In recent years, Chinese sports films have been full of ups and downs from creation to release. The Beijing News interviewed screenwriters, directors and experts to give the pulse of film development
Multi-faceted “tolerance, understanding and support” can make sports movies
Currently, the box office ceiling of sports movies released in China is the Indian movie “Wrestling! Dad” starring Aamir Khan, with a box office of nearly 1.3 billion yuan. The highest box office of domestic sports movies is “Win the Championship” directed by Chen Kexin, with 836 million yuan. Yuan box office. Compared with other thematic films, sports films do not seem to have entered the domestic mainstream film market. From “Win the Championship”, “My Heart Is Flying” to “Chinese Ping Pong: Jedi Counterattack” (hereinafter referred to as “Chinese Ping Pong”), most of the Chinese sports films in recent years have gone through a series of experiences from script creation to shooting to final release. The ups and downs, why is it so difficult to create a sports film? How can you make a sports film that is popular in the market? The Beijing News reporter interviewed directors, screenwriters and experts to get a feel for the creation of Chinese sports films. Screenwriter Zhang Ji said from a creative point of view that sports films must also conform to the general genre rules, and can be regarded as a variant of war films. Human nature can be seen in extreme environments, and the most important thing is to write about people. According to Rao Shuguang, president of the China Film Critics Society, sports films not only require the efforts of filmmakers, but also the tolerance and support of all sectors of society, especially the leaders of relevant competent departments, so that movies can return to movies.
Why is sports film creation so difficult?
Involving real character prototypes, script communication takes a long time
“Winning the Championship” directed by Chen Kexin, “My Heart Is Flying” directed by Wang Fangfang, and “Chinese Ping Pong” co-directed by Deng Chao and Yu Baimei all experienced turmoil before the release. The filming, or the post-release announcement, have all gone through ups and downs.
These three films have one thing in common-adapted from real events, and the prototypes of characters can be found in reality. “Win the Championship” tells the fighting spirit of several generations of women’s volleyball players. The main character prototype is the women’s volleyball legend Lang Ping; “My Heart Is Flying” is based on the Chinese short track speed skater Yang Yang. “; the background of the story of “Chinese Ping Pong” is from 1992 to 1995, when the Chinese men’s table tennis was not favored at the beginning, they finally fought back at the Tianjin World Championships. The prototype of the characters is the national table tennis men’s team Head coach Cai Zhenhua, and players Ding Song, Ma Wenge, Wang Tao, Liu Guoliang, and Kong Linghui.
Why is it so difficult to create Chinese sports movies? To a large extent, it is difficult to balance the relationship between the characters in the movie and the prototypes in reality. Rao Shuguang, president of the China Film Critics Society, told the Beijing News reporter that once a real prototype is involved in a movie, it will inevitably encounter some problems. The approval and support of the real prototype authority”. In addition to communicating with relevant departments, creators also have to go through a long period of running-in in the early script stage.
For Wang Fangfang, the director of “My Heart Is Flying”, the most difficult part of writing is the script. During the preparation, he interviewed Yang Yang, the prototype of the characters in the film, the Winter Olympics champion, and others, and talked about many details, such as Yang Yang’s youth growth, why he chose skating as a sport, and the process of going to the arena step by step to win glory for the country. The entire interview lasted for two or three years. After a long period of adjustment, the script was shown to Yang Yang. Yang Yang thought of some new things and added adjustments. The script alone took more than four years to write.
Zhang Ji, the screenwriter of “Win the Championship”, said that the script was particularly difficult to write, and it took nearly two years to create it. During the pre-production of the script, Zhang Ji and his team visited the three training bases of the Chinese women’s volleyball team in Zhangzhou, Fujian, Chenzhou, Hunan, and Beilun, Zhejiang. Get close to the person. He also watched the games of the Beijing team and the training of the national team, watched video materials and documentaries of important matches of the women’s volleyball team in various periods, and watched previous films related to the women’s volleyball team, such as “Sea Gull” and “Volleyball Flower”. The women’s volleyball text information found. In short, after reading all the materials on the market, and seeing myself as a half-volleyball fan from an ordinary TV viewer, I can understand all the tricks in the game.
Competition is highly professional and difficult to shoot
Sports movies themselves use a sport as a carrier to create a story, and sports are very professional. Compared with other movies, it is more difficult to shoot.
In the movie “Great Dad” that shows marathon sports, director Zhou Qingyuan will be surrounded by more than a dozen consultants, including medical consultants, marathon consultants, and running coaches. After shooting each sports scene, he will ask them: Is it right? Is it true enough? For the last “Mountain City Marathon”, it was very difficult to secure a venue and manpower to shoot this scene. Time was tight, roads were closed for filming, and thousands of people were dispatched. Zhou Qingyuan said that because the marathon does not have a fixed venue like wrestling or football, it may take a whole morning to shoot the picture of running from left to right for 10 seconds.
