I made a film that was impossible to make, but I didn't know it was impossible, and that's how I was able to do it.
我拍摄了一部不可能完成的电影, 但是一开始我并不知道有这么大的难度, 不过,也正是因为不知道,我才得以完成这部影片。
"Mars et Avril" is a science fiction film. It's set in Montreal some 50 years in the future. No one had done that kind of movie in Quebec before because it's expensive, it's set in the future, and it's got tons of visual effects, and it's shot on green screen. Yet this is the kind of movie that I wanted to make ever since I was a kid, really, back when I was reading some comic books and dreaming about what the future might be.
《三月和四月》是一部科幻电影。 故事发生在50年之后的蒙特利尔。 以前没有人在魁北克拍摄过这样的电影 因为成本高,故事又发生在未来, 而且有大量的特效, 需要用绿屏拍摄。 然而我从童年 看漫画书 憧憬未来的时候开始 就想拍摄一部这样的电影。
When American producers see my film, they think that I had a big budget to do it, like 23 million. But in fact I had 10 percent of that budget. I did "Mars et Avril" for only 2.3 million.
美国制作人看到这部电影时, 他们以为我有很高的预算, 大概2300万。 然而事实上我的预算只有这个数字的十分之一。 我用230万拍摄了《三月和四月》。
So you might wonder, what's the deal here? How did I do this? Well, it's two things. First, it's time. When you don't have money, you must take time, and it took me seven years to do "Mars et Avril." The second aspect is love. I got tons and tons of generosity from everyone involved. And it seems like every department had nothing, so they had to rely on our creativity and turn every problem into an opportunity.
你可能会想,这是怎么回事? 我是怎么做到的? 有两个因素不可或缺。第一是时间。 如果没有钱,就只能慢慢来了, 我花了7年时间才完成《三月与四月》。 第二是热爱。 所有参与这部影片制作的人对我都非常慷慨。 每个部门似乎都一贫如洗, 所以我们只能依靠自己的创造力 将遇到的每一个问题转化为机会。
And that brings me to the point of my talk, actually, how constraints, big creative constraints, can boost creativity.
事实上,这也就是我今天演讲的中心, 限制,人在创作时面临的严重限制,可以激发人的创造力。
But let me go back in time a bit. In my early 20s, I did some graphic novels, but they weren't your usual graphic novels. They were books telling a science fiction story through images and text, and most of the actors who are now starring in the movie adaptation, they were already involved in these books portraying characters into a sort of experimental, theatrical, simplistic way.
不过,请允许我说一说以前的事情。 我二十出头的时候出版过一些图文小说, 它们和一般的图文小说不同, 是用图片和文字 讲述科幻故事的书籍, 参与电影改编的演员 大多参与过图文小说的创作 他们以一种实验性的、戏剧性的、简单的方式 扮演不同的人物。
And one of these actors is the great stage director and actor Robert Lepage. And I just love this guy. I've been in love with this guy since I was a kid. His career I admire a lot. And I wanted this guy to be involved in my crazy project, and he was kind enough to lend his image to the character of Eugène Spaak, who is a cosmologist and artist who seeks relation in between time, space, love, music and women. And he was a perfect fit for the part, and Robert is actually the one who gave me my first chance. He was the one who believed in me and encouraged me to do an adaptation of my books into a film, and to write, direct, and produce the film myself.
演员之一是优秀的舞台导演 和演员Robert Lepage。 我非常喜欢他。 我从小就非常喜欢他。 我很欣赏他的事业。 我希望他能参与我的疯狂项目 他非常善良,愿意放下自己的形象去 演绎Eugène Spaak这个角色 Eugène Spaak是一位在时间、空间、爱、音乐和女人 中间寻找关联的宇宙学家和艺术家。 他是诠释这个角色的完美人选, 事实上,Robert也是最早给我机会的人。 他信任我 鼓励我把我的书改编为一部电影 并且自己做电影的 编剧、导演和制片人。
And Robert is actually the very first example of how constraints can boost creativity. Because this guy is the busiest man on the planet. I mean, his agenda is booked until 2042, and he's really hard to get, and I wanted him to be in the movie, to reprise his role in the movie. But the thing is, had I waited for him until 2042, my film wouldn't be a futuristic film anymore, so I just couldn't do that. Right? But that's kind of a big problem. How do you get somebody who is too busy to star in a movie?
事实上,Robert参演这部电影的方式 是限制激发创意的第一个例子。 因为他是世界上最忙的人。 他的日程已经排到2042年了, 想跟他取得联系很难, 而我希望他参演电影, 在电影中再度演绎他的角色。 但是问题是,如果 我等到2042年,我的电影就不是发生在未来 的科幻电影了,我不能这么做。 这是一个很严重的问题。 怎么才能让一个超级大忙人 来参演电影呢?
Well, I said as a joke in a production meeting -- and this is a true story, by the way — I said, "Why don't we turn this guy into a hologram? Because, you know, he is everywhere and nowhere on the planet at the same time, and he's an illuminated being in my mind, and he's in between reality and virtual reality, so it would make perfect sense to turn this guy into a hologram."
