Although the other person is a bit surprising, it is not surprising to those who are familiar with Hollywood. He is Martin Scorsese's friend for decades, Robert De Niro, who has always been in focus and in focus.
Their friendship has lasted nearly 40 years, and although they only began working closely together in 1973, they have known each other since they were 16.
Who is Robert De Niro? He is one of the four most talented actors in Hollywood. He is recognized as the god of acting in the entertainment industry around the world. He has appeared in countless film history classics. His name represents the highest level of acting skills among male actors!
Whether he is a gangster, a veteran, an angry boxer, a funny father-in-law... he can handle all kinds of screen images with ease.
The breadth of his acting career is enough to put most male actors out of reach!
In addition to his unparalleled acting skills and countless classic works, Robert De Niro has also made great contributions to the Hollywood film industry in many ways.
He once supported the famous Leonardo DiCaprio. When the two collaborated on "Boys' Life", he took great care of DiCaprio.
At the end of the last century, he introduced DiCaprio to the legendary director Martin Scorsese, which changed the direction and promoted DiCaprio's road to the Olympics.
At the same time, Robert De Niro's perfect performance also completely established Martin Scorsese's status in the film industry, allowing him to remain firmly in the top spot in gangster movies to this day!
This great actor, who is frightened but full of infinite respect by young actors in Hollywood today whenever his name is mentioned, is having a great conversation with Liu Qingshan.
Off the screen, this man is equally unsmiling and intimidating, but as time goes by, he keeps making cold jokes, and he seems to be born to live for this kind of dull humor.
But at the moment he and Liu Qingshan are discussing a script called "The Irishman".
It is adapted from the crime documentary "I Heard You Painted Houses" by former U.S. prosecutor and defense lawyer Charles Blunt, who spent five years interviewing and investigating.
The title of the book comes from a saying in the underworld, which refers to: when you shoot a killer in the head with a gun, blood will spatter on the walls, so the house needs to be repainted.
This book records the long and violent life of Frank Sheeran, an Irish descendant, a Catholic believer, and a Mafia killer.
"The Irishman" was directed by Martin Scorsese and cost $160 million to shoot. In addition to the wonderful plot, its most eye-catching feature is the extensive use of de-aging special effects.
This is a very magical special effect. Just like frame-by-frame PS, it can smooth out the wrinkles on the face, add a rosy color, and make the actor look younger.
The reason why Liu Qingshan brought up this classic masterpiece more than ten years in advance was precisely because after meeting Robert De Niro and searching for his information, he obtained all the information about this film, and then associated himself with Gollum. A collaboration between Andy Serkis.
The hugely expensive anti-aging special effects were the most expensive part of the original version of "The Irishman", costing US$159 million. The final film contained up to 1,750 visual effects shots. The anti-aging special effects are now quite mature and can look real and can withstand 4K lenses. gaze.
But at the same time, the results produced by the superb acting actor and the so-called perfect technical partner are not satisfactory, and the characters and performance effects in the film are really inconsistent.
This is because technology can erase the wrinkles on actors’ foreheads, but it cannot erase the vicissitudes and faltering steps in their eyes. The three movie stars are already in their old age (De Niro and Pesci are 76 years old, and Pacino is 79 years old). , the rickety figure in the film has already betrayed the actor's actual age.
When De Niro, who plays the killer, trembles and shoots in the dark, it is really dramatic and sad. Perhaps, using a stand-in or a young actor is not necessarily less effective than going into battle in person. However, despite this, the production Fang still chose to let the veteran actors perform in person.
That film should have once again created another classic masterpiece on the screen and in the history of movies. It was precisely because of the huge shortcomings in this aspect that it brought major mistakes to the film, and thus missed the Oscar award the following year.
Now that De Niro has just passed 60 years old, he just meets the character requirements of "I heard you painted the house". Liu Qingshan even lamented in his heart, is this old man coming to him today because of what he believes in? God's protection in darkness.
Because if the three of them appear again at their current ages, they will completely make up for the traces of time in the original version that cannot be erased by high technology, and it will also make Andy Serkis's Imagination Film Studio make a lot of money.
If Yimizhi Film Studio can rely on this film to enter the Hollywood market in advance, it will be of great benefit to his Snowland Studio. Moreover, he himself can also gain huge profits by relying on the script and character creation.
