Two days later, Zhang Ran signed a contract with Yu Minghai. The first preliminary payment was quickly transferred to the crew's account, and the "Explosive Drummer" project was officially launched.

The filming of "The Burst Drummer" is different from "The Prisoner of Time", which involves censorship issues. Therefore, in addition to using the team of "The Prisoner of Time", we also have to hire some staff from Xiangjiang. In addition, "The Burst Drummer" is aimed at awards, and it must come up with something unique in artistic techniques. The photographer of "The Prisoner of Time" is slightly inferior and cannot meet Zhang Ran's requirements, so he plans to find a stronger photographer.

The photographer is an extremely important position in the main creative team of the crew. His importance is second only to directors and higher than other creative departments.

If the director is the designer of the building, what he is responsible for is designing the exterior of the entire building, as well as the structure of the building, where the elevator is, how to layout the room, and how big the windows are. Then the cameraman is the engineer in charge of the construction, building brick by brick, turning the director's artistic design into reality and turning the storyboard into vivid pictures.

Zhang Ran’s target is Zhao Fei, one of the top cinematographers in China. Zhang Ran graduated from the photography department in his previous life, and Zhao Fei is half of his idol.

In Zhang Ran's opinion, Zhang Yimou's most outstanding work is definitely "The Big Red Lantern Hanging High", which can be called a masterpiece in the world, and the photography of this movie is Zhao Fei. In addition, Chen Kaige's "Jing Ke Assassination of Qin King" and Feng Xiaogang's "See You" were also photographed by him. In 1998, Zhao Fei went to the United States and made three movies for the master Woody Allen. Only the top photographers can work with Woody Allen in a row. Like Zhang Ran, Zhao Fei just returned to China last year and is now teaching in the Department of Photography of the Beijing Film Academy.

Zhang Ran chose Zhao Fei not because he was his former idol, but mainly because of his style. Zhao Fei and Zhang Yimou were classmates. The fifth generation photographers each have their own specialties. Zhang Yimou was good at laying out the colors of the pictures; Gu Changwei's pictures focused on the effect of prints, with clear black and white, and emphasized the feeling of light; Hou Yong's photography was more realistic, with a more three-dimensional and heavy feeling; while Zhao Fei's photography was more flat, patterned, and had a strong decorative meaning, and he personally paid more attention to lighting.

Zhao Fei’s characteristics are exactly what Zhang Ran wants!

There is another reason why Zhang Ran chose Zhao Fei. Zhao Fei has worked with many different directors and has been able to perform at an extremely high level, which shows that he is a good person to cooperate.

The relationship between director and photographer is often compared to marriage. The close cooperation between photographers and directors at the shooting site is an important guarantee of the quality of the film's styling. Photographers should make full use of their professional expertise and mobilize their own expression techniques to reflect and improve the director's creative intentions. If there is a lack of tacit understanding between the two, the works taken are often difficult to satisfy.

Therefore, directors and photographers in the film industry generally work together for a long time, which is what people often call the royal photographer.

Zhao Fei is famous in the circle and has worked with masters like Woody Allen. Such characters are naturally arrogant and arrogant. Zhang Ran dares not be negligent, so he naturally has to visit him and show his sincerity.

Zhao Fei did not underestimate Zhang Ran because of his youth, and enthusiastically invited him to the house.

Zhang Ran expressed his admiration for him to Zhao Fei, and asked him about his feelings about his collaboration with two major directors, Woody Allen and Zhang Yimou.

Zhao Fei didn't take Zhang Ranchong's words too seriously, but everyone was a colleague of Beijing Film Academy, so he didn't hide it. He talked about his feelings about working with Zhang Yimou and Woody Allen.

Both sides made a little polite approach, Zhang Ran opened the bag and took out the storyboard: "Teacher Zhao, this is the storyboard of the movie. You can take a look first, and let's talk after watching it."

"Storyboard?" Zhao Fei was stunned when he heard this. Zhang Ran was also a graduate of the director department. How could he be so a layman? Without decomposing the script or exploring the scenery, he would draw the storyboard first!

Zhang Ran knew what Zhao Fei was thinking and explained: "I am a new director. I just talked about it and just took dry scripts. Where can investors invest easily? The storyboard can at least let them know the general effect. I have broken down the script and I have also looked at the scene, so I will definitely not draw randomly."

Zhao Fei understood a little, and after taking the script, he started to read it carefully as if no one else had happened. After turning over two pages, Zhao Fei put down the storyboard and asked in confusion: "Have you learned photography?"

Zhang Ran nodded and said, "Learn a little!"

Zhao Fei looked at Zhang Ran and continued to look through the storyboard. After not much reading, he became very surprised. To be honest, Zhang Ran's storyboard was very well drawn and had a strong artistic foundation. However, Zhang Ran not only marked the camera position of the camera, but also marked the light position and the light position with any light, which was shocking.

