Chapter 121: The Stunning "Killing Move"

  Los Angeles, USA, January 7th, 1999.

  The final scene of "Saving Private Ryan".

  Still the same dilapidated small town, still the same crowd of extras playing German Nazis and American GIs, starring Big Bird Lucci, Stormi, Abraham, John Cane, and other main supporting actors.

  The crew members, including Deputy Director Rabbit Bill, the photographer, the lighting engineer, the makeup artist and so on, all gathered together.

  Yi Feiyang stood high on a military vehicle, ready for his final shout.

  "Comrades, friends! I know these days have been tough for everyone, and we've all been working hard. We're all looking forward to today! Yes, this play is almost finished, the nearly two-week shoot is about to end. For this, I want to say, please keep up the energy, don't slack off at the critical moment! Use this final shot to prove our glory! Can you do it?" Yi Feiyang's voice was almost a shout, echoing throughout the entire venue.

  "Action!" Everyone shouted in unison, their voices deafening, like a massive wave, almost overturning the entire set.

  "Alright, now, photographers get ready, actors take your positions!" Yì Fēi Yáng jumped down from the military vehicle and gave the order.

  Everyone sprang into action at once, quickly and in an orderly manner. And on each person's face was an excited expression.

  As everyone took their positions, Yi Feiyang took a deep breath, stood behind the camera, scanned the surrounding scene, and with all his might, shouted: "Attention, everyone! The final scene of 'Saving Private Rachel', 3...2...1... Action!"

  At the sound of Yi Fei Yang's order!

  The director yelled "Action!" and the special effects team triggered the explosives that had been buried in seven or eight spots, causing continuous explosions. Mud flew everywhere, walls collapsed, and the crowd of extras playing German Nazis rushed towards the American soldiers with guns in hand!

  Fierce battle, officially begins!

  Many people have watched American blockbusters, especially those epic war movies, which give the impression of grand scenes and majestic momentum. To put it in more detail, planes are roaring in the sky and tanks are rumbling on the ground.

  However, as a small investment of over $300,000, Yi Feiyang cannot come up with an airplane, nor can he create a fierce battle scene of thousands of troops killing each other with heavy weapons like tanks.

  All he can do is grasp the essence of a single element in battle.

  For example, a close-up shot of an American soldier and a German Nazi bayoneting each other to death in a trench. Another example is that a black soldier saves a white comrade who has always looked down on him with discrimination, but he himself is hit by the evil Nazi bullet and falls to the ground...

  Yi Feiyang captured the spirit and humanity of these people in the war. Although there are no grand scenes, it can move people with these precious details.

  Due to the Nazis having too many enemies, while Colonel Miller led his own small team to rescue Rachel from being surrounded by the enemy, his comrades around him sacrificed one after another on the battlefield.

  Watching these guys who followed him from the US to the European battlefield, originally full of laughter and vitality, one by one leaving him, seeing blood staining their military uniforms and helmets, staining this unfamiliar land, Colonel Miller only felt an unstoppable surge of sorrow.

  Facing more and more Nazi enemies, he no longer hid, holding a heavy machine gun and rushing out of the trench, a fierce sweep.

  "Damn bastards, go die!" He cursed angrily, resentfully, and the bullets of revenge rattled out from the machine gun.

  The heavy machine gun fire temporarily pinned down those Nazi enemies behind the wall, not daring to show their heads.

  But in a nearby building, German ace sniper Hoffman had already trained his rifle on Colonel Miller, who was venting his anger.

  Just as he was about to gently pull the trigger, Colonel Miller was going to be shot in the head by a dark bullet!

  Whoosh!

  A sharp whistling sound!

  Hoffman's body went limp and he fell to the ground, a bullet having pierced his forehead, with blood flowing profusely.

  Across the street, Rachel released her grip on the sniper rifle and then carved a vertical line on the stock with a small blade, whispering softly: "Three hundred and eighth."

  Sniper competition, it's over!

  The final close-up shot.

  The Nazis' rear was shelled, and it turned out that the Allied forces had come to support. Rachel found Miller, who had narrowly escaped death, and they supported each other, exchanging a smile amidst the artillery fire and smoke.

  The camera finally froze here, their silhouettes stretched out, behind them a large area of ??the blood-red bodies of sacrificed comrades...

  "Cut!" Yì Fēi Yáng shouted "stop" from behind the camera, and around him was a burst of cheers. Tùzi Bill, Dà Niǎo Lǔ Qí, Měi Nǚ Sī Tuō Mǐ, Yà Bó Lā Hǎm and all the staff rushed out, hugging each other tightly, with champagne splashing everywhere and thunderous applause.

