Full record of the director’s conversation at Beijing Spot Screening on the afternoon of October 12
[Ang Lee on "Gemini Killer": To open up a beautiful new world, the front must be hard]
On the afternoon of the 12th, the full record of the director’s dialogue with the Beijing Film Studio——
Q [Why are you looking forward to the film's response in China? 】
Ang Lee: I have always had a feeling of excitement and familiarity in the Chinese market. Chinese culture is still my basics. Although I am making Western films, it is difficult to hide the cultural background. Facing the audience, I feel like a hometown.
In addition, the film has been in development for more than 100 years, and many things have become rigid. Audiences all over the world feel tired. On the contrary, Chinese audiences are very enthusiastic about movies and watching movies are very exciting, so I am full of hope. From "Youth School", I started to get in touch with 3D technology. This is an unfamiliar and future attempt for me. Its images have a new aesthetic, which deeply attracted me. "Billy Lynn" was filmed very hard, and the response in the United States was average. The best response is here, where the industrial technology of high frame rate screening is also commercially released. I hope that diversified and healthy movie-watching interests will be maintained here, and I am very optimistic about this.
In the long run, movies are built by Americans. There is a set of values and narratives in them. It is very solid. We all grew up watching American movies. To be honest, I personally feel a little tired of watching them. Chinese culture does not lack beauty and stories, and should be able to play a set of film vocabulary that influences the world. China has a variety of traditional art methods to entertain and educate the audience and express emotions, whether it is classical or modern, with so many stories, so many forms, and such a large population, it can inject new vitality into American film culture. This is a dream of mine.
Q [It is said that the cloned Junior is the most expensive protagonist in history. How is building a digital image different from the past? 】
Ang Lee: Human cloning is an extreme example. In such a lens, studying a person's face, many techniques can make up for what is impossible in reality. For example, age, muscles, and subtle expression changes cannot be truly represented by physical methods. In movies, it used to be makeup and stand-ins, now it is digital and motion capture. At the beginning, this story did not attract me. What attracted me was a person you know and acted side by side with himself. This is a very strange feeling. I am looking forward to what the performance will be like. No matter what the story is, a movie always tells people in the end, and uses images to stimulate our reflection on people's mood. Such a medium can see people in more detail, has transparent skin, and puts a lot of pressure on actors.
For a star as big as Will Smith, he not only has to act, but he also has to challenge to act as a young self. It took one or two years to complete Junior with motion capture, but the old face is not fresh after all. We have to think about how to capture it. There is no other way except to do it one by one with computer animation. People's acting skills, time and age, as a director, I have done a more detailed study of these. It's like a graduate student. I took 500 people for a year to study the performance and mentality of actors, and I can also study what time does on people. This is a very valuable experience.
Q [Why Will Smith? Are there any other candidates? 】
Ang Lee: Such an expensive film needs a big star, and it needs to be like him more than 20 years ago, and he can still make an action movie for 30 years. The suitable actors are only one or two. Human nature, philosophical issues, and human cloning mentality can't be done with muscles and without acting skills.
Q [How did he shape his young self? 】
Ang Lee: We have to study his past films, which ones are available and which ones are not. Henry is a more southern, conservative, military-trained character. What I want to express most is the innocence of human cloning, so he needs to be sensitive. There is even an oriental melancholy in this film.
Q [What difficulty does 120-frame technology bring to action movies? Will future action movies completely change the senses? 】
Ang Lee: The biggest difference is that what you couldn't see in the past is now. A 24-frame movie has no sense of presence. It creates a space in a flat plane. People can't see their expressions, and they can't see their thoughts. Therefore, they must use flash jumps to create a sense of excitement.
For example, motorcycle chasing scenes used to be shot horizontally, and the camera moved very quickly, leaving the audience breathless and feeling the speed and excitement. Now (with new technology) the speed can be seen clearly, the space is available, and the (stimulation) can't be seen. If I want to show the speed of 70 pulses, I used to shoot 30 pulses. Now (using this technique) 70 pulses may not even be exciting. After I slowed down the tempo, the audience feels faster, enough expressions and plots can be explained clearly, and the excitement can be obtained in it. The motorcycle accelerator is on the right. He stepped on the accelerator and held the gun in his right hand. How to aim and how to dodge was something that he couldn't see in the past, but now he feels like the audience is aiming himself, using this to create excitement.
Q [Why choose such a challenge? Where does the pressure come from? 】
Ang Lee: I'm doing this alone now. I often think: do I have a problem or the world has a problem? Our entire film system (for new technologies) is under-supply, the camera is wrong, and the staff can't adjust the focus. They are all counted in the cost, which is very expensive, and the economic factor is very large. At the end of the film, thousands of staff, distribution system, and audience habits mean that I am using the entire film ecology to challenge, so the pressure is very high.
To open up a beautiful new world, the front must be very hard. Although I can take care of my life, I still have curiosity to be satisfied, and I have questions to answer. I hope to create new possibilities for colleagues and audiences. (Filming the film) Just like the third eye is opened, the relationship between me and the movie is different. It is difficult for a new director to have this resource, I have it, of course I have to pursue it. I really think it's beautiful. (Emphasis repeated)
Q [Will you shoot 120 frames for each movie in the future? 】
Li An: If someone invests (laughs). I have the honor and obligation to help everyone suffer some crimes. The medium is the medium, no matter how high the specifications, the emotions and art projected by people are invaluable. But many aesthetics (of video art) have stagnated. Young friends are very accustomed to seeing numbers. We are nostalgic for film, but they don't feel it. This is not fair to young audiences and the digital age. Digital is digital, not chemistry, but electronics. How digital develops aesthetics and should not learn film. I am just not convinced. It is unreasonable for digital to imitate the film and to imitate the feeling of creating space in the plane. What technology should do technical things.
Q [Why choose "Gemini Killer" to carry this new technology? 】
Ang Lee: It's not the story that attracts me. I just want to use an action movie to try it out. What kind of visualization and inner struggles would be when a person acting with his clones together involves moral issues, different cultivation under the same genetics, whether clones have spirituality, etc. . These elements and the things you can get started attracted me.
(Compiled by the Science Fiction Office of the Future Bureau, reprinting requires authorization)
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