4 month 20 number.

The outskirts of Hengdian World Studios in mainland China.

On a narrow and muddy road, the defeated soldiers of Cao’s army were struggling to survive. Cao Cao and Cao Mengde were in even more miserable condition. They had lost all the heroic spirit they had when they led a million-strong army south.

Cao Cao dismounted and walked straight to Guan Yu. Looking at the tall and burly Guan Yu riding on his red rabbit horse, who looked like a god, he rarely showed sadness and grief:
“Yunchang, are you all right?”

Zhougong spit-feeding, the world is home!
After all, it was just a grand fireworks display on the river, short but beautiful.

Shooting from several camera angles.

When the camera finished filming the Cao army’s hasty departure, the photographer immediately turned the camera back to Guan Yu’s face. He sighed softly and said to his subordinates: “Let’s go. I will apologize to the military advisor. Military orders are like mountains. We will do what we have to do.”

“Crack!”

Li Yishu shouted with a loud speaker: “Filming is finished!!”

The crew members, including the actors, cheered.

After two years of preparation and nearly a year of shooting, from last summer to this spring, “Red Cliff” took three years to make and cost $6300 million, or more than 5 million yuan, the film has finally been completed.

For the main creative team of the crew, this was definitely a relief for them.

The mental pressure was also released.

“Director Xie, Director Wang, Director Li, Director Yang, Director Shen, thank you for your hard work over the past few years.”

Li Yishu reached out and shook hands with the five directors around her one by one.

For the filming of the final Huarong Road scene, except for Lee Yi-su, the other five directors were all present.

Xie Jin sighed, “It’s not hard work, but three years of shooting a war movie like this is an extremely valuable experience.”

“Yes.” Wang Fulin nodded. “I didn’t feel that way when I was filming Romance of the Three Kingdoms before. But this time, I realized that there is a big difference between big-budget movies and TV series. It also enriched my directing experience.”

Li Yishu smiled and said, “Speaking of which, if we really talk about the experience of directing blockbuster films, I think Director Li and Director Yang should have more experience. This time, we are also grateful to the two directors.”

The “Decisive Battle” trilogy directed by Li Jun and “The Bloody Battle of Taierzhuang” directed by Yang Guangyuan are indeed blockbusters from the perspective of production funds.

Especially the former, which mobilized hundreds of thousands of people to participate. To some extent, it is more valuable than “Red Cliff of the Three Kingdoms”.

“Haha, Director General is too polite.”

Li Jun shook his head: “Now that the filming is finished, I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. From now on, I’d better shoot fewer films like this. It’s really too stressful.”

“Director Li is right.”

Yang Guangyuan agreed with a smile: “When I filmed “Blood Battle of Taierzhuang”, I didn’t spend so much energy and time on it. This time I have to take a good rest.”

An investment of several hundred million may not be a big deal for Li Yishu, but for these five directors, the pressure is too great.

Each person directed a segment of the film, and even if it had been planned in advance, it was still possible to tell which was good and which was bad. Now that the film was completed, most of their pressure was relieved.

The reason why not all of them is because the movie has to be released, and only when it is recognized by the audiences and fans, can they completely remove the big stone from their hearts.

After chatting for a while, Li Yishu called the assistant director of the crew and said, “Inform everyone to have a good rest tonight and go to the big hotel in the city for the wrap-up banquet tomorrow.”

“Okay, Director.”

The assistant director nodded and immediately went to notify the crew and actors.

At this moment, the crew’s temporary assistant came running over with a cell phone in hand: “Director, Director Han from the Beijing Film Studio called. You were filming just now, and he said he would call back when you finished filming.”

“it is good.”

Li Yishu took the phone, said something to Xie Jin and others, then walked back and called Han Sanping at the same time.

“Hey, Uncle San, what’s wrong?”

“Yishu, has the filming of the movie been completed?”

“Well, we just finished filming the last scene. It’s finished.”

“It wasn’t easy. After three years, I finally finished filming Red Cliff of the Three Kingdoms.”

Han Sanping on the other end of the phone was filled with emotion. When they had decided to shoot a domestic blockbuster belonging to their own people, no one had expected that they would have to wait for three years.