Zhao Fei looked very slowly, thinking about Zhang Ran’s lighting arrangements, trying to find out the problem, but until he finished reading the entire storyboard, he did not find any mistakes.

The entire plan is detailed, accurate and highly operational!

Zhao Fei simply doubted whether Zhang Ran came to tease him on purpose. The lighting level is so high that there is obviously a high-level photographer who gives advice. Why are you coming to me for?

When Zhang Ran saw Zhao Fei put the storyboard down, he looked at him with a little surprise, and said, "Teacher Zhao, I wonder what you think of the script?"

Zhao Fei did not answer and asked back, "Who designed this lighting plan?"

Zhang Ran took a sip of tea and said slowly: "It's me, please give me some advice from Teacher Zhao."

Zhao Fei was surprised. This lighting plan was of great standard and was definitely the work of a photographer. However, he did not expect it to be designed by Zhang Ran himself: "Your lighting plan is designed very well, and the arrangement of several skeleton lights is also very clever, especially at the end of the movie, Zhou Xu returned to the stage and sat back on the drum stand. After sitting back on the drum stand, there was a skeleton light similar to Chen Wei before, which shows that Zhou Xu is now as obsessed as Chen Wei, which is very wonderful!"

Skeleton light is the top light, which means that light hits down from the top of the head. This light will cast a thick shadow on the two eyes on the character's face, the nose and the cheekbones, and looks very much like a skeleton, so it is vividly called "skeleton light".

In the movie "Silence of the Lambs", when Clarice went to prison to meet Hannibal, she gave Hannibal the light, which was very bright on the top and dark on the bottom. In this way, the eyes of the human eyes, the most expressive part, are hidden in the shadows, like a black hole, and the character's shape presents a skeleton effect, which looks very terrifying.

Zhang Ran's plan was basically copied from the original movie, but this was not the effect he wanted in the end: "It was just some small means, not worth mentioning in front of a master like Teacher Zhao, so please give me some advice."

Zhao Fei said: "I have nothing to give you advice. Just follow this plan to light it. However, your design is relatively heavy. You should be finer when processing light, otherwise it will easily cause darkness."

Death black and overexposure are the two taboos of photography. Death black means that the dark part is too dark and connected to one another, and the details cannot be seen; overexposure means that the light is too bright, resulting in excessive exposure.

Zhang Ran stared at Zhao Fei and said slowly: "Although this lighting effect is good, it is not the effect I really want. What I want is to leave white and leave black, but I can't cloth this kind of light!"

"What did you say?" Zhao Fei stood up suddenly, staring at Zhang Ran tightly, as if he was a ghost.

"I said I want to leave white and black." Zhang Ran said lightly.

"How do you understand the white space and the black space?" Zhao Fei asked with a hint of tremolo.

"We Chinese paintings pay attention to leaving blank space, and Western art does not say that there is a blank space, but their paintings, especially Rembrandt's paintings, are basically black in the background. I think this can be called "staying black". To put it simply, there must be light and darkness, and the combination of virtual and real. In many dark places, important things must be highlighted. It cannot be seen at a glance. The difference in light structure must be very large, and leaving blank space is very important. Some dark places are arranged so that the audience can enrich them with imagination."

After hearing this, Zhao Fei was completely stunned and stared at Zhang Ran and couldn't say a word.

Zhang Ran knew that his actions shocked Zhao Fei. Zhao Fei's early films in China were very particular about leaving blank space. However, working with Woody Allen, an extremely demanding old man in the United States for three years, gave him a new understanding of Western painting and a new understanding of light. He felt that the best effect of shaping the light in the movie should be to leave blank space and leave black!

Of course, this is just a way of thinking now, and it has not been practiced yet. Zhao Fei's idea of ​​leaving blank space and black is in Jiang Wen's "The Sun Rises As Always", and Dacheng has to wait until "Let the Bullets Fly". The idea in his mind suddenly made Zhang Ran say it directly, which will naturally bring him a great shock.

Zhao Fei stared at Zhang Ran for a while, but couldn't figure out what was going on. However, since this person knew how to keep blank and keep black, working with him might inspire him, and finally made a decision: "Okay, I'll take on this movie!"

The corners of his mouth raised, and a kind of heroic spirit in his heart arises in his heart. Jiang Wen, Jiang Wen, I will be sorry for you. From now on, Zhao Fei will be with me. You can find a photographer again and stretch out your hand and said, "Teacher Zhao, happy cooperation!"

(Thanks to the reward of "Meowed Pig Xiaosi, a sad song", please collect it, please recommend it!)
Chapter completed!