"Animal World", oh no, live-action? The real lion version? The Lion King is finally here. The film has a good reputation after its premiere in the United States, especially in terms of visuals, and I am really curious about this film.
The animated version of "The Lion King" is so classic that it doesn't need to be emphasized too much, so is it really necessary to remake it? Of course, Disney has been making remakes with the mentality of making money and not making bastards, and I won't say much about the effect. But the production of "The Lion King" really needs special attention. Maybe this time it is really a historic movie.
As the title says, this movie has no set (traditional shooting location), no characters, no traditional digital camera (what the director said).... Everyone should remember "Fantasy Forest", also the director Jon Filmed by Favreau, at that time only one actor was used in the whole film. In "The Lion King", this actor finally disappeared. So, naturally, this movie has to use a lot of complicated production process. Because everyone has not seen the film, today's article explains some important points in the filming of the film from the director's personal point of view. Included: The technology needed to make the film, how to set the tone of the story, the difference between the live-action and the animated version, the film's soundtrack and why he chose Donald Glover and Beyoncé to voice the protagonists.
The content of the article is referenced: https://www.slashfilm.com/
What director Jon Favreau brings to the film
Much of the work on filming The Lion King was done in virtual production, with director Jon and collaborators such as cinematographer Caleb Decharel shooting scenes with rendered animations in the virtual world and sending them to Visual effects company.
“The Lion King took me 3 years, and this one started out as an animated storyboard. Then I learned something through Avatar to be able to make The Forest, to use those techniques. With keyframes All the creatures were modeled and shot through the VR interface. In The Lion King, nothing was physically there. There was no set, no characters, no motion capture, not even photography. We threw out all the lighting and camera equipment, Made a "quantity", so in "The Lion King", we used the game engine Unity to animate.
We set up the scene first and then entered the environment in VR. So we can really walk around and do this in VR in a live setting. We first went in with (Director of Photography) Caleb Deschanel and (Special Effects) Rob Legato and (Scene Designer) James Chinlund and just looked around. There were about six people, wearing HDMs, and we did a pretty much multiplayer movie-making game. We don't just use the headgear, we also have a handle that can be used to control the screen. Then when we actually started making the movie, we brought the whole crew in. We have a track, a camera with a roller skate, and a jib. The simulated feel of haptics and camera movement brings real-world effects to keyframe animations. We built a really solid virtual set, and we even had an assistant director and an entire crew. So when you walk into our set, it's no different than a normal crew except you're in a big black box.
And our goal was to make the action in The Lion King feel more real. Because if you think it's an animation, then this movie is no different from the Disney version in 1994. So with the same theme, you have to come up with something completely new. So to make it appear that we're not just talking about "putting the rocker to the limit," we actually have the mechanics operating the rails, or the rocker, and people operating the pulleys or other troublesome things.
And, using these techniques, really makes the VFX department a creative partner from the start, allowing us to present VFX in a way you haven't seen before, to tell the story like a BBC documentary, to combine the two stand up. 20 years later, we are introducing this household story to children and letting them experience the touching music again. Making the most of the big screen and getting people into theaters, I don't think that's part of the equation when you get into the business. But now you have to convince people that they shouldn't be sitting at home watching TV, just like opening a restaurant to convince people not to eat delicious food at home, but to eat out. "
Then I will say that the special effects production of this film is mainly in MPC, because it has not been released in North America, and I don’t know much about it at present... For more detailed information on the production of this film, continue to pay attention to the film and television industry network, some information is slowly send.
About the story
Despite its humorous moments, The Lion King is not a comedy movie. It's complex, a mix of light and dark, and it's that balance that draws Favreau to tell the story in a cinematic medium.
The director said: "I wanted to emphasize the philosophy behind the original, it's about the cycle of life. It's not always smooth sailing and bad things happen in life, but in the end what I like is that after watching the story, the audience is inspired And hopefully, that's what I love about this story. All are unique, it's up to you where you choose to end the story, and if you put the full stop when Mufasa dies, it's another story. It's really moving when I'm over the lines, especially when I hear James Earl Jones say the lines, he's the only one who does voice acting for animation and live action. Music is very soulful too, when we When making music, as in musicals, we go deep into the roots of music. And the choir's singing has such a deep emotional power and spiritual impact that it feels so ancient and powerful. Hans Zimmer and Elton John and the whole team put it into the film so nicely, when we do the opening scene, when the sun rises, when you hear the first note, I'm already hooked. Then we just make sure the imagery evokes the classic animation Memories, or to make the picture look cool to people who haven’t seen the anime.”
Is this an animated movie or a live-action version?
2016's The Jungle Book was dubbed "live-action" because the film did feature live-action footage of actor Neil Sethi as Mowgli and composited into a digital environment. However, this "The Lion King" doesn't have any live-action footage, so how do you classify it? Even the director himself didn't know how to answer this.
