Trees： Breaking through the Visual Perception and Finishing The Island’s Killing Life.
When Zhanjia Yang entered the Beijing Film Studio, Qin Wei, Yu Yiru, Zhang Xiande and other fine arts veterans led him in. Although Lin Mu, a younger generation of artists, graduated from the Beijing Film Academy with a good major, his entry into the film industry was not smooth.
In 1999, Lin Mu made the film "The West Mirror" with the group during his graduation internship, but this experience did not bring him the opportunity to directly enter the industry. The mentoring system in the traditional studio has not been continued in their generation. "At that time, there were not many ways or introductions, so I had to rely on myself." After graduation, he turned to the advertising circle, making advertisements, MVs and promotional films, including the promotional film of Beijing’s Olympic bid with Zhang Yimou, China’s national image film, etc., for seven or eight years.
Stills of Du Lala’s Promotion
From stimulating ideas and creativity, cultivating resilience to establishing a style system, the working experience in the advertising circle is of great help to him in his future film art. Lin Mu participated in the first film "Double Food" which was produced by Zhang Yibai and directed by Zhao Tianyu. Later, with the recommendation of Zhang Yibai, he went to the cast of "Du Lala’s Promotion" directed by Xu Jinglei.
But these two films are not enough for him to show his talents.Until we meet.Killing lifeHe just made his mark in the field of film and art, and he also won many production designer prizes for best film that year.
Lin Shu hand-painted the design of "Killing Life", and he also won the best art design with this film.
"Killing Life" is the first collaboration between Lin Mu and director Guan Hu, which also laid the foundation for them to join hands again in the future. But interestingly, before that, he once declined the Bullfighting directed by Guan Hu, and when he mentioned this past, the trees also shared a behind-the-scenes anecdote.
"Bullfighting" tells the fable of a cow and the farmer Niu Er played by Bo Huang, but at first, the role setting of the script was even more absurd.
“The earliest script was even more’ flying’, with the protagonist besides a cow and a cricket. I feel that Bo Huang is not the second leading actor.Lin Mu believes that there were almost no good special effects movies in the mainland at that time, but this script just needed Hollywood-level special effects to support it. In addition, the budget of Bullfighting was low and the conditions were limited. He estimated that it could not be made into a movie at all.
"Flying" was the reason why the trees rejected Guan Hu at the beginning, and their next collaboration "Killing Life" was also somewhat "flying" visually. "Flying" has finally become the unique style of trees in many films.
As he summed up: "I don’t want to just restore a realistic state honestly and only deduct authenticity. I prefer a little exaggeration or absurdity, and I will be more interested in things derived from these levels."
Looking back at "Killing Life", this film that completely overheads the historical background allows the trees to exert their fists and feet.
The story was originally located in an ancient town in northwest China, and the trees spent two months traveling around all the ancient towns in northwest China. He found that it was either a tourist attraction full of commercial atmosphere or a conventional village form. It was not until he saw an ancient town of Qiang nationality dominated by brick and stone buildings in Sichuan that he brightened up.
Qiang ancient town
He took photos overnight and called Guan Hu, suggesting that he reset the story in such a primitive minority stockade. The next day,Guan Hu immediately led the team, who took root for a month and revised the script according to the environmental characteristics of the stockade.
In his notes on the creation of trees, he wrote, "Earthquakes often occur in the town described in the story, and this stockade is located in the earthquake zone of Wenchuan, and it has survived for the rest of its life. Only a few months after the Wenchuan earthquake, we still experienced several aftershocks … … I somehow feel that it seems to exist for this story. "
The small objects and trees in "Killing Life" are also designed with great individuality.
On the scene, he processed and transformed the real scene, such as the location of the ancestral temple, the roof and the square, highlighting the original texture and the sense of religious ceremony. Because this is a story that is divorced from a specific era, there is a lot of room for props design. Trees use different props, such as fish locks, keys, kites, etc., to reveal the personality expression of characters, and also boldly design hot pot tables, yin and yang flagons, bicycles with steering wheels, etc.Mix and match the eastern elements with primitive tribes and the western civilization with modern industrial feeling to create a social form with magical reality.
In addition to being responsible for scenes and props, Lin Mu also acted as an independent modeling director for the first time.He mixed a lot of irrelevant elements into the costume design of this film.
In "Killing Life", the forest is the role model designed by Yam Tat-wah.
In "Killing Life", Lin Shu designed the role modeling for Liang Jing.
In "Killing Life", the forest is the role model designed by Wang Xun.
Yam Tat-wah; Simon YamHis role modeling refers to Paris Fashion Week, and he not only has a rucksack similar to that of an ancient monk in the Tang Dynasty, but also has a medical box in medieval Europe.Liang JingIts role modeling draws lessons from Korean costumes;Cattle and fortuneteller’s mane and fur have Indian tribal style;Wang XunThe painter played is wearing one-piece jeans with bright and bold colors; The overall modeling of fools refers to animation.dragonball: evolutionBuo &hellip, the magic man in the movie; …
Lin Mu revealed that the model of a fool in Killing Life borrowed from Dragon Ball.
“At that time, the creative passion was great!Although the shooting conditions are difficult, Lin Mu admits that this is his most imaginative work in creative space, and it is also an unforgettable and enjoyable experience.
Stills of Hot Pot Hero
After Killing Life, Linmu continued to create artistic designs that not only meet the needs of story expression, but also have style in films such as Hot Pot Hero, Nine-story Demon Tower and The Island.Especially in The Island, this fabled realistic story once again provided a stage for his whimsy.
While Bo Huang, the director, and other creative artists are still struggling to express the class changes of the characters through scenes, Lin Mu got inspiration from the photos of the sunken ship in a magazine. He creatively put forward the idea of shelving the inverted ship on the beach to help the team break through the predicament, which was also appreciated by Bo Huang.
"Through such an inverted sunken ship, all the problems have been solved, and there are metaphors." He believes that the characters and class relations in the story can be revealed by the external form of the shipwreck upside down. "With the concept of inversion, many things in the cabin will be very interesting, and the visual habits in daily life will be completely reversed."
Trees formed his creative characteristics between conscious and unconscious. "I don’t follow the rules, just to restore things, I hope to create different visual impressions."
Now, he continues on this road and challenges himself. He not only collaborates with Zhang Yimou on the latest spy war film, but also plans to shoot a fantasy costume blockbuster with great technical challenges. For the more distant future, he said, he also wants to try science fiction movies.