“Yeah, we finally finished filming.”

Li Yishu was also very emotional. This was the first time in his two lifetimes that he had filmed a movie with such a large investment, and it was also the only film that took three years from preparation to completion.

During this period, Li Yishu also learned a lot. After all, before his rebirth, he was basically in the field of online movies.

Even though the quality of online movies at that time was not worse than most theater films, it still could not compare with those big-budget first-class movies.

In addition, Li Yishu had never filmed such a large-scale and big-budget movie, so this filming was also an extremely valuable experience for him.

The two chatted about the crew for a while, and Han Sanping asked, “By the way, Yishu, I asked you to edit the first part last time. Have you finished editing it?”

“It’s almost done. Why, do you want it now?”

After returning from the United States, Li Yishu filmed during the day and discussed the first part of “Red Cliff” with editors in a temporary editing room in Hengdian at night.

“If it’s done, you can take it back to Yanjing.”

Han Sanping said: “A few days ago, the leader’s secretary contacted me.”

Li Yishu thought for a moment and said, “How about this, I will go to Yanjing next Monday and bring the rough cut with me.”

The first part of “Red Cliff of the Three Kingdoms” is currently just a rough cut of a two-part dialogue film. To put it simply, it is a working film with only pictures and language soundtracks, but no music or sound effects.

The sensory experience is definitely worse. After all, the soundtrack and sound effects are very important for a movie, especially in some big scenes. A perfect soundtrack can instantly elevate the shot to a higher dimension.

Next Monday?

Today is only Tuesday, which means there are still six days left.

Han Sanping thought for a moment and said, “Okay, then bring the copy as soon as possible next Monday. I’ll talk to the higher-ups and see when we can show the film to the leaders.”

hang up the phone.

Li Yishu went to find Xie Jin and asked them to arrange for the crew to wrap up. Then, together with the bodyguard, she took a car back to Hengdian Film and Television City, preparing to take a look at the film editing situation and see if she could hire someone to produce some soundtracks in the next few days and insert them into the rough cut of the film in advance.

Pure shots and dialogues still look rather dull and boring.

This is like a Japanese love action movie without any dialogue or sound. There is no sound, only pictures, and the excitement is not enough. The next day at noon.

In the editing room.

Lee Ye-su is putting the finishing touches on film editing.

He mainly provides creativity and ideas, and the editors are responsible for completing them.

The ideas provided by Li Yishu were completely in line with the model of later commercial blockbusters.

The later films produced are more sensory than the films of this era.

Most of today’s historical films are rather dull, but Li Yishu uses editing techniques from later generations to create a film that gives people a visual stimulation and impact.

This is just like how many people like to watch Hollywood blockbusters. Are Hollywood blockbusters really good?

That may not be the case. The plot logic of many movies is completely unreasonable, but the special effects, narrative structure, and the acting skills of the actors are enough to make people ignore these.

You have to know that in addition to the developed film industry and mature special effects technology, what attracts people most to Hollywood movies is actually their film logic and characteristics.

Chief among these is narrative structure, as well as montage techniques and continuity editing.

The narrative structure of Hollywood movies generally adopts a chapter structure and a hero’s journey structure.

Episodic narrative occurs when the audience follows the protagonist through a series of essentially unrelated adventures.

The structure of the hero’s journey includes the call to adventure, the adventure in a strange world, the final test, the reward, and the return and reintegration into society.

To put it more bluntly, it is to bring the audience into the main perspective of the movie and grow up with the “protagonists”, the most typical of which are the heroes of later Marvel movies.

As for montage techniques and continuity editing, they are also commonly used methods in commercial films. However, in the mainland market where art films are dominant, this type of editing style is uncommon and few people learn it.

The reason is very simple. That is, most literary and artistic films with realistic themes focus on narrative plots, and most of them are long shots that are dry but full of vitality, without too many montage techniques.

(Montage is the process of editing two different videos together)
Just as Li Yishu was busy, someone knocked on the door.

“Come in!”

The next second the door opened and a woman appeared at the door.

Li Yishu looked back at this time and said in surprise: “Sister Gong Li, why are you here!”

