As soon as Alan Hassenfeld finished speaking, another voice sounded behind him: "Eric, do you mind if we also listen to your views on Transformers?"
Eric turned his head, Michael Eisner and Edgar Bronfman walked side by side.
Not far away, Michael Eisner and Edgar Bronfman noticed that Alan Hassenfeld approached Eric to talk to Eric, and hurried over, trying to prevent the two people from discussing the copyright of Transformers. negotiation.
Although Firefly is apparently indifferent to the copyright of Transformers, no one can deny that it is the most powerful contender for the copyright of Transformers. The details of Alan Hassenfeld's active contact with Eric made Michael? The two of Sina felt a sense of crisis, and if Eric snatched the copyright of Transformers at Universal's party, they would become the laughing stock of Hollywood.
"Of course no problem, Michael," Eric nodded with a smile. Of course he didn't mind Michael Eisner's hearing. He even hoped that his next words would be spread throughout Hollywood.
Following Michael Eisner's actions, some guests from other studios who noticed the situation here also came over nonchalantly, and they were also very interested in the Transformers copyright.
Diane Kruger and Cindy Crawford, who were leaning next to Eric, found that in just a few minutes, Eric became the focus of the arena again, and the surroundings were difficult for them to touch in the past At this time, the senior executives of the film company surrounded Eric like stars and the moon, and pretended to be listening respectfully without pretensions. The two of them held Eric's arm, but Linda? Evangelista's three daughters were unceremoniously pushed to the periphery of the crowd by these big men, and they looked at the two of them with envy. .
Although Diane Kruger and Cindy Crawford knew that these big shots didn't care about the two of them at all, they still felt an inexplicable sense of satisfaction and pride in their hearts.
Alan Hasenfeld looked at the people around him and Eric's confident appearance, but he felt a bad feeling, and he regretted coming over to talk to Eric just now.
Eric's current posture obviously doesn't seem to mean to say good things for Transformers.
Moreover, with Eric's status in Hollywood, what he said. The past will definitely not be ignored lightly, and Alan Hassenfeld does not believe that Eric will talk nonsense simply to suppress the Transformers copyright.
Sure enough, waiting patiently for the crowd to come over, Eric said: "When I heard that everyone paid attention to the rights to adapt the Transformers movie recently. I also became interested in this toy series, and I considered some production plans in private, but in the end I came to a conclusion The conclusion is that under the current conditions, Transformers does not have much value for adaptation. If a live-action movie is forced to be produced, the cost and risk will be very high."
If it weren't for someone obliquely linking the Transformers movie adaptation rights to Firefly, there wouldn't be so many people participating in the competition. Nine out of ten people didn't believe Eric's words, but they didn't rush to refute.
Eric looked around for a week, and continued: "According to my vision, if a live-action movie is to be made, the image design of Transformers should be a complex and metallic structure composed of hundreds or thousands of parts. Sophisticated mechanical life forms. These life forms also need to transition flawlessly between cars and robots. I discussed my idea at length with the special effects engineer in the digital field and came to the conclusion that if this idea The production of CG special effects of the film will be more than ten times more difficult than that of "Jurassic Park", and the production cost will be astronomical."
After Eric finished speaking, Michael Eisner asked sharply, although he had a smile on his face: "Eric, I'm curious, the difficulty of making Transformers is more than ten times that of "Jurassic Park". , How did you calculate the 'ten times'?"
Everyone around just took Eric's 'ten times' as an adjective to describe the difficulty of making Transformers. If Michael Eisner hadn't spoken, no one would have talked about it.
But Michael Eisner suddenly took advantage of this to attack Eric. Although everyone still had sincere and curious expressions on the surface, they couldn't help gloating in their hearts. I want to see how Eric plans to deal with Michael Eisner's tricky question.
To their disappointment, Eric's expression didn't show any hint of embarrassment. When he heard Michael Eisner's question, the smile on the corner of his mouth remained unchanged, and he said, "Michael, about the specific software development and technical testing involved in CG special effects. , 3D modeling and other processes, I think you must not be clear. Let’s take the most critical image rendering of CG special effects as an example. The special effects engineer in the digital field told me that if I want to achieve the kind of CG effect I need, movies Every frame of the picture involving CG special effects requires a current top rendering workstation to work continuously for 630 hours."
Hearing the gasps of surprise around him, Eric laughed and said, "Everyone will think that the 630-hour rendering time is unbelievable, but if you don't believe it, you can call the digital field to verify it. Of course, there is another point, The large-scale post-rendering farm that Digital Domain has just built in Florida has 10,000 rendering servers. If all of them work, it only takes more than 3 minutes to render such a frame of pictures, which seems insignificant. But everyone, don’t forget, what I said It’s just one frame. If we assume that this film has a 30-minute special effects scene, then the number of frames involved is 43,200 frames. Even if the rendering parameters of all frames can be completed in one step, there is no need for any testing, and the digital field is also required. It took 115 days for the rendering farm to complete all the work at full capacity, while the post-rendering work of "Jurassic Park" two years ago only took about a month, and the digital field was used. Located in Venice Beach, it will soon be eliminated If you count the difference in computing speed, the rendering farm in Florida should be eight times that of the Venice Beach rendering farm because of the scale and equipment upgrades. So, I just said that the production difficulty of "Transformers" is "Gnome" Luo Ji Park" is more than ten times, and there is nothing wrong with it."
Michael Eisner has a slightly embarrassed expression. In recent years, CG special effects have risen strongly. Of course, it is impossible for him to understand nothing.
