Hollywood Road

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After discussing with Bill Rossis in the Death Star Building for a while, Murphy asked him to contact photographer Philip Raschel and others, and then to find a relatively cheap special effects production company, then left Century City and went again In Burbank’s Miramax branch, Harvey Weinstein just came from New York today, and he came here to meet this big Jewish man.

"Why, are you sure about the new project?" Harvey Weinstein asked jokingly.

"Harvey, do you remember the call I called you some time ago?"

Sitting on the chair in front of the desk, Murphy looked at Harvey Weinstein opposite, "That comic, that comic is my goal!"

"You mean..." Harvey Weinstein immediately remembered, "Dark horse comics are not good!"

Instead, he asked, "Murphy, why did you choose it? The first three movie scripts are all yours..."

Adaptation often means a large amount of copyright fees. Of course, Harvey Weinstein wants to use the smallest expenditure in exchange for the largest profit.

"Because this comic boldly uses black and white creation, the brushstrokes are disorderly and orderly, emphasizes the contrast of light and shadow, creating a unique black style, and also breaking the reader's inertia of appreciation for color comics."

Having said this, Murphy spread out his hand and added, "It also has unique black and white pictures, strong cinematic scenes and traditional engraving styles, which have had an important impact on the comic industry in the United States!"

To impress Harvey Weinstein, these are of course not enough, so Murphy added, "More importantly, it has a large number of loyal fans throughout North America, and these are potential audiences for the movie in the future!"

Harvey Weinstein also knows something about that comic, knowing that Murphy's situation is true, but it's not that simple.

"Murphy, we don't talk about investment and returns, nor scripts and plans," he looked across. "Hollywood, you are not the first person to make the idea of ​​this comic, and Miramax is not the first company. But they were all rejected!"

Now that the new project chose this comic, Murphy certainly had an understanding and nodded slightly.

"Planet of Horror" has brought a lot of money to Miramax. Harvey Weinstein now admires the young director on the opposite side very much, and said patiently, "Even if we can get the dark horse comics, what can we do to get Frank- Miller, this stubborn old fellow?"

"I will talk to Frank Miller," Murphy is confident. "Now CAA supports my idea very much. As long as Miramax can also support me, I have the confidence to convince Frank Miller."

Harvey Weinstein slowly clasped his fingers on the arm of the chair, thinking for a while, and then slowly said, "Murphy, as long as you can convince Frank Miller, we can contact the dark horse comics. However, investment if……"

He opened his hands, "You know, I am responsible to the parent company Walt Disney and other shareholders. I can't promise you anything until I see the script and the specific plan."

"I know." Murphy nodded.

If Harvey Weinstein promises to give him tens of millions of dollars in the future, Murphy must suspect that this guy has a problem with his head or has ulterior motives.

Murphy stood up. "I'm leaving now, Harvey."

"Okay," Harvey Weinstein stood up and sent him out of the office, "keep in touch."

Such a young director who has a lot of prospects in the future must naturally maintain close cooperation with him.

It is not easy to impress people like Frank Miller. The other party has already achieved fame, and simple fame and fortune temptation is not the best way.

From mid-August to the end of August after the release of "Planet of Horror", Murphy took a rest for a while, but unlike the previous time, he did not go on vacation, basically hiding in Los Angeles, except for fitness, visiting friends and relaxing. , Is still considering new projects.

The consecutive commercial successes of the two films "Chain Saw" and "Planet of Horror" undoubtedly gave him more capital and more investment, even tens of millions of dollars are possible, so he put his sights on Aimed at Frank Miller, the famous manga master.

Frank Miller is an absolute god-like existence in the North American comics industry. He has created works such as "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns", "Sin City", "Dare Demon: Rebirth", "Spartan 300" and " Hei Tian Shi" and many other influential works.

He has profoundly changed the Batman comics, and it is not an exaggeration to say that he really brought the Dark Knight style to Batman.

Of course, Murphy is not interested in the Batman series, he also knows that he does not have this ability at all now, and even if he wants to fight Batman's idea, DC and Warner will not attack him.

Murphy is fond of the work that established Frank Miller's status as a master in the comics industry, and is also a work full of rich black style-"Sin City"!

This comic can be said to be one of the few works that can perfectly combine violence and aesthetics.

