Vol 2 Chapter 574: Character charm

Regardless of the shape, the Iron Man jacket needs to show traces of industrial sculpting. A perfectly fitting jacket can make heroism unimpeded. The freedom of the comic version can ignore the part that destroys the silhouette of the suit. The movie version does not have this freedom. The solution is to create a system that allows overlapping panels to slide or twist.
Creating metallic images that look authentic and believable can be said to be a very difficult challenge, especially when it comes to digital jackets that can be continuously integrated and realistic.
The realistic brush-plated metal coat has excellent detail performance. At the same time, the digitally created rugged brush-plated surface will also require more rendering power to solve the picture without flicker and anti-aliasing.
Special effects production must use the latest technology to simulate the changes that will occur on the brush-plated metal surface. No matter how far away the lens is from Iron Man or how close to him, it is a must, and all of this depends on industry. Light and Magic and Weta Studio have strong technical capabilities to solve.
In the production process, surprises are often born. Some tasks are often simpler than expected, and sometimes there are effects beyond Duke's imagination, such as the fight between Iron Man and Iron Overlord who rely on special effects synthesis in front of the Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
In the original plan, Duke wanted to make two people. After flying over, he destroyed the theater with different styles, but several special effects artists produced a copyright, a fight between Iron Man and Iron Overlord. It only destroyed the most criticized arch of the theater, and the contrast formed by the Hollywood Chinese Theater was more in line with the architectural aesthetics than before, creating a different sense of joy.
Therefore, Duke simply abandoned the original plan and adopted this version.
As long as it conforms to the theme and style of the film, it does not drag down the entire post-production plan. Duke is also willing to try and implement some interesting new ideas, rather than simply using cg special effects mechanically. Those effects will definitely be more or less limited.
Looking at Hollywood, it is common for movies to take more than half a year or even longer to produce special effects. "Iron Man" is no exception.
In fact, from the beginning of the preparatory period, some special effects production has been in front of the shooting. Although these special effects will not be used all, they will also occupy a considerable share of the film. Others will continue to be used in post-production. The crew adds new elements for transformation, slowly in a different way than before. Is added to the movie where appropriate.
In addition, Stan Lee seemed to want to show his importance to Marvel as a whole. With his screenwriting team, he wanted to add a foot to the post-production, but Duke refused without hesitation, even if it happened between the two parties. Contradictory, it is impossible for him to let the screenwriter participate in the post-production of the film.
The reason is simple. The script is one of the foundations of the film. But what the screenwriter writes is not what is ultimately made into the movie screen.
For example, Stan Lee had a lot of opinions on Duke's failure to follow the script and improvise the actors during filming. Duke ignored his suggestion to remove this part of the content, and there was even a quarrel between the two parties.
However, Duke holds the final editing rights, and even if Stan Lee, the father of superheroes, said that he would break the sky, he could not affect his decision.
This kind of quarrel is also normal, everyone has their own thoughts. Stan Lee wants to continue to influence Marvel's operations in order to highlight his importance, so that he can gain a more favorable position in the share negotiations with Marvel, but Duke is very clear that Stan Lee does not belong to this era. It is the job he needs to do the most to make soy sauce in the movie.
For characters and films, Duke has his own ideas. For some improvised scenes, he even prepared as many as seven versions during shooting. It is entirely possible to choose more suitable scenes according to the requirements of post-editing.
No director is an all-rounder, and Duke has never thought about taking over all the work of the crew and filming and production. He just grasps the general direction and uses his own ideas to drive and enlighten others. This is not easy. Once it succeeds, the crew will explode with great work and creative enthusiasm and become an extremely efficient team.
In turn, these people's ideas will bring Duke a variety of creative inspiration, so that the entire production process forms a virtuous circle.
In any case, Duke will not let people like Stan Lee destroy the tacit understanding formed by the crew.
Cooperating with a tacit team can also make up for some of the problems that Duke has overlooked. After all, he is just a person, not the omniscient Encyclopedia Britannica.
For example, when post-production used cg to decorate the cave where a terrorist imprisoned Tony Stark, an assistant from Weta Studio made a suggestion.
"I used to live in the mountains of Afghanistan, and I know a little bit about the geology and climate there."
