How many years did it take to film the first part of Fengshen?

"Fengshen Part 1" is part of the "Fengshen Trilogy". The entire trilogy took 9 years to prepare and complete, and the actual filming took 18 months.

After nine years of preparation and creation, "Fengshen Part 1", the opening work of the mythological epic film "Fengshen Trilogy" directed by Wu Ershan, will be released on July 20, 2023. It is obviously difficult to make the grand and profound story of the gods into a movie. Director Wu Ershan said that he likes the challenge very much.

Since 2014, Wu Ershan and the screenwriting team have started writing the script. After a lot of research and discussion, they invited anthropologists, historians, folklorists, historical novel writers, etc. Elites from various professional fields participated in the script planning meeting and revised and polished more than ten drafts of the script in the past five years.

In the end, he chose to adapt the story of Fengshen into a trilogy of mythological epic films. Wu Ershan said that the choice of adapting in the classic narrative form of "trilogy" was based on the analysis of the original work. The plan was determined after analyzing the framework structure and narrative features, hoping to present the essence of this epic myth.

In terms of creation, "The Trilogy of the Gods" adopts a narrative structure of a single independent film and three parts forming a complete story. This series has also become the first work in the history of Chinese films to be created in a three-part continuous shooting mode.

Nearly ten thousand people participated in the preparations

Wurshan said: "It took two years to prepare for the formation of the team, and the shooting cycle lasted 18 months, with 438 shooting days. The workload is unprecedented. The creation of a movie is inseparable from the behind-the-scenes staff. We have 8,000 preparation and filming staff, as well as 1,565 post-production staff.”

According to reports, "The Trilogy of the Gods" has two characteristics in terms of visual effects: the workload is extremely huge and the work is very difficult. There are more than 1,700 visual effects shots in "Fengshen Part 1" alone, and the visual effects work took nearly four years from preparation to completion.

One of the innovations in the visual effects of "Fengshen Part 1" is to visualize the story plot using lens language through animation preview. This method was widely used in "Fengshen Trilogy", among which the animation preview of "Fengshen Part 1" lasted 125 minutes. In Wuershan’s opinion, animation preview is necessary for the mythological epic genre: “It provides a goal for each production department.

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