Photographer’s exclusive revelation： The three formats of Pan Jinlian are very particular.
"I am not Pan Jinlian" poster
Special feature of 1905 film network Xiaogang Feng’s latest masterpiece is being shown in the mainland recently. This pioneering work with alternating square frames has been recognized by many viewers, and even many people said that they didn’t notice the changes of the frames at all during the viewing.
Only at the beginning of shooting, many people were worried about such a design. Wang Zhonglei, president of Huayi Brothers, the producer of "I’m not Pan Jinlian", once worried that such a change would offend the audience’s viewing habits. Even Xiaogang Feng has been worried about the acceptance of fans. He even tore Wang Jianlin in order to arrange films, but the box office of the film was still tepid. Up to now, I’m not Pan Jinlian, which has been released for seven days, has not exceeded the 300 million yuan mark.
But "I’m not Pan Jinlian" is definitely a good movie not to be missed. To say the least, the 58-year-old steel cannon, which has achieved fame and fortune, can still be so innovative. Isn’t it worth praising him for his courage alone? Besides, the filming of this film is not as simple as most people think.
Do you see that? In fact, there are three kinds of frames in "I am not Pan Jinlian", which are round, 1:1 square and 1.85:1 rectangle at the end of the film. The space occupied by the circle and the square has basically maintained a ratio of one to one. When to use the circle and when to change it to the square, it is not arbitrary. Xiaogang Feng has his own set of ideas. He used all the round frames to shoot the story that happened in Li Xuelian’s hometown, while the square frames were used in Beijing. Xiaogang Feng said that this was to show that big cities would have more "rules".
"I’m not Pan Jinlian" is the first Chinese film to be shot by alternating square frames. As for why the square frames were shot, Xiaogang Feng laughed and said that he was really headstrong and wanted to do something out of line when he was old. Xiaogang Feng admitted that the inspiration came from Dolan’s film. "But people have already made a square one, so I can’t imitate it, so I made a round one."
"I’m not Pan Jinlian" is a challenge. First of all, the film has made a lot of changes to the original — — The age span of Li Xuelian played by Fan Bingbing has been directly shortened from 20 years to 10 years; Secondly, the main shooting location was changed from Chengde in the north to Wuyuan in the south. Luo Pan, the photographer of "I am not Pan Jinlian", revealed that the crew did see a lot of locations in Chengde at that time, but they did not find a suitable location. Everyone was quite disappointed at one time, and finally he proposed to shoot in the south. In this regard, Xiaogang Feng strongly agreed with it, and Liu Zhenyun, the author of the original novel, did not object, so it became.
Not to mention the challenge of framing, how to shoot it and what machine to shoot it with, which is a brand-new attempt for Xiaogang Feng, the whole crew and even the whole China film. Xiaogang Feng was also uncertain at that time, so he persuaded Wang Zhonglei to spend millions to shoot an experimental film, which became one of the decisive factors for the final determination of "I’m not Pan Jinlian" to be presented in alternate square format.
How to get a circular frame?
The original material generated by the software on site is actually a square Quan Huafu.
The circular frame is suitable and beautiful for I am not Pan Jinlian. The smaller the frame, the less the content, which makes the audience more focused on the picture. At the same time, the circular frame also makes people feel that the bystander is observing with the third eye, and it also makes the audience feel a specious thing between the film and reality, which is serious but so absurd. Coupled with the low-contrast gray tone, it increases the retro feeling and texture of the film, and the film is like a jumping ink painting.
But the real shooting is not as simple as talking about how to compose a picture and how to polish it when shooting … … Completely abandoned the previous way, all have to learn from scratch and experiment from scratch.
Some viewers may think that it’s just a circular mask on the camera, or it’s post-produced, oh no! Everything is wrong. In fact, the original material of "I’m not Pan Jinlian" is still a square Quan Huafu picture. At that time, the crew used Qtake image processing software to generate a circular mask and then covered it on the monitor. Therefore, what the director and photographer saw at the scene was the effect of filming, but this did not affect the shooting frame of the original material.
The square frame is directly formed by Ale ALEXA XT plus camera and has not been post-processed. It is also worth mentioning that due to the particularity of circular format, the whole film "I am not Pan Jinlian" only uses three lenses, namely 21mm, 25mm and 50mm, and all of them are shot by single camera.
Interview with 1905 Film NetworkI am not Pan JinlianPhotographer Luo Pan
How to shoot a circular frame well?
Refuse to pan+shoot the golden section as the main criterion.
After the problem of shooting is solved, how to compose a composition can better meet the characteristics of circular frame and better reflect the aesthetics of film. Xiaogang Feng said that all the old film composition patterns have been subverted, and the circular frame is totally unsuitable for close-up shots, zoom shots and panning shots, but suitable for fixed pictures and panoramic shooting. This leads to the fact that even though there is a scene of Li Xuelian’s runaway in I’m not Pan Jinlian, due to the characteristics of the circular frame, it can only be moved on the same horizontal line when shooting, but not shaken.
Xiaogang Feng revealed that the most important thing is that the circular frame must have more white space at the top of the picture, so that the picture has a breathable space. Xiaogang Feng pointed out that it is best for the main characters to appear in the lower part of the circle. Although the picture is already very small, the upper part of the circular frame still needs to be left blank, so you can’t be stingy, otherwise the audience will feel suffocated because the picture is too full. For example, in "I am not Pan Jinlian", the sky will occupy at least half of the picture, and if there are distant mountains in the background, it will also occupy about one-third of the circular frame. So how much white space is appropriate? Luo Pan revealed that he followed the golden section principle of 0.618 when taking photos, thus enhancing his impression.
The composition of I am not Pan Jinlian is also very particular.
At the same time, Luo Pan also told the 1905 film network that another major feature of "I am not Pan Jinlian" is the low contrast of the film color. This is contrary to the practice that most movies like to contrast and refresh the picture. In order to reduce the color contrast, the costumes of the actors in I’m not Pan Jinlian are also very particular. Most male characters use dark costumes, especially gray. Even if some characters need to wear black costumes, it is not too black, thus ensuring the harmony of the whole film.
This filming "I am not Pan Jinlian", even the actors’ performance methods will change accordingly. In particular, the actor’s position must be accurate, and his body movements should not be too large, otherwise he will jump out of the picture accidentally. Of course, the characters won’t get any close-ups. Most of "I’m not Pan Jinlian" are only shot in the middle, and the pictures are all stuck above the actor’s waist.
The circular frame did bring many restrictions to shooting, but it also brought innovative changes, which made the audience see Xiaogang Feng’s skill again. I remember there was a passionate scene between Guo Tao and Fan Bingbing in the movie, which really made people clap their hands. At that time, Feng Dao took advantage of the small picture of the round frame to show this passionate drama in the form of Guo Tao’s painting and painting alternately. I saw Guo Tao’s big head forced into the painting, and then Fan Bingbing pushed out the picture, and Guo Tao undressed and put into the painting, and then pushed out the picture. This way of showing increased the imagination of the audience, but also laid the groundwork for the following story, which made people feel more absurd and sad when they aftertaste.
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