“Win the Championship” has three important matches. The first match between the women’s volleyball team and the Jiangsu men’s volleyball team was filmed using the traditional filming method. At that time, only one camera was used to follow each shot. It took 6 days to shoot. The second Osaka World Cup match was much longer, and six traditional movie cameras were used to shoot the women’s volleyball battle between China and Japan. Try to make the serving and scoring shots completely follow the video shooting of that year, but the middle cannot be controlled. After all, players cannot repeat every ball, every action. Finally, when filming the women’s volleyball match between China and Brazil in 2016, I still used the shooting method of the women’s volleyball match between China and Japan, and transferred 6 machines and professional volleyball photographers from the sports channel, adding up to 12 machines to shoot together.
Before filming “My Heart Is Flying”, Yang Yang told the director a lot of tactics and rules in short track speed skating, and invited the director and the team to watch the Short Track Speed Skating World Cup held in Shanghai. According to director Wang Fangfang, there are two difficulties in the creation of “My Heart is Flying”, one is the script level, and the other is how to shoot the short track speed skating competition scenes.
The action shots of short track speed skating are not easy to shoot. The director does not want to solve the problem of how actors or athletes skate, but how to shoot after the camera and athletes are linked. Some are done through special effects shots, and some are real shots. During the actual shooting, several photographers in the photography team wanted to hold cameras at first, but after all, short track speed skating is a highly professional sport. Standing on the ice for a while, my feet would feel numb, so I had to give up. I found three professional speed skating athletes from the provincial team, and spent three months training them as photographers, and asked them to carry heavy skates every day. Photographic equipment, sliding around on the ice.
From performance to body shape, high requirements are placed on actors
Casting in sports movies is also crucial. Actors not only have to complete the shaping of the role, but also show their mastery of the sport in the movie. Finding the right actor is not an easy task.
When initially selecting the actresses for “My Heart Is Flying”, director Wang Fang put down a few principles. First, post-95s are required, because short-track speed skating is a bit difficult for beginners, and actors who are too old are prone to falls. Second, the physical fitness must be particularly good, like an athlete. Third, you must be good at acting and move the audience. Producer Xu Zheng respected the three principles given by Wang Fangfang, but he added another one: there must be a degree of cooperation. Because before the filming starts, the actors have to train honestly for 4 months, and they have to eat fat and have a body like a short track speed skater. Some actresses refused when they heard that they wanted to gain weight.
One day, director Wang Fang saw Meng Meiqi on a variety show and learned that her life experience was very similar to that of Olympic champion Yang Yang. For example, both of them went out to work hard for their dreams very early. Therefore, the crew confirmed that Meng Meiqi would play the role, and asked her to enter the group for 4 months of training in advance, fully complying with the athlete’s schedule, training on land in the morning and training on ice in the afternoon.
In order to play the role of Lang Ping in “Win the Championship”, Gong Li went to the women’s volleyball training base and the competition site several months in advance to observe personally, carefully figure out Lang Ping’s movements, language, and demeanor, and recorded the details one by one in a notebook. How Lang Ping puts up his thumbs up, how to hold his glasses, how to hold a pen and other small details of these gestures, etc., Gong Li has to be very accurate and vivid.
In order to play the young Lang Ping well, Bailang lost a full 30 catties in one month to meet the physical requirements, and received more than a month of acting and lines training. At the same time, Bailang also repeatedly watched the game video of his mother Lang Ping back then, studying details from smashing movements to facial expressions and celebration methods.
Before the filming of “Great Dad”, the leading actor Zhang Youhao practiced running desperately. The crew hired a very professional marathon coach to practice with him every day. Muscle lines are trained. Although he is not a professional athlete in the film, he loves running after all, and he wants to show that reality.
How to make a good sports movie?
Shooting sports scenes is like shooting an action movie, you have to “burn”
As the script supervisor of “Chinese Ping Pong”, Zhang Ji said that there will be several games in the film, which conforms to the general pattern of the genre, and the last game is the most important. Everyone is interested, this is the key to the success or failure of a sports film, and that scene is a soul.”
Unlike volleyball and other big ball sports, table tennis has a small venue and limited range of motion, but in Zhang Ji’s view, table tennis can also be displayed very intensely. Usually, when you watch the broadcast, it is unlikely that you can see the details of the player’s serve, but the movie camera can move flexibly. Through close-up shots and zoom-in shots, you can see how to serve, the rotation of the ball, and the subtle movements of the landing point. Beautiful, “Ping-pong is actually a very brain-intensive sport that requires athletic intelligence. There are a lot of formations, a bit like Sun Tzu’s Art of War. Sometimes you have to confuse your opponent. There are different changes in the serve game, so that your opponent can’t guess. Now, this is the charm of table tennis, I think it will look better when shooting than on the spot, and it will not be inferior to the big ball (basket volleyball), and the Chinese audience understands table tennis very well.”