"It's hard to answer that because it's neither. It depends on what criteria you use. Because there are no real animals in the film, no real cameras, or even data on the motion capture performance, everything is done by the artist in post But to say it's animation, I think it's misleading in terms of expectations. Some people may not know how these shots are done, if this movie can make the audience think about how these shots came about Yes, I think that's a good temperament to have as an audience."
"I remember when I watched Gravity, I didn't know what to expect and just heard that it was a cool movie. Half of the production technology I didn't know how they did it, I was completely blown away It attracted. The Lion King I don't think it's appropriate to call it 'live-action' because it sounds like we're trying to present something imprecise. I don't know what to call it, really."
set the tone
Some projects used CG effects to capture the dreamy feel of the original film, but the Lion King animated film didn't have that surreal feel, so how that changed the way he did this version.
"I think because the location is in Africa, the tone of the story is different," he responded. "It feels like mythology, and I think that's part of it: creating a tone that fits the medium. You can escape the more violent ingredients with more hilarious humor, because the cartoons polish off those edges. Make a live-action version. You have to be more decisive in terms of humor and intensity and violence because it's going to be very extreme and it's not going to feel like part of the same movie, so when you've got the right tone, you're saying, 'This is exactly what used to be The classic animation.' If you're trying to introduce The Lion King to your kids for the first time, if you bring them to the theater, they'll want to see the animated version when they get home, and then they'll want to watch the play or be involved in the play ."
difference between film and animation
Jon told me that while it's a familiar story, there's still room for transformation.
"The more you watch, the bigger the challenge, there are things that have to be worked out to make it more of a medium. But in terms of the characters, the story, the themes and the music, we feel the characters have a strong connection to the original, so if you're a Fans of the original, you'd say, 'I feel like watching the animated Lion King. Like when you see the stage play, you think it's connected to the animated movie. But if you look closely, we're free to play , made changes to the scene, structure and humor.'"
How big is the difference
"It depends on how well you know it. How much did we change the Ring of Life segment? Some people might say, 'That's shot after shot,' but if we look closely we'll see that's not the case. Let's just put it this way, this is what I learned from The Jungle Book and even from Iron Man to a certain extent, let's write down everything we know and remember before looking into the old movies What do we have to do? For The Lion King, this is a longer list because many people have watched The Lion King countless times, many people grew up watching The Lion King, and even I've watched it countless times, knowing that I was an adult when The Lion King came out."
"I think part of that is understanding how memory works, understanding what the expectations are, and like, 'put all kinds of jokes in there, or I don't think the joke is strong enough. Change the character of a character so it's consistent throughout the film , or more modern than from other eras.' As for the music, it's 'Take it away. I know it sounds like that from the album, but if the concert can do it better, change it.' So As mentioned above, we do our best to move people through various means, such as music, VFX, voice acting, etc. Also, adding or removing a song or a scene is for the better. But I will say We're very close to what you think it is."
Will there be new songs in the video?
With voice actor Donald Glover and singer Beyonce joining the cast, the big question on everyone's mind is will we hear new songs in the film? "Not in the main part of the movie, but in the end credits, there's plenty of time to insert a lot of songs. So when we got to the next stage, we started to focus on that. Fortunately, compared to that, it's only It took very little time, so when the production started to merge, we started thinking about the music. There were a lot of people working on the music, I don't have a background in music and they were professional in that, so hopefully the music would add some value to the film. "
Working with Beyonce
When asked what it was like to work with the world's superstars, the director replied: "She's super busy, she's going to have kids, she's going to release an album, she's going on tour, and her husband is also on tour, so she's going to come more often than other voice actors. Tricky. Half of the characters she dubs are singing, so we felt like we made the right choice. She's well prepared, she's a very hard worker, no wonder she's done well in many areas. If you look at Lemonade , you'll find she's also very knowledgeable about filmmaking and is very curious and innovative. When it finally became human and it was just the two of us in the studio, she was very good and even prepared a lot of things in advance. It saves a lot of money Time. She didn't have to sit in the trailer and wait for the camera to be ready. When it was her turn, it was all about her and I started following her performance, working with the cameramen, and I worked hard to get to know my voice actors and get the animation and visuals The special effects reflect who they are. Even if it's not obvious on the surface, it motivates me in the way I imagined it would be."
with Hans Zimmer
"I knew Hans had to use a lot of digital instruments," Jon said of Hans composing the original music. "Here, we'll be able to give him another solution and see what he can create. He's learned a lot from touring and knows he should bring that power to the movies. He's always been brilliant and has Rich experience in various studio productions, and excellent voice actors on the team, so a series of conditions make it possible for us to make a good movie. I watched his performances, his live performances, and there was a performance he played Almost all of the music is for movies, many of which are classics. Before playing the music, he will tell a related little story, maybe about "The Dark Knight", maybe about "Inception". There is a piece of music that he did not do Any introduction, that is the soundtrack of "The Lion King", when Lebo walked to the stage to sing the music of the opening scene "Breathless", the audience instantly boiled, because the song was too familiar. From this, We learned that if we do our job well, it resonates with people. As a filmmaker, I cannot express how grateful I am for all of this.”
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