China Entertainment 1981: Starting from Journey to the West

Zhu Bajie took a cold bath to cure his cold. In the following period, it became the most popular joke among the crew.

As the protagonist of the incident, Ma Dehua often introduced his experience in a serious manner during meals, including what posture should be used to enter the water and how long to soak in the water to achieve the best therapeutic effect.

Every time I hear him talk about this matter vividly, it always makes the "audience" burst into laughter.

Gu Bei also admires the spirit of the TV workers of this era to enjoy themselves despite hardship.

To say "bitter" is true.

Even today, the conditions of the crew are considered very poor.

The food, food and accommodation were barely there, but everyone got over it after overcoming it. The real "bitterness" was the shooting conditions, which was not something that could be overcome by just gritting one's teeth.

It is not a problem that can be solved by having a qualified on-site coordinator. No matter how capable Gu Bei is, at most he can only coordinate the work of various departments at the shooting site and prepare what needs to be prepared in advance.

There is no way to conjure up a lot of high-tech equipment out of thin air to assist in shooting!
Insufficient hardware is a commonplace problem. When filming a large-scale mythological drama such as "Journey to the West", the crew only had an old camera. This fact itself is very mythical.

When shooting any scene, you can't just cut the picture in one direction. But what if you only have one camera? You can only shoot a scene back and forth, over and over again, until all angles, close-ups, medium shots, and close-ups are captured. to end.

If it were shot like this, the actors would at most find it boring to take repeated shots, and the photographer Wang Chongqiu would really be exhausted.

After arriving in Yangzhou, Yang Jie made phone calls, wrote reports, and applied to the station more than a dozen times, hoping to add at least one more camera.

But the reply from Taili was: Hello, Comrade Yang Jie, regarding the question you raised, Taili currently does not have any free cameras to provide. I hope that comrades will carry forward the spirit of hard work, work hard to overcome all difficulties, and successfully complete the tasks assigned by the leadership. Task.

Good luck with your work!

Ha ha!

When Gu Bei learned Taili's reply, he was really drunk.

There are not enough cameras for filming TV dramas. Can you help me overcome this problem?
Is it possible to have a group of people paint on the spot and draw everything to be photographed?
Ok!

Director Yang Jie has also given up asking for support from the studio.

Saying it is in vain.

It's a waste of breath and arouses idleness, so why bother?

The camera problem cannot be solved, and the stunt problem is even more of a problem.

When the preparatory team was first established, the most troublesome part for everyone was the stunt part. Sun Wukong's ever-changing transformations, calling the wind and rain, soaring into the clouds and mists, flying thousands of miles away, and all kinds of gods and demons with great supernatural powers...

At the meeting a year ago, everyone suggested a lot of unsophisticated methods, but when I actually turned on the computer, I realized that many of them were useless.

In this era when we still don’t know what special effects are, we have only heard of some sort of blue screen cutout that can cut out people on any background?
But no one has ever seen it, let alone tried it personally.

Now that the problem is before us, even if we have never done it before, we can only try it boldly.

The first time stunts were used in the filming of "The Kingdom of Demons" was the scene where the Monkey King transformed into a little monkey and jumped on the table to talk to the prince.

On the day when I tried to do the blue screen keying, the crew completed the shot very smoothly, and the synthesis with the keying base was also smooth. Zhang Jinlai made a jumping movement, used the ADO machine to make him smaller, and danced along with him. As soon as the rhythm was raised, it was on the table.

After completing this synthesis, everyone was overjoyed. Some people felt that the so-called blue screen keying was just that and easy to master.

But no one expected that problems would soon arise, and things were far from being as simple as imagined.

The ADO stunt machine specially imported from the United States produced a picture that was not three-dimensional. Trying to make the cutout monkey turn, the result was the same as being crushed by a rolling mill. It felt like a shadow puppet show.

At first, everyone thought it was because they didn’t get the hang of it the first time they used it, so they tried it again and again, but it still didn’t work no matter how hard they tried.

Later, I called Taili and inquired, only to find out that this machine was just hardware. To work properly, it also needed software, and a piece of software cost $[-].

At the beginning, the people Taiwan sent to Dalomei to order this machine did not want to spend the money and did not buy it. In other words, the machine itself lacked software and did not have the conditions to make people three-dimensional.

It's not nonsense!
Yang Jie was so angry that she cursed the street for half an hour.

The old lady roared until her voice became hoarse.

After scolding the purchasing department in Taili, he then scolded Da Laomei as a black-hearted person.

The machine doesn't cost much, but a piece of software actually costs [-] US dollars. Why not grab it?

Gu Bei didn't feel embarrassed to tell Director Yang Jie that Jingying Film also had such a machine, and for the same reason, it could only be used as a teaching aid.

I scolded him so much.

Director Yang Jie can only cheer up and go back to the battle. Those who can make do can only make do with it first, and those who can't make do with it must use crude methods to solve it.

