That night, the film director Wu Ershan and other leading actors such as Hu Xianxu, Li Wanda, Feng Shaofeng, Qiao Zhenyu shared the secret behind the film with the audience, and the exchange lasted for one hour. Last year, " Conferred Gods Part 1" directed by Wu Ershan was released in the summer, exploring the mythical epic genre of Chinese movies, while "Under the Stranger" is exploring another new genre - national style. Supernatural comic book adaptation movie. The film will be released on July 26.
uses artificial intelligence to create mock animations
"Under the Stranger" is adapted from the popular Chinese comic "Under the Stranger" created by Mi Er. The comic has been serialized for 8 years and has received more than 30 billion views. It has a grand world view, is derived from tradition and is incomparable. The novel supernatural setting and rich and complex characters have attracted many readers. This is the first time that it has been put on the big screen.
Photographed by Zhong Han at the Shanghai road show
Photographed by Zhong Han at the Shanghai road show
As a comic book movie, "Under the Stranger" uses a lot of high-saturation and contrasting solid colors. Various bright oranges and fluorescent purples explode on the screen. The magical special effect of "optical pollution" seems earthy at first glance, but upon closer inspection, it has a post-modern sense of cyberpunk. The so-called extreme earthiness is fashion, and vulgarity is elegance. Seeing various "strangers" mobilizing the "innate energy" in their bodies to use their special abilities to compete and draw colorful lightning light waves on the big screen, the audience couldn't help but remind the audience of watching and learning "New World" with the TV in their hands when they were children. The retro feeling of fantasy magic in "The Legend of White Snake".
Hu Xianxu
It is worth mentioning that the setting of traditional Chinese culture in the film is very sophisticated. Each person's skills are intuitively reflected by a color. In addition to the character's personality, the concept of the traditional five elements and five colors is also referenced. For example, the colors of Zhang Chulan and Zhang Lingyu's lightning methods are different from the comic settings, but they are actually more consistent with the Five Elements principle. This visual presentation has a deep logic of traditional culture behind it, and it is also the Chinese style that distinguishes the expression of "superpowers" in Japan and Hollywood.
"Whether it is the novel "The Romance of the Gods" or the comic "Under One Person", they are China's cultural wealth." Wu Ershan said that when he saw the original comic, it gave him a sense of cultural pride, which integrates Chinese tradition The cultural and realistic context, the rich characters and the youth growth story are not inferior to any real-life works. "The current audience does not know enough about Chinese comics. I especially hope to use movies to introduce such works that we are proud of to more audiences."
Feng Shaofeng
Qiao Zhenyu
"Under the Stranger" was launched in June 2020. The project plans to create a trilogy, the story has been completed, and the first work currently released will be filmed between 2021 and 2022. "If the movie is recognized after it is released, we can advance the production of the last two parts as soon as possible." Wu Ershan said that "Under the Stranger" follows the industrialization process of "The Trilogy of the Gods", and the core team is also the same group of people. Watch Audiences who have watched "Fengshen Part 1" will see many familiar names in the end credits.
In order to comply with the stylistic aesthetics and production standards of the comic-adapted movie genre, the film pursues stylization and creativity in visual effects. There is an 18-minute memory section in the film that uses imitation animation technology. The traditional production method is that after the actors perform the plot, the animators manually draw it frame by frame and connect it into a cartoon. However, "The Stranger" "Part 2" was produced using artificial intelligence technology.
Wuershan
"We made digital scans for the actors and gave the data to artificial intelligence to learn. At the same time, we also gave the painting style we need to artificial intelligence to learn, and then brought the painting style into the digital model of each character. This solves several of the most difficult problems in processing artificial intelligence images, one is the problem of picture tracking, and the other is the problem of picture quality.Wu Ershan said that this is the first time that live-action animation combined with artificial intelligence technology has been used in theater film production. "I hope it can bring some inspiration to colleagues. Maybe there will be more choices in the way of making animations in the future, and artificial intelligence can be used in the production of movies," Wu Ershan said. Find new ways to combine intelligence with traditional film technology. "
In the film
, the 80-year-old musician Peter Chen made his film debut. Zhang Chulan (played by Hu Xianxu), who has always hidden his identity as a foreigner, has been involved in the vortex of fighting between different alien sects since he met the mysterious Feng Baobao (played by Li Wanda). , the villain of the "All-Sex Sect" Shen Chong (played by Feng Shaofeng) Xia He (played by Na Ran), the "Tianxiahui" daughter Feng Shayan (played by Nar Naqian), and the successor of Xiangxi "Puppetry" Liu Yanyan (played by Lan Xi) (played by Wu Jiakai) and other forces appeared one by one, and presented their views. In order to restore the comic feel of the original work, every scene and every scene in the film must be fully prepared in advance. Some complex scenes are even prepared half a year in advance. Co-director Xia Peng said that for the cool action scenes in the movie, comic-style storyboards will be designed first. The action director will lead the action team members to first shoot these storyboards into dynamic demos, so that the actors can intuitively see how to do it. Action. The actors then switched from the previous basic training to action training for each shot to ensure tacit cooperation during filming. When filming the literary and drama parts, the director first led the actors in the rehearsal hall, and new ideas were generated every day. The screenwriter immediately created a new script based on the new ideas. The interesting plots and fun scenes in the film were polished over and over again.
Wu Ershan, who has extensive experience in the "Fengshen Performing Arts Training Camp", also opened the "Irregulars". "Training Camp" for casting and training. In addition to martial arts training, Wu Ershan conducted "special training" for Hu Xianxu, asking him to tell a talk show for everyone every day, so that like Zhang Chulan, he could "open his mouth anytime, anywhere" Li Wanda wanted to practice "loneliness", avoid communicating with the outside world, and try to write a diary in a character's tone. In order to get closer to the state of a practitioner, Wu Jiakai went to Taiqing Palace to experience life, and returned to the hotel after training every day. , and also looking for a spiritual practitioner on the road to feel the smoke and smoke in the world.
Wu Jiakai
Peter Chen
The cast list of "Under the Stranger" also includes Taiwanese pop musician Peter Chen, who plays the role of being led by Feng Baobao in the film. Xu Xiang, who has entered the alien world and has been searching for her for decades, does not have many roles, but his role is very important. Peter Chen, who has composed popular songs such as "One Cut Plum" and "Late", is 80 years old and is acting in a movie for the first time. After watching the video of his stage performance, I felt that the cartoon seemed to be based on him. He exudes the atmosphere of story, and his experience fits the role very well. " Wu Ershan said. In the animation, Feng Baobao's character song "Boxwood Pole" is a famous Sichuan song. Peter Chen had already prepared it during the filming of the movie, and even went to Sichuan to collect the song. When the filming was done and parting, Wu Ershan formally proposed to him Invitation to participate in music production. In the film, you can hear "Boxwood Pole" newly compiled by Peter Chen, which adds a 16-bar overture to the folk song.
"The two earliest popular songs in my life, "One Road". and "Late" both became popular in Shanghai. More than forty years have passed, and I sang a new version of "Boxwood Pole" in "Under the Stranger". I hope young audiences can go and watch it. Your fathers heard my songs back then, and now you can hear my songs again. "At the Shanghai road show, Peter Chen extended an invitation to the audience.
