As of July 25, the total box office of movies in the 2024 summer season (June to August) (including pre-sales) exceeded 6.5 billion yuan!
Movies are the art of dreaming.
In this summer season, " " has created a dream of Chinese style superpowers, high-powered fighting skills, cool visual effects, and a brand new world of Chinese superpowers comics, here it comes!
"Decryption" creates a dream to decipher life. Ten dream scenes run through the entire movie, which are magnificent and magnificent, taking the audience to "dream" together.
"White Snake: Floating Life" creates a Chinese-style romantic dream, from the floating life in the streets of the Song Dynasty to the vivid character performances, the dream returns to the origin and continues the floating life.
On the screen, the pictures are super burning and the story is moving.
Behind the screen, Chinese filmmakers continue to embrace new technologies and pursue a more extreme audio-visual experience. This is also an exciting technology blockbuster.
aiHow does the wind rise
stir up the movie "A Pond of Spring Water"?
At present, AI (artificial intelligence) technology is sweeping across all walks of life, and the film and television industry is also integrating with AI in every aspect.
Audiences who have watched the movie "Under the Stranger" must be deeply impressed by the unique image quality of the memory clips. This is not only a tribute to the original comic book, but also brings the audience a novel "2.5-dimensional" movie viewing experience that combines the two dimensions and the three dimensions.
director Wu Ershan said that this animation was realized through live-action animation production technology and artificial intelligence style transfer technology. During the production of
, we must first conduct live-action filming, and then conduct detailed copying (turning the live-action footage into a comic style frame by frame). After that, the 3D image of the actor is scanned and the artificial intelligence is allowed to learn, allowing it to complete the picture according to the desired painting style based on understanding the character image.
In the movie " legend ", in addition to Jackie Chan himself showing off his skills in the modern drama, the producer also used the latest AI technology, combined with deepfake (deep fake) technology, to restore the 27-year-old youth version of Jackie Chan through deep learning. , to play the role of a Han Dynasty general on the battlefield.
director Tang Jili said that many technical difficulties were overcome during the process, and most of them are satisfied with the final effect, but there are still regrets. For example, the current AI technology cannot fully express the delicate micro-expressions of real people. He hopes that the audience will give more encouragement to the innovation of Chinese films, and he also sees more possibilities from the 27-year-old AI Jackie Chan.
Chairman of Bona Pictures Yu Dong also said before, "In "Legend", we have the digital assets of young Jackie Chan, which is equivalent to having an actor who will never grow old. Such technological breakthroughs allow Film production has become more flexible, which has also brought about major changes in the way actors work. "
The movie " decryption " also used AI technology in the preview stage of scene concept design in the early stages of creation. Director Chen Sicheng introduced that in the past, the art team relied entirely on manual design to produce concept drawings, and could only produce a few pictures a week that could meet the requirements of all parties. Now, through AI technology, thousands of pictures can be produced in two weeks, which is very efficient. . But he also bluntly said that these concept drawings are bizarre, various, and some are very strange. They can only be used as a reference and cannot be used directly, but they can help expand imagination and inspire creative inspiration.
"White Snake: The Floating Life" uses AI technology mainly in the digital painting process. Digital matte painting refers to filling in the background space that cannot be constructed in the real scene when drawing animation scenes, such as distant mountains and sky in the background. AI technology can greatly improve production efficiency, but the creators also said that most of the work in animation creation is creative, and AI can only be used as an auxiliary tool, and the final effect judgment still depends on the creator himself.
According to experts, aigc (generative artificial intelligence) has been fully integrated with the entire process of the film industry. Specifically, it includes script analysis, storyboard design, scene atmosphere map, character modeling, digital matte painting, animation style transfer, film Picture restoration, colorization of black and white images, etc., which has a huge impact on improving work efficiency and reducing film shooting costs.However, it is generally believed in the industry that AI currently only presents search and integration functions, but cannot yet achieve unique creative capabilities and is always inseparable from human creativity.
Let the audio-visual effects next level
How to show your talents in filming?
In addition to the AI technology that has attracted much attention, summer movies are also showing their talents in the filming and production, striving to make the audio-visual effect reach the "next level" (higher level).
movie "Under the Stranger" creates a unique world of Chinese style and supernatural powers. As director Wu Ershan said: "We should not only make the audience believe that this is a real world, but also feel that the story is being told in comic-style language."
In order to achieve this effect, "Under the Stranger" The photography team made extensive use of wide-angle lenses that are rarely used in ordinary movies, combined with CNC robotic arms, high-speed photography and other shooting methods to present comic-like images and surreal shots. The
lighting group connects each light source to the lighting console to achieve precise control of the entire light source. Interactive light simulates the effects of superpowers during shooting, which not only helps the actors perform "immersed", but also makes the light and shadow changes of the environment and characters in the post-production visual effects pictures more natural.