我在一次制作会议上半开玩笑的说—— 顺便一提,这是真的—— 我说,“要不然我们把他变成全息图(hologram)吧?” 因为这个角色难觅踪迹 又无所不在, 在我脑海中他是一个发光的生物, 他身处现实和虚拟世界之间, 所以用全息影像塑造这个角色 非常合理。“
Everybody around the table laughed, but the joke was kind of a good solution, so that's what we ended up doing.
所有坐在桌边的人都笑了, 但是这个玩笑是个不错的方法, 所以我们最后真的实践了这个想法。
Here's how we did it. We shot Robert with six cameras. He was dressed in green and he was like in a green aquarium. Each camera was covering 60 degrees of his head, so that in post-production we could use pretty much any angle we needed, and we shot only his head. Six months later there was a guy on set, a mime portraying the body, the vehicle for the head. And he was wearing a green hood so that we could erase the green hood in postproduction and replace it with Robert Lepage's head. So he became like a renaissance man, and here's what it looks like in the movie.
我们是这样做的。我们用6台摄影机拍摄Robert。 他穿了绿色的衣服,好像身处 一个绿色的水族馆之中。 每台摄像机拍摄60度。 所以在后期制作时, 我们可以使用我们需要的任何角度, 我们只拍摄了他头部的动作。 6个月之后,我们请一个人到片场 饰演他的身体 安插头的部件。 他戴着绿色的面罩 后期制作时,我们可以抹掉这个面罩 然后换上 Robert Lepage的头。 这样他就成为了一个无所不能的人, 这是最终电影中的效果。
(Music)
(音乐)
(Video) Robert Lepage: [As usual, Arthur's drawing didn't account for the technical challenges. I welded the breech, but the valve is still gaping. I tried to lift the pallets to lower the pressure in the sound box, but I might have hit a heartstring. It still sounds too low.] Jacques Languirand: [That's normal. The instrument always ends up resembling its model.] (Music)
(视频) Robert Lepage:”和往常一样,Arthur的图纸 没有体现技术问题。 我焊好了后膛,但阀门依然有裂缝。 我尝试提起托架,降低共鸣箱的压力, 可能碰到了一根心弦。 音色还是太低沉了。“ Jacques Languirand: 【那很正常。 最终的乐器总是类似最初的模型。】 (音乐)
Martin Villeneuve: Now these musical instruments that you see in this excerpt, they're my second example of how constraints can boost creativity, because I desperately needed these objects in my movie. They are objects of desire. They are imaginary musical instruments. And they carry a nice story with them. Actually, I knew what these things would look like in my mind for many, many years. But my problem was, I didn't have the money to pay for them. I couldn't afford them. So that's kind of a big problem too. How do you get something that you can't afford?
Martin Villeneuve:大家在这个片段里看到的 这些乐器 是限制激发创作力的 第二个例子。 我的电影非常需要这些道具。 他们是我渴望的对象。 是现实中不存在的乐器。 他们背后有有趣的背景故事。 事实上,多年来,我脑中对这些乐器的外形 有清晰的构想。 然而我的问题是,我没有 资金,无法制造它们。 所以这也给我造成了不小的困扰。 如何得到你买不起的东西呢?
And, you know, I woke up one morning with a pretty good idea. I said, "What if I have somebody else pay for them?" (Laughter)
然后,某天起床之后,我突然想到了一个好主意。 我想,“不如让别人来买单吧?” (笑声)
But who on Earth would be interested by seven not-yet-built musical instruments inspired by women's bodies? And I thought of Cirque du Soleil in Montreal, because who better to understand the kind of crazy poetry that I wanted to put on screen? So I found my way to Guy Laliberté, Cirque du Soleil's CEO, and I presented my crazy idea to him with sketches like this and visual references, and something pretty amazing happened. Guy was interested by this idea not because I was asking for his money, but because I came to him with a good idea in which everybody was happy. It was kind of a perfect triangle in which the art buyer was happy because he got the instruments at a cheaper price, because they weren't even made. He took a leap of faith. And the artist, Dominique Engel, brilliant guy, he was happy too because he had a dream project to work on for a year. And obviously I was happy because I got the instruments in my film for free, which was kind of what I tried to do. So here they are.
