Chapter 183 Twinkle twinkle sparkle
It was already 6 o'clock in the evening when I came out of Mr. Li's company.
Looking at the sky, in the evening of May, only the dusk over the city reminded everyone of the end of the day.
At this time, there was an endless stream of pedestrians leaving get off work, and the horns of vehicles also sounded.
Meng Shu took a look at the contract in his hand and smiled slightly.
This is a temporary employment contract, which is a proof that Mr. Li was invited to the company as a director.
The official effective date is counted from four days later until the end of the E3 exhibition.
During these four days, it is necessary to pull people's hands.
Mr. Li was in charge of the actors who participated in the performance, and said that he would contact his students tonight and borrow a team from him.
So this is tantamount to solving Meng Shu's follow-up work, which is quite comfortable.
As for Mr. Li himself, Meng Shu didn't expect it to be so smooth, and the negotiation was settled without any waste of words.
He originally thought that this meeting was probably for bargaining.
It turned out that Director Li himself was not sure, but he also wanted to try horror-type stage plays, so he wanted to meet and talk in detail.
This is exactly what Meng Shu wanted.
It doesn’t matter if Mr. Li is unfamiliar, he can help on this point.
After all, the initial plan was to find such professionals who are capable and will listen to advice.
Director Li's ability is beyond doubt. In terms of listening to suggestions, if it is a stage play of other styles, perhaps no one is qualified to give suggestions.
But it is his first attempt in the horror genre and he has no experience.
Therefore, the role of Meng Shu is reflected. That is to explain to him and avoid detours.
The cooperation of the two, for this stage play, is equivalent to the combination of two swords, the effect will definitely not be too bad, and it must be done according to his ideas.
Meng Shu nodded in satisfaction.
After putting away the contract, I called an online car-hailing service and rushed to a nice hotel for a temporary stay.
The next day, he hurried back to Shencheng and started his second round of plans.
In order to create momentum for "Dead Space", Meng Shu considered a lot.
Virtual 3D stage play is just the first step.
This time he participated in the exhibition, he is going to provide on-site demos, and he has genuine products.
According to the exhibition information sent by Director Lian, every E3 exhibition, the organizer will turn it into a game park and divide it into multiple areas.
The industry media and players who came to participate in the exhibition basically have no worries about eating, drinking, and having fun here.
You can even see that many companies have developed their own game character Cos in their own area to attract exhibitors.
It looks like a game version of Disneyland.
Because of this, the spacious geographical advantage allowed the organizer to prepare 10 independent venues that can accommodate thousands of people, which are specially used for holding game conferences for some companies.
However, Director Lian clearly stated that the utilization rate of these 10 venues is no more than 5 each year.
The reason is that it is too expensive. To hold a press conference, you need to pay the organizer a dozen W, and it is also stipulated that the press conference should not exceed 2 hours.
Therefore, unless it is a big company, or a world-renowned big IP. Small and medium-sized companies will not rent an independent venue to develop conferences at E3.
At most, rent an area outside with a large number of people and put a few computers on the new tour.
Therefore, it is understandable for the organizer not to allow setting and decoration on the stage of the venue.
But since these stages cannot be moved, then the large venue outside can always be used, right?
Therefore, Meng Shu's second plan was to build a haunted house in his own display area.
The style is designed to be the passageway of the Stone Village in "Dead Space", and then find a few staff members who make up as necromorphs and wander in it.
If the exhibitors want to experience the trial version of "Dead Space", they must first pass through the "Ishimura Passage" where necromorphs wander around before they can come to the demo area.
This method of bringing the game to reality must be very effective.
And Meng Shu had this idea a long time ago.
The main inspiration comes from the E3 exhibition of "Resident Evil 2 Remake".
The game company at that time built a haunted house in the "police station corridor" on the venue, and then let the staff dress up as zombies and wander in it.
Exhibitors can only come to the trial play area after passing through this haunted house.
This is a very good idea and example, and Meng Shu will not let it go.