In 2012, Wang Fangfang filmed “Xu Haifeng’s Gun”. In the film, Xu Haifeng’s shooting movements are more artistic, aiming for a long time before shooting once, so the filming is also more artistic. However, short-track speed skating is a high-speed sport. Generally, high-level athletes can skate a circle in about 10 seconds. Especially in the process of corners, there are large turns. Athletes must maintain balance while maintaining speed. With the combination of movement and power, the shots will have a sense of speed and excitement.
In Wang Fangfang’s view, “My Heart is Flying” is a sports movie, and it can also be regarded as an action movie. Whether the movie is good or not depends on whether the audiovisual language of the movie can stimulate the emotions of the audience. When filming an ice game, Wang Fangfang had to draw a storyboard in the studio in advance. Because in addition to shooting the action on the ice, you also need to shoot the reaction shots of the coaches, teammates and others outside the ice rink. Who should be photographed first on the ice and who should be photographed first outside the ice rink must be well planned. Because it involves a lot of dynamic things, the director can’t solve it completely by drawing storyboards. The director team also needs to let the special effects team come in five or six months in advance to preview the shots in the game as animations, use special effects to make 3D models of the athletes, and directly restore the game, even the expressions of the actors.
Wang Fangfang said that “My Heart Is Flying” is the first sports film in China to shoot a short-track speed skating theme in a commercial way. Before shooting, the action is designed, drawn into a storyboard, and made into a 3D animation preview. After that, it was too fast.”
Use emotions to drive stories and write about human nature in extreme environments
For Zhang Ji, the screenwriter who has created many sports movies, sports movies have their own charm and can be regarded as a variant of war movies. They are war movies in peaceful times and can see human nature in extreme environments. “Writing about people is always the hardest thing,” Zhang Ji said. They are different as sports people. Only by writing about them can this movie be established. “It can’t be called a sports movie just by shooting events and games. To use human emotions to drive this story, I think this is the real core of sports movies.”
In “Win the Championship”, Zhang Ji wrote about Lang Ping and Chen Zhonghe, two meritorious coaches, as well as women’s volleyball players of different eras. How to make everyone have fun in the limited time and space, Zhang Ji’s method is to write about human nature around the theme. “Movies ultimately talk about people. The relationship between characters is a dramatic relationship that reflects human nature in differences or even confrontations. Characters form their personalities through choices, and the audience reflects on themselves through the characters. Being able to resonate proves the success of the work.”
In Zhang Ji’s view, the characters are the most difficult script creation for “Chinese Ping Pong”. As a national sport, table tennis has a very glorious history. To capture a section of this long history to express the spiritual core of Chinese table tennis, the most fundamental thing is to express the table tennis players of that time period, and ultimately to restore to the people. .
Zhang Ji said that for a particularly realistic sports film like “Chinese Ping Pong”, the first thing to do is to restore the script, art, performance, photography, etc., but light restoration is not enough, we must create, create our own style and aesthetic . In terms of the script, first of all, we must restore each stage based on the real game, because the characters in the script are created characters, and his spirit must grow and complete in the game, and finally to present the theme and character growth. Serving, it’s not enough that the game is exciting and suspenseful, the characters are settled in the end, the script creation is completed when the game and spirit have reached a high degree of unity, this must be created, and it’s different from a real game , There are a lot of inner growth of the characters created, and the theme must be sublimated in the process of running through.
Filmmakers should not give up, they need the tolerance and support of relevant departments
In Rao Shuguang’s view, China has successfully hosted the Olympic Games and the Winter Olympics, and there is a lot of room for sports-themed film creation, with many characters and themes to explore. Sports-themed movies should be easier to be welcomed by the audience and the market. In the past, our country also had very good sports movies, such as “Women’s Basketball No. 5” and “Sand Gull”. The Indian movie “Wrestling! Dad” can also give us many aspects. enlightenment.
“Chinese Ping Pong” is a very rare sports movie, but it is a pity that it is not popular in the market. The reason for such a result actually has a lot to do with factors other than the movie. Rao Shuguang said that there may be a period of time when investors are afraid to touch sports themes, especially movies based on real people, but filmmakers should not give up, and they must not judge heroes based on box office. In the 1980s, the film industry chanted a resounding slogan, “a movie is a movie”. However, the current film creation will be affected by various factors. Rao Shuguang hopes that the fields and industries involved in film themes can look at films more from a film and professional perspective, be more tolerant of films, and create more opportunities for the development of films. Good public opinion environment.
“Sports films not only require the efforts of filmmakers, but also the tolerance and support of all sectors of society, especially the leaders of relevant authorities,” Rao Shuguang said. The film industry hopes that sports authorities can understand more about films, respect films, and respect filmmakers. We should treat the creation of sports-themed movies with greater tolerance and tolerance, and create a better social environment for sports-themed movies. In fact, if Chinese films want to achieve sustainable prosperity and development, and to transform from a big country to a powerful one, it not only requires the efforts of the film industry itself, hard work, improvement of quality, and the creation of more good works. Tolerance in the field has formed a public opinion environment and a social environment that are conducive to the development of films. (Written by / Beijing News reporter Teng Chao)
Source: Beijing News
Responsible Editor: Yu Ying