420 Pyrotechnician (1/2)

Chapter 420: Pyrotechnician

Translator: Nyoi-Bo StudioEditor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Most of the films that Feng Xuan used to make were about the Anti-Japanese War, as well as a few urban police versus gangster films, but he had never shot films featuring animals.

Since he decided to take over the film, he had to shoot it well, so he sent his assistant to collect some good movies and dramas about animals in recent years, and one of them was the movie of Wolf Totem, which was also his important reference source.

The wolf was an animal that cannot be tamed—the theme of Wolf Totem was nonsense. Wolves were the most easily tamable animals and had been domesticated by different ethnic groups around the world as early as 15,000 years ago, or else where did so many different kinds of dogs come from? Compared to the desert wildcats that were tamed by the Egyptians between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago, the domestication of wolves was much easier.

Dogs and wolves had many similarities, for example, they were both gregarious animals, and within their social groups there were a strict hierarchy system, and both animals had high IQ and so on and so forth. Living in groups represented that they knew how to cooperate with each other to hunt and fend off their enemies; the hierarchy system allowed them to obey the powerhouse; their high IQ made them easier to understand the orders from humans…all of which had become the bases for their easy domestication.

Feng Xuan had not only watched the film of Wolf Totem for several times, but also through his friends in the film and television industry he had attained the materials behind the scene to conduct a thorough and systematic analysis of the shooting of the film.

During the analysis, he paid attention to one person in particular. This man was called Andrew Simpson, a professional wolf trainer from Britain, who had played an indispensable role in the filming of the Wolf Totem.

Feng Xuan again checked at Andrew Simpson's resume, which was really incredible!

Not only was he a professional wolf trainer hired by the Wolf Totem crew, but also he had taken his wolves to the filming of Game of Thrones and The Revenant. Even in the movie of Operating Mekong, the eye-catching police dog Xiao Tian was instructed and trained by him.

In the early stage of preparing for the movie Dog Warrior, Feng Xuan also considered calling Mr. Simpson to train police dogs for the crew, however, there were two problems preventing him from doing so—first of all, the schedule issue. Andrew Simpson was currently in another crew and was not available. Secondly, asking him to train the dogs will take some time, and the shooting cycle for Dog Warrior was already very short, and there was no extra tutoring time, so Feng Xuan was more inclined to find a dog that was able to put into work instantly.

Feng Xuan once again looked at Famous. He had held great expectations on this dog because of its impeccable abilities in understanding, execution and acting. The perfect performance of playing dead was so natural that it almost seemed like it was truly dead. Even Nie Yuan had nothing to say—the better the dog's acting skills were, the lesser money will be spent on post-editing and special effects, thus saving money for the producers.

The only thing that Feng Xuan wasn’t sure was the gut of this dog. No matter how outstanding its acting skill was, if it fled when seeing flames and hearing explosion, it cannot become the protagonist of this action movie. Of course, it can play in the warm hearted family films. If later he heard any director intend to shoot family drama with dogs, he would certainly strongly recommend Famous.

Feng Xuan's eyes fell on Zhang Zian.

Compared to Famous, he was actually more interested in Zhang Zian who was able to train Famous so well. After all, if he can train Famous, it meant he can train more dogs. He silently looked at the back of this young man, with inexplicable thoughts emerging in his mind—this young man can not only train dogs but also