Exploiting Hollywood 1980

  Chapter 977 Pixar's Magic

   "It's so good...", after attending the premiere of "Willow", Ronald sent out the highest appreciation for George Lucas and director Ron Howard, a director can say to other people's movies.

"Do you think it looks good? Hahaha, I'm really happy." Lucas still likes the kid Ronald. The original intention of a director is to make good-looking and amazing movies.

   "Yeah, it's very beautiful, I can hardly see the splicing traces of the special effects, how did you do it?"

  Ronald has been in the industry for nearly ten years. He has directed and produced many movies. If he puts a scene in front of his eyes, he can roughly understand how it was shot. Even if there are certain key links that are not understood, a solution can be found by gathering a group of experts to tackle the problem for a period of time (like asking Jim Cameron to build an airplane cockpit for Top Gun).

  But today he really seems to have returned to the perspective of an ordinary audience. Regarding this "The Wind and Cloud Meeting" movie, he couldn't figure out how to shoot some of the shots in it.

   There are three scenes that are particularly obvious, one is that the wizard shoots lightning from his hand and hits the enemy. It is said that in Star Wars VI, the unique trick used by the emperor to deal with Luke Skywalker is this kind of lightning from the hand, not a new technology.

But in Star Wars, Ronald can still see that Lightning is an engineer of Industrial Light & Magic, and after finding a way to shoot (or draw) silver lightning on film, it will be printed with special effects and transferred to the pre-made film Up.

  The lightning in "The Gathering of Wind and Cloud" is definitely not drawn, because the lightning is very closely integrated with the finger, as if it flew out of the finger, and finally hit the enemy, shooting out electric sparks. Even the small random swing of the lightning beam, and the subsequent small lightning beam that appeared behind the person who finally hit it, were very natural. It is very similar to the electric light emitted by a welder's torch.

   This is exactly the same as the "lightning" magic imagined by the audience. Ronald couldn't think of any way to achieve such an extreme.

  The second screen is a picture of a monster (dragon) breathing fire. The fireball spit out from the monster's mouth is not the light and fluffy version made by the painter, it seems to have quality and impact. Rushing to the target will also cause the target to be knocked back, which is almost the same as throwing a charcoal fire into the fireplace. After the fireball hits an obstacle, the explosion feeling of the splash is very similar to the explosion made by the traditional special effects department.

  The last scene that Ronald couldn't figure out how to shoot is the scene where the elves are revealing to the protagonist. There will be a soft glow around the elf, like the holy light behind **** in medieval paintings.

   What is amazing is that this light is not simply transferred to the film. It is very natural that the light has a gradual gradient around the characters and in the space of tens of centimeters where the light dissipates. It is very similar to the effect produced by photographers shooting portraits against the light at sunrise and sunset. At the meeting point of the holy light and the dark background, small rays of light are continuously dissipated into tiny particles.

   "Aha, that's... the particle system developed by Pixar Studios." Director Ron Howard also worked for Roger Coleman before, and Ronald and Ronald are regarded as brothers in the same school. So I don't keep secrets about this kind of advanced technology.

   "Particle system? The kind of particle physics?" Ronald didn't understand. He is very interested in this new film effect, because when he watched this film, there was a sense of familiarity that made him feel that he needed to attach great importance to it.

   It is said that such an epoch-making special effects scene, a director who embraces special effects technology, should be aware of it immediately. But when Ronald saw the fire, lightning, and holy light, he didn't feel any fluctuations in his heart. It was the exclamations from the audience that made him suddenly realize how powerful this scene was.

  It is very possible that I have seen many such special effects in my previous life, so that my first reaction is that it is very common. This led Ronald to make a bold inference. Perhaps in the near future, it will be normal for these special effects to appear in Hollywood movies.

   "Ha, no, this is an animation generation technology... Let me put it this way, in Pixar, all the pictures are rendered by computers."

