v2 Chapter 615： New production concept

"Dark style", literally, is a dark and dark style.

Although this term is quite unfamiliar to the audience compared to the current mainstream movies, "dark movies" have been dormant in the movie circle for a long time. In the previous movie circles, the audience liked to call similar movies expressionism, B-rated film, Gothic film, or film noir.

Speaking of, Duke is no stranger to this style, and "The Matrix" also has this style.

It is difficult to verify the origin of the "dark style", because from Goya's black painting series, Bruegel's "The Triumph of Death", Boccaccio's collection of stories "Decameron", etc. Evidence of the existence of "dark style" can be found in paintings and literary works.

Only at the time, these contents were not called "darkness".

In the movie, Duke’s post-production "The Dark Knight" is undoubtedly a representative. If you read through the history of Hollywood in this style, it is not difficult to find that as early as "M is the Murderer" and Carl Theodore Delaire There are elements of the existence of "dark style" in "Vampire" and f?w? Munau's "Nosfaratu".

Not to mention the kind of noir films that deliberately show poor streets, sinister human nature, and deliberately want to put scenes and stories in the dark night.

In Duke's eyes, the dark style is the same as film noir, but one of the branches that the film is forcibly divided.

There is no doubt that Christopher Nolan once was a key figure in the dark style of movies that can truly enter the mainstream film circle, and the dark style has even become synonymous with high-powered style.

This style is unique in superhero movies, and it directly or indirectly brings about two trends-first, in its contrast, such as "Avengers" and "Iron Man" are walking in the style of mainstream commercial blockbusters. The film is more joyful and popcorn; second. After "The Dark Knight" brought depth and style to dc comics and Warner Bros., the entire dc universe must follow a unified style and values, so "Superman: Man of Steel" was forced to add it to some extent. Not too appropriate "dark wind".

As for "Batman Vs Superman", the dark tone was determined at the beginning of the project.

To achieve this style, one is setting and shooting, and the other is post-production.

Actually. Whether it's Duke or Nolan, the shooting of "The Dark Knight" is mostly during the day. To achieve the dark wind of the picture, post-production is crucial.

Although I have experienced a film with a gothic style like "The Matrix", this style is still relatively unfamiliar to Duke’s post-production team, which also determines that the post-production speed will not be very fast. And Duke must strictly control the production.

No one is born proficient in various styles of movies. Even Duke is no exception. Even though "War Hour" allowed him and his team to accumulate certain experience, he still carefully and meticulously controlled every aspect of post-production.

If you want the post-production team to follow this style, you must first understand the characteristics of the dark style.

Darkness refers to the tones of these movies, which are artificially dimmed. Even those scenes that take place in the daylight are dark and humid.

of course. In these movies, a lot of plots take place in the dark.

And black. It shows that the theme of these movies is black, and the stories are often related to words such as dark, pathological, weird, violent, bloody, mysterious, religious, alternative, etc. Although the main story of many movies is positive, punishing evil and promoting good, but in During the development of the story, the above-mentioned various elements were enlarged and exaggerated, thus producing a "black" effect.

but. Even if it is a man-made concept, it needs to follow certain regulations and styles to be established. In the dark wind movie, in Duke's opinion, there are roughly a few characteristics.

First of all. The story is dark, and to a certain extent there will be some pathological elements.

The protagonist—whether it is a positive character or a negative character—mostly will have childhood shadows and traumas, such as Bruce Wayne.

This kind of shadow and trauma accompanied his maturity and eventually became part of his values, and this kind of trauma would make him use another "pathological" image to show the public, such as the scars and costumes of a clown.

More importantly, the revenge of the villain is not for repayment or revenge, but a ritual that involves violence and blood to awaken the public. To a large extent, their violence is not related to personal past and grace. Enmity is related to some kind of redemption and revelation.

Such a villain is like a clown, breaking through the "bad guy" in the general sense. He has the same speculative and philosophical color as the positive character. In many cases, the positive character is caught in a dilemma. Such values The swing and the thinking about justice and evil can be described as a kind of darkness in the aesthetics of the film.

