Li Xiaodong is writing.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: In fact, a noodle is inserted into a pot of rice, which simulates the picture of a bamboo forest fighting a sword. The green light is like a stills, so it is difficult to tell without looking carefully.
Ordinary vegetables and paper-cut figures, what effect can you shoot with your mobile phone? Recently, a netizen processed and utilized the ingredients and daily necessities around him, and then designed his own characters to shoot the effect comparable to that of a movie blockbuster. Received more than 30 million praises on the short video platform. Potatoes, ginger and broccoli can all be set, sprinkled with corn, flour and a little smoke effect. Under the background light, the villain in the foreground is lifelike, and the protagonist’s identity can be seen at a glance from the action clothes. The characters in China traditional Four Great Classical Novels all appear in such a miniature scene. Even the son’s feet have become props, stuck with hand-painted villains, and become the scene of climbing "Thumb Peak". Zi Niu News contacted the photographer, who is a film and television special effects teacher with a professional background, because he thought of such creative shooting at home.
Inspiration gives students unexpected gains in assigning homework
Photographer Li Xiaodong told reporters that he was born in fine arts, and now he is engaged in the later teaching of computer animation and film and television special effects. He usually likes to play mobile phone photography. Working remotely at home during the epidemic, I came up with the idea of shooting creative videos. "Because of the epidemic, I spend most of my time at home. When I usually buy food and cook, I think about whether I can shoot something interesting with ingredients and combine painting, paper-cutting and photography." He said: "Beijing has a long commute every day, and it takes two or three hours just on the road. I think the advantage of working at home is that I can leave these traffic hours and use them to shoot my thoughts." Li Xiaodong used to post some videos shot from unexpected angles on short video platforms, but in the last two months, he began to update intensively, shooting miniature silhouette scenes with vegetables and paper-cut figures, and then processing them into "big movies" like movie posters.
"The earliest video ‘ A green onion shoots a large piece ’ In fact, it is an assignment for students. Using a mobile phone to shoot at the hollow of green onions will become a very artistic blockbuster under the illumination of lights. " Later, Li Xiaodong began to try with all kinds of vegetables. He felt that the simple visual effect lacked some story, so he began to draw a villain and put it in the picture. After sending it to the short video platform, I found that everyone liked it. "At present, I have been shooting for a month, and I have recently updated one every one or two days. Four Great Classical Novels has basically finished filming, only the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is left, and many netizens have left messages under the video ‘ Urge more ’ 。” At the time of press release, the scene of Taoyuan Sanjieyi in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms has also been launched.
It takes several hours to shoot, and post-processing is very important.
Zi Niu news reporter saw that in the latest video, the "Dream of Red Mansions" scene shot with ginger, fennel and flour reached 30 million hits. Li Xiaodong cut ginger on the chopping block, then sprinkled flour and put a little fennel leaves. With a dozen background lights, ginger became a rockery in the garden, and fennel looked like a plant landscape. In this way, a picture of Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu appeared in the snow, and the effect was amazing.
Every video of Li Xiaodong will quickly present the shooting process. The video uses vegetables such as green peppers and potato chips, and it is made into a miniature background through certain processing, and then it is illuminated from behind with a mobile phone flash to form an atmosphere. The characters in the foreground are lifelike like posters of movie blockbusters. Not only did he shoot the water margin, Journey to the West, Dream of Red Mansions and other famous works, but also the classic movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, popular drama Chen Qingling and so on all appeared in the camera. A half-eaten apple was made into a climbing blockbuster, a 007 movie poster was made out of a waste potato chip box, and a pumpkin and a mirror set out the touching scene of the legend of the new White Snake. The most special prop is Li Xiaodong’s son’s foot, which is glued to his toes with a piece of paper, making a picture of "climbing the Five Fingers Peak".
Although this short video only takes about ten seconds, the shooting process of Li Xiaodong usually takes two to three hours. "This doesn’t include the time to be creative. When you usually do things, you actually start to conceive. With the theme, you will think about what materials to use and how to put them. Most of the time, when you think about it in your mind, you will make it directly, and you rarely play with things. Only once can I think of what ingredients to use to express the elegance of trees, I paid attention to it when I visited the supermarket, and finally bought a handful of fennel, which was good. "
In addition to the selection of materials for the set, the shooting process must first set the theme and use what elements. Li Xiaodong said: "It is very difficult for people to design shapes, because in film and television works, we can often identify a person by his face, while hair style, clothes, props and so on are often auxiliary elements, but you can’t see the face of the person in the silhouette, so you need to highlight other elements to identify who this person is at a glance." Li Xiaodong told reporters that the characters in Journey to the West are too distinctive and easy to recognize, but the characters in the dream of the Red Chamber are not so simple. "For example, what is Lin Daiyu’s hairstyle, with a little shoulder slip, which is the image of a classical beauty. I will design these characteristics to be a little more prominent in order to have a high degree of recognition."
After designing and drawing these characters, paper-cutting is also very time-consuming, because the characters are complex and need to be cut very carefully to make the picture look good, and paper-cutting often takes up some time. "All my shooting is done with only two mobile phones, one for shooting and the other for lighting. The last film in the video has good lighting effect, and it is also assisted by some props, such as changing the color of light, such as adding a little smoke to make the background softer." Li Xiaodong told reporters that, for example, if you need blue sky, you should cover a layer of blue plastic cloth in front of the flash of your mobile phone. If you need a yellow sky at sunset, put a piece of bread in front of the flash, and create different light effects completely through these props.
Promotion hopes that more people will explore new areas of mobile photography.
After the video is constantly updated, Li Xiaodong quickly has 200,000 fans. Every day, dozens and hundreds of fans leave messages for him backstage asking about his shooting skills and techniques. He said that some tutorials will be prepared soon to teach you some methods of modeling, shooting and later stage. "I saw someone imitating me on some short video platforms, and soon there were a large number of fans. Some photographers told me that this shooting method allowed them to find a new field of playing photography. In short, many people are very interested in this form of work. "
Li Xiaodong said that he hopes to let more people explore new areas of mobile photography. "When I usually go out with my colleagues, I am particularly keen on mobile phone photography. Everyone will take photos from my circle of friends ‘ Stealing pictures ’ Take it and send it. Many people wonder whether my mobile phone is good or what the secret is. In fact, it is conceived by using the language of the lens. Mobile phone is the most convenient tool for everyone to shoot at present, but not everyone can use it well. My video attempts just want to play more functions of mobile phone shooting, which proves that there are still many fields waiting for us to explore. " (Reporter Liu Liu)