The Los Angeles area is dry and rainy, and the sun is full of sunshine. The sun hangs brightly in the sky almost every day. For most crews, this is a very ideal outdoor shooting condition.

But it is not for Murphy's crew. There will be no sunlight in his entire outdoor scene. The color tone of the lens is completely dark, and sufficient sunlight will only cause trouble. Instead, the crew needs to block light everywhere during shooting. Otherwise, if the film is overexposed, even with current technology, it will be very difficult to adjust the color in the later stage.

"David, the light is too bright and too soft!"

During the shooting of almost every scene, Murphy's shouting was heard, "The light should be harder, and the tones should be darker!"

This film is different from the previous "City of Chaos". The whole story is full of gloomy atmosphere, despair and absurdity. It is a rare black and very desperate personal biopic in Hollywood.

Murphy never thought about what kind of profit this film would produce. Instead, the first thing he considered was whether he would be more effective in the awards season. The nature of the film determines that it would not have done too much commercially, and it would not be widely circulated, which is contrary to Rose's idea.

Since I promised my friend, Murphy naturally wanted to do better. If a niche theme like this really wants to make a big name and become a world-famous film, Oscars are the best way to spread and platform.

In the past, typical Oscar-winning films with black styles have also won the awards season.

For example, "Chicago" in 2003, "Million Dollar Baby" in 2005, "The Walker in 2006, and "The Old Nowhere to Belong" in 2008...

Of course, these films are not as dark as Murphy's style, and they are still the mainstream orientation of Hollywood movies, and they are not as commercial as the films directed by Murphy.

Several of Murphy's representative works are all black from the surface to the inside, and their value orientation makes the defenders sneer at it.

Although she suffered consecutive setbacks in the Oscars due to style issues, Murphy is not prepared to make fundamental changes in this film.

Is film noir a high praise of cynicism or the courage to face the darkness of human nature? Is it determined by the positioning of visual style? Or is it determined according to its main control idea and the overall tone of the story? Is its visual style only "ghostly and terrifying" or is it hidden in a deeper theme?

Murphy has his own understanding of these.

It must be admitted that film noir is an artistic phenomenon with very cinematic artistic characteristics. It is also a very complex film phenomenon. Film noir is not derived from a theoretical concept, but a description and summary of a certain phenomenon of the production of a film industry.

Whether in the studio or in the outdoor location, Murphy's scene construction and shooting have formulated four basic principles for the crew.

Most scenes are illuminated according to the night scene; the composition is more likely to use diagonal and vertical lines than horizontal lines; lighting treatment allows actors to often hide in the night scenes of the city. When the actors speak, their faces are always covered by shadows, or they are divided by light and shadows; the tension of the photographic institutional picture takes precedence over the actor's physical movements.

In addition to these four basic principles, Murphy also used more techniques in field shooting.

After the shooting a few days ago, Murphy and Felli Raschel had a conversation and adjusted the shooting method appropriately. In the subsequent shooting, they prefer to use low-angle lighting, large-light lighting, and a very tough photography tone.

In this way, they generally use a more solid focus, and generally do not use soft light mirrors or fog mirrors to make the picture softer.

For example, Filey Raschel often uses wide-angle lenses and small light holes to obtain a larger depth of field. This depth of field lens can easily cause a sense of depression to people.

In some scene arrangements, Murphy asked Helena Espora to appropriately add props such as Angels** pictures, with typical black meanings, and in the subsequent shooting, Felix Raschel used an unstable lens composition to separate and squeeze strange-shaped light areas and lines, objects, such as the light and shadow of blinds, doors, windows, stairs, metal frames, etc. to form separation and squeeze of people.

Especially when using larger angles of elevation and deflection angle photography.

In almost all shootings, Murphy asked Felix Raschel to use diagonal lines and vertical lines instead of horizontal lines to compose the picture. The diagonal split shot can make the world of film noir appear uneasy and unstable.

In film noir, light hits into the room in a peculiar shape, and the audience sees uneven quadrilaterals, acute triangles, and vertical slits.

Murphy's treatment of the black elements of this film also has a strong visual element, that is, the use of bloody pictures.