The movie "Decryption" needs to visually present abstract and profound numbers, passwords, and strange dreams that reflect the protagonist's subconscious to the audience through images. How does
create the most appropriate dream scene? Li Shuai, the visual effects director of "Decryption" said that the visual effects work was put in advance during the shooting, and several dream scenes were pre-shot during the preparation period. The director could explore different visual effects and expressions during the pre-shooting. After determining the image style, each department will proceed to the next step. This can not only save money, but also improve shooting efficiency.
can be easily understood like this. Virtual preview technology simulates an electronic sandbox through full scene modeling. The creative staff can compare the effects of multiple plans, and can also preview actors' performance moves, camera movements, etc. in advance. Today, virtual preview technology has played an important role in the film industry.
The movie "White Snake: The Floating Life " shows the progress in the production technology of domestic animated films. The neighborhoods, restaurants, tea shops, and docks and ships in the film are full of Chinese style. At the same time, the characters' hair, eyelashes, and skin The appearance details such as eyes and eyes are also very detailed.
According to Light Chasing Animation, the internally developed binding acceleration system was widely used in this production. This system can help animators create more smoothly, increase animation production efficiency by nearly ten times, and also improve the character's animation performance. Richer and three-dimensional.
From high-tech format to vr/ar/xr
How to create a more ultimate movie-watching experience?
In recent years, from ordinary halls to imax, cinity, China Giant Screen, Dolby Cinema, etc., audiences have been constantly pursuing a more extreme viewing experience, and technological innovations have also continued to meet this demand. "High-tech formats" have become a A major keyword for film technology innovation.
"Decryption", "Under the Stranger", "White Snake: The Floating Life", " Retrograde Life " and many other summer films have cooperated with theater projection systems of different formats, and various screens can present wonderful stories in an all-round way.
The entire movie "Decryption" was specially shot by imax. Director Chen Sicheng said that the viewfinder of the IMAX camera is large enough to better record the dual space of reality and dream. He also admitted that the definition of the imax camera is particularly high, and the requirements for art props will be stricter. "But I have always emphasized that one thing that filmmakers must be wary of is the difference between movies and other videos. If our movies don't have these things, why do audiences have to go to the theater to watch them? So I emphasize that the sense of cinema must be used The best audio-visual experience keeps the audience in the theater, which is what filmmakers should do. "
's film "Under the Stranger" is also specially shot in IMAX, and will present 26% more complete picture content in IMAX theaters. , bringing the audience a more impactful audio-visual and immersive viewing experience.
At the same time, my country's cinity projection system, which has core independent intellectual property rights, continues to expand its layout.Many summer movies are available in cinity cinema.
cinity integrates high-tech formats from seven major film projection fields. The film picture is clearer, the colors are more brilliant, the image is smoother, the details are richer, and the movements are more coherent.
What is particularly worth mentioning is that this summer, many movies such as " ", "Under the Stranger" and "White Snake: The Floating Life" will be simultaneously released in barrier-free versions to provide the blind with the warmth of theater viewing. Heart choice. “Finally I can laugh with everyone!” a visually impaired person said happily.
The barrier-free movie is a reprocessed version that makes it easier for the visually impaired to watch the movie coherently. It adds narration between lines and sound effects to assist in understanding the plot. In theaters equipped with barrier-free projection equipment, when barrier-free movies are played, visually impaired friends can wear earphone receivers and listen to the narration, while sighted people can watch movies just like normal movies, achieving integrated viewing for people with disabilities.
Filmmakers’ pursuit of visual effects never ends. Imagine the future, innovative film forms supported by VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality), XR (extended reality), MR (mixed reality) and other technologies will bring a more immersive, interactive, and diverse viewing experience.
This year’s Shanghai International Film Festival has specially set up a future cinema unit. In the "Future Cinema", the audience can experience the speed of driving on a real track in a 1:1 restored "racing simulator", and can also wear various head-mounted devices to immersively experience the world in the eyes of the protagonist. Are you excited about this immersive movie-watching experience that "breaks" the screen and "enters" the picture?
Over the past century, the development of film art has always gone hand in hand with technological innovation. Technological development has provided materials and hardware for artistic creation, while art has constantly put forward new requirements for technology, forming a magnificent technological blockbuster.
Relevant national departments have made it clear that they will strengthen support for outstanding films and young filmmakers, encourage and promote innovation, embrace the technological revolution represented by artificial intelligence, and let more outstanding filmmakers, more artistic standards and Excellent films with high audience satisfaction stand out. New technologies will continue to bring new opportunities and open up more new spaces for movies.
Producer | Li Zhe
Chief Editor | Wang Xingdong
Writing | Xie Yujie
Coordinator | Yuan Jiaqi
Proofread | Gao Shaozhuo
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