It's really not easy to find outstanding actors who are ugly. Fortunately, there is makeup, one of the four major evil arts in Asia, so it saves a lot of trouble.
Speaking of which, it is not unreasonable for Hong Kong films to be popular in Asia in the 1980s and 1990s.
"A Chinese Ghost Story" may not be comparable to modern special effects in terms of special effects, but the details and core of the movie can really beat many movies of this era.
Movies still have to tell stories. For this reason, even if the Hong Kong movies of the 1980s and 1990s seem to be much worse than this era in terms of quality and other aspects, many old movies still have an impact even when viewed from the perspective of this era. It can make people sigh.
Public opinion about Dong Bing'er, the actor who plays Nie Xiaoqian, is still noisy.
But this time, Li Yi didn't pay attention at all, which made those with ulterior motives depressed.
If you really follow public opinion, why make a chicken movie?
Besides, isn’t the current public opinion promoting the movie? Question it now, and when it really comes out, everyone will understand how wrong it is.
You will understand that Li Yi is the professional when it comes to selecting actors.
All is ready except for the opportunity!
"A Chinese Ghost Story" is officially launched.
For the first scene, Li Yi did not choose Lanruo Temple, mainly because filming would be concentrated there later.
Therefore, the first scene starts with Ning Caichen on his way to Guobei County to collect the debt.
This first scene is actually very interesting. Of course, it also tests Jiang Qinghe's acting skills. Li Yi has no intention of changing the scene here, it still has the nonsensical and funny flavor of Hong Kong movies.
"Every department is in its place!"
"The camera crew is in place!"
"Lights in place!"
"Blowers in place!"
"."
"The first scene of "A Chinese Ghost Story", the first shot, the first time, ACTION!"
Li Yi sat behind the monitor and looked at the picture on the monitor.
In the mountains, among the weeds, Ning Caichen, played by Jiang Qinghe, sat down on the ground, carrying a book frame, wearing a washed white scholar's long shirt and a square scarf on his head.
Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he took out a cloth bag and opened it, revealing a black steamed bun.
He looked very hungry, picked it up and gnawed on it.
But the next moment, he almost broke his teeth.
"CUT!" Li Yi shouted to stop before the shot was finished.
There was no way, because Jiang Qinghe didn't perform the effect Li Yi wanted in this scene. In other words, although he has acted before, he is obviously still a little unfamiliar with this style.
"The steamed buns are too hard to grind your teeth. The reaction at the first moment was wrong. The expression, what I want is for the expression to solidify instantly." Li Yi said patiently.
"Pay attention, your movements should be more natural, and your expressions can be more exaggerated!"
Do it all over again!
"OK!" Jiang Qinghe made an OK gesture.
It’s not that Li Yi’s requirements are too strict. In fact, the shot itself does not have much other meaning. It seems that even if it is not shot well, it will have little impact. However, in Li Yi’s view, the quality of a movie often determines the upper limit. It’s those important shots, but it’s often these shots that don’t seem that important that determine the lower limit.
Do it again, Jiang Qinghe's performance was much better this time.
Li Yi nodded.
Of course, it's too early to say yes now.
This is a coherent shot. Although he has no lines, the actions are sometimes more difficult.
Because in this shot, his movements and expressions are needed to make the audience understand how he feels at this moment.
The dry food was so hard that I couldn't bite it, and my teeth almost fell out.
And he originally had a smile on his face, but this scene was just to show it, and the smile suddenly froze.
Then, his expression froze at that moment, and then he continued to react. He covered his mouth with his hand and looked at the dry food in his hand with a look of pain and disbelief.
Then the camera started to follow his hand.
He stretched out his hand and hit the stone with a hard steamed bun. As a result, the bun was fine, but the stone was smashed in half.
Jiang Qinghe is indeed very spiritual, and he acted very well in this scene.
He looked at the steamed bun in his hand in astonishment, rolled his eyes, and glanced sideways at the smashed rocks on the ground. Although his mouth didn't make a sound, he made a mouth shape!
Then, he kicked the bun away as a ball.
But something even more outrageous happened. His shoes were suddenly broken and his toes were exposed.
