I rarely watch Japanese and Korean movies, and rarely watch horror movies, and I never watch Japanese and Korean horror movies.
This has something to do with my movie viewing habits. After watching the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino a lot, I don't like that kind of small fresh emotions, or pretending to be something out of nothing - the rivers and lakes are long and the mountains are high and the water is long. . _
However, in the past two days, a Japanese small-budget horror film " Don't Stop the Camera! "Brainwashed - I've read it twice, and I'm going to read it for the third time after writing this article.
So magical? This movie is not only scary, but also hilarious. You know, this is a group of amateur actors who spent 180,000 yuan to make it, and his current box office is close to 200 million yuan (all in RMB), and many people are brainwashed by it.
The plot of the movie is not complicated.
The first 36 minutes is a complete zombie film: an independent film crew is shooting a zombie film in an abandoned factory in the wilderness. Clap and clap, the real zombies came, so the crew lost their lives one by one.
[The zombies are coming, and the actors are running for their lives in a hurry]
And what about the director? But the filming was vigorous, "Yes, that's it", "This is the expression I want", "Go ahead, don't stop the camera".
[The actor was frightened to death, and the director filmed it well]
If it's just such a story, what's the point of it? In fact, these 36 minutes are quite rubbish, with rough pictures, exaggerated performances, and special effects.
[The first 36 minutes of the movie is a noisy third-rate horror story]
If I have to say that there is something worth watching, it is: this 36-minute zombie film was shot with a "long shot" method , which means: take a camera and shoot wherever the director goes, constantly in the middle, and also No editing, just one shot.
Because the director took the camera and ran all the way to shoot the long shot, in these 36 minutes, there is a fake picture like the following.
This fictitious, shaky image adds some tension. But what the hell is this? Filming is not for showing off your skills, and taking such long takes without connotation is rubbish. Like La La Land and Roadside Picnic, long takes are a way of expressing their meaning, not an end.
In the 37th minute, the subtitles and cast list appeared on the screen, as if the farce was over. No! This is the beginning of the exciting. Starting from 37 minutes, the story in the next hour is the feature film, which gives the first 36 minutes profound connotation.
The next hour is about the preparation, production, and shooting process of this zombie movie. This is the real climax.
The preparations for the film began, and everyone in the crew, including the director, actors, makeup artists, photographers, etc., held a script with a blood-red cover, "One Cut Of The Dead" (which can be translated as: one corpse to the end, one mirror in the end).
[The crew learns the script collectively]
After learning the script, the crew came to the old forest in the deep mountains to start shooting. In the filming location, there is also a terrifying legend: on the surface, it looks like an abandoned waterworks, but it is actually a place where the Japanese army conducts human experiments. The main experiments are to resurrect zombies and "wake up the curse with blood".
Shooting a zombie horror movie in such a place is sincere. However, what is needed to complete this zombie film is not sincerity, but courage—not the courage to overcome the fear of zombies, but the courage to complete the shooting task .
Because: This 36-minute zombie film will be shot in a "long shot" and broadcast live on TV. As for the crew, there is no money and no one, and all the team members are difficult to serve.
As soon as the team is formed, the director starts to get big.
The star of Little Fresh Meat Boy questioned the script as soon as he came up: Is it reasonable for a zombie to chop people with an axe? Aren't zombies mindless? (I haven't played "Plants vs. Zombies" at first glance)
The female protagonist is cute and beautiful on the surface, but it's actually a thing B.
At one time, I asked to delete the play, another time to change the play, and when it came time to perform a crying play, I also asked the crew to prepare eye drops for myself.
[The actress asked to delete the play]
[The actress needs to use eye drops to perform the crying scene]
There were even actresses with little babies, making the whole room cry.
And the director is a peacemaker, and everything is negotiable (who wants to be not a big shot).
Two hours before the start of filming, the crew had another situation: the actor who played the director and the actor who played the makeup artist had a car accident together because of an affair and couldn't come!
