text/Peninsula All-Media Reporter Wang Yue Photo/Respondent provided
One-way ride! The box office of the movie "Hot 20,000 Miles Homecoming " exceeded 800 million in 6 days after its release. The audience used movie tickets and the high reputation passed down by word of mouth, which helped the film step by step towards the throne of the National Day championship in 2022. The "Numia Capital" in the film was built 1:1 in Qingdao Oriental Film, and Liuting Airport has also become an important scene.
These days, the topics about "The Road to Return" have come one after another. As the art director of the movie, Li Miao has been invested in the new project before she has time to share the joy. On the first day of the film's release, he posted a WeChat Moments: "Surviving the four seasons and ups and downs, we have achieved many scenes that we didn't dare to imagine at that time." From nearly a year since the preliminary preparations to the completion of the filming, Li Miao feels that his efforts are not in vain. During the National Day holiday, he is still working in a row. At present, Li Miao is filming his new work in Guangzhou. During this period, this fellow Shandong accepted an exclusive interview with a reporter from the Peninsula All-Media, chatted about the behind-the-scenes of the creation of "The Road Back", took out a lot of precious materials, and shared the 19 years of growing up with Chinese films.
Li Miao
1,000 teams fought for more than a hundred days
Oriental Film City Building "Leptis City"
Compared with famous directors, the name of the film art director always flashes over the end subtitles of the opening and ending credits, but in fact, the art of film and television works directly affects the quality of a work. Li Miao, 41 years old this year, is from Jinan, Shandong. He has many representative works, including " I am not a medicine god ", " Chinatown Detective " series, " Man-kill ", " Assassination of the Novelist ", " Alone Moon ", etc., which have created great movies in the history of Chinese films.
As the art director of "The Road Back", Li Miao has long been familiar with the script, scenes, and the entire context. However, when the film was edited, visual effects post-production, soundtrack, etc., and finally presented on the big screen, Li Miao was still excited, "In the past year, it is quite proud to have made such a film." The exotic wonders, deserts, mines, red lakes, African towns, etc. presented not only immersed the audience, but also surprised many experts.
Even though he has experienced many battles, for Li Miao, "The Road to Return" is a real challenge. The domestic landscaped ceilings are actually mainly Chinese style. It is actually very difficult to achieve a realistic foreign scene, and all the details need to be done. "This is not like the moon in "The Loneliness Moon", nor is it like the 'Another World' in "Assassination Novelists" that can have room for play. Everyone has seen that there are many foreign actors in this film. If you don't do it properly, they can find many problems." The film took more than 300 days from the preliminary preparations to the completion of filming, and more than 4 months spent in Qingdao Oriental Film City to build an African city with more than 70 buildings at . It is understood that in November 2021, the crew opened four studios in Film City, No. 1, No. 34, No. 26 and No. 18, and also built an outdoor scene of about 20,000 square meters in Film City. At the most, the art scene setting team had nearly 1,000 people. This complicated and huge process made Li Miao want to give up several times. "These 1,000 people were not constructed at the same time, but were carried out in steps. The process of building small towns and blocks was similar to the actual building. When the scenery was the largest, dozens of engineering cars occupied the open space outside the studio, making a sound, especially like the project was rushing in the construction period." What made Li Miao remembered was that last winter, the coldness of Qingdao , and the cement mixing slurry had to be opened with warm water. These outdoor scenes basically required the pile driver to be used to drill a foundation of 2 to 3 meters deep, and the keel of very thick steel was used to make the facade. Just like we saw a steel structure building, one by one, but the internal space would save a lot of time, but the degree of solidity was very high.
What made Li Miao more pleased was that after finishing the scene, a large number of foreign actors said through translation during the filming that this place looked too much like their country. After receiving such evaluation, Li Miao finally felt confident. In addition, to create a state of war, the scenes need to be worn. There are a large number of excellent talents in the crew who have produced mottled and fallen walls in a very short time, which is very technically tested.
The vegetation in the town is transported from the south by the entire coconut tree and palm tree , but the leaves on the tree are real and fake, and the overall effect is good. What is amazing is the train made by Teacher Cui Wenliang in the play. It looks like an armed train. If it is used for internal combustion, the noise will be very high and unstable. They developed an oil-to-electric platform to be driven by electric energy. This train can really run on the railway.