Secondly, religion and the resulting sense of ritual, mystery, cult, incompleteness, and alternative are often the characteristics of sensory and narrative elements in these movies. In many passages and plots, the protagonist will be mentioned by some masters. In order to move on to the next stage, you can only take the lead in certain ceremonial gatherings and activities.

Such a setting is actually just a process of self-healing and ability upgrading, but driven by the dark wind, a section of the bridge that could have been energetic will definitely become a plot of "climbing up from a mass grave" In the process of becoming a hero, a hero has to go through a series of events that eliminate his own concept, and then painfully choose to maintain the status quo.

No matter what it is, what its perception of the world is, whether the world needs to be cleaned up and restarted, heroes will always follow the most universal values ​​and make choices that shed the least blood.

In more movies, the dark style is a manifestation of a visual element—"300 Warriors", "The Matrix" and even "Batman: Hour of War"—not the gloomy values ​​of the movie itself.

This kind of dark wind in visual effects, to a certain extent, implies the style elements of mv, including the lens language and editing techniques of mv, and fully reflects the effect of "spectacle" in the coordination of setting, color adjustment and overall production. .

If you go back to the source, such visual effects come from painting, expressionism, Gothic and many modern and contemporary oil paintings.

These elements that can be reflected in the shooting are more derived from the performances and lines of the actors. In post-production, if the brightly lit shots are successfully integrated into the dark style, this is a problem that Duke should consider. Up.

Of course, there is another issue he must consider, which is also the aspect that Doug Walter was most worried about at the beginning-whether the audience can accept this style.

If it were at the beginning of the century when superhero movies emerged, Duke would not be able to confirm that although Tim Burton’s movies also had a distinct dark style at the beginning, they were compared to "The Dark Knight", "Batman" and "Bat The dark wind of "The Return of the Heroine" can only be said to be trivial.

Everyone in Hollywood knows that movies are deeply affected by the social environment. Some successful movies in the future are likely to fail if they move forward a few years. Therefore, Duke has always been cautious when dealing with the Batman series and is also paying attention to observations. Changes in the film market environment.

In fact, it’s not difficult to find that after the bombardment of many superhero movies, the audience’s sense of expectation for those dramas that understate the plot and only pay attention to whether the cg is realistic or not, to a certain extent, is decreasing, such as "Iron Man" This kind of alternative superhero has been welcomed.

Similarly, this kind of superhero movie with serious movie characteristics and creative tendency can be said to be produced in conformity with the trend.

Of course, in a movie dominated by such dramatic plots, the character's direction is positioned in the dilemma of "alternating between good and evil", and strong logic and speculation are placed for the villain, plus some spectacle displays And the story that happened in the dark night, can bring a fresh excitement to the audience.

In this style of movie, the villain is also the key. If the villain is just a masked character in Marvel movies, this style will be out of balance.

As a result, villains are often similar to decent ones. The masters and apprentices use their own ideas to transform this society. For this purpose, they do not hesitate to use "sudden death" shock therapy to treat this society.

This naturally raises the villain's level, or compulsion.

Even how long the future superhero can maintain the strong development, to a large extent, depends on the villain.

In the first Batman movie, Tim Burton, who is a certain dark wind, is also added. What he is good at is a gothic expression.

Under the revisionism of Hollywood, this means of expression has little to do with the story itself, but it is about the character's costume, setting, and makeup. The scenes in his "Batman" and "Batman Returns" are almost all In the dark night, the story involves death, paganism and other necessary elements of Gothic and dark.

This surreal, futuristic, mashup with Boltonian characteristics is actually different from the style that Duke wants to achieve.

What Duke wants to achieve in post-production is that "The Dark Knight" can be completely separated from the scope of the comic film, as an independent film.

If you consider from the perspective of the movie, what Duke has to do in editing is to try not to use the original comics as text. It only borrows the relationship between the characters in the comics, reshapes the main line of the story, and uses other methods and storytelling. The technique to make the movie "The Dark Knight".

This is a bad thing. If there is a problem with the quality of the movie, it will inevitably be overwhelmed by comic fans.

But this is also a good thing. Without the limitation of comic style, the director can move more freely, making the dramatic climax more tension under the contradictions and conflicts of the storyline. (To be continued...)

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