If what Eric said is true, then the current "Transformers" really has no production value, 115 consecutive days of post-rendering workload, even if the producer is willing to pay this huge rendering fee. The digital field will not be willing to undertake. The digital field accepts special effects orders for dozens of films, large and small, every year. It is absolutely impossible for a film to occupy the rendering farm for four months.
Moreover, in the entire Hollywood, only the digital field has enough economic strength to build a large rendering farm. Other second- and third-tier special effects companies can only rent rendering servers from large companies on a small scale.
Michael Eisner fell silent, but Alan Hasenfeld asked, "Eric, can't the production specifications be lowered?"
"Of course, I just don't know how to do it. Will the audience buy it?" Eric shrugged and smiled again: "I'm a bit of a perfectionist, which is not a good habit in making movies. So you can Don’t pay attention to what I just said, there must be cheap production plans, and you can even use models to shoot, this will definitely be cheaper, and I will go to the cinema to see it.”
When everyone heard Eric's words, they all complained, since Eric said that. How could they ignore it.
Eric didn't care about killing or burying. After speaking, he felt a little hungry, so he left the people with different thoughts and walked towards the buffet table in the hall.
Cindy Crawford and Diane Kruger still followed Eric step by step, and Linda Evangelista, who had just been squeezed outside, also followed.
Picking up the plate with Eric and picking food, Cindy Crawford asked, "Eric, does it really take 630 hours?"
Eric put the grilled shrimp on his plate, nodded and said: "Yeah, this involves very complicated technical details. But the rendering time of more than 600 hours is real."
Diane Kruger also said: "Doesn't that mean that Transformers will never be able to be produced?"
"Of course not. According to Moore's Law in the semiconductor industry, the speed of computers will double every one and a half to two years. Then it only takes ten years. To render the same frame, it only takes more than ten It’s only an hour, and other technologies will develop simultaneously by then, and it will become very simple to complete the idea I just imagined.”
the year 1995. The semiconductor industry has only just entered the era of microprocessors for a few years, and the mainstream CPU cores all use a 0.35-micron process, which is still a long way from the nanometer era. The bottom-level instructions of a computer CPU are actually a set of 0 and 1 instructions issued by millions of transistors. With the development of semiconductor technology and Moore's Law, the number of transistors is constantly doubling, and the speed of CPU processing information is also corresponding. double.
Ten years later, the work that can be completed in just over ten hours now requires more than six hundred hours. This limitation is not so easy to break, and we can only wait patiently for the development of technology. So now is simply not the time to be making Transformers.
Moreover, Eric repeatedly mentioned the digital field in his remarks just now, and also conveyed another message to those people, that is, in Hollywood, even if you want to make Transformers, it is impossible to bypass the hurdle of the digital field. Because in Hollywood, only the digital field has the ability to undertake Transformers special effects. Although the digital field has maintained an independent operation state in recent years and has not rejected any special effects orders from Firefly's competitors, this does not mean that Firefly cannot do so.
As for Industrial Light & Magic, in recent years, almost all the producers of blockbuster CG special effects films have been in the digital field. The continuous orders for special effects not only bring a lot of income to the digital field, but also allow the digital field to have sufficient financial strength to continuously invest in technology. research and development. At this time, the digital field has already left Industrial Light and Magic far behind in terms of technology accumulation. Take the rendering farm in the digital field as an example. Firefly has invested 100 million US dollars in the rendering farm of the digital field in Florida. The powerful computing power is enough to support the rendering needs of all orders under the digital field. Squeeze out 100 million US dollars to build a rendering farm of the same size, but the income brought by the CG special effects orders in its hands may not even support the maintenance and upgrade costs of such a large-scale rendering farm.
Eric was thinking about this, and Cindy Crawford, who was beside him, heard what he said just now, but said: "Ten years, it's only six times at most, how could it become more than ten hours."
Eric froze for a moment, then shook his head and smiled, looked at the other women, obviously showing puzzled expressions, and couldn't help but sigh at the mathematics level of these beautiful beauties.
It was Diane Kruger who was the first to understand, and said, "It doesn't seem to be six times. If it doubles continuously, it should be two to the sixth power, that is... well, sixty-four times, Eric, I'm right ?"
"Smart," Eric nodded, picked up a grilled shrimp and handed it over: "Hey, I'll reward you."
"Hehe," Diane Kruger smiled happily, looking at the other women, especially Cindy Crawford, with a little complacency in her expression. Cindy Crawford was entangled with Eric, which made her feel very threatened.
Cindy Crawford noticed the look in Diane Kruger's eyes, and sneered with disdain in her heart, how silly, how many men would like smart women. Thinking of this in her heart, Cindy Crawford already showed a little resentment in her expression. She stretched out the dinner plate in front of Eric, and said softly, "Eric, I want it too."
"Okay, okay," Eric picked up a grilled shrimp and put it on Cindy Crawford's plate. He watched the other three girls stretch out their plates and didn't mind, joking while holding the grilled shrimp He said, "How about we take away all the grilled shrimp on this tray?"
Seeing Eric making a gesture to pick up the whole tray, the girls hurriedly stopped them and said with a smile: "Hehe, don't, you will be laughed to death."
After eating some food and dancing with a few women, I noticed that Hasbro CEO Alan Hassenfeld left the party not long after talking with himself, and Eric also thought of leaving.
However, looking at Diane Kruger and Cindy Crawford who seemed to be planning to leave with him, and even the expectant eyes of the other three women, Eric could only say: "Cindy, I am going home."
"Eric, I haven't been to Pointe Manor yet, can you take me to see it?" Cindy Crawford said boldly, completely ignoring Diane Kruger on the other side. (To be continued.)