"Violence" and "aesthetics" were originally two unrelated words, but some comic works have cleverly integrated them, gradually forming a well-known art form-"violence aesthetics", which usually Appropriate artistic methods are used to visually render with exaggerated realistic techniques or euphemistically insinuate violent processes and **** scenes with formal symbolic techniques, so as to stimulate the senses while conveying a thrilling aesthetic experience and thought-provoking theme connotations.

Once, Murphy has studied this cartoon and works adapted from the cartoon. The movie "Sin City" breaks the convention, uses a flat and conceptual visual language to break new ground and create a unique violent aesthetic.

This film intuitively expresses a large number of violent processes and **** scenes with extremely artistic visual design techniques. Not only does it have no disgusting sense of vulgarity, but it makes the naked violent scenes melancholy and beautiful, and the flavor is deep. Innovative masterpiece.

After selecting the target and now, except for participating in some necessary activities, Murphy has spent a lot of time watching and consulting the "Sin City" comics and related materials. It can be said that this comic is born with the characteristics of a movie, and it is strongly cinematic. The scenes and traditional engraving styles are very suitable for adaptation, even without too much cuts, as long as the comic style effect is achieved, it can become a very fascinating movie.

This also further strengthened Murphy's determination to obtain the right to adapt this comic.

Before the Saturn Awards ceremony, Murphy roughly figured out the way to adapt, shooting according to the original comics, the risk is undoubtedly the least, and it is also the most supported by Franco Miller.

Without the support of Franco Miller, you would not be able to get the right to adapt "Sin City", and there would be nothing else to talk about.

Even, this project is more like a transition from comics to movies, rather than a complete film adaptation.

The "Sin City" manga mainly tells three interrelated stories-Sin City, Sniper and Huang Bastard.

These three stories all happened in the same fictional city-Sin City. In this city, the bishops, senators, and police, who should represent light and justice, are the roots of crime.

Darkness is the only scenery in this city. Violence becomes the only remaining justice. In order to fit the plot and theme, the entire comic

Almost all of his stories are arranged to take place in the deep dark night, using simple and rough plane images and strong contrasting conceptual colors as visual language to create a dark and terrifying city atmosphere.

Among them, the flat scene style boldly omits insignificant details of the picture, and even uses pure color blocks to reshape the visual image, making the theme of violence simple and straightforward, and making the **** plot implicit and deep.

The adaptation of the film will inevitably use this conceptual color application, and use black and white as the main color, coupled with strong contrast of partial color, to create a materialistic, corrupt, and dark city image, which can completely activate this city. A sin city shrouded in darkness and violence.

Although he has not worked out a specific plan and has not obtained the script, Murphy has already thought about a lot, especially the way the film was shot.

There is no doubt that he must abandon the traditional film camera, switch to the latest digital camera, use the green screen as the main shooting background, and rely on the later CGI technology to realize the comic scene.

What is the essence of the comic version of "Sin City"? It is undoubtedly its unique images and alternative anti-hero characters. In a world of color comics, Frank Miller adopted the style of black and white, and then applied eye-catching colors to some more special targets, which is quite fresh. sense.

To achieve these effects, it is not impossible to rely on traditional film cameras and special effects technology, but the cost is quite high, far exceeding the cost of using digital technology.

Despite the successive successes of "Chain Saw" and "Planet of Horror" as capital, Murphy also knows that Hollywood producers are realistic. At his current level, it may be difficult to get an investment of more than 50 million US dollars. In this way, digital cameras and digital special effects are the best choices for achieving visual effects.

Visual effects are everywhere in movies, from the earliest frame-by-frame shooting, make-up remediation, to real-life model shooting and mechanical special effects, to motion capture technology and 3D mix and match CGI....... The technology of the film industry is changing with each passing day. There are many technologies, large and small, such as motion capture technology, which is classified into mechanical, acoustic, electromagnetic, optical, etc., and the final visual transmission to the audience includes the use of the most basic photographic lens. The result of the collaborative completion of multiple technical categories.

Therefore, as long as he can achieve the effect he wants, Murphy does not care whether he uses the traditional method or the latest digital technology.

Whether it is advocating traditional real scene models and mechanical special effects, or completely green screen and blue screen production; whether it is traditional technology or the most advanced CG, it is ultimately for the production of movies.

However, before all this, Murphy must first persuade Frank Miller.