但是在这世界上到底谁会对 7件以女性身体为灵感, 但是尚不存在的乐器感兴趣呢? 我想到了蒙特利尔的太阳马戏团(Cirque du Soleil), 因为没人会比太阳马戏团更理解 我想在荧幕上呈现的疯狂诗篇。 所以我找到了Guy Laliberté,太阳马戏团的CEO, 我用这样的草图和视觉参考, 向他呈现了我的疯狂构想。 然后一件奇妙的事情发生了。 Guy对这个想法很感兴趣。 不是因为我在向他寻求资金援助, 而是因为我向他呈现了一个好想法, 这样每个人都很开心。 这就像一个完美的三角形关系 购买这些艺术品的人高兴的原因是 他可以以相对低廉的价格购入这些乐器 因为它们尚不存在,他冒了很大的风险。 而才华横溢的艺术家Dominique Engel 也十分开心因为他可以花一年时间 完成他的梦寐以求的项目。 我显然也很开心 因为我免费得到了拍摄电影所需要的乐器 我达到了我的目标。
And my last example of how constraints can boost creativity comes from the green, because this is a weird color, a crazy color, and you need to replace the green screens eventually and you must figure that out sooner rather than later. And I had, again, pretty much, ideas in my mind as to what the world would be, but then again I turned to my childhood imagination and went to the work of Belgian comic book master François Schuiten in Belgium. And this guy is another guy I admire a lot, and I wanted him to be involved in the movie as a production designer. But people told me, you know, Martin, it's impossible, the guy is too busy and he will say no. Well, I said, you know what, instead of mimicking his style, I might as well call the real guy and ask him, and I sent him my books, and he answered that he was interested in working on the film with me because he could be a big fish in a small aquarium. In other words, there was space for him to dream with me. So here I was with one of my childhood heroes, drawing every single frame that's in the film to turn that into Montreal in the future. And it was an amazing collaboration to work with this great artist whom I admire.
这就是那些乐器。 我的最后一个有关限制激发创造力了的例子 与绿屏有关, 绿色是一种奇怪的颜色,疯狂的颜色, 最终必须去除绿屏 所以越早想出办法越好。 这次有关电影中的世界是什么样的 我脑中又有很多想法 我再次求助于我童年的想象 然后借鉴了比利时漫画大师 François Schuiten的作品。 我对他也十分仰慕 我希望它能作为制作设计师 参与到我的电影当中来。 但是别人都对我说,Martin,这是不可能的, 他太忙了,肯定会拒绝你。 我就说,与其模仿他的风格 我不如给他本人打给电话,邀请他参与, 然后我把我的书寄给他, 他答复我,他有兴趣 和我一同制作这部电影 因为他愿意做小水缸里的大鱼。 换句话说,他看中了与我一起梦想的空间。 所以我和我的儿时偶像一起 一帧一帧的绘制 电影中未来蒙特利尔的样子。 和我所认识的最伟大的艺术家一同工作 感觉很棒。
But then, you know, eventually you have to turn all these drawings into reality. So, again, my solution was to aim for the best possible artist that I could think of. And there's this guy in Montreal, another Quebecois called Carlos Monzon, and he's a very good VFX artist. This guy had been lead compositor on such films as "Avatar" and "Star Trek" and "Transformers," and other unknown projects like this, and I knew he was the perfect fit for the job, and I had to convince him, and, instead of working on the next Spielberg movie, he accepted to work on mine. Why? Because I offered him a space to dream. So if you don't have money to offer to people, you must strike their imagination with something as nice as you can think of.
但是,最终你必须把 这些图纸变成现实。 这一次,我的策略依然是 去找我能想到的最优秀的艺术家。 蒙特利尔有个魁北克人叫做Carlos Monzon 他是一位非常优秀的视觉特效艺术家。 他曾领导过《阿凡达》、《星际迷航》、 《变形金刚》等电影的特效制作, 也参与过一些类似《三月和四月》的小制作 我知道他是最佳人选 我必须说服他前来参与, 随后,他放弃了与斯皮尔伯格合作的机会 加入了我的电影的制作。 为什么?因为我为他提供了梦想的空间。 因此,如果你没法给人物质报酬 你就要用其它你所能想到的最美好的事物 抓住他的心。
So this is what happened on this movie, and that's how it got made, and we went to this very nice postproduction company in Montreal called Vision Globale, and they lent their 60 artists to work full time for six months to do this crazy film.
这样的事情在拍摄这部电影时发生了一次又一次 这部电影就是这样拍摄完成的, 我们在蒙特利尔找到了一家名为“视觉全球(Vision Globale)” 的优秀后期制作公司, 他们借给我60位艺术家 用半年时间全职为我的疯狂电影服务。
So I want to tell you that, if you have some crazy ideas in your mind, and that people tell you that it's impossible to make, well, that's an even better reason to want to do it, because people have a tendency to see the problems rather than the final result, whereas if you start to deal with problems as being your allies rather than your opponents, life will start to dance with you in the most amazing way. I have experienced it. And you might end up doing some crazy projects, and who knows, you might even end up going to Mars.
所以我想对大家说,如果你脑子里有 疯狂的想法, 如果别人认为这想法根本不可能实现, 你就更有理由想做这件事情, 因为人们习惯于被问题蒙蔽双眼, 看不到最终的结果 当你开始面对这些问题时, 把他们当做你的盟友,而非对手 生活便会以最奇妙的方式 开始以你的节奏舞蹈。 我亲身经历了这样的过程。 最终你可能会投身疯狂的事业 谁知道呢 说不定你还能去火星呢。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)