"It is estimated that the nominee lunch is coming to an end."

At the rest table in the editing room, Mike Dawson looked at the time and said to Anna Prinz, "I bet $100, and Duke will definitely not be nominated for Best Director."

For an old Hollywood figure like Mike Dawson, it is simply impossible to get the best director nomination for a superhero movie.

But Anna Prinz doesn't think so. She put down the coffee in her hand and said, "Okay, I'll be stuck at $100, Duke will definitely get the best director nomination."

Drinking all the coffee in the cup, Duke glanced over the two people with bored eyes, "If you have nothing to do, go to the special effects studio to help."

Tina Fey, who was sitting next to Duke, laughed, "The result will be coming soon."

It seemed like he had a tacit understanding with Tina Fei. Not three minutes after saying this, Nancy Josephson called, but after Tina Fei hung up her phone, an incredible expression appeared on her face, as if the Transformers were really on Earth.

"What's wrong?" asked Anna Prinz.

"Didn't you get the best supporting actor nomination?" Mike Dawson immediately thought of another aspect.

Even Duke's eyes showed a little curiosity. Tina Fei was greatly affected by him. Even if there were serious emergencies, this would not happen.

"The nomination list is out." Tina Fei put away her expression and said directly, "The Dark Knight won the Best Supporting Actor, Best Sound Effect Editing, Best Photography, Best Art Direction, Best Audio Effect, Best Makeup, Best Editing, Best Visual Effects, and…"

She paused and said, "And best director, there are nine nominations in total."

"No best video?" asked Mike Dawson.

Tina Fei shook her head, "No Best Picture nomination."

Duke and others also showed expressions similar to Tina Fei just now.

Although the film that won the Best Director nomination but failed to get the Best Film nomination, it is not unique in the history of the Oscars, it is also extremely rare.

Several people looked at each other and Duke sighed. "The academy is worthy of being a master of balance."

"Those guys should do politics..." Anna Prinz couldn't help but shake his head, "rather than making movie awards."

After all, Duke is a veteran in the industry. It is not difficult to find the intention of the academy after a little thought. "The Dark Knight" has aroused an extremely strong response. The content of its discussion has deviated from the scope of the film and spread to the real society. With Duke's powerful appeal, if he ignores it directly and does not give an explanation, he will probably be attacked by countless media and movie fans.

Discrimination against superhero movies is a tradition in the academy. Of course, those stubborn old men don’t want to easily destroy the tradition.

Giving Duke a nomination for Best Director and ignoring "The Dark Knight" in the best film can not only comfort the media and fans, but also maintain its own traditions as much as possible.

On the other hand, Duke's own status and influence cannot be ignored at all, so this can also give him an explanation.

"It's just a nomination." Duke told Tina Fey, "I informed Warner that the focus of the publicity is still on Heath Ledger, and he must ensure his best supporting actor."

If Heath Ledger is still alive, it will be extremely difficult for him to win the best supporting actor. But death is often better than the best public relations.

By the same token, Duke is still alive and very comfortable. It is impossible for the Academy to award his director to him because of "The Dark Knight".

Let Tina Fey continue to pay attention to the progress of The Dark Knight in the Oscars, and Duke's attention is back to the post-production of "Transformers".

After completing the initial cut version, Duke began to fine-cut the videos that did not add special effects. The goal of fine-cut is very clear, shortening the length of the video to less than two and a half hours, making the entire rhythm more compact.

Strictly speaking, this is also a standard superhero movie. But unlike Spider-Man and the like, Duke will not allow Transformers to have a plot similar to Peter Parker and Mary's simple and melodious love song. The grudge between Sam and Mikaela will also surpass the relationship between men and women. And this relationship is the same as the rhythm of the film, and it is forced to breathe from beginning to end.

This sharp mtv-style high-speed screen editing is also the well-known "Duke Rosenberg format style".

In fact, no matter who is filming the live-action Transformers movie, the protagonist in the protagonist is undoubtedly Transformers himself.

The life of alien machines has transformed into ordinary mechanical equipment to avoid the attention of ordinary people and various deformations. From cars, planes, to robots with their feet firmly stomping on the ground, the picture is like a dream.