But the question is, how to find the workers who built this temporary haunted house?
After all, the location of the E3 exhibition is in America. You can’t bring domestic workers with you, right?
So the best way is to pay some money and let the organizers implement it. You only need to provide a rough sketch of the scene.
And the staff who play the necromorph can hire people from the stage crew, saving a lot of trouble.
Of course, to entrust the organizer of E3, I still have to trouble the supervisor to communicate.
I have to be responsible for the development of the trial version and the direction of the stage play, so I can't keep up.
And there is another important thing, that is music.
In horror games, the importance of music is self-evident.
The most famous and most impressive one is "Twinkle Twinkle Twinkle Sparkle", a classic nursery rhyme that has been known to every household for more than two centuries.
In the original "Dead Space" trailer, this nursery rhyme that almost everyone is familiar with was sung over the radio by an adult female voice in an ethereal, slow, slightly hoarse voice.
The tune has a unique electronic sound, and it also reveals exhaustion, despair, and helplessness. It seems to be singing softly in an exhausted and isolated way.
Combined with shocking pictures such as hell-like stumps and arms, mountains of corpses and seas of blood, blood letters on walls and weird symbols under the influence of religion. Let this originally positive and cheerful nursery rhyme suddenly become a mourning song that seems to appease the dead!
Impressive enough to make people unforgettable!
Of course, there is no such nursery rhyme "Twinkle Twinkle Twinkle" in this world.
If it is restored directly in "Dead Space", without the blessing of the childhood filter, the effect will definitely be greatly reduced.
Use the local nursery rhymes of this world?
It’s not impossible, but you can’t choose randomly, at least one song that everyone can catch, and the theme is the universe of stars.
But Meng Shu has only been in this world for a year, and his childhood memories of the original body have long been forgotten, which also means that he knows very little about the nursery rhymes here.
Therefore, Meng Shu handed over the work to the company's newly opened sound effect department, asking them to find suitable domestic and foreign nursery rhymes.
And hummed a recording of the accompaniment and sent it to them as a reference, asking to find a similar one as soon as possible.
When these things were arranged one by one, two days had passed.
Mr. Li also brought his students and stage team to Shencheng as promised.
The number of people is not too many, a total of 20 people.
Meng Shu immediately arranged for them the best nearby hotel and settled them down. And invite them to have a good meal, which is regarded as a cleansing.
Mr. Li himself is also very happy, and has an inexplicable sense of excitement to come out of the mountain again. There is also a sense of anticipation about being exposed to new things.
This kind of mentality made him ask Meng Shu for the script that night, as if he was going to read it at night.
Although Mr. Li's positive attitude satisfied Meng Shu, he had just arrived in a different place, and with his age, it was better to rest first anyway.
So Meng Shu told him that there is no need to race against time, the most important thing is to have a good rest, and everything will be discussed tomorrow.
Although Mr. Li persisted, he finally gave up under Meng Shu's persuasion.
At 8:30 the next morning, before Meng Shuren arrived at the company, animator Xu Hong sent a V letter. It is said that Mr. Li and others arrived at the company early, and now they have arranged to wait in the conference room and sent them the script.
This positive mobilization made Meng Shu feel ashamed.
At the same time, I also feel a little admiration for Mr. Li's conscientiousness.
At least he doesn't have the kind of high-spirited and low-spirited TV dramas who acted in the dog-blood TV series.
Therefore, when Meng Shu entered the company, he saw Mr. Li, the stage team and others gathered around the conference table, and began to practice his lines and dialogue.
Because motion capture actors and voice actors are separated, only those who need to be voiced need to practice speaking.
The motion-capture actors just followed everyone through the script.
But because there are no pictures, Mr. Li tried his best to explain and make points when going through the script, whether it was the lines or the narration.
So much so that Meng Shu, who was standing outside the glass door of the meeting room, didn't even notice.
It can be seen how hard it is.
