/ Su Su
A good project is the beginning of a blockbuster movie. The thrilling atmosphere, visual breakthroughs, and characterization of human nature were born out of Lin Zhenzhao’s inspirational creativity. In 2018, in online theaters, "Snake" successfully opened the market gap in the strong commercial genre of "Monster", and blank themes brought market boiling. .
has developed online movies for 5 years, and the three characters "Lin Zhenzhao" have become one of the most distinctive and recognizable brands. To some extent, he also represents the "box office responsibility" of the current market.
In 2019, "Big Snow Monster" produced by Lin Zhenzhao, with the powerful industrial vision of "snow giant", refreshed the audience's awareness of online movies, and was launched. At present, the cumulative box office is nearly 15 million. At the same time, "Orochi 2" directed by him is about to be launched on Youku. He said that it is necessary to create a "monster universe" belonging to the Chinese people and plan with a "superhero" historical view.
From jungle adventure to sci-fi snowy territory, "Big Snow Monster" is the second part of this "monster universe". The crew set up a snow mountain of more than 4000 square meters. The film uses 80% of the special effects and has the most complex pure biological CG. , There are some special shooting methods that combine virtual monsters with people and scenes. The technical requirements are extremely high, and I have done it for more than ten months in the later period.
Lin Zhenzhao said that there are many production teams on the market that use the theme bonus to avoid big special effects to make monster movies, and "Big Snow Monster" is to play the monster theme more possibilities, and the "path" is wider. . The most difficult thing to create this "monster universe" is not special effects or investment, but how to make "monsters" enter the Chinese worldview. Just like how "The Wandering Earth" solved the localization problem and convinced the audience that this event took place in China, the two changed their perceptions.
The following is from Lin Zhenzhao’s self-report:
"Big Snow Monster" is the starting point for the combination of industrialization and domestic monster film
"Big Snow Monster" has been prepared before "Orochi" went live in September last year, and there was not too much consideration on cost at the earliest. . The first thing to consider is the keywords of snow mountain, snow beast, etc. How to play in snow, but once you involve these, the cost is actually not low. (Laughs) The
project is not purely a commercial consideration for us. We still hope to open up the "roads" of monsters. In addition to making movies more likely to be sold at the box office and to complete the industrialization of online movies, we also want to win the audience's trust in online movies and make the platform trust the online movie market more. In general, I want to tell everyone that online movies can still be played like this.
In fact, we also had an ideal at that time. I think the Chinese can make their own "Monster Universe", so I took "Orochi" as the first film in our entire Monster Universe series, as a test film, to make a very crude, simple, and straightforward commercial film. . After that, we will continue to develop a monster movie with different types and different sense of realization. In fact, "Orochi" is more like a pure jungle adventure monster movie, it is a starting point. "Big Snow Monster" is more like a sci-fi monster movie, and it is also a starting point to combine industrialization and monster movies. It has a large (Snow Mountain Snow Region) scene type that has not been explored in the online movie market.
therefore involves the issue of the shooting plan, whether to shoot in the snow-capped mountains, or to complete all with special effects, no matter which item is a big project, there will be trade-offs in the planning stage, but we feel that this subject and this branch can go deep developing. In the end, the presentation of the snowy mountains is all done by CG. The crew set up a scene of more than 4,000 flat snow-capped mountains, and then on top of the snow-capped mountains, we then virtualized the entire scene through CG technology.
In the end, "Snow Monster" broke 10 million points in 7 days, one day earlier than "Orochi". At present, it is moving in our ideal direction. I think this is a relatively ideal experiment. After
passed the experiment of "Big Snow Monster", the team has more experience in the whole big visual level. The next project is to try and run in the technology, and there is also the tension of the monster (snow monster) movement. The interactions have given us greater imagination, and future projects will present this better. At the content level, "Big Snow Monster" is currently a very standard commercial film. In the future, we want to make greater breakthroughs in content, such as the story can be more closely attached.
How to let monsters enter the Chinese worldview
In order to achieve the continuous attraction of "Big Snow Monster" to the audience, we first define it as a sci-fi adventure monster movie in terms of genre. These elements must have enough points in the story to be able to be punched out. Therefore, the temperament of the snowy area in the opening scene, including the appearance of the snow monster, how to sell it, the tone is very important, and every moment in the film must have a new attraction to lead the audience down. Grasping the commercial rhythm, emotions, and characters of commercial films is a great homework we have done.
Regarding the monster universe after "Orochi" and "Big Snow Monster", Zhonglele also planned sub-categories such as "Rat Disaster" and "Land Shark". Because of the image positioning of the monster itself, it has its own temperament, and then Play with different types to form the characteristics of each branch.
For example, "The Rat Disaster", which is more inclined to a kind of disaster, feelings, and human awakening thinking. This story is particularly substituting and can arouse emotional resonance among the audience. "Land Shark" is more biased towards biological mutation. It has a great story of curiosity and a strong sense of commercial film. Other types we will develop in the future will also incorporate some styles of horror and suspense.
In addition, each monster has its own different ways of survival, and we will allow them to appear on the same map at the same time, such as "King of the Jungle", "Orochi", "Snow King" and "Big Snow Monster", etc., similar to this We will also work out the concept slowly.
In many monster movies, how to use Chinese culture to show the monsters into the Chinese world view, this is the most important problem we face in monster movies. The difficulty of real creation is how to integrate the monster with Chinese culture, and how to make the audience believe that this monster film took place in China, which really has a sense of substitution. This is a cultural sympathy.
As for special effects, investment, etc., they are being solved gradually. If your movie is not grounded, no matter how good the special effects are, it will not really be a good movie.
uses the "superhero" view of history to create the "monster world"
must have the creation methodology of monster films. The Lele method is to think of every monster as a superhero. Every "superhero" has his own way of survival, game rules and unique superpowers. Our monsters must also have their own living space. What monsters face, thinking in the opposite direction, is what kind of monster humans encounter and what kind of psychology will they have.
For example, jungle monsters are adventurous, so you will enter an unfamiliar environment to have a sense of crisis. For example, "The Rat Disaster" is a catastrophic type. The temperament it reveals, the characteristics of the monster, how to overcome difficulties and defeat the monster, all determine another approach to the film. These are a bit like us to create a superhero.
Therefore, in the early stage, we will select and draw up some possible monsters, some are beyond reality, and some are captured from real life, and then make certain modifications. More importantly, we decided not to shoot this monster (fine branch). It is more to see whether this monster can form a powerful and explosive genre film, whether it is disaster, horror, or something more. The most important thing for this kind of film of great empathy is whether this monster can smoothly draw so many explosion points. If it can form a very complete self-system, it can break through the market possibilities of the monster, and it can also be The monster universe we are going to shape has its own position, so this is what we want to develop.
made the decision to shoot "Orochi" in less than a week. "Big Snow Monster" was decided after several rounds of revisions. "Large Shark" is also a very fast decision. It comes from the feeling of a monster in a game I played when I was a kid. The "Rat Disaster" event comes from the real history of China, it is a film that can have many empathy. Therefore, the development time of each monster is different. It is actually the same as writing a script. It depends on inspiration, then how to overthrow it, long-term establishment, establishment and then overthrow, and finally some will remain.
"Orochi 2" is also about to be launched on Youku. Compared with "Orochi", first, the technology itself has stronger texture and effect than the previous work, and the tension of monsters and interaction with people are stronger. There will be more space, and more monsters will participate in the adventure. At the content level, the narrative style of "Orochi 2" will be more mature, and the theme of family affection will be more moving, and the overall film will be very empathetic.
