To make a movie with a long shot, the first thing to consider is how to shoot. The traditional camera is fixed on a shelf and can only be moved in a limited space. If you want a long lens to run through the movie, you can only make the lens as still as possible, and the characters keep coming and going in and out of the picture. The effect of this is similar to that of drama, although The power of borrowed lines may not be able to make a literary film, but it is guaranteed to be very, very hypnotic. Fortunately, the current DV camera technology seems to have advanced to the extent that it can be used for orthodox photography, which has also lifted the space limitations. Then the next step can be to consider how continuous cameras can "partition" the plot. Although the limitation of space has been lifted, in a vast space, the camera can shoot the head at once, so it must rely on natural partitions. A natural idea is to find a place with many rooms and different things happen in different rooms. So where do you have the most rooms? The answer is: palaces, museums and castles. In this way, choosing Hermitage, which was once the Hermitage, was a natural choice.
The second problem with long shots is that because the shots are uninterrupted, if only one story is told, the limitation of the story time is within the length of the movie, which is nothing more than a longer time span, and a group of people can jump from a room. Another room to complete a logical story is too much for the level of a postgraduate screenwriter. At this point, the director needs to use his brain: how to break the physical limitations of time and characters in the most natural way? Quite simply, since the museum is chosen, the museum itself is a product that spans different periods. If a supernatural plot is constructed, it is natural to see characters from different periods in different venues. In this way, the choice of historical subjects seems inevitable.
The next step is to consider the organization of the film. We have already explained that the idea of a long shot necessarily requires different characters to appear in different rooms, so the format of the film must be loose, which requires a main line to string them together, and a protagonist who travels the whole museum is perfect. Of it. Another point is that the continuous lens camera has a strong sense of existence, and you need to find an excuse for the lens, and then think about it, what lens in life is the most natural continuous long lens? That's right, it's human eyes. Using the camera as the eyes of the protagonist is the so-called subjective perspective.
Therefore, Ya believes that the objective limitation of a long lens has caused the film "Russian Ark" to be shot in this way, and a similar theme must be chosen. From this point of view, the film did not have much innovation. However, as I said before, although it is theoretically feasible, it is not easy to achieve it. The director's level is often reflected in the details, and I will explain it in detail below.
The first is the setting of the protagonist. As mentioned earlier, because of the reasonable existence of cameras, it is necessary to set up an image of "me" traveling the whole museum. However, this "I" cannot appear in front of the camera, and if there is no main character in front of the camera, it can easily become a documentary-style introduction dubbing film, which is inevitably boring. And I think the biggest success of this film is to set up two protagonists, "I" and a diplomat, who live in different eras and different places. There are many benefits of dual protagonists. In addition to making the movie appear a real protagonist, the interaction between the two can also increase the degree of interest in the movie. Especially the diplomats in this film are not only French, but also ancients. This surreal setting can easily make the perspective deep and interesting. The diplomat’s actors perform well, have rich body language, and many small movements. In the easily boring parts such as changing rooms, his personal performances add to the film a lot.
Then there is the biggest difficulty that exists objectively when shooting: the scheduling problem. One small trick to solve the problem of large-scale continuous scheduling is to set small breakpoints. The method is to shoot the still life, and the time of the still life can be used to schedule the movement of the actors. A lot of this technique is used in the film. In addition to the artistic display, there are phenomena such as staring at the protagonist’s hands and feet. It's just that the painting is facing to the camera, people are different. An actor's mistake can scrap the entire filming process, which is also terrible. The film has a good protagonist, so one way to save worry is that many rooms have no or only one person other than the protagonist, relying heavily on the protagonist's performance. Note that in the modern part, the protagonists and supporting actors rarely interact, on average, one in each room, and most of the people who appear are passersby who don't need to act at all (the reason is: they can't see the protagonist, which is really easy to worry about). In historical scenes where it is impossible to omit supporting roles, many plots with only a few people have been chosen. For example, there are many plots of Catherine II, with few people, and there are not many people in Ninja. The requirements are not high, save money and energy to the key big scenes to ensure the success of the big scenes. The final dance scene must have taken the director a lot of effort.
The final test of the director's skill comes: how to maintain the appeal and richness of the film. I don't know the specific techniques of photography, but the film lens obviously uses many different angles. When it comes to the back, the smooth movement of the lens makes it almost impossible to feel the existence of a camera. For example, the scene where Nepal sees the messenger, a limited time perspective, and then the protagonist zigzags through the crowd, the front and back are staggered, and then rises above the head, throws towards the center, after seeing the messenger, passes through the crowd, locking the middle part, After introducing a little bit of negotiation, I quickly moved to the other side of the crowd to take pictures of the ladies, and finally returned to the diplomat. Although there is no partition in the whole scene, the changes are very rich. It not only explained the plot from multiple angles, but also increased. It's interesting. There are many such details, coupled with the rich historical facts and sharp comments of the film itself, the amount of information is huge, enough to support the length of the film.
I don't talk about light and music, I don't know how to do it, and it's post-production, so it's not a big problem. Generally speaking, although this film may not be enough for breakthrough innovation, it is still very pleasant to see its excellent completion. The level from idea to completion fully reflects the director's skill.
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