Meng Shu listened for a while, knocked on the door, walked in, and greeted everyone.
Then I sat in the corner, watching everyone's work on the first day with great interest.
The eyes also looked at Mr. Li frequently, only to see that he was listening to the lines and practicing, while recording something in the notebook in his hand from time to time.
A very reliable look really satisfied Meng Shu.
And interrupt the practice from time to time, reminding what tone should be used for this line and what tone should be used for that line.
As an experienced stage director, even if it is a horror genre that has never been directed, he can see his ability in the context of his lines.
The actors did not show any irritation or impatience, but they were constantly changing according to Mr. Li's reminders, in order to achieve the best effect.
Soon, after a morning of simple practice, everyone's lines are almost familiar.
In the afternoon, Meng Shu led them into the motion capture room.
But as the actual rehearsals got underway, problems started popping up.
One of them is that the actors are playing monsters for the first time.
Inexperienced, they don't know how monsters attack and move.
So Meng Shu spent a lot of time directing actions.
Then, it's the actors who don't know how to express weird and twisted horror through body movements.
Regarding this point, Meng Shu personally demonstrated.
In the original world, there is a relatively widespread standing up movement in the dance circle, called "zombie standing up".
The main imitation is the zombie with distorted limbs and weird actions in the movie "Train to Busan".
This set of movements refers to a person lying on the ground, without relying on his hands and feet, to achieve a perfect rise by exerting force on the waist and twisting the body.
In the eyes of others, this standing up action is like a corpse suddenly being pulled up by a mysterious force, so amazing.
Putting it on the zombies, the sense of terror and crisis is instantly oncoming.
The stiff joints move after getting up, and it can also reflect the sense of "this is definitely not human".
So, if this set of moves is used on necromorphs, combined with the already terrifying look, the effect will definitely be outstanding.
So Meng Shu showed the 'zombie standing up' and 'stiff movement' on the spot to tell the motion capture actors that these are the basic movements of monsters.
Because this way of getting up was unheard of, everyone at the scene was stunned. For them, it seemed that the door to a new world had been opened, and they were stunned.
Some people even exclaimed on the spot: You can still get up like this! ?
Even Mr. Li couldn't help but sigh that the idea of getting up and moving stiffly is so interesting, claiming that let alone a monster, even if it is done by a human, the sense of horror will not diminish.
After that, there is a lot of practice. After Meng Shu demonstrated in person, the motion capture actors began to learn.
And he was not idle after guiding for a while, and returned to his office directly, and began to focus on the development of the demo version of "Dead Space".
As the days passed, the busy Meng Shu basically ran back and forth between the motion capture room, office and home, day and night.
There were even times when I fell asleep in the office until dawn.
Fortunately, the hard work was not in vain. After two weeks, after a long rehearsal, the actors are very familiar with the content of the stage play.
The sound effect department also found a well-known nursery rhyme, "The Stars Shine" with an accompaniment tune very similar to "Twinkle, Twinkle, Sparkle"!
This is a nursery rhyme from Russia. After being translated in China, it was included in elementary school music textbooks. It is also a must-learn song in music class.
So this song has a high popularity and is very well-known.
After listening to it himself, Meng Shu couldn't help but sigh that the two songs are 60% similar.
Although the lyrics and part of the accompaniment are different, the difference is obvious.
But the childhood filter and popularity that the song should have can perfectly replace "Twinkle Twinkle Sparkle".
So Meng Shu asked the person in charge of the sound effects department to contact the copyright owner of the song without hesitation to buy the right to use it.
In addition, Meng Shu's 30-minute trial version was also temporarily produced.
Now, it is already June 9th.
Time to head out for America, too.
This chapter deleted a lot of silly dialogues and the plot of making music. There is no way. I get off work at 10 o’clock for several consecutive days. The rhythm is already very slow. I can only press several chapters of the plot together to improve the rhythm. I've been really busy recently, and it's almost the end of the year. Feel sorry!
(end of this chapter)