Entertainment: Who still wants to fall in love when there are cheats?

Chapter 218 Finishing

clap clap-

After filming for the day was completed, Li Boda clapped his hands twice, attracting the attention of the entire crew.

"Tomorrow is the Spring Festival. Because of filming, we can't go back to China. But even though we can't go back, we can still celebrate the New Year. We're not filming tomorrow, so let's all get together, eat and drink, and then everyone should come up with a program to perform. Consider it our crew's internal Spring Festival gala," Li Boda said with a smile to the crew.

"Okay, director, you'll have to perform tomorrow too."

"Yes, director, you're here too!"

"Director, you'll be first tomorrow!"

Yan Kuan, Zhao Liying, and the others responded with laughter and jokes.

Honestly, the New Year is all about having this atmosphere.

Moreover, when I was in China, it didn't matter whether I celebrated the Lunar New Year or not. But now that I'm in Hollywood, abroad, I feel a kind of torment when I celebrate the Lunar New Year. It's like I miss home so much and really want to go home for the New Year.

Li Boda's suggestion that the crew hold their own Spring Festival gala the next day actually made everyone in the crew feel much happier and more relaxed. At least the deep longing for their hometown was greatly reduced.

Because it was New Year's Day and there was no filming the next day, many people in the crew were so excited that they couldn't sleep that night. They were making a lot of noise and stayed up until late into the night.

The next day, the crew members began preparing their own performances; some danced, some sang, and some even wanted to perform a set of kung fu moves.

Moreover, besides Li Boda and his fellow Chinese crew members, some local Hollywood staff also joined in the fun, making the Spring Festival party inside the "Infinite Terror" crew particularly lively.

However, despite the lively atmosphere, Li Boda did not intend to turn this party into a trendy overseas party format.

After all, the parties here are notorious for one word—chaos!

As the director of the production team, Li Boda was the first to appear amidst the cheers of the crowd, and then sang a piece of Peking Opera.

Originally, Li Boda planned to sing, but somehow, he suddenly felt that singing a segment of opera abroad would be better than singing.

After Li Boda finished singing this part of the opera, the people around him began to applaud.

After Li Boda stepped down from the stage, Yan Kuan came on stage with a sword, intending to demonstrate a swordsmanship technique.

In fact, Yan Kuan doesn't have much martial arts background. However, over the years, he has filmed too many period martial arts dramas and has learned some sword techniques.

Yan Kuan clasped his hands in a fist salute, then drew his longsword, its blade flashing.

Although Li Boda thought Yan Kuan's swordsmanship performance was rather ordinary, people who didn't understand real martial arts still thought it was quite entertaining, especially the foreigners in the crew, who cheered and applauded, and many even clamored to learn kung fu from Yan Kuan.

After Yan Kuan finished his swordplay performance, Huang Xiaoming went on stage and sang a song, which was well received by the audience who applauded him.

Then Zhao Liying, Liu Shishi, and Shu Chang took the stage and performed a song and dance routine. However, unlike the erotic dances of K-pop groups, their bouncy and jumping movements resembled those of kindergarten children dancing, even appearing somewhat clumsy. But this only made them seem cuter and more fun.

Especially the three of them, even though they were dancing the same dance, they each brought out three completely different styles.

This made everyone around them burst into laughter.

After that, there was Chen Weiting singing, Ni Ge rapping, and so on.

It lasted for several hours before everyone happily dispersed.

However, the crew resumed filming the next day and resumed shooting as normal.

However, filming didn't last long. By the time of the Chinese New Year, most of the scenes for the movie "Infinite Terror" had already been filmed.

So less than half a month after the Chinese New Year, "Infinite Terror" had already reached its final scene.

Yan Kuan was covered in red dye from head to toe, looking as miserable as could be. Then he closed his eyes and fell backward.

With a thud, it fell straight to the ground.

It was Yan Kuan who played Zheng Zha, and the scene where he almost perished together with the Alien Queen.

In reality, Yan Kuan's current appearance, although it looks terrible, is not terrible enough. At least his limbs are still intact. However, in the later special effects, Yan Kuan's hands and feet will be edited out, and that will be the truly terrible, the real final version.

"Cut! This scene is over."

"I hereby announce that filming for 'Infinite Terror' has officially wrapped!" The crew, who had been eagerly anticipating the film, immediately cheered and jumped for joy.