Standing in front of the big screen, the assistant pointed to Robert Downey Jr., who was breathing continuously in the picture, and said,
The caves in remote mountains of Afghanistan are very cold. The temperature in some caves can approach freezing point, and human breathing will inevitably bring out whiteness. gas……"
On the screen, all the actors cannot see the exhaled white air.
After the assistant's reminder, Duke immediately sent people to look up the information. Some films introducing Afghanistan, especially the clips of TV stations visiting Taliban people in caves in recent years, can clearly see their exhalation.
Therefore, Duke explained to the special effects production department to use post-production techniques to make necessary adjustments to all the scenes in the cave in order to make these scenes'cold.
Their job is to use cg to add breath to the actors.
After the completion of these tasks, Duke found that the effect was very good, allowing the actors to breathe out, showing the harsh environment of captive life, especially billionaires like Tony Stark who are used to living a good life will definitely feel uncomfortable. It adds a little more persuasiveness to his later transformation.
However, the various special effects produced by the special effects team is one aspect, and Duke's choice through post-finishing is another aspect.
"Iron Man" still maintains the characteristics of traditional Hollywood commercial first. In this kind of entertainment-oriented commercial film, the so-called profound theme or artistic value must give way to visual special effects and entertainment.
Duke knows very well that the main audience of this type of film is obviously an audience group between 14 and 35. They just like hot scenes and high-intensity visual impact. They use fast editing and high-decibel sound effects to stimulate their nerves. And get satisfaction from it.
Compared with the previous "Batman: Hour of War", "Iron Man" will contain much more special effects scenes.
Keeping as many excellent special effects scenes as possible within a reasonable range is one of the concepts that Duke adheres to when finishing cutting.
In addition, Tony Stark's character charm is also an aspect that he should focus on.
At first glance, Iron Man's appearance looks too clunky and not handsome enough, but Duke doesn't worry about this at all, because the audience will only be conquered by his very oppressive charm.
Iron Man is different from comic heroes such as Spider-Man and Batman. He cares very much about appearance. Iron Man is a battle armor and a weapon, so once measured with the eyes of traditional comic heroes, it is easy to cause certain problems. misunderstanding.
And most of the time, Tony Stark, played by Robert Downey Jr., still shows his true colors, and his image is enough to fascinate a female audience.
In the fine cut, Duke also kept as much as possible the scenes and lines that showed Tony Stark's personality and poor mouth.
The role of Tony Stark is very personal, which is not only reflected in picking up girls.
Although superheroes fighting evil forces are their main task, after all, they are not robots, but people with flesh and blood, especially Marvel superheroes. They often have the shortcomings of ordinary people. Do the audience like them? , Charisma is extremely important.
Robert Downey Jr. is not a good person with good rules. He always blends in with wildness and restlessness, as well as a kind of toughness and hard to compromise. These unique charms of him are well brought into play in the filming. There is a big gap between the heroes in the past and it is very likely to give the audience an alternative freshness.
In addition, Tony Stark is very good at joking and flirting, and most importantly, he is very rich, and women have basically zero resistance to this.
Iron Man is not as hypocritical and dull as other heroes. Tony Stark is always straightforward and relaxed, arrogantly spilling his sense of humor around, even when he is with robots, he does not change his silly nature, but he is Steady but not frivolous, with a leader's momentum, everyone around him is subdued and willing to be at his mercy.
It can be said that Tony Stark, who doesn't wear armor, also has a faint superhero demeanor.
To a certain extent, in the rough cut samples completed by Duke and Mike Dawson, if Robert Downey Jr. said a hundred sentences in total, at least 90 sentences can make the audience laugh.
In Duke's words, that is Tony Stark's personal charm is enough to conquer many people, if the combat effectiveness is also strong, how can the audience not love him?
Then there is the soundtrack. Since it is a movie full of metal texture like Iron Man, the main soundtrack will inevitably be based on heavy metal rock, but it must be like the protagonist of the film, very naughty, often playing cards out of common sense, unpredictable, and yet A little humor is often reflected.
By March, Duke's fine-cutting was basically completed, but the special effects of many clips were not completed, and the progress of the special effects group had to be waited for.
It was this month that Time Warner and News Corp, which had secretly reached a cooperation agreement, achieved certain results in their work on the other side of the Pacific. The other side sent an investigation team to Los Angeles to meet Warner Bros. and Twentieth Century Fox on the spot. And Duke, the original proposer, was also the focus of their contact. (To be continued...)
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