Lucas has continued to invest a lot of money in Industrial Light and Magic, consuming a lot of the wealth he earned through the "Star Wars" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" series. Now it is necessary to sell some special effects computers and special effects software. Colleagues in the industry, it’s time to return to the book. Otherwise, even with his huge wealth, it would be too much.

  It turns out that these very realistic pictures are not shot through special effects and then transferred to the traditional technology of the original film. It's all computer generated.

The computer uses an algorithm to simulate a bunch of fine particles, propagating in the air or water, exploding, bouncing, etc., and then input the motion trajectory equations of hundreds of small particles into the supercomputer, and then let the supercomputer pass In computer graphics, according to the equation of the motion trajectory, the final image is generated frame by frame. This process of generating images out of nothing is called rendering.

"Every frame is rendered by computer..." Lucas said to Ronald, "If you are interested, go to my ranch and have a look. We have a finished machine for sale. The software developed by Pixar, Still at ILM."

It turned out that Lucas was short of funds due to the huge loss of "Howard Duck". He has been investing money in Pixar (computer image generation department) and Industrial Light & Magic (traditional model animation), and he can only support one .

  But the industry's interest in Pixar's technology is not high, and no one bids to buy it. In the end, the founder of Apple Computer, Steve Jobs, who was swept away by the company he founded, asked for five million dollars to buy it, and then continued to inject five million dollars to maintain the operation of the company.

  Lucas felt guilty for the old Pixar employees who jumped out of New York Institute of Technology and followed him to start a business, so he didn't ask to retain too many shares in the sale. In the end, in addition to the major shareholder Jobs, Lucas and several core team members held shares.

  Jobs wanted to use this to turn around, and was at odds with the idea of ​​employees investing more money in pursuit of more advanced computer graphics rendering capabilities. Now the company can only survive by selling some computer software and hardware.

  Ronald secretly exclaimed that it was a pity. At that time, he did not have the money to buy the nascent company. Even if he bought the estimated continuous investment, he could not afford it.

   But now his wallet is deep enough, he can buy some computers, or poach some people to his company, and it is not impossible to even buy shares in Pixar.

  At the moment, Ronald made an agreement with Lucas to visit Pixar's "Computer Magic" after returning home.

   As for the other special effects parts, they were also groundbreaking, but those were the ones that Ronald could almost figure out how to shoot.

  For example, a monster with two twin heads, which is obviously the traditional modeling technique of Industrial Light and Magic, and a barbarian knight, which is the traditional makeup technique, adding a set of masks to the knight.

  The heads of these two monsters, one named Albert and the other Sisko, are obviously Lucas satirizing two Chicago film critics. The death knight, named General Carr, mocked New York female film critic Pauline Carr. Because she has always been known for telling the straight truth, Lucas named a positive angle after her name and appearance.

   And one of the two leading men, Willow, a dwarf farmer who wants to be a wizard, is even simpler, and that's played by a dwarf actor. His name is Warwick Davis. When he was a child, he played the bear-like native who helped several people escape in Star Wars VI.

   Now that he's eighteen, Lucas is very, very happy to have him back in the lead role. This type of actor often has the opportunity to play some supporting roles, but the opportunities for leading roles are rare.

  Warwick Davies was on the scene, bouncing around and still in character as a child. Ronald waved to him, followed by another leading actor, Fang Kilmer.

Val Kilmer still has a lot of knots about Ronald reducing his role in "Top Gun", but now he has no successful works. In order not to offend the three major Hollywood directors on the scene, he also Be nice.

   Next to Val Kilmer's new girlfriend, Joanne Whaley, the heroine of the film. She was a British actress, and she and Val Kilmer were doing fake scenes, and they looked like glue.

   After greeting them, Ronald watched Warwick Davis. The story of this kind of dwarf as the protagonist always makes me feel familiar. Have you seen similar movies in your previous life?

