Fighting stills photographers is just a trivial matter for Duke. In the past, his crew did not have a special stills photographer. This time, this position was set up entirely because Sofia Coppola introduced a well-known stills photographer in the independent film industry. It was only practice once again proved that those who can handle independent films may not be competent for positions in commercial films.

After the stills photographer named Jack left the crew, Duke once again handed over this work to John Schwartzman's team.

In fact, the stills are to allow potential audiences of the movie to see "Wow, this movie contains content I like, I want to watch it!" to achieve this goal. Stills generally do not have this function to judge what content is interesting to the audience and has news value. Therefore, the work of the stills must make some rigid regulations.

Before the shooting began the next day, Duke specially called John Schwartzman over.

"John, the promotion of this video is different from before." Duke looked at the photography director standing opposite him and said bluntly, "While we pay attention to the news of the stills, we also need to take into account the principle of confidentiality."

"I understand." John Schwartzman nodded.

Duke also said, "I only have four requirements for stills. First, there are no less than 35 stills available for each scene; second, there are no less than 10 stills available for daily use; third, the total working time is no less than 80% of the filming time of the ￡ group, and no less than 300 stills after editing; fourth, the stills must be horizontal and meet the requirements of news pictures."

These are all requirements in terms of quantity. Each scene, or important scene, must have 35 useful stills. Because sometimes, the actors' expressions are not good in an instant during shooting, so there is room for choice, but the key scenes must have stills.

John Schwartzmann was the old man who followed Duke, so he naturally understood what he meant, "Don't worry, Duke. I'll stare at these jobs."

Then, John Schwartzman found a very ordinary photography assistant to take into account this work. Compared to Jack, who was fired by Duke, who was famous in the independent film industry, this person can be said to be an unknown newcomer.

This kind of thing is not uncommon in Hollywood.

The producer asked him to find a stillsman, of course he would find someone who was very good at stills. But sometimes, when the filming starts, the producer talks with the stillsman about work, and suddenly finds that the stillsman is far from his request, and almost half of the photos cannot be used.

At this time, the producer will be very surprised and angry, and feel that the stills' master is not attentive, and the master is also very angry, thinking that his work has not been respected accordingly...

In fact, it's simple. Just like Duke and the stills, everyone may have a big deviation in their understanding of movies.

Many stills who come from independent film circles sometimes regard themselves as a photographer who creates works, which is absolutely undesirable. Stills are not photographers who take artistic photos, but stills are more like journalist photographers.

Also, the stills should not actually be managed by the film crew, but by the publicity team and marketing department.

Unlike art photography, stills are largely used to serve film marketing work. They are one of the most powerful tools for film marketing.

Within the film industry, crews are usually understood as "tasting".

Stills, posters, trailers, and so-called "materials" are all communication tools for movies, which means that the audience does not know how a movie is, what it is about, and how the quality is. By looking at these materials, you can have a preliminary understanding and impression. If you are interested, you will understand it further, or you will go to watch it, and you will buy it.

The crew wants the stills of the film to arouse the audience's surprise and feel that it is exactly what he likes.

Of course, the quality of the food you try is exactly the same as the authentic ones, but the food you try is just the specialty of a restaurant. In fact, there is a marketing concept here that the movies should attract audiences who like this kind of movies, not, if you are a Chinese restaurant, you have to take out the sample of the food you try is Western food. If you are very satisfied with the taste, go in and order food and find that it is not the Western food they want to eat at all, but the audience who likes to eat Chinese food will not even enter when they see the Western food you try here. This is why marketing must conform to the characteristics of the product, not to be fooled.

Film stills and other materials are as important as the first impression of knowing a stranger. The quality of the movie, important content, and the performance of the actors will leave the audience with the most real first impression in the stills, which largely determines whether the audience is interested in watching.

Sometimes the first image is a poster or trailer. In this era of picture reading, there are certain conditions for viewing videos. Posters and stills are the picture forms with the widest spread, the least dissemination conditions are the most restricted, and the highest utilization rate. In fact, if the stills are compared with posters, the poster is more disseminated. This is why the audience often sees a poster of a foreign movie at a glance. Even if they don’t know a foreign language, they will recognize the movie.