It still hurt so much that my fingers were stained with saliva and I kept rubbing my toes.
Then get up and continue on your way!
"OK, this one is good, keep one!" Li Yi smiled and nodded, but still asked for another photo.
In fact, filming is not as fun as many people think, and sometimes it is really boring.
Especially when filming is repeated over and over again, it is a kind of torture for the actors, the staff behind the scenes, the director, etc.
However, this time, although the first scene did not get off to a good start, it was only filmed three or four times, but it was already considered a success.
Of course, this is also because the opening scenes are actually relatively simple scenes. Not only are there few characters, but the most important thing is that the environment is very simple.
The subsequent scenes are much more difficult.
This is especially true for the scene at the market, because there are many actors involved, as well as the background environment, etc. There can be no problems with these, even if there is a slight flaw in something, it will not work.
Maybe if you find some flaws during the filming of a TV series, you can make technical modifications later. But when it comes to making movies, Li Yi doesn't know how others do it, but as long as he finds something wrong, he will reshoot it as soon as possible.
Because there are not many shots in the movie itself, if there is a problem with any shot, once it is discovered, the filming will inevitably be repeated.
After all, the effect is definitely different between natural and modified.
Time flies, and the filming of "A Chinese Ghost Story" is not fast, but it is not a delay either.
Li Yi had expected that this movie was different from other movies. First of all, it was a costume film, and it was also a supernatural film. In addition, the drama "A Chinese Ghost Story" was relatively old and a classic. For Li Yi, In terms of ease, it is also a big challenge.
In addition, Dong Bing'er and Jiang Qinghe are not top-notch actors, so Li Yi naturally has to put more thought into it.
In fact, Jiang Qinghe is a little better. After all, his scenes run through the entire film and can be slowly polished in the previous plot. However, Nie Xiaoqian played by Dong Bing'er is hard to say. After all, Nie Xiaoqian's scenes are almost all in Lanruo Temple. .
Another thing is that most of the scenes in "A Chinese Ghost Story" are night scenes. For filming, night scenes are definitely not as easy to shoot as daytime scenes.
Later on, when it came to the relationship scenes with Lanruo Temple, some problems did arise. Many scenes had to be filmed several times, or even more than a dozen times before they could be completed.
It has greatly slowed down the progress. If it were another director, he would probably have become a tyrant on the set. After all, if you take more shots, you will spend more money, and if you delay it for one more day, the entire crew will spend a lot of money. In addition, Venues, props, etc. all cost money.
It is true that movies are the art of dreaming, but the same kind of dreaming requires money.
Of course, Li Yi must be much better. He doesn't need to be under too much pressure, but he is also a human being. If a scene is filmed too many times, he will become irritable.
Li Yi didn't know how long it took to complete the filming of the original "A Chinese Ghost Story", but his version of "A Chinese Ghost Story" took nearly 500 million yuan.
For Li Yi, this is definitely a long time.
Fortunately, the shooting was finally completed.
Sometimes, having the original version as a reference is not necessarily a good thing. After all, the actors are different and the environment is different. How can it be so easy to achieve the effect of the original version?
Moreover, with preconceived ideas, it is difficult to accept even a little bit.
After all, you’ve seen better things, so naturally you can’t accept anything less.
Fortunately, it has finally been completed. However, the post-production of "A Chinese Ghost Story" also requires a lot more time than other movies Li Yi has made before.
After all, there are quite a lot of special effects shots in "A Chinese Ghost Story". Although it is not like those special effects blockbusters, it still takes a long time.
What makes many media feel extremely depressed is that the confidentiality work of "A Chinese Ghost Story" has been done very well so far.
Especially Nie Xiaoqian's makeup photos were not leaked.
And the more this happens, the more it makes many people curious.
It is a pity that for the filming of "A Chinese Ghost Story", except for the scenes in Guobei County, which were shot in the film and television city, other scenes were shot in self-built studios or photography bases.
However, Nie Xiaoqian did not appear in the Guobei County scenes filmed in the film and television city at all, which made them very helpless.