   "Does it remind you of something?" George Lucas looked at Ronald and smiled. He is also a business-minded director and producer. This time Ron Howard directed him, and the two worked happily together, which is very similar to when Spielberg directed the Raiders of the Lost Ark series for him.

If Ronald... Well, Ronald is making a lot of money now, rumors in the industry that he made "Dirty Dancing" independently of the seven major studios made him at least 50 million (in fact, it is far more ). Since he is interested, let him take a look at Lucas Ranch. Those old brothers from Industrial Light & Magic and Pixar, if they can get shares, their lives will be easier.

   "I was just thinking, is the story about the dwarf wizard as the main character...", Ronald is still searching his subconscious mind, what kind of movie is it... It seems that I have to wait to see if I will dream..."

   "Haha, you're right. It's a lot of Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings'. The copyright of his book is in the committee, so it's hard to talk about."

Lucas is a shrewd businessman, but he just kept the characters of the Lord of the Rings...a wise dwarf (from the hobbit to the farmer), a wandering knight (Fang Kilmer), an evil wizard (from Sol Lun was replaced by a witch)... and then the entire plot was replaced, and the copyright issue could not be caught at all.

  The copyright of Tolkien’s novel adaptation has always been in the hands of a committee composed of his family, the publishing house and others. For this novel that has influenced a generation of teenagers, they have put forward many demands in addition to high copyright fees.

   So much so that today, apart from an unsuccessful cartoon, a TV series, and a radio play, only "The Hobbit" filmed by the Sowell Alliance has had some repercussions. Speaking of this influential work, there are audiences everywhere who are willing to pay to watch the movie version.

   "When will you show it in America?" Ronald asked Lucas and Ron Howard.

"It will start at the end of May..." The faces of the two are a little bit ugly, because the previous work of "Street Street" and this kind of fantasy-themed movies did not have any successful precedents in the 1980s. Fox and Paramount, which they have been cooperating with before, said Refuse to issue.

   In the end, only MGM agreed to release the film for the North American market. This still depends on the face of the executive who discovered Star Wars back then, and now works at MGM.

   "At the end of May..." Ronald felt that they were a little embarrassed, because Lucasfilm did not have its own distribution channels. He used to make a high-profile plan to let 20th Century Fox take a share from him and monopolize the derivatives market. Although he became the richest director in Hollywood, he also offended many distributors.

   It was fine when the box office was good all the way before, but now a Howard Duck has implicated his movie.

  Besides, at the end of May and the beginning of June, there are many blockbuster films in Hollywood this year. In addition to Lucas's, "Growing Up" starring Diane Lane, "Crocodile Dundee II" and "First Blood Rambo III" will all get together during this time.

   "Where are your videotapes?" Ronald went on to bring some videotape business to his company.

   As a result, the copyright of Lucas's videotape "Gathering Wind and Cloud" has not yet been sold, and Ronald immediately expressed that his daydream can be an agent for one-stop production and distribution.

  Lucas didn't expect to have a surprise, and when he was happy, he was more determined to sell a few more Pixar special effects computers to this rich director who had just become rich. Artists always have a special penchant for spending money.

   Before the Palme d'Or was selected, Ronald returned to Los Angeles.

   During this trip to Cannes, the most important thing is to finalize Daydream's next key work, "Steel Magnolia". Ronald began to pass CAA and sent out audition invitations to middle-aged female stars. In addition to Olympia Dukakis, whom Ronald has personally connected with, and Shirley Maclean, two middle-aged actresses will play the mothers.

   Jane Fonda, Sally Field, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, Jessica Lange and others all expressed that as long as Ronald is the director, they are all willing to cooperate with him.

  However, every time Ronald flies, he takes the movie and stage script of "Steel Magnolia" with him, and even sleeps with it as a pillow, and he doesn't dream of any fragments of the movie in his previous life. This made him still have doubts about directing movies.

  So at the same time, CAA is still helping him find a suitable director. Ronald only had to fund, and be a producer, as he did with Joel Silver on Die Hard.

  (end of this chapter)