Seeing that the live broadcast is about to start, what should I do? The director himself and the director's wife went into battle in person . Seeing this, you will definitely say: It's over! This crew can't get better, and this zombie movie can't get better .
Surprisingly, they insisted on the live broadcast , and the bug at the beginning was subtly resolved by the director and turned into various foreshadowings later.
The first character who turns into a zombie after being bitten in the film is a supporting role who especially likes to drink. When the film started, he was actually drunk and unconscious.
So, the director Higashi helped him to finish all the action.
[The director supports the drunk actor to play the zombie]
[The director supports the drunk actor to play the zombie]
Don't say, this kind of drunkenness really has a " zombie style ".
There were not enough props at the scene. The crew directly put makeup on their legs and walked in front of the actress. In fact, her upper body was neatly dressed.
The director's wife, Nigbe, who was temporarily pulled into the battle and played the role of a makeup artist, became more and more emotional, and her performance became better and better. She used the routine she learned from the self-defense class to deal with "zombies" throughout the process.
[The female makeup artist who was finally "hacked to death" by an axe]
There was already a mess in the crew, and the live broadcast had to continue. Director Nigba led everyone around, tearing down the east wall to repair the west wall, and skillfully resolved various crises. The effect presented on TV was: so real!
【The producer who watched the live broadcast】
And behind this truth, it is the efforts of the on-site staff, and their hardships, and this is what this film wants to express.
The movie is very funny, but after laughing, I also think about it: it is the love for the movie that makes them complete an impossible "zombie live broadcast", and it is with this love that they achieve a funny and terrifying movie. good film.
On the shooting site, after shooting a scene, rushing to prepare for the next scene is extraordinarily real.
Followed the protagonist and ran, but the staff who fell to the ground didn't care, just got up and continued to run as if nothing had happened.
The last scene of the movie requires the camera lens to be slowly pulled up, revealing the bloody pentagram on the ground as the ending. However, during the shooting process, the rocker camera was broken, what should I do?
The rest of the crew built a human wall while waiting for the live broadcast to arrive. The human wall keeps rising, falling, rising, falling...
This kind of perseverance makes the audience very moved. At the last minute, they finally built a human wall and completed all the live broadcasts.
At this moment, I realized that what the director wants to express is the respect and love for the film. A few seconds of footage that we ordinary viewers see is mediocre, or even a bit rotten, but on the scene, the staff has to pay a big price.
The big-name actors in the crew are not dedicated to their work and have a lot of things to do, while the young actors are simple and enthusiastic; there is sadness in the funny, and deep love for the movie in the sadness...
Even with all the difficulties, these little actors and directors are still determined to give all their enthusiasm.
What do you think of a movie like this? Yes, it's The King of Comedy. Although Yin Tianqiu is just a trickster, he regards acting as his belief. No matter how difficult it is, he must overcome many difficulties and continue to act.
[Still photo of "The King of Comedy", Yin Tianqiu is acting]
And Yin Tianqiu, a submissive little character in life, once he arrives on the set, he pays desperately and becomes addicted like crazy.
See what director Shinichiro Ueda did to promote the film? Counting down one day before the screening, the director made a local propaganda on his ins: he used himself as paint and painted the countdown poster.
Because, "The Camera Don't Stop! 》The production cost is very low and very poor. But the more sour, the more people feel their sincerity.
In fact, good horror movies often seem to have nothing to do with the cost of shooting or whether there are big names. For example, in Ma Kai's "Zhong Xie" in 2016 , how many people were scared to sleep after watching it, and the production cost was only 50,000 yuan, which was better than "Don't Stop the Camera!" "It's a lot less.
This actually shows that a really good movie must have something sincere in it, with the creator's awe, and a good movie is neither a game of capital nor a captive of traffic .
"Don't stop the camera! "It is worth watching, and I look forward to more sincere works at a small cost.
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