Regarding the Kung Fu Panda production team, Zhou Shaoming estimated that more than 200 people were involved. Although it is not as high as an actor's salary, the combined salary of so many people is not much higher than the investment in any Hollywood blockbuster. Poor!
The production team gradually began to take shape, and animation production members from all over the world came to Los Angeles to report to the company one after another! And Benjamin quickly contacted ten oil painting masters and started rushing to Los Angeles one after another!
Zhou Shaoming has already selected important personnel such as art director and martial arts instructor! Next up is the production of this animated film!
Three days later, Akiva and Harry successfully handed the script to Zhou Shaoming! Faced with the production of this huge cartoon, Zhou Shaoming did not dare to be careless. Zhou Shaoming required excellence. In order to ensure the quality of the cartoon, Zhou Shaoming had to strive to handle every detail of the cartoon!
When Zhou Shaoming picked up the script again, this time Akiva completely revised the script and added the story! Zhou Shaoming saw wonderful and delicate scenes one after another!
The problem now is how to produce these scenes, and which part of the scene should be produced with a computer! Were those scenes shot on location?
Zhou Shaoming, who was reading the script, kept banging on the table, imagining the scene shown by the camera! "Aqiva and Harry, in this way, you can also participate in the subsequent production. After all, you are screenwriters. If you have your own ideas, you can also provide me with valuable opinions,"
Harry's eyes lit up, and he said excitedly: "Okay, Zhou" For Harry, this was a good experience. It was so exciting to be able to experience the work of making a film firsthand!
Zhou Shaoming hesitated and asked the two of them: "Here we are the characters who make the cartoon. Let's start here. There are eight characters in this story who must appear in front of the audience frequently! Panda, brown bear, turtle, mantis, Tigers, leopards, snakes, monkeys. We have to make their shapes first! What do you think?"
It is true that both Akiva and Harry have written very detailed introductions to the characters in the script, but regarding the portrayal of the characters in the film, Zhou Shaoming still hopes to hear their opinions!
Harry expressed his opinion on the spot: "The protagonist Panda is a kind of clumsy guy who is easy to eat and lazy. After seeing it, the audience will have an illusion that such a character cannot be included in the story. The hero has paved the way for the future."
Zhou Shaoming nodded and clearly wrote down Harry's words in his notebook, "Panda's clumsiness."
Harry was a little stunned. He didn¡¯t expect Zhou Shaoming to be so serious. As a great director, he was actually very serious and sitting in front of him taking notes. This made Harry uncomfortable!
"Go on." Zhou Shaoming saw Harry pause!
Akiva frowned, "The character of Mantis needs to be very small, but when it is produced, it should look lean, small but powerful!"
"Monkeys are very active and naturally look very spiritual. Cranes look very gentle, like a hermit!" Harry added: "Snake? Previously we felt that we used a very cold-blooded one instead, but in Heroes "How can you become a hero if you don't have passion, so we plan to use a female surname to reflect the snake shape of the story, so that people can see the characteristics of snakes with ease." Monkeys have spiritual surnames, mantises are small but powerful, and cranes A kind of hermit feeling, the snake is female, the characteristic of being at ease! Zhou Shaoming wrote down everything Harry and Akiva said one by one!
Zhou Shaoming praised: "Very good, but the characteristics you mentioned are generally very clear in the script, and these generals all know it. Can you tell me a little bit about how you imagine these characters should be portrayed on the screen?" !For example, if you want to express the panda¡¯s delicious and lazy appearance, what characteristics should its body have, and how should the producer accomplish it?¡±
Harry was stunned. It turned out that Zhou Shaoming didn¡¯t want to praise himself and Boss Akiva, but just wanted us to provide him with some suggestions! It's hard to live with Harry now.
Harry asked with some confusion: "These things should be left to the production staff."
Zhou Shaoming shook his head and said: "Leave it to them. I have no cooperation with them. I don't want to take a long time to get along. If possible, I hope you can give me some advice. I will start to tell them to do exactly what I want. Come first." We have finished making all the characters in the story! We will make subsequent modifications and so on, and once our running-in period is over and we can communicate well, I think everything will be smooth sailing."
Akiva listened to Zhou Shaoming and said: "I think if we were to portray a panda who is lazy and eats well, fatness would be his biggest appearance feature, with a round face and a big belly."??, swaying when walking, with an appearance like this, and a shape like this, in addition to meeting your requirements, when people see such animals, most people will find them very cute and have a kind of love from the bottom of their hearts. "
Zhou Shaoming said repeatedly: "Cute, you are right. Of course the color of the panda is black and white, so how do you match the colors on the body? Which one is white and which one is black, how can they match up to look good?"
Akiva shook his head and said: "The production staff should have told you this problem. There is nothing we can do."
