Chapter 1055: Implicit Control

In a Land Rover SUV in the convoy, Jodie Foster sat next to Eric, with a thick stack of "Gravity" storyboards on her lap. The filming was about to end, and she finally got her wish and asked for all the sketches hand-painted by Eric, intending to use it as her own collection.

Looking back from the two helicopters in the air outside the car window, Judy glanced at Eric who was watching a video on the laptop with headphones on, and said, "Eric, if you are so public, you are not afraid of us tomorrow. Are you being watched?"

Eric pressed the pause button, took off his earphones and asked, "What?"

Judy rolled her eyes lightly and repeated what she just said, "Last time I was filming a location scene in "Contact" in New Mexico, in order to prevent reporters from taking pictures of the set, Robert was completely overwhelmed. What. North American journalists must be more hungry for Gravity news now, right?"

Since the establishment of "Gravity", apart from a small amount of official news released by the Firefly Group, the media has hardly received any other information related to the film. Whether it is Eric's status as a super-rich at this time or his new work after two consecutive global billion-dollar films, it is enough to make North American media, large and small, want to dig more about "Gravity". It's a pity that most of the footage of the film was shot in a well-secured studio, and paparazzi reporters would not be able to start even if they wanted to dig out the news.

At this time, the entire crew of "Gravity" was dispatched. It is conceivable that a large group of reporters will surely flock to the scene.

In fact, at this time, the team had already followed a lot of media vehicles.

Although it is about to be completed, there is still more than a year before the film is released. In order to maintain the freshness, it is not suitable to release too much news related to the film at this time. Judy has been in the circle for so long, and naturally understands this truth, so there will be just worried.

Eric smiled easily and said, "Don't worry, they can't shoot anything."

Judy's eyes flickered, remembering the destination of the team at this time, and the few words Eric revealed some time ago, and suddenly said: "You mean, we are not going to the real shooting site?"

"No way," Eric explained with a smile: "The aerial shot of the return capsule falling from space, I hope to use the image of Lake Pleasant, north of Phoenix, but for the last part of the landing, we Shot in the northern Colorado River Valley."

Eric said, and winked at Judy: "Remember to keep it secret, not many people know the news now."

"I'm the heroine, and you're only telling me now," Judy rolled Eric's eyes and stopped talking about this topic, glanced at the laptop screen on Eric's lap, and asked curiously, "What are you looking at? , um, is this Michael Eisner?"

Eric unplugged his headphones and restarted the video, with Michael Eisner's voice coming from his laptop.

"...while working on the research and development of CG special effects software and technology, the Light and Shadow Era will also invest in the development of a new 3D movie projection technology. 3D movies have been around for nearly a hundred years. Although the development of related technologies has been very slow, with the With the advent of the era of special effects, we have reason to believe that 3D movies are likely to become a new development trend in the film industry after both sound movies and color movies. Whether it is Universal, Warner or Paramount, they are very optimistic about the future of 3D movies... "

After watching the second half of the video together with Eric, Judy said, "This is, a press conference?"

Eric nodded and said: "The press conference of a film special effects company jointly established by Universal, Warner and Paramount, the era of light and shadow, you just heard."

"Hehe, now, there are rivals in the digital field. Also, 3D movies, Universal and the others will follow suit."

Eric said with a smile: "Perhaps, but only with competition can progress be made. I have always felt that whether it is a person or an enterprise,

Can not be without opponents. "

Although he said that, the so-called 'Era of Light and Shadow' established by the three companies did not actually make Eric feel much threatened. He knew very well that this was just the reaction of the other three to the Firefly system's annexation of Columbia Films again.

This is not because of arrogance, because special effects companies need special effects film projects to develop. Eric can say with great confidence that the film projects in the hands of the other three companies are absolutely unable to support their ambitions to compete with the digital field in the light and shadow era.

Moreover, under normal circumstances, a movie needs to put forward various special effects requirements first, and then the special effects company will carry out targeted technical research and development. However, Eric has been urging the digital realm to re-use the archives of the various special effects technologies that have been developed over the years, and he has achieved very good results.

For common CG special effects, such as storms, explosions, motion capture, large-scale war scenes and other technologies, the digital field already has very mature technical solutions, although the digital field has rarely undertaken film projects from other companies outside the Firefly system in recent years. However, the digital domain is very open to the authorization of these general technical solutions.

Under the influence of this special business strategy in the digital field, many small special effects studios have sprung up in Hollywood in recent years. These small special effects studios or special effects companies do not have too independent technical research and development departments, but Purchase finished special effects software and related technical solutions from the digital realm.

Compared with setting up a special team and spending a few months to write a special effect code for a storm, you can buy a fully-fledged special effect solution from the digital field for only tens of thousands of dollars. Whether it is cost, time or special effect, it is far away. more than independent research and development. Whoever it is, knows what choices to make.

On the other hand, the projects obtained by these special effects studios are basically the outsourced lenses of the seven major Hollywood companies, and most of them are the Firefly system itself.

By controlling the trend of project outsourcing, the Firefly system can also indirectly influence and even control the development of these small special effects studios, making them disguised as vassals in the digital field. Although these small special effects studios are good enough to survive, they will never be a threat to the digital realm.

Even, once the special effects industry becomes sluggish in the future, as long as the special effect outsourcing strategy is tightened, these vassal small studios can be easily sacrificed to help the digital field resist risks in disguise.