But if you want to be authentic and credible, you need extremely excellent special effects production. Duke has very high requirements for Industrial Light and Magic, which is responsible for the special effects production, and they have repeatedly modified the special effects screens.

He hopes that the robots on the screen will appear vividly. Whether those robots are hovering in the air, escaping under the sand, or running wildly on highways, they will all appear to exist in the real world.

The robots are virtual, but as the tanks they compare, the planes are real, and this cannot be vague.

According to Duke's requirements, the special effects artists of Industrial Light and Magic made the two use digital technology to form a special effects picture on the blue screen.

At the same time, cooperation with the military is very critical. There are many war scenes in the film. It is also the largest cooperation between the military and Hollywood in action films in history. The sponsorship provided by the Pentagon has saved the crew a lot of money and thus invested more funds in post-production.

In addition to the few months spent preparing, the film only took 75 days to shoot on the spot, and some lenses also used imax3d cameras.

The production process of "Transformers" is very large.

Although the filming was completed and the post-production was progressing smoothly, Duke did not relax at all. For such a movie, any negligence could have extremely serious consequences.

In order to coordinate the work between various departments in post-production, he placed a folder in the computer shared area, named it 'Edit Sample', and all colleagues involved in the production can browse freely.

Duke knew very well that movies were the product of teamwork, and if you didn't try it yourself, you would never get the ideal picture.

The film editing is completely true to Duke's style. In the clips completed, there are countless action scenes, countless appearances, lines and witty lines, visual effects one after another, and of course countless scenes that spin rapidly, which almost makes people breathless.

To a certain extent, whether it is editing or special effects production, it must be tempered repeatedly before Duke can make the pictures in his mind into a finished product by cooperating with a tacit team.

The special effects production department used 6 video workstations and two massive storages, which were specially used to store all lens images and corresponding preview effects sketches. In order to make the daily work results of Industrial Light and Magic and Duke send each other smoothly, a multimedia network was also specially built.

"Transformers" is very large in scale, with editor Mike Dawson having great experience and skills, and can fully understand Duke's ideas. He can always weave fast-paced fight scenes, extremely complex special effects, and just the right little humor into a gripping story.

In addition to the first cut version that lasted more than six hours, Duke still has dozens of hours of material in his hand, which are alternative shots of the film.

No matter how you shoot a movie, it is impossible to copy or paste it. Moreover, Duke has made so many changes. Since he entered this industry, the number of shots shots was not as many as ten times or even twenty times the final editing.

From the preparation period to the end of the shooting, Duke prepared a lot of material. After entering post-production, sometimes the only purpose of the crew's work seemed to be to find some shots that were not used, because he would be dissatisfied with the editing results and kill them all.

Apart from holidays, Duke would go to the workshop every day, carefully ponder the picture he wanted, and then describe it to others.

Sometimes he also hopes to see the results of the editors first, let them cut out their own works first, and then study and review them for one to two hours. He does not need to piece together dead objects, but wants a series of smooth and natural shots.

In this case, the action scenes of the movie undergo repeated editing. Duke often has to deal with eighty to one hundred sets of shots a day, and each shot must be taken seriously. They are all important components of this movie.

In order to complete the work efficiently, Duke used a total of six editors, including Mike Dawson, but the other five were mainly Mike Dawson.

Large scale and fast pace are the biggest features of Transformers. There must be a capable editing team to constantly come up with useful new ideas.

Even so, the crew often look at each other and helpless. For such a high-cost movie, if you want to handle the finished shot with quality and quantity, multiple editors need to cooperate without interruption.

In order to find a feeling, Duke repeatedly watched the first few episodes of the 1984 cartoon in his spare time, but he did not intend to be affected too much, after all, movies and animated series are completely different works.

And among the several editors, including Mike Dawson, there are no fanatical fans of Transformers. Although it is easy to delete certain clips that may be very important for Transformers fans, on the other hand, this also makes the editing effect easier for the general public to accept, avoiding the movie being too much fan-oriented.

The film is very grand, and the contents in the original animated series are not suitable for transplantation into the movie. Mike Dawson has not even seen the previous Transformers animated series and the animated movies, because he believes that this will not help in making a 'Duke Rosenberg-style movie'. (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!