Zhou Shaoming couldn't help but smile and said: "It seems that I am too involved, please continue."
Akiva continued: "The crane can wear a hat. Most hermits in ancient China have the habit of wearing hats. This will also make the character appear low-key and meaningful!"
Zhou Shaoming hesitated for a moment. This time Zhou Shaoming did not speak out his question because he knew that Akiva and others also told him the answer he wanted to know!
Akiva then replied: "The following are monkeys and tigers. In fact, these two animals don't have much to mold, as long as their characteristics can be reflected, the tiger's domineering, the monkey's spirituality! This snake Harry and I also joked about the shape of the snake, whether we could put a small flower on the snake's head to instantly reflect the female surname. The flexible depiction of the surname may require professional computer graphics!"
"The mantis is the most troublesome character for us. In this cartoon, Harry and I thought hard. If we make the mantis as big as the tigers, it will look unrealistic. But if the mantis is too small, So, for a cartoon, wouldn't it be superfluous? After all, it is difficult for such an animal to have any action on the screen! There is no cute side to the mantis, some are just domineering, just like you They were talking about the Chinese Mantis Boxing and the Fat Mantis. Harry and I both considered whether it would be unacceptable if the Mantis was shown to be too fat."
Akiva¡¯s question made Zhou Shaoming fall into deep thought. This is a problem. I think I have found a solution. What other problems are there?
Harry asked with some curiosity: "Zhou, I don't understand. You asked Akiva and I to keep supplementing the villagers of Peace Valley these days. Why? I think the cartoons mainly focus on the portrayal of these eight characters. There seems to be only a few shots left.¡±
Zhou Shaoming replied seriously: "I don't know now, but the only thing I can tell you is that when you and Akiva write out the characteristics and images of these villagers, then we can show them one by one on the screen! If we hadn¡¯t done this in the early stage, how could we have produced images of tens of thousands of villagers in Peace Valley at once? Just seeing such numbers would scare the producers.¡±
Akiva frowned and said, "You mean to make every character image of the villagers in Peace Valley!"
Zhou Shaoming said with a wry smile: "If we don't make it, what will the audience see?" However, although there are many problems, Zhou Shaoming has been prepared early, otherwise, he would not have hired the designer Raymond with a lot of money!
Zhou Shaoming thought that Raymond should be able to complete these difficult tasks!
Harry looked surprised, Akiva was in a daze! Akiva responded: "It seems that the production of this cartoon gave you a headache. If you need any help, just ask Harry and me."
Zhou Shaoming clapped his hands and said, "I feel more at ease with your words. In this way, you can rest for a few days. You have worked hard for this."
After Harry and Akiva left, Zhou Shaoming immediately came to the film and television base, where more than a dozen animation production staff from other places had gathered!
The reason why Zhou Shaoming posts "Hero Posts" all over the world is because of the progress of this cartoon. Zhou Shaoming does not want to spend a year or two making a high-tech cartoon. If everything goes well, Zhou Shaoming wants to launch Kung Fu Panda by the end of the year. Movie!
After Zhou Shaoming arrived, he immediately found Raymond. When he came to Raymond, Zhou Shaoming handed the information in his hands to Raymond. "This is the final script of Kung Fu Panda. It writes out each character in great detail. Now The problem is how to express it vividly on the screen!"
After hearing Zhou Shaoming's words, Raymond looked at the character descriptions carefully, "The descriptions are very detailed. I think the editors you invited must have a deep understanding of Chinese culture, otherwise they would not be able to depict such vivid characters. Believe it! No problem, with this information, I think I can design these on-screen characters so that the production staff can make them according to your wishes!"
"Very good." Zhou Shaoming said with some doubts on the spot: "Lemon, have you consideredHow should the colors on the cat be distributed to make it more cute? And how can the audience like the mantis when it is so small? You must know that in Chinese martial arts, Mantis Fist is a well-known name, but it needs to be represented by animals. It seems a little difficult to come out. "
Raymond nodded and said: "Indeed, no one has ever thought of using a cartoon to reflect Chinese culture, especially the world of martial arts. When I heard this concept, I already found it very attractive! No! I thought Zhou You really made the character of Mantis appear in the story."
Raymond said with a smile, "Fortunately, I am also prepared. It seems that Panda Kung Fu still respects the laws of nature. The mantis in the story is still very small, but we can imagine that a small and strong mantis can be humorous. way exists in this story! His strength does not rely on his appearance, but on his small size, standing on the shoulders of all high school students! You know, this kind of treatment, if Mantis itself does not have such a height, There is no way other people would let him be so arrogant! Birds of a feather flock together, and we can use this concept to reflect the power of the story of Mantis without distortion, and still make him a small but powerful existence."
