Chapter 301 What is "Film Industrialization"
Meng Bai once asked Guo Fan why he did not study directing when he was applying for graduate school at Beijing Film Academy, but chose the management department instead.
Guo Fan's answer at the time was that as a director, if you manage people well, you will naturally make a good movie.
As a creator who barely belongs to the "literature" branch of one of the eight major arts, Meng Bai had never understood this answer before.
It was not until he saw with his own eyes how a huge production team of hundreds of people operated at the shooting site of "The Wandering Earth" that he finally understood.
The profession of director is more like a "project manager" than an "artist".
In the first half of the first half of the shooting of "The Wandering Earth", the studio was almost a huge "quarrel scene".
Almost every moment, we encountered problems that were completely unimaginable during the previous preparations.
To give the simplest example, the first difficulty encountered by the crew was the problem of eating for the staff.
According to the conventional crew experience, after the morning shooting is over, there will be one to one and a half hours of lunch time.
All the main creators, actors and staff went to the production team to line up for meals. After lunch, they had a free break, and when the afternoon shooting time came, they called people back to continue working.
However, after just two days of shooting, they found that not only were they late for the afternoon start time, but their work attitude also declined significantly.
Guo Fan and his friends were puzzled at first, wondering if it was a problem with diet or shooting planning. It was not
until Meng Bai spent the whole afternoon watching the production crew the next day that they found out that the main reason was that there were too many people in the crew.
They lined up to get food together, but the people in front had finished eating, and the people behind had not yet gotten it. When
the people behind finally got their food, they looked at the time and knew that they had to start working again.
When Meng Bai told Guo Fan and his friends about his observations, everyone in the main creative team
looked at each other in bewilderment. There was no way. Before this, the largest crew they had ever experienced did not exceed a hundred people.
There were only a few dozen people in a group, and they could just take food at mealtime.
No one expected that quantitative change would lead to qualitative change, and that problems would arise in such basic things.
Not only eating, but also drinking water, electricity, sanitation, and management of mobile personnel...
In short, there were almost big and small problems in every basic link.
If this had been the case in traditional manufacturing or construction, this would not have happened.
Group cooperation, modular operation, assembly line operation... they already have a complete set of standardized processes.
But the film industry is different. Most people in this industry are still in the era of "handmade workshops".
In many cases, basically a director, a photographer, and a few other creative people, plus seven or eight stage managers, can form a crew.
So there is no such concept at all.
Then there are the props of the crew, because the entire movie involves too many types and quantities of items, and every time the shooting starts and ends, they have to rush to distribute and collect them, which puts great pressure on the staff.
Half a month after the start of the filming, the props group collectively resigned, saying that this job was impossible to do.
Gong Geer, the producer, temporarily recruited two experienced and veteran prop masters from Hengdian. After working for three days, they left again.
In the end, the crew had no choice but to grab Meng Bai, a strong man, and let him bring the crew's own artists, plus a few newly found prop masters, to support the props group.
"There's really no other way, brother. The crew can't spare anyone. You are the screenwriter, and you have almost participated in the creation and preparation work throughout the whole process. You know these props best."
Guo Fan patted Meng Bai on the shoulder with a sincere expression on his face: "Don't worry, it will take at most ten days. Once this batch of prop masters and artists have run-in, you won't have to bother you."
"...Since you said so, what else can I say."
Seeing that the old man's expression had become more and more vicissitudes in just a few days, Meng Bai really didn't feel embarrassed to refuse.
As a result, he originally planned to stay in the crew for only a few days, but he stayed for half a month.
Fortunately, Guo Fan was not idle during this period. He gave full play to his advantages in management and began to standardize the various processes of the crew.
The personnel were divided into groups for gradient management. All props were divided into S/A/B grades according to the usage scenarios. The shooting plan was refined to a single split shot...
Even the memory cards of the photography team were divided into different colors according to different scenes and shots, which was convenient for post-editing and sorting.
In general, it is to learn the system of industrialized production - classification, each doing its own job, simplifying the process, and unifying the standards.
Seeing the shooting scene becoming well-organized bit by bit, Meng Bai, who finished his "temporary work", said with emotion: "Brother Guo, if you can come up with this management system, even if the movie is not successful, the money will not be wasted."
Based on his years of work experience, although "The Wandering Earth" certainly cannot meet the Hollywood standards, it is already a pioneer in the domestic film and television industry.
He used to think that the management of the crew of the Arc Light project was quite standardized. But now, in comparison, it is basically still at the level of a construction site contractor.
Alas, there are also real estate companies such as Wanda and Sunac, or Internet companies such as Alibaba and Tencent, which are also always tossing about special effects.
It's not that adding a few more special effects and more cool pictures will make the film industrialized.
If you have the time, you can also refer to the construction standards of those construction units or the OA processes of large factories in the film and television industry.
But even though he complained, Meng Bai knew that this kind of thing could not be accomplished by him or Guo Fan just talking and shouting.
Unless "The Wandering Earth" can be successful, nothing will be convincing.
"Okay, everything that should be done has been done, so I won't stay any longer."
"Are you going back to Jingbei?" Guo Fan asked.
"Yes, I'm going back to the meeting." Meng Bai sighed.
Guo Fan looked at his expression: "What meeting? From your tone, it seems that it is not so easy to hold."
"Of course it is not easy to hold." Meng Bai spread his hands and said: "This year's review opinion meeting of the Radio and Television Bureau."
In April of the year before last, the official announced a one-year trial of online drama filing. By April last year, the trial ended and the filing review system was officially launched.
Now it is April again, just at the end of a year, and the authorities are thinking about continuing to adjust the review standards.
Unlike the previous large-scale research meetings, only several leading film and television companies in the industry and the three major video platforms were invited this time.
According to the traditional custom of "holding a large meeting for small matters and a small meeting for big matters", this "opinion meeting" is expected to have significant adjustments.
At the end of April, Meng Bai returned to Beijing from Landao.
He didn't rush home. He went to the company first to find the project department to ask about the review of "White Night Chase".
This drama is not as bloody as "Forensic Qin Ming", nor does it have the horror scenes of "Jingjue Ancient City", nor does it involve "ghosts and superstitions" like "Soul Ferry".
But from the perspective of review, the scale of "White Night Chase" is larger than all previous projects of Arclight.
The main reason is that there are too many places where the main plot involves public security police.
The police hired relatives of fugitive suspects as consultants, criminal murderers broke into the police station to take hostages, and there were criminal organization members in the senior police station...
These plots are almost all dancing on the review standards.
Fortunately, Meng Bai thought of this in advance and pulled in Jindun Film and Television, which represents the public security, when the project was established.
Compared with the cultural department, the public security department itself does not have too many doubts about these plots.
"Film and television works are definitely fictional. As long as there are no principled or realistic errors, there is no need to be so strict in other aspects."
This was the review reply given by the person in charge of the Golden Shield Film and Television Center of the Ministry of Public Security.
With official support, Arc Light is bolder.
After the production of the entire drama was completed, it was sent directly to the relevant departments for a standard review in accordance with the TV drama process.
If the review is passed, it means that "Day and Night Chase" is a TV series that is undergoing review.
Arriving at the Arc Light office building, as soon as Meng Bai walked into the lobby, he heard a long-lost and familiar voice.
"Hello, President Meng!"
Looking at the front desk, as expected, it was Yang Chaoyue who came back to work as the "front desk girl".
(End of this chapter)
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