Hollywood Road

As before, Murphy started shooting from the scenes in the studio, but unlike before, he has more stringent requirements for shooting.

"Cut! Jim, your expression is not in place."

"Sally, your smile is not innocent enough, do it again!"

"The lights, the lights just flickered. David, don't have another time!"

From the beginning of the shooting, everyone in the crew felt a different atmosphere from the previous shooting. Murphy almost became a perfectionist, some shots that could not be passed in the shooting of "Deadpool" or "Sin City" , All were rejected by him and must be filmed again.

The first shots of James Franco and Charlize Theron took six consecutive shots, but Murphy was still not satisfied.

This is just a seemingly simple shot of Nick and Amy meeting at a party and chatting together.

The scene is really not difficult. Murphy kept calling to stop. On the one hand, he wanted to get the best shooting effect. On the other hand, he wanted to establish a different shooting atmosphere from the beginning of the shooting. The effect he wants to be more perfect.

"Cut!"

Once again, he called the crew to stop, Murphy took off his baseball cap and threw it on the director's monitor, stepped over the paved camera track, entered the set, and stood opposite James Franco and Charlize Theron. Jim, Sally, the one just now, you both have problems."

James Franco squeezed his eyebrows and took the lead in getting rid of the role. Charlize Theron walked back and forth two steps, and also came out.

"Where did I go wrong?" James Franco was a little confused. "Isn't Nick Munnar's?"

"No need for Munner now." Murphy shook his head and circled James Franco. "Nick's Munner was born with laziness. Now he has just met Amy and was killed by Amy. Attracted..."

He turned to look at Charlize Theron, and Charlize Theron was also listening very carefully.

"What Nick needs is to attract Amy, not to expose his nature." Murphy said again, "He has tested Amy and has a general understanding of Amy. Now he is what Amy wants to see."

The director tells the actors about the play. You must never tell the actors directly what kind of specific expressions you should use and how you should act. That is a very amateur approach, which will make the actors' performances stiff and stereotyped.

In a film like "Deadpool" that does not require acting skills, you can do this appropriately, but in the filming of "The Lost Lover", doing so is a disaster. Murphy needs James Franco to show it. The best state, not limited by him.

Therefore, he can analyze the current state of the character for James Franco, but he will not say how to do it.

Having said that, when it comes to acting, James Franco doesn't know how many streets to throw him away.

"I understand." James Franco nodded, "Give me a few minutes, I need to find a feeling."

Murphy waved his hand to him, then looked at Charlize Theron, "Sally, you have the same problem."

"Yeah." Charlize Theron nodded slightly.

"You were really beautiful just now, and looked innocent enough, very attractive." Murphy looked at the hairline of her wig and raised her voice, "Jack! Readjust Sally's wig!"

He turned the topic back again, "Nick Dunn likes not only beauty, but also coolness. He loves cool girls the most."

Charlize Theron instantly understood, "So I want to give Nick Dunn a cool girl."

"That's it." Murphy raised a finger, "Show your cool side."

Having said this, Murphy withdrew from the set. Charlize Theron, like James Franco, needs to find a new sense of feeling, and as the hero and heroine, they also need to communicate again.

Back behind the director's monitor, he looked at the previous shots one by one, and then called the director of photography Philip Raschel.

"The range of lens movement is still a bit large." Murphy pointed to the monitor screen and said, "In this way, the next shot will make the lens as quiet as possible, cancel all moving shots, and place the second camera on the tripod. , Don’t move."

Philip Raschel nodded, "I'll make adjustments."

He understands Murphy's meaning. In the previous preparations, the two had enough communication. This time the shooting of "The Lost Lovers" is completely different from the previous shooting of "Deadpool" and basically does not require intense For sports lenses, the scene displayed by the lens needs to be quiet.

This is what Murphy meant. The lens language of this film is typical of being static and not moving.

The mainstream commercial movies in Hollywood nowadays are all screen heroes saving the world or fighting monsters. Speaking of the use of lenses, the audience's minds are all cool shots or special effects that brighten the eyes. This directly leads to Photographers who are good at shooting crazy sports lenses are very popular in the industry.

Not to mention anything else, Murphy used a lot of operational shots the last time he filmed "Deadpool."