The bullet holes on the wall are accurate to millimeters
Qingdao took out Liuting Airport "Renovation on demand"
"The Way to Return" is adapted from a real event. It tells the story of former resident diplomat Zong Dawei and new member of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Cheng Lang, responsible for evacuating overseas Chinese in when war broke out in the Republic of Numia. Faced with environmental disadvantages and gunfire from the rebels, they eliminated danger one by one, and led their compatriots out of the way home. After watching the movie, many viewers expressed a strong sense of time, which comes from the exquisiteness of the film. The art team was meticulous in the camera, and even the audience could not notice it.
This play uses the technique of "martial arts and sings". Although the force value is not that high, in order to restore the authenticity, the crew checked a large amount of information. Li Miao revealed, "The regional rifles and pistols in small-scale wars are all small-caliber, similar to the 'point 38'. The diameter of about eight millimeters plus the diameter of an outer diameter of about one centimeter on the wall is made of bullet-air. When we reach the street fighting level, we will adjust the degree of the wall peeling and the size of the bullet holes according to the degree of war damage."
Li Miao told reporters, "We built Numia in the Film City. The streets in the capital of the Republic have scientific plans. For example, the main projects of each commercial street are different, including vegetable markets, milk tea shops unique to Middle East , as well as restaurants, clothing stores, banks, etc. The small streets are distributed with pharmacies, mobile phone stores, glasses stores, communication mobile product sales stores, etc. Each store has exquisite furnishings, and you can feel the real existence when you walk in. "
A high-quality film work is the result of the concerted efforts of this crew team and striving for excellence, and it also emphasizes "time, place, and people." Many thrilling airport scenes in the film were filmed at Liuting Airport. "I have photographed airports before, but this time it is completely different. We are talking about evacuation of overseas Chinese. The entire airport and country have been shut down, and a large number of refugees have been stranded at the airport. The scenes at the airport have become hard to come by, just in time for Qingdao Liuting Airport to ‘retire’, so I took a set of scenes. For example, the terminal building of the airport, the airport exterior, the airport runway, and the bridge. We also built the entrance to the plane at the other end of the bridge, and also made a lot of renovations. If we don’t tell the audience, it should be impossible to tell that it was filming at Qingdao Liuting Airport. Photographed. In China, there are few airports that allow us to transform in such a large amount of way, and only Qingdao can achieve it. Behind this, there is a lot of coordination work of Qingdao Oriental Film Capital. Thanks to the support of Chengyang District of Qingdao and Qingdao Airport Group. "
19, Beijing drifted back to his hometown and then returned to his hometown
sighed and caught up with the good times of Chinese movies
In Li Miao's view, film art work is to help the director realize the temperament of the movie under the director's ideas. His growth and development are in line with the rapid development and industrialization of Chinese films. "Grateful to the times, we have caught up with a good time.”
In 2000, Li Miao went to study in Jinan, his hometown, and studied film and television art design at the Drama Film and Television College of Communication University of China (at that time, Beijing Broadcasting Academy). "I feel very lucky. I met many excellent teachers in my life. With their help, I quickly got into the most core knowledge in the field. "When he was in his junior year, Li Miao became the leading art design master in China, directed by Zhang Yimou's "monetary artist" . Huo Tingxiao's assistant to , and participated in many projects. "Everyone has seen movies such as "Heroes" and "Ten Sides of Ambush". Teacher Huo's film art creation is the top in both art and production. At this stage, I learned about Teacher Huo's working style and his experience, including some unique artistic insights. "
After Li Miao took the lead in art, he received works with "Left Ear" and "H Suspect X's Dedication " which are not very large in size but have strong stylistic style. He formed a team with props Teacher Cui Wenliang and Teacher Zhi Jing Yang Guangguang. Three people with similar interests, personalities and creative concepts have cooperated with each other for more than ten years. On these basis, they also began to produce standard commercial films such as the "Detective Chinatown" series.