Posters are advertising paintings for movies, and sometimes they can represent the movie, main content, style, temperament, etc., but there is a very big difference between stills and posters, that is, posters can be produced in posts and can be "created out of nothing", but stills cannot.

This is why Duke attaches so much importance to stills during the shooting stage.

Stills must be news-oriented. Among these three materials, posters, trailers, and stills, posters and trailers can be "made", that is, they can be "secondary creation", but stills are basically not allowed. Stills are very similar to news pictures, but they are not equivalent to news pictures. The biggest function of stills is to introduce movies, and publishing stills is basically in various news in the movie, or to directly publish stills. Therefore, the biggest exposure of stills is through news, so the requirements of news pictures must basically be consistent, for example, they cannot be oblique, crooked, severe ps, spliced, and "fake".

Since stills cannot be produced in post-production, the stills are basically synchronized with the film shooting. When the filming ends, the stills will be handed over to the marketing staff. If there is any problem, there is basically no room for maneuver. Therefore, when Hollywood is marketing, it often encounters problems such as unqualified stills, poor shooting quality, insufficient quantity, lack of key stills, etc.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens are more produced than the previous work, but Duke does not intend to take any advice from George Lucas, but intends to return to the starting point and produce a new trilogy.

Duke wants the filming of this film to be away from the aesthetic of the prequel, and to be like a continuation of the original trilogy, which is crucial. Star Wars: The Force Awakens must have the purity of the first part, but in appropriate circumstances, the drama, beauty and shadow of "The Empire Strikes Back". He hopes that the image quality is based on imax film and locations, which feels authentic and believable.

The crew's art department also traces the roots and looks for inspiration, adhering to the appearance and feeling of the "simulated" movie proposed by Duke. The shooting site uses practical scenes designed and built by Hannah Serena. Some will also use actual monitors and use cg holograms to enrich some scenes.

These sites usually use 2d driver angles instead of green screen special effects field expansion.

When the filming came to an end, Duke gathered Anna Prinz, Hanna Serena and John Schwartzman and other core crew members to emphasize the precautions during the filming.

Several people surround the director's monitor, while Duke is at the center.

“We know how to gradually disappear, keep the background naturally away, and avoid unnecessary criticism.” Duke’s voice was clear and loud, “It would be helpful to consider the design with depth of field. I asked for extremely high tolerance for the on-site texture and surface…”

Speaking of this, he looked at John Schwartzmann, "The shots shot with IMAX must have the style of the original trilogy."

John Schwartzman was confident, "The two IMAX cameras, Death Star and Millennium Falcon, were equipped with Panavishen's special deformation lenses, and I designed many retro shooting methods based on them."

He said as he walked to the director's monitor and pressed the broadcast button. A shot that had been taken before appeared on the monitor.

When several people around were standing in front of the monitor, John Schwartzman explained about the picture, "These lenses will have the film feel of the late 1970s, while retaining some modern qualities that we know and love. I wanted to retain the high contrast of that era, so I added a layer of lens coating to Panaveshen. On the other hand, they also made the lens feel softer."

Some films from the 1970s used filtering for a softer look, and John Schwartzman was working as a photography assistant in the UK at that time, and he was "very clear" that putting a stocking in front and behind the camera could help offset some of the film's shortcomings.

Therefore, during the early preparations, John Schwartzman asked someone to prepare a large number of Dior 10# stockings, almost bought all the stockings from the Dior store in Los Angeles, and did a lot of field tests.

This small meeting didn't last long. During the meeting, Duke asked Tina Fei to give everyone an iPad.

Duke has stored a digital brochure on the iPad, allowing everyone to see the traits and unique appearance qualities that each lens needs.

In the past, photographers spent a lot of time matching lenses due to color temperature, contrast and other variables, and now with the advancement of technology, these problems can be handled through computer previews.

Therefore, if the colors of different lenses are not matched, it may have been a big problem in the past, but now that Duke has made sufficient preparations, it is no longer a difficult problem.

Star Wars has a large number of fans, including many stars. During the filming process, many Hollywood stars participated in cameo appearances, such as Charlize Theron. (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!