Zhou Shaoming looked at Raymond who had been prepared, and couldn't help but praise with admiration: "godd. It seems that I did not invite the wrong person. Then I will leave it to you. But I still need you to do something."
Raymond was stunned for a moment. He didn¡¯t expect that the work progressed so quickly. He came to the film and television base and visited the magnificent buildings here. He had to have arduous tasks one after another so quickly!
"What mission?" Raymond asked
Zhou Shaoming said to Raymond: "At the beginning of the film, I planned to use real scenes to shoot. I was thinking about how to reflect the real world of this story. Finally, I came up with a way, which was to invite many oil painting masters to Instead, create images for the film and then actually photograph those images and put them at the beginning of the film!"
Raymond was a little surprised, "What a good idea!" Raymond looked at Zhou Shaoming in front of him with a surprised look. Ever since Zhou Shaoming proposed this Kung Fu Panda, Raymond has been very surprised!
It is difficult for people to imagine a martial arts cartoon. Zhou Shaoming dared to do it so bravely. Raymond admired it very much. However, the addition of real-life shooting undoubtedly did not increase the difficulty of film production! It seems that Zhou Shaoming is very attentive to this movie this time!
Maybe Raymond had too little contact with Zhou Shaoming. The reason why Zhou Shaoming can achieve higher box office results than other movies of the same period after every movie is released is because of his meticulous spirit!
Zhou Shaoming continued: "So I quickly invited more than a dozen oil painting masters to start designing and creating the scene at the beginning of the film. According to them, it will take more than three months, so I hope that from now on, I will eliminate the work you are doing. In addition, you have to fulfill your responsibilities and supervise their work! You are the art director."
After hearing what Zhou Shaoming said, Raymond promised: "Don't worry, I will complete this matter smoothly."
After hearing this, Zhou Shaoming stood up and said: "Before I started preparing for the production of this movie, I kept thinking about how to distinguish between the many characters when they are portrayed in the form of animation! For example, in the story, Peace In the valley, there are pigs, ostriches and other identical villagers. However, just like people, no matter how similar two people are, they all have different features, such as fingerprints and personal names. Then I will have the same shape. Animals, how can we distinguish them by their appearance? After all, these people are just extras in the movie! It is impossible to give them too many shots and let the audience slowly compare the differences between them! "
Raymond frowned. It seemed that Zhou Shaoming's request was very detailed. As he understood Chinese culture, Raymond was confident enough to handle it, so he asked: "How many extras do we have in the movie? "
Zhou Shaoming said with a smile: "There are more than 10,000 villagers in Peace Valley. I remember that even in this story, there are two scenes where people gather together. One is the martial arts competition, there should be more than 400 extras, and the other one is When a leopard attacks and the villagers evacuate, there are tens of thousands of villagers.¡±
Raymond took a deep breath and frowned!
Zhou Shaoming continued: "However, you don't have to worry. Although there are so many extras in the movie that need to be produced, I have given you enough manpower. The number of members involved in the production of Kung Fu Panda alone will be more than 200." People, not counting the actors and stars who will do the dubbing in the later stage. Manpower and funds are not a problem, as long as you can produce what I need excellently, that¡¯s all."
Hearing what Zhou Shaoming added, Lei Meng finally breathed a sigh of relief and said, "This makes me feel relieved. I think??With such a large team to produce, there is no problem to worry about, the rest is just a matter of time. "
After hearing what Lei Meng said, Zhou Shaoming could finally leave with peace of mind!
After leaving the film and television base, Zhou Shaoming can finally breathe a sigh of relief after being busy for a few days, from the release of the script to the start of film production!
Finally, we have a beginning. The production of Kung Fu Panda has begun. This huge project has finally begun! This makes Zhou Shaoming feel relieved!
In the early stage of filming, Zhou Shaoming was afraid of encountering many difficulties in the early stage, which made the filming time of this film be pushed back again and again! Now it looks better than expected!
With the arrival of April, Kung Fu Panda has begun to enter the production process. Zhou Shaoming still needs to spend a little more time on the filming! When setting up the scene, he started to worry about the production, so Zhou Shaoming had to see the production team slowly taking shape before he dared to start shooting the real scene with confidence!
After a month of preparation, the production team still hasn¡¯t been fully formed, but it is now large enough to barely begin pre-production of the film!
"Zhou, it looks like it's going well." Benjamin was a little happy!
Zhou Shaoming nodded and said: "Yes, we can finally start production! I'm just a little worried that they still don't meet our requirements during the production process. We will increase our publicity efforts in the past few days and contact the remaining personnel we need as soon as possible. Come to us!¡±
Zhou Shaoming didn¡¯t want to slow down the film¡¯s production progress due to a shortage of manpower in pre-production! Wouldn't it be a joke if word spread about a movie with such a huge investment that it was slowed down by a lack of manpower? (To be continued.)