In 2018, Li Miao came to Qingdao Oriental Film City with the crew of "Assassination of Novelists". Almost all the film "Another World" was completed here. "The film capital is very convenient. After filming "Assassination of Novelists", we moved the company to Qingdao in 2019. "The "Iron Triangle" composed of Li Miao, Yang Guangguang and Cui Wenliang, created "The Loneliness of the Moon" and "The Return of the Thousand Miles" in Oriental Film Capital. "Teacher Yang Guangguang and Cui Wenliang are both masters of domestic landscape and props. They have strong development capabilities, which is amazing. They can apply new technologies from other industries to film production. The current level of film production is much stronger than before. We have also absorbed new technologies to improve the production level of films. "Li Miao gave an example to reporters, "For example, when we were doing "The Lonely Moon", we used a large number of 3D printed , including metal engraving. We have a production base in Qingdao and a prop warehouse. Another feature of the team is stability. The technology is iterative and requires accumulation. The stability of our team brings us technical precipitation and also allows the team to have certain R&D capabilities. In addition, the preparation period is also very important to us. We have been preparing for "Assassination of Novelists" for 8 months, "Lonely Moon" has been almost 8 months, and "The Road to Return" has 6 to 7 months. "
Film and television industrialization "High-tech" advanced
Attract top talents to gather hot products frequently
0 The recognized mature film and television industrialization system has four characteristics, namely the type of work content, standardization of production process, standardization of management model, and scale of innovative technology.
" The United States has a relatively complete film industry system, and we were deeply touched when filming " Tang Detective 2". Many industries are extended to their shooting base, and creators also settle down there. "Li Miao believes that the same is true for Qingdao Oriental Film City." This place has become the first choice for domestic blockbusters. Because the film has an overall supporting facilities - the studio, the location, the processing workshop, and the industrial park is a relatively closed environment, which is more convenient for the entire shooting process, reduces transitions, and has stronger confidentiality. My colleague also bought a house near Yingdu and was preparing to be from Qingdao. In the past, I had to film for nearly a year when I was filming. I felt like I was wandering and I was often suffering inside. And when I got married and had children, I had to make choices. It’s different in Oriental Film. Just like going to work, you can ride a bicycle or walk from the next community to the set, and you will feel like home. ”
Like Li Miao, the magnetic field effect formed by Qingdao Oriental Film Capital has attracted many first-class domestic film and television talents to come to Qinghai to create and settle down. Famous directors such as Ninghao , Wuershan , Guo Fan , Luyang , Luyang , Zhang Chiyu, Song Yang and other famous directors have a special liking for this place.In recent years, blockbusters representing the level of Chinese film industrialization have also come from here, including world-class hardware facilities, full-industry ecological chain, integrated film and television service system, preferential film and television supporting policies... What everyone values is its strength to leverage the development of film and television industrialization with high-tech as the fulcrum.
Qingdao Oriental Film Capital has always been a pioneer in building the dream of a strong film country. The No. 5 studio in the Industrial Park has the most forward-looking and pioneering digital technology studio project - a film and television virtualization production platform, including virtual shooting, LED shooting, visual scripts, motion capture, facial scanning, CG content and other technologies; there is also a multi-degree of freedom platform + robotic arm shooting, which will not have delayed WiFi signal coverage in full area... At present, the park is preparing to build the next generation of LED virtual shooting system. "Although there are not many domestic films that use LED virtual shooting technology, I think this investment and research and development are very forward-looking, which will also be the future development trend of global film and television. The exploration and experimentation of LED virtual shooting will help China's science fiction and other industrial blockbusters to a higher level, and it is also the driving force for Chinese film and television personnel to carry out technological innovation." Li Miao said.
The total box office of the National Day holiday exceeded 1.2 billion in 5 days. "The Road to Return" and " Ordinary Hero " filmed in Qingdao accounted for 80% of the box office, carrying the entire market; this summer, the "No. 1 Winner" "Lonely Moon", temporarily ranked second in the 2022 movie box office list with a score of 3 billion +. In addition, there are also popular seed contestants such as " Wandering Earth 2", " Fighting the Gods Trilogy ", " Crisis Route ", and "Under the Inhuman", ready to go, and Qingdao has deservedly become an important vote for the new power of China's film and television.
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