000. I estimate that it will drop in the next few days. The domestic box office is now more than million RMB, and it is probably at its peak."

US$1200 million + US$500 million domestic, up to US$1700 million.

It seems that compared with the investment cost of nearly 4000 million US dollars, it is only half of it, but there are still publicity and promotion costs to pay, and the share of the theaters. Even if the share is the highest 800%, it will only recoup million US dollars.

But in reality, the producer only gets about 35%-40% of the total box office revenue, because they also have to give a share to the distributor.

After hearing that the price was less than 20 million US dollars, Li Yishu hesitated for a moment and said, "How about this? Please ask the people at Kadokawa Books to sell me the film copyright, including the Qin Palace in Hengdian!"

"Sell it to you?" Han Sanping was surprised and asked, "You want to buy it?"

"Yeah, buy it!"

Li Yishu smiled and said, "But the price will definitely not be very high. You can ask them. It will be 1000 million US dollars before tax if they agree to sell me all the copyrights including the Qin Palace. If they are willing, I can pay after signing the contract."

Ten million US dollars to buy all the copyrights of the movie, plus a Qin Palace. Although it is not clear what Li Yishu thinks, Han Sanping feels that this price is still acceptable.

You have to know that the Qin Palace was built at a huge cost, with a total investment of nearly 1.5 million RMB. Not only did they buy the Qin Palace at a half-price discount, but they also bought the film copyright.

"Okay, I'll ask for you!" Han Sanping thought about it and agreed to help ask.

After hanging up the phone.

Xie Jin beside him couldn't help but ask, "Director, you spent 10 million US dollars to buy the copyright of Chen Kaige's film. Can you make it back?"

"Haha, Director Xie, of course I can make it back."

Li Yishu did not hide it from the other party and said with a smile: "Once I buy the copyright, I will reshoot the war scene and shoot it together with our Three Kingdoms: Red Cliff. After our Three Kingdoms is released worldwide, as long as it is a big hit at the box office, I will immediately release this movie and release it in European and American countries!"

Hearing this, Xie Jin was dumbfounded. Could it be done this way?

However, as Li Yishu said, he is very confident in the quality of "Red Cliff". If the movie can do well at the box office in Europe and the United States, the same historical masterpiece will have a high success rate in being reproduced in Europe and the United States.

It shouldn't be a problem to recover your investment or even make money.

After a good rest, Li Yishu and Xie Jin resumed filming.

When Lee Ye-seo was filming the Battle of Red Cliff on the river,

On the other side, inside the Wuhan Song and Dance Theater, dozens of women dressed in ancient costumes were rehearsing dance.

The theater manager smiled and said, "Xiao Liu, your choreography is pretty good."

Liu Xiaoli said confidently: "The time is too short. If you give me another week, it will be even better!"

"Haha, that's good enough."

The manager smiled, glanced at Liu Xiaoli beside him, and said, "Such a good opportunity, don't you want to lead the dance yourself?"

The crew of "Red Cliff of the Three Kingdoms" temporarily added a scene in which Cao Cao was on a boat looking at the allied forces of Sun and Liu on the other side of the river in the distance. Seeing that the enemy's water stronghold was sparsely populated compared to his own million-strong army, he happily returned to the water stronghold. While talking with the civil and military officials of Jingzhou about the war with Sun and Liu, he watched the local dance of Jingzhou.

This design is consistent with the character of Cao Cao in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Although Cao Cao is suspicious, he is also a proud and arrogant person.

Otherwise, there would not have been the Wancheng Incident, because of a wife, Dian Wei and his eldest son Cao Ang were ruined.

"This……"

Liu Xiaoli was a little hesitant. Of course she wanted to be the lead dancer. This was a rare big production in China and being able to lead the dance meant that she would definitely have a role to play on camera.

The manager said, "Okay, we won't be filming this scene until a few days later, so you should think about it carefully. You choreographed the dance anyway, so you have to cooperate with us during the rehearsal."

"Okay, manager." Liu Xiaoli bit her lip. (End of this chapter)