Needless to say, this aspect has been his specialty since the original video.

From expressionist painting to film noir, this type of visual image is enjoyed by humans. It has been repeatedly created and viewed repeatedly, and has developed such a complex, rich and self-systematic visual map of film noir. It has an aesthetic meaning in the Oscar-Wilde sense.

However, even if a film creates a typical visual style of film noir, it is not necessarily a film noir. The decisive factor is the overall tendency in the film's narrative, the endless gloom and darkness in the main mind.

“Wet city streets, dramatic stairs, dark train stations, tilted shooting angles, melancholy shadows and fantastic light effects…”

While resting, Seth Logan looked at the footage taken by Murphy and saw many typical dark elements.

"Film noir does have some commonly used iconic elements, but none of them are decisive."

Holding a cup of coffee, Murphy stood behind Seth Rogan and said, "The decisive feature of film noir is not visual processing, but the despair tendency and gloomy consciousness presented by the narrative."

He drank a cup of coffee and continued, "In our movie, the theme is not a tragedy, but a kind of at a loss and despair."

Seth Logan immediately thought of a video he had watched and said, "The ending of "The Godfather 3" Al Pacino's heart-wrenching cry against his daughter's body was tragic, but it was a tragedy brought by violence, not a complete world in movie noir."

Murphy nodded and said, "This kind of movie is full of night, violence, guilt and illegal passion, and no genre is more seductive than her."

In fact, Seth Logan's "The World's Doomsday" was also influenced by his style, with many black elements in it.

"A concept like film noir, which is very broad and unusual, was carefully crafted after the film itself has been created."

Robert Downey Jr.'s voice sounded, and the guy had not taken off his makeup yet, and walked over one step and shook, saying, "Movie noir is perhaps the most creative period in Hollywood history, even if it is not measured by its peak works but by its average works. You can choose a noir movie, and it will be better than any silent comedy, musical, western, etc.... Movie noir seems to mobilize every specialty such as director, photographer, screenwriter or actor. A noir movie can create the highest point on the career curve of an artist, and this is not uncommon."

Murphy and Seth Logan both looked at this guy, and even Gal Gadot, who explained his work to his assistant, looked up.

Robert Downey Jr. walked to Murphy and laughed, "This is not what I said, but Paul Schrader wrote in his "Notes on Movie Noir."

"This makes sense." Murphy shrugged, saying, "Movie noir contains a very strong value, and its narrative and master-controlled thoughts have a fundamental view of the world. The narrative model of film noir is very invasive and corrosive. It is like a highly contagious virus. When it encounters other bright, rational and warm humanitarian types, it will immediately occupy it and rewrite this type into a subordinate type in the film noir category."

Murphy spread his hands and said, "So, knowing the evil in human nature is a kind of good deed, and creating and watching movie noir is also a kind of good deed."

Hearing this, others seemed to be frightened, showing a thoughtful look. Only Robert Downey Jr. sneered and sarcastically said, "You like to gild your face so much."

His words immediately reminded Seth Logan and Gal Gadot, and the two couldn't help but shake their heads and laugh.

Murphy looked at the time and reminded, "Okay, prepare to start shooting."

With his order, the originally quiet bar immediately became busy. Terrys Gibson and Robert Downey Jr. sat in front of the bar, and the two briefly communicated to prepare for the upcoming shooting.

This is the bar where Murphy and Ross often meet. The owner of the bar is also a friend of Ross and is willing to film the crew for free.

What will be filmed here is the scene after Rose becomes a leader of a drug cartel, which is also a very important scene in the end of the film.

In the bar, Murphy asked Felli Raschel to set up multiple cameras and prepare to use multi-lens coverage to shoot.

Generally, one camera can complete the shooting of a specific scene, and use a camera to capture all the pictures.

However, unless there are some special scenes, Murphy's shooting rarely uses a camera to framing the scene, and basically adds a second or even a third camera position.

These auxiliary cameras mainly capture the entire scene from multiple different angles. The captured auxiliary pictures and the main pictures form a complete shot. Then, when editing, Murphy can select materials from different angles to edit.

All shots were the result of Murphy's careful consideration. (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!