Until the completion of "A Chinese Ghost Story", Nie Xiaoqian's style and appearance were still not revealed, which left people speechless.
Of course, Li Yi would never think that his movie does not need publicity no matter what.
However, this time his promotion was very speechless.
Almost every once in a while, a character will be announced, including posters, looks, etc.
This seems to be a very normal and routine publicity routine.
But when it comes to the movie "A Chinese Ghost Story", it feels completely off track.
Why do you say that?
Take a look at the first officially released character photo of "A Chinese Ghost Story"!
The first character photo is actually quite good, because it is the character of Xia Hou. As I said before, there are countless clowns in the entire film "A Chinese Ghost Story".
Except for the male and female protagonists and individual characters, almost every one of them is ugly, and their ugliness is distinctive.
Of course, Xia Hou only said that this character's appearance was quite normal, but in terms of dressing up, Li Yi also considered at the very beginning whether to change it, at least to keep pace with the times, but then he discovered that he didn't know if it was It wasn't because of the original version. Although the costumes and image looked much better after the changes, it always made him feel a little less interesting.
After working on several versions, Li Yi decisively changed it to the original one.
And what is the style of the original?
Perhaps it has something to do with the limitations of Hong Kong movies of that era. The image designs of many characters are outrageously rough.
But when Li Yi looked at it again, he felt that although it looked rough, the overall feeling was very harmonious.
So, he simply used the original characters' looks.
The effect came out immediately.
For example, Xia Hou, as we all know, the profession of swordsman always gives people a very clean and neat feeling in any film and television work.
But in "A Chinese Ghost Story", even Xia Hou, who wants to be the best swordsman in the world, looks more normal, but his costume is still ugly!
So, when the first promotional photo was released.
"What the hell kind of image design is this?"
"I always feel like the crew is short of money? Can't they afford a costume designer?"
"Is this the second best swordsman in the world? This must be fake, right?"
"Why does this movie always feel so weird?"
Immediately, many fans and netizens complained, and it was impossible not to complain.
It’s true that Xia Hou’s appearance and profession as a swordsman are totally unmatched!
There are also many netizens comparing swordsmen in other film and television works with the swordsman named Xia Hou in "A Chinese Ghost Story".
Then it became clear.
In other film and television works, even if the Swordsman is ugly, he is definitely very particular about his clothes. He should be as handsome as he wants, as cool as he can be, and as fairy as he can be.
But when I arrived at Li Yi's place, I really saw a ghost.
However, Li Yi quickly told them that it was so rare and strange that Xiahou even complained about it, but what about the others?
As a result, more outrageous and uglier character photos began to appear.
For example, the one-eyed dragon soldier, or the extremely ugly Mr. Takashi.
At this time, netizens were completely dumbfounded.
"What the hell is this? Can anyone tell me why the characters in this movie are all such crooked characters?"
"Suddenly I realized that the Xiahou from before was a human character!"
"That's too much. Why are you still using the clichéd look of plaster on your face?"
"Doesn't anyone think that the one-eyed dragon's appearance is a bit too ridiculous and too fake? It's a god's one-eyed spectacle made of bamboo."
"It's really ugly to the extreme!"
"."
If it were a movie by another director, it might have been abandoned by this time, but this movie happened to be made by Li Yi, the famous first director of Chinese-language movies. How could he just mess around?
No one would believe it.
But what exactly is the situation with these announced crooked melons and cracked dates?
Next, there are some photos of the ghosts in Lanruo Temple.
However, this does not have such a big contrast effect. After all, even people are so ugly, so these ugly monsters or ghosts are not so strange, but they still make people feel Kind of funny.
Of course, Li Yi couldn't do all these ugly things, so the plan for the townhouse came out, and that was Ning Caichen!
Although the clothing and image design are also a bit crude, after all, Li Yi has described Ning Caichen's dress before, so although it is a bit crude, everyone can accept it, not to mention, Ning Caichen played by Jiang Qinghe Indeed, among this group of ugly ghosts, there is a feeling that they are emerging from the mire and yet untainted.
All of a sudden, countless netizens shouted: "Wash your eyes!"
(End of chapter)