  Two weeks of hard filming, 14 days, 336 hours of non-stop work, everyone has finally waited for this moment!

  They laughed, kissed and even shed tears of excitement!

  Looking at this group of "crazy" people, Yiyang watched from afar, speechless, because only he understood the joy in everyone's hearts!

  ……

  The day after finishing all the filming work, Yi Feiyang didn't take a break or relax. On the contrary, he calculated that there were still about twenty days before the end of the Christmas season, and he had to seize the time to get this play on the screen, otherwise, he would miss a good opportunity for release.

  Of course, before that, Yi Feiyang first had to return the rented props. These things were indeed "blood-sucking vampires", each one was not calculated by day, but by hour, minute, and second, every moment was money.

  As a good director, you must control the shooting cost, what can be saved must be saved, and what can be reused should be recovered as much as possible. Yiyang has done very well in this aspect at least.

  Apart from this, although the movie has wrapped up filming, it will only get busier from now on because Yi Feiyang must personally edit this play!

  Some people may say, isn't there a professional editor for this kind of work? Why bother to suffer yourself?

  The reason is simple, Yi Feiyang didn't trust those sharp scissors, nor did he trust that his hard-earned footage would be cut into a mess. Besides, TOP Film Company didn't have any talented editors, so Yi Feiyang decided to do it himself.

  In fact, how important is the post-production editing of a film? It can almost be said to be equivalent to filming. Editing is not simpler and easier than filming, this is also a very patient work. The filmed film material is selected, assembled, and then compiled into a smooth film, editing can be said to be the second creation of the entire work, different shots, time length and so on, the film effect is completely different.

  If it's a big production, you also need to consider dubbing, music, color and many other things. So generally post-production work is very tedious, the better the final product looks, the more time it takes to process.

  Especially "Saving Private Rachel" is a war-themed erotic film, especially requiring the soundtrack to be combined with the story content to show the background of that era and highlight the character's personality fate, and evoke the audience's sense of substitution during viewing.

  In terms of music, Yi Feiyang is not a professional, but he likes to listen to American pop music and jazz in his previous life. So when editing, he would put himself as the audience and see what kind of music is more suitable, whether it's American country, jazz, or pop...

  The film "Saving Private Ryan" shot nearly 300 minutes of satisfying material, including many flashes and temporarily added footage; most of which were different performance effects, such as the passionate scenes between Stormy and Lucci, where to delete in order not to affect the rating, where to decorate to become more beautiful, and where to exaggerate or simplify in war scenes, etc. All of this requires Yiyang to review with the audience's perspective and then make editing decisions, calling on people like Bunny Bebe to judge. After all, the final edited version can only be around 90 minutes long.

  In these few days, Yi Feiyang almost didn't eat or drink. When he was really hungry, he would gnaw on a few mouthfuls of instant noodles, and when he was thirsty, he would drink a few mouthfuls of plain boiled water...

  For some reason, Henry the investor elephant hasn't come to the crew in these days and didn't even call Yifei Yang.

  Yi Feiyang guessed that he might be afraid of disturbing his own work, or maybe he was busy doing some charity activities, such as holding a ladle at the rescue station to act as a big chef...

  During this time, Annie Hathaway, who had established a vague romantic relationship with Yi Fei Yang, came once, looking at Yi Fei Yang's exhausted appearance with heartache, but she couldn't do anything about it. So she could only quietly watch Yi Fei Yang edit the movie, stayed for a while, and left without wanting to disturb him.

  Bao Gao came once, bringing a big bag of food and drink, and even had Chaoshan bao from Chinatown, which made Yi Fei Yang have a great meal.

  In short, these days Yi Feiyang was like a neurotic, staring at the computer screen with dead eyes, constantly replaying the editing effects. The poor rabbit Bill and others were occasionally called over by him to "observe" which segment of the edited version was good.

  As time went on, the editing work became smoother and easier, and Yi Feiyang even got used to this endless editing work. Under his sharp "scissors", you can surprisingly find that many original fragments can be transformed into N different shots, which can form many different stories.

  This reminds Yifei Yang of the previous life's "Tang Bohu Dian Qiuxiang 2", it is said that the play was originally going to be directed by Li Lichi as a "tragedy", but unfortunately, the emperor disagreed and took away his editing rights at the last minute, handing them over to comedy director Wang Jing for editing.

  So, film editing is really wonderful, it can turn the tables and determine the essence of the whole play!