The current anti-aging special effects are still in the conceptual stage. Examples of this technology were only officially discovered after the official release of "The Irishman", including Samuel L. Jackson in "Captain Marvel"; Robert Downey Jr. in "League 4: Endgame"; Linda Hamilton in "Terminator: Dark Fate"; Will Smith in "Gemini Man"...
In other words, the use of age-reversing special effects became a trend and trend after "The Irishman" pioneered it. In fact, Liu Qingshan's huge contribution was not only the provision of the script, but also the The anti-aging special effects technology that will only appear in more than ten years has been greatly advanced.
I have to say that this is a great invention. The audience continues to see familiar faces appearing on the screen twenty or thirty years younger. Their charm transcends time and is eternally frozen in the movie. It will be a How to describe such happy things.
For Liu Qingshan and Andy Serkis, this unlimited market appeal is endless wealth. Being able to get ahead of Hollywood's top special effects production team and develop and mature this technology earlier will undoubtedly Get a foothold in advance in the increasingly fierce movie stunt market in the future.
This is because as special effects technology gradually matures, audiences may have long been accustomed to special effects serving gorgeous visual presentations, but they never thought that one day they would be able to use special effects to resist the passage of time.
Rejecting aging, this sounds absurd, seems subtle, but is an ongoing industry trend, indicating that producers and investors increasingly want to cut out the attractive elements in movies and squeeze out the last bit of them. value.
The emergence of anti-aging technology has solved the big problem of star aging. The industry has always been troubled by this problem, especially movies involving children and teenagers.
For example, due to the long filming and production cycle of the "Harry Potter" series, the young actors grew up faster than the characters in the movies, and their appearance also changed significantly, which once caused controversy among fans. .
Another example is the "007" series of movies. Due to the long span of filming, even if some actors perform very well and are recognized by the public, they have to constantly change the leading actor.
Sometimes, certain film and television works will change actors through clever story settings. For example, "Doctor Who" cleverly adopted the setting that the protagonist will change his appearance, but obviously, this is only a very rare exception.
More film and television practitioners are no longer satisfied with the young and charming faces of Robert Droney, Will Smith, or Robert Downey Jr. just staying in their past movies, but hope to start over and over again. Never tire of letting the audience watch them until the last bit of value is squeezed out of them, until they lose the last bit of appeal.
Therefore, the development of anti-aging technology is very necessary. In recent years, many commercial movies have continued to make similar attempts, such as Gollum's fusion of CG and real people in "The Lord of the Rings".
In the infrared tracking technology used in the original "The Irishman", the actors' faces were coated with special infrared paint, and special cameras captured infrared images to capture the depth of the actors' faces and tracking information for motion scenes. Finally, under the condition that the expression movement trajectory is consistent, the face in the real performance is replaced with the model in the database.
The off-screen creative situation seems to have formed a certain intertext with this movie: 77-year-old Scorsese has assembled four legendary veterans of Hollywood - 76-year-old Robert De Niro, 79-year-old Although the lineup of Al Pacino, 76-year-old Joe Pesci, and 80-year-old Harvey Keitel is extremely luxurious, it cannot conceal the fact that their era is gradually passing away.
As a result, the audience successfully saw the flawless faces of young stars shot in high-definition, and this technology has also become a highly discussed topic, making major Hollywood studios even more eager to move forward, and then actively make the aging stars The trend continues.
This digital technology not only allows popular actors to continue their screen careers and rejuvenate their youth, it can also summon back the ghosts of those who have passed away.
Just imagine, in some series, the sequel uses this technology to bring the deceased protagonist back to life again. What a shocking and surprising sensation it will be.
In such a future, will there be completely virtual characters participating in film shooting? Will the boundaries between virtuality and reality in movies be further blurred? How much control do celebrities have over their own image?
The above questions cannot be answered until new technologies are developed, but film companies don't care about the answers. They stand on the side of technology.
As the industry becomes more mature, market competition becomes more intense.
Currently, major studios and major production companies are fighting with each other, and Internet streaming media has entered the film market, eagerly looking for opportunities.
In order to reduce investment risks, major production companies and platforms hope to quickly and effectively build their brands in their own way. Star making has become a shortcut: whoever can grab the attention of the audience through stars, famous directors and big IPs as quickly as possible Whoever has the strength will be the winner.
They look forward to a more perfect world filled with blockbuster superstars who never fear aging and bring box office glory with their performances over and over again.
