Chapter Twenty-Two: Capturing the Essence of Hollywood

“This won’t work! Your building is way too short, and there’s still water below. We can’t lift off, and it can’t hover high enough.”

Here was the problem: the helicopter pilot couldn’t make the big machine obey Wu Xiang’s every command.

And that wasn’t all—Mr. Mu also raised a concern. “Even if we pull it off, there’s no way to hide a helicopter that size. And the camera setup is an issue too.”

Indeed, the Mi-171 was no small thing.

So what now? Wu Xiang was stumped.

“If you ask me, we should stop trying all these fancy tricks. If it won’t work, just go with an aerial shot, then add a tracking shot. Use the perspective from the plane and from the rooftop, weave them together. That’ll make a shot that’s realistic and moving enough. Of course, it’ll need some editing later,” Mr. Mu offered his solution. Admittedly, it was a safe, solid approach, and the result wouldn’t be bad.

But it still fell short of the vision in Wu Xiang’s mind. Only now did he realize how much objective conditions limited camera techniques. They didn’t have Hollywood’s technology or resources.

Even so, Wu Xiang didn’t want to compromise. He wanted to capture the shot he imagined.

The sense of awe, after all, came from the hearts of the audience. To achieve that, viewers had to feel immersed. The sense of immersion in a film comes down to realism—like the first-person perspective they’d used earlier, which was all about authenticity.

How to make it more real—real, and even more real! That was Wu Xiang’s problem.

How could he achieve that? Had it been done before?

Wu Xiang wracked his brain. How could he bring out that quality…?

“I’ve got it!” Wu Xiang suddenly cried out.

“What have you got?” Mr. Mu was startled by his outburst.

“Shake! We’ll use a shaky shot!” Wu Xiang’s voice grew louder, as if he’d discovered a new world.

“Shake? How are you going to shake it?” Mr. Mu was still puzzled.

“Just shake the camera! The helicopter appears from the side, and we run along with it, as if it’s from a person’s point of view, just—”

Before he could finish, Mr. Mu interrupted, “I get it.”

If the camera shook, it would feel immersive. Of course, there was a risk: too much shaking would make the audience uncomfortable, even nauseated—especially since cinema screens were so big in those days.

That’s why the technique was rarely used. Still, Wu Xiang recalled reading in a web novel about a fellow who traveled to another world and used this trick to make a low-budget horror film.

But now, they absolutely couldn’t make the audience uncomfortable, much less sick—this wasn’t a horror film.

So what to do?

Wu Xiang’s solution was to experiment—try again and again. Of course, he couldn’t experiment with the actual helicopter; no one could afford that. The key was to avoid making the audience sick, so it was all about moderation. How to control it? Wu Xiang came up with a great idea: simulate the big cinema screen.

Simply put, cinema screens were enormous, but on set, all they had was a monitor. So Wu Xiang pressed his head as close as possible to the monitor, trying to mimic the feeling of watching a huge screen in a theater.

Radiation was the least of his worries; his head was really starting to hurt! Just by getting that close, he already felt dizzy, but Wu Xiang persisted, repeating the test until he felt it was just right.

“Action!” Wu Xiang shouted, drenched in sweat, not even bothering to wipe his brow. Muscle memory doesn’t last long, and no one knew exactly how much strength they’d use—they had to move fast.

“What now?”

“Comrade soldier, there’s nowhere left for us to go. Look at this flood!”

“What do we do? What do we do?” On the rooftop, all the people looked at Zhang Shangwu, played by Chen Kun.

Zhang Shangwu had no answers. He watched helplessly as building after building was swept away; their little building wouldn’t hold out much longer. Even he was starting to lose hope and grabbed his own hair in despair.

Just then, the rhythmic thudding of rotor blades came—the helicopter was louder than anyone expected. Wu Xiang didn’t even need to cue Kun and the others; they all instinctively looked up.

Run, and start the shaking!

When the helicopter finally appeared in the shot, everyone saw hope for survival.

“Hey! We’re over here!”

“Ah! Thank goodness!” …

“Cut! Okay!” Wu Xiang was thrilled.

We may be amateurs, but we can still capture that Hollywood feel!

For the sake of progress, the outdoor shoot was divided among three teams. The helicopter Wu Xiang followed was just one of them—no surprise, given how expensive it was. He had no worries about the others. Lin Jidong, as the acting company commander, met his end in the water without a hitch. Huang Hanbo, playing Liu Xiangqun, dove headlong into the mud.

Everything was going smoothly. The crew of “The Great Flood” had finally reached the last shot, the final scene. Time had flown—two months had passed in the blink of an eye.

The principal crew members were summoned to a temporary tent set up by the production team; they were told there was something to discuss.

“Hey Hao Yi, your art direction isn’t looking so great. You didn’t draw this shot.” Wang Hongzhi was complaining in front of a wall covered in sketches—each one representing a key shot, all already filmed.

All three groups had now gathered, waiting for the final shot. But the storyboard was missing a sketch for the last shot—nothing was posted there.

“Don’t blame me,” Hao Yi protested. “Wu Xiang wouldn’t let me draw it. I have no idea what the last shot is.” His words left the three teams stunned; they glanced at each other in confusion.

So the final shot was a secret? Apparently, no one knew.

What’s more, everyone was present, even a few sergeants whose units had played the rescue soldiers—arranged by Colonel Huang. But Wu Xiang and Huang Hong were both absent. In fact, those two were now effectively the film’s producers. Their absence made things feel a bit fishy.

Could it be that Wu Xiang had run out of money? Had production stalled? But there was only one shot left!

“What’s going on? Do you know?”

“No idea.”

“You don’t know? You’re the lead! Didn’t you help write the script?”

“I read it, but I have no idea how the last scene’s supposed to be shot. I’m telling the truth.”

Everyone was filled with doubt, and Chen Kun became the focus of suspicion, since he and Wu Xiang had developed the script together and were closest to each other.

“All right, everyone, quiet down.”

Just as the chatter reached a peak, Wu Xiang and Huang Hong appeared.

“I have something to say,” Wu Xiang said, stepping forward with a smile and bowing to the group.

“Thank you all for your help. Truly, I’m deeply grateful. Filming went better than I ever expected, and I owe it all to you. Now, there’s just one shot left. Because of the weather, we can’t do it here at Bayi Studio. So, after talking things over with Mr. Huang, we’ve decided we have to head south for the final scene. Thank you, everyone. If it weren’t for your outstanding performances, we wouldn’t even have the funds to travel south. Everything can go according—”

“Wait a minute!” Suddenly, an employee from Bayi Studio spoke up. “Can we see what the final shot is?”

“Yeah!”

“We’re curious too.”

It wasn’t a big request and was easy to satisfy.

“Of course, no problem,” Wu Xiang replied, making his way to his bag. He pulled out a sheet of paper. “Brother Hao, I didn’t have you draw this shot for a simple reason—it doesn’t need to be drawn.”

He unfolded the sheet for all to see. It was a newspaper, with a photograph: a group of soldiers in life jackets, using their bodies to block a breach in the dike.