At first, I still held that machine as a treasure, but now I see that I can't count on this junk thing at all.

A small part of the lens works just fine, but some parts don't.

In the episode "Destroying Demons and Black Chicken Kingdom", there is a fight scene between Demon Dao and Sun Wukong. After the fight on the ground, they have to continue fighting in the sky. Obviously, this requires the use of stunts.At the beginning, the crew put the two actors in front of the blue screen to shoot the "keying" scene, but no matter how the actors performed, there was no feeling of flying.

How to do it?

Of course Gu Bei has a way to show off his power.

But he held back his words and didn't dare to mention it to Director Yang Jie.

Because he only has a very general concept about Wi-Fi, and he was not in the film and television industry in his previous life. He doesn’t know what specific equipment Diao-Ya needs to ensure the safety of actors!

If he had told Yang Jie and the others, Gu Bei could guarantee that for the next filming, the actor would dare to go to the sky with a wire rope tied around his waist.

That's not Wia, it's life-threatening.

After finally selecting the actors, Gu Bei didn't want to cause further attrition of the crew because of his immature suggestion.

Don't think that Gu Bei's worries are unfounded. These days, people are particularly prone to enthusiasm. Just saying "revolutionary work requires it" will not dare to charge despite the mountains of swords and seas of fire in front of them.

This road doesn't work, but Gu Bei has another way, one...

Native method.

Gu Bei was a sports fan in his previous life. He would watch every major competition, especially the Olympic Games, and he would stay up late to watch them. His favorite event was gymnastics.

There is a minor event in gymnastics called trampoline.

After Gu Bei talked to Director Yang Jie, he went to the Jiangsu Sports Team the next day. When he came back, he brought several... divers with him.

There is no such thing as trampoline these days, but divers will use it during training.

Therefore, when borrowing someone, Gu Bei also borrowed the trampoline.

Then they found a very open place in the wild. The two athletes put on the clothes of Sun Wukong and Demon Dao, and performed various joyful twirls and jumps on the trampoline. They jumped into the air and made contact with weapons. Teacher Wang Chongqiu was below. Shoot from above.

I can see that the effect is good, and I also recorded many of Sun Wukong's jumping, flying, somersaults and other actions. Maybe these shots can be used in the future.

The original method was used, and then other departments of the crew came up with even stupid methods.

For example, regarding the issue of recording, given the current conditions of the crew, there is no possibility of simultaneous recording.

Of course, even if you have it, you can't record it at the same time, because the actors come from all over the country, with southern and northern accents. They often speak lines to each other, and no one understands what the other is saying.

"fool!"

"Brother Monkey, what did you say?"

Gu Bei spends time on the set every day, often laughing so hard that he can't stand up straight because the actors he plays with are talking to each other.

Moreover, the filming environment was very noisy. After learning that the crew of "Journey to the West" was filming in Yangzhou, a large number of onlookers came within a few days.

Every time the crew showed up, it immediately caused a sensation. During the filming, there were people all around, and there were many people lying on the trees. As soon as the Monkey King appeared, the scene was like a carnival, and there was a burst of cheers.

Gu Bei told the onlookers countless times, but it didn't work at all. Director Yang Jie came forward in person. She agreed well at the time, but when it was time to speak and shout, there was no delay at all.

In the end, the sound engineer of the crew came up with a solution. During the daytime shooting, they simply stopped recording and filmed it as a silent film. They waited until the crew finished filming and the crowd dispersed before recording on site.

In order to achieve live effects, the recording team dubbed the scenes where the crew filmed.

If it's a play in a cave, go to the cave to do the scene. If it's a play by the river, go to the river to do the scene. In this way, the sound of running water, the chirping of birds, and the echo of the cave can be perfectly presented. .

In addition to dubbing for the actors, they also went to various places such as woods, ponds, and even graveyards in the dead of night to record environmental noises for background use.

After Gu Bei heard about it, he was so impressed that he went to the cemetery in the middle of the night to record. The recording was still a fairy tale. Aren't you afraid?

However, this approach did not take long to find that it did not work at all.

Although the idea was good, the workload was too heavy and the recording team had to work overtime day and night. After a long time, the body simply couldn't hold on.

The crew needs to add a lot of staff for this, which is totally worth the loss.

This time it was Li Chengru's turn to appear. The ideas he provided were so brilliant that the crowd loved to watch!

No problem, the crew simply traveled during the off-peak hours to make up for the time difference with the onlookers.

If that doesn't work, just spread false news and tell people that they will be filming at Nanshantou today. But by the time people run there, the crew has already finished filming at Beishantou.

"Brother Li, if I tell people that this idea was yours, will they beat you to death?"

Gu Beiqing's words made Li Chengru's proud smile freeze on his face.

Thinking of hundreds of people kicking around him makes me shudder.