As for the other three light and shadow eras that have just been established, perhaps they will invest a certain amount of money in technology research and development in the early stage. However, when the three companies found that for most special effects shots, the cost of self-developed technology will not only be much higher than those of small special effects studios, but also the human resource cost of subsequent specific CG screen production is also much higher than the same industry. It's hard to get additional revenue from selling software and technology solutions like the digital realm.

Then, after a few years of support, the executives of the three companies will definitely gradually give up their full support for the era of light and shadow, and continue to be under the implicit control of the digital field in disguise. The era of light and shadow will gradually become a tasteless existence. After all, even the basic special effects technology cannot be perfected, and it is impossible to talk about the development in the field of more in-depth special effects technology.

In the past, the most cutting-edge special effects technology has always been in the hands of a few companies such as Industrial Light and Magic, and a batch of films with the best special effects in Hollywood have always been produced by these companies.

However, several major special effects giants did not adopt the business strategy in the digital field at this time. The special effects companies that emerged later, regardless of their size, on the basis of some basic industry special effects software, basically needed to develop new products by themselves in the face of the differentiated needs of customers. technical solutions that other VFX companies have likely developed and used many times over and over again.

The repeated loss of resources in all aspects not only greatly increases the operating costs of the entire industry, but also makes those small special effects companies have no dependence on these giants in the digital field. When the cold winter era of the special effects industry comes, all the special effects companies are getting more and more difficult to live. They can only reduce costs by continuously relocating to the tax rebate area, and at the same time conduct vicious competition in price, which will undoubtedly cause more damage to the entire industry. vicious circle.

As for the development of 3D movie technology that Michael Eisner also mentioned in the video, Eric was a little wary. If there are two completely different 3D playback standards in the entire industry in the future, it would be a bit bad.

However, these things cannot be accomplished overnight, and Eric can only wait and see for the time being.

What Judy can think of, the experienced "Gravity" production team can naturally also consider.

Therefore, although the team rushed all the way to Phoenix, Arizona, but after entering the city, the crew soon drove directly into a closed private resort north of the city. A large number of reporters who were stopped outside the resort watched helplessly as the convoy disappeared, and could only take a few irrelevant photos of the back of the convoy in despair. As for the long-awaited core characters of the crew, they didn't even see their shadows.

The six- or seven-hour drive from Los Angeles to Phoenix is ​​so exhausting that everyone has nothing to do today.

After arranging everyone, Eric returned to his residence, and came out of the bathroom after taking a shower. It was already five o'clock in the afternoon.

There was a knock on the door, and Eric walked over and opened the door.

Caroline blushed slightly when she saw Eric wearing a bathrobe, and said, "Eric, Mr. Stewart has returned from Lake Powell."

Lake Powell is where Eric planned to shoot several post-landing scenes. This lake is on the Colorado River in the north, about 200 kilometers away from Phoenix.

As for Lake Pleasant, which is more than ten kilometers north of Phoenix, this is actually a drinking water reservoir in Phoenix. Eric did not choose to shoot the post-landing scene on this lake. , In fact, the city of Phoenix did not approve the filming request of the "Gravity" crew due to environmental protection considerations.

As the producer of "Gravity", William Stewart took a few assistants to Lake Powell three days ago to explore the shooting site again to ensure the smooth shooting of the next few days.

"It's almost dinner time, let William go to the restaurant, and I'll go there later," Eric nodded, looking at Caroline's shy appearance, and said with a smile, "You too."

"Well, then I'll inform Mr. Stewart," Caroline replied, and hurried away with her head down.

The arrival of the "Gravity" crew has not only attracted media reporters from all over North America, but even many local TV stations in Arizona have deliberately reported on this event.

Therefore, under the attention of countless pairs of eyes, the movements of the entire crew could not be hidden at all. However, the "Gravity" crew did not seem to have any intention of hiding this matter. After a night of repairs, the next day, the crew left the resort with great fanfare and rushed to the shore of Lake Pleasant.

Although they were stopped outside the crew's stationed venue, in the open field, the reporters finally got their wish to photograph the main creators such as Eric and Judy.

However, when most of the day passed, many people found that they didn't get much of the content of the film, except that the conspicuous VH-60 helicopter took off and landed, and sometimes even flew to an altitude of more than 1,000 meters. Related information.

Of course, it's not for nothing. At least, Eric Williams and the crew's photographer Nickel Frank boarded the helicopter and seemed to be shooting high-altitude aerial shots through the camera. It's just that these simple aerial scenes , there is no way for people to have any practical and useful associations with the content of the film.

Fortunately, the reporters are not short of patience. Since the entire crew of "Gravity" has rushed over, it is absolutely impossible for these people to just shoot a few simple aerial shots, otherwise, Eric Williams It doesn't need to be here at all. Obviously, in the next few days, there will definitely be specific content shooting.

In the expectation of everyone, early the next morning, when the sky just lighted up, news came from the employees of the resort that the reporters had bought, so they cheered up.

However, when they saw that the two helicopters took off from the resort and passed over Lake Pleasant, they did not intend to land at all, and were still swept toward the northern mountains at a speed of more than 200 kilometers. Everyone was dumbfounded.

Although some reporters were reluctant to get on the car and wanted to catch up, everyone made it clear that how could the wheels of the car catch up with the helicopter, not to mention that in the mountains, the helicopter can fly in a straight line, but the car needs to walk on the road.

Fortunately, a tent-sized thing hanging under one of the helicopters finally gave these people some comfort. After taking the photos, well-informed reporters quickly found out that it should be a spacecraft return capsule. .

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