But these shooting methods will make the most basic mistakes when used in films like "The Lost Lovers", which is completely inappropriate.

The content, theme, and way of expressing emotion in this film determine that it is best not to use strenuous exercise shots.

It can even be said that for "The Lost Lover", other shooting methods are wrong.

It seems that this is different from Murphy's past style, but it is not something that can be done.

In fact, anyone with a little film literacy will know that directors are not sticky. The beauty of a movie is that a hundred people have a hundred ways of telling a story, and that is to see who tells the better.

Filmmakers have an interesting phenomenon. The more dramas they direct, the easier it is for them to control the details of the story scenes. Many people think that the director’s strength lies in how they shoot those magnificent scenes, those crazy shots or Personally stylized images.

Often these classic scenes or shots will be imitated as soon as they come out, and these classics do have a very strong visual impact. Many directors feel that these are the ideas that let the audience understand the characters in their movies.

But different film types have different requirements. Compared with lenses with strong visual impact, Murphy is more concerned about the information that the lens can convey to the audience during shooting. Many other directors like to create suspense when telling stories, but He wants to control the drama brought by the suspense when the characters get new information.

For example, in the scene where Nick and Amy met for the first time, they seemed to be attracted to each other and fell in love at first sight. They seemed to be a natural pair, but is this true?

What they can arouse each other's interest, is they really possessed?

Murphy needs to take the lens to extend this information, and when the audience sees the plot behind, they realize that all this is just what the other party wants and they express it deliberately.

Hollywood can shoot all possible and impossible things. The problem faced by a more mature director like Murphy is actually "what are you not filming", not what you filmed.

Therefore, according to the theme and emotional needs of the film, Murphy had already decided what not to shoot.

Murphy is the kind of director who likes to put the camera on the tripod. He hates the hand-held lens. Even if someone needs to follow the shot, he must also use the Steadicam for stabilizing the lens, rather than the violent shaking hand-held shooting. This film More stable lenses are needed. Most of the shots he wants to shoot are rock solid like that **** tripod.

The second is that many directors at the moment like to add a sense of camera shake and some actions that suggest the existence of the camera. Murphy asked that this situation be completely eliminated in this film, and must avoid letting the audience perceive that it is a breathing human being. Control the camera.

His camera needs to appear here without any flaws and quietly, and then move there, everything must be as perfect as possible without being noticed, and it needs to be calm and objective to show what is happening now and what is about to happen again.

There is also the close-up shot of this film must be noticeable. For example, Charlize Theron in this scene, she will give people a stunning feeling when she comes out, making the audience feel that she is the cool girl Murphy asked for. The illusion brought by this close-up shot should extend to the middle of the film in order to achieve the dramatic effect when the second half is reversed.

At the same time, Murphy has to control the number of close-ups, unless it is really necessary, close-ups will appear.

This is a film with a strong suspenseful color. Every time the director cuts a close-up, the audience will immediately make up for it, and see, the truth is like this.

So he decides to be very careful when shooting close-ups.

What Murphy wants is to cleverly switch between different angles of the lens to express a significant and dramatic moment, instead of using close-ups, so as to be able to simply and straightforwardly express what is happening now and under objective conditions. What the character sees.

For this shooting, Murphy set a lot of demanding requirements for herself and the entire crew: no hand-held, no traces of human operation of the camera, no unnecessary close-ups, and no camera movement that moves without motives??

Shooting quickly restarted, abandoning Steadicam, and completely fixed the lens to shoot. Murphy needed to re-adjust the operation of the camera, and took two more trial shots. James Franco and Charlize Theron in front of the lens also found their status. Everything seems to be back on the right track of the previous smooth shooting.

"So..." Charlize Theron leaned against the wall with a wine bottle in his hand, and asked coolly, "Who are you?"

"I'm the one who saved you." James Franco held the wall behind Charlize Theron with one hand, "Keep you away from all terrible things."

This scene ended here, Murphy stood up and shouted, "Stop!"

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and waited for the director to shout through, but what was waiting was Murphy shouting to Philip Raschel, "Re-shoot, Philip, the two cameras are about forty-five degrees. Snap a shot of Sally!"

This sentence is like an order. Everyone on the crew is busy, except for one person, who serves as the representative of the American International Assurance Company, which is a third-party guarantee, on the crew.