Filming 【Infinite Terror】 was by no means easy.

Filming dramatic scenes is relatively easy, but filming action scenes is really not easy at all.

Actors like Yan Kuan, Huang Xiaoming, and Zhao Liying constantly ran around frantically during filming. Each time they ran, they started at the speed of a 100-meter sprint. When they ran, they couldn't help but have a ferocious expression on their faces, and they had to maintain that sense of fear.

After filming this scene, putting everything else aside, Yan Kuan, Huang Xiaoming, Zhao Liying, and the others all developed visible abs, and they were quite prominent.

Clearly, this is the result of training while filming action scenes.

With a lot of action scenes every day, followed by intermittent 100-meter sprints, and filming for over four months, roughly half of that time—two months—was spent like this. So filming "Infinite Terror" was incredibly stressful and exhausting for them; it's quite normal that they developed abs.

After filming for "Infinite Terror" wrapped up, the focus shifted to post-production editing and special effects.

Everything else is manageable, but the special effects alone are a major problem for "Infinite Terror".

Because Li Boda's "Infinite Terror" is a 3D version, and most of the scenes were filmed under a green screen, the film required a lot of special effects. In order to make the special effects of the film more realistic, the best special effects had to be selected.

However, when it comes to special effects, there are two companies in Hollywood with the best technical skills.

However, precisely because these two companies have the highest level of special effects, they also have so many jobs that they have to wait in line.

Just like Cameron's Avatar, the special effects took 14 years to develop. That's right, 14 years. The filming took two years, but the special effects took 14 years to develop.

Admittedly, the reason it took 14 years was because the special effects technology was not advanced enough and not mature enough before. After the special effects of the movie Avatar were completed, the level of special effects technology also improved.

However, it's simply impossible to achieve the level of special effects in a movie like Avatar in a short amount of time.

Therefore, many Hollywood movies want to have this kind of high-end special effects, and they all start lining up.

Companies like Industrial Magic and Weta Digital, which did the special effects for Avatar, simply don't have the time or resources to do the special effects for Infinite Terror. Unless Infinite Terror gets a long wait of three to five years, it'll be around the time the movie is released.

Besides Industrial Devil and Weta Digital, there are other special effects companies in Hollywood, but their level is clearly inferior.

Moreover, not only are the fees expensive, but the special effects produced are also far inferior.

Therefore, Legendary Pictures and Lionsgate gave Li Boda two options: one was to wait in line for three to five years until Weta Digital and Industrial Magic finished their previous work, and then do the special effects for "Infinite Terror".

Alternatively, you could hire a second-rate Hollywood special effects company to do the effects. The price would still be high, and the quality would be significantly lower, but at least you wouldn't have to wait.

Faced with this situation, Li Boda made a third choice.

After the release of Avatar, Li Boda established a laboratory under the name of 'Magic Cube Technology' to research special effects production.

Admittedly, due to issues with time, manpower, and funding, the special effects he produced were slightly inferior to those used in "Avatar," but the actual level was already comparable to that of second-tier Hollywood special effects companies.

Since we can't hire Weta Digital or Industrial Light & Magic to do the special effects, we might as well do them ourselves.

At least creating your own special effects, although it requires some effort, is much cheaper.

Moreover, special effects technology is something you have to use. The more you use it, the more flexible it becomes, and the easier it is to achieve technological breakthroughs.

However, after Li Boda expressed his idea, Legendary Pictures and Lionsgate directly rejected his proposal.

Because they didn't believe that Li Boda had any special effects skills at least as good as those of second-tier Hollywood companies. They simply didn't trust Li Boda. They thought that the special effects skills in China might not even be as good as those of third-tier Hollywood companies.

In response, Li Boda had a special effects video created and then presented it to the heads of Lionsgate and Legendary Pictures, letting them see for themselves how good the special effects were.

"These special effects, were they really made by your company?" The Lionsgate executive looked at Li Boda in astonishment.

"Yes."

"But it's hard to believe, after all, Chinese films all come to us for special effects. If China really has this level of expertise, why would they go to Hollywood for special effects?" The Legendary Pictures executive ruthlessly belittled China's special effects capabilities.

"Because this special effects technology was only recently developed by our company and hasn't been released to the public yet," Li Boda explained. "Most importantly, the cost of special effects of this level that our company can produce is only one-third of the price Hollywood charges for special effects."

(End of this chapter)