“Why can’t I come?”

Gong Li raised her lips and said, “I heard from Zhao Fei that your movie has been finished, so I flew here early in the morning and invited you to watch the movie.”

Li Yishu was curious: “Watch a movie? What movie?”

Gong Li noticed several editors looking over and said, “I don’t think this is the place to talk.”

“You guys continue, I’m going to go out for a while.”

Li Yishu gave instructions and walked out of the editing room, taking Gong Li to the next room.

I asked my assistant to make two cups of tea.

“The Empress Dowager of Liao has not been released yet?”

Li Yishu was a little surprised. She didn’t expect that the movie Gong Li asked her to watch was “Empress Dowager of Liao Dynasty”.

Speaking of which, this movie was completed in July or August last year. I thought it would have been released a long time ago, but it was unexpectedly delayed to be released on May 1st Labor Day this year.

Gong Li rolled her eyes: “It seems that you don’t care about the release of my movie at all.”

“that……”

Li Yishu picked up the teacup and used the time to drink tea to cover up his embarrassed expression: “It’s not that I don’t care, it’s mainly because I’ve been too busy recently. I have to shoot a movie, go to Hong Kong to deal with company matters, and fly to the United States…”

Seeing his awkward and nervous look, Gong Li burst out laughing: “Okay, I know you are busy and don’t have time to pay attention. By the way, congratulations on winning the Best Picture at the American Academy Awards.”

“Thank you, it’s just a small prize.”

Li Yishu put down the teacup.

After he won the Academy Award for Best Picture, there were related reports in China, but the Oscars are not well-known in the mainland these days.

The Academy Awards and the Venice International Film Festival are two completely different types. The former is similar to the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Awards in the mainland, mainly focusing on local films, while the latter looks at films from all over the world.

Even though both have public relations, the latter is more authoritative.

The reason is very simple, because the Academy Awards do not support foreign language films to win major awards, at most there is only one Best Foreign Language Film Award.

As such, mainland filmmakers naturally would not pay too much attention to it. The reason why the Oscar complex was born in the millennium was ultimately because Li An’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” sold over 100 million US dollars at the North American box office and won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

This has given domestic filmmakers an illusion that winning the Best Foreign Language Film Award means that the film will sell well in the United States.

Later films like “Hero” and “The Promise” were all made with the goal of winning awards and high box office.

At that time, it seemed that the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film was equivalent to the gold medal at the three major European film festivals.

But in fact, the Best Foreign Language Film Award is not very valuable.

Gong Li smiled and said, “Yes, for you, the only person in the world who has won the gold medals of the four major European film festivals and hundreds of awards, the Best Picture at the Academy Awards is naturally a piece of cake.”

Listening to her slightly sarcastic tone, Li Yishu knew that the other party had not gotten over the fact that he did not pay attention to “The Empress Dowager of the Liao Dynasty”.

He had no choice but to change the subject awkwardly: “Let’s not talk about this. Why is the movie delayed until now? The post-production of your movie shouldn’t be that difficult, right?”

Gong Li did not continue to make things difficult for Li Yishu because she changed the subject. Instead, she said, “It’s not that difficult. The movie was edited last November and was supposed to be released at the end of last year. It was just delayed again and again due to scheduling issues until the Chinese New Year.”

“There were no good schedules in March and April, and the Liaoning Film Studio didn’t dare to take the risk. After some discussion, we decided to schedule it for Labor Day.”

There are not many good schedules for mainland cinemas nowadays. Two years ago, “Rumble in the Bronx” opened up the Lunar New Year schedule in December, followed by the summer vacation schedule, and then the holidays.

There is no concept of the May Day Golden Week yet, but the holiday on that day has existed since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

“Is there a premiere?”

“Originally there wasn’t one, but after discussing it with the leaders of Liaoning Film Studio, we decided to hold one in Yanjing, invite some reporters over, and promote it at the same time.”

After all, this is Gong Li’s first time to star in a historical film, and it is a historical film with a female lead, so naturally she hopes that the box office can be higher.

Li Yishu nodded: “Okay, we’ll go see it together then. I have to go back to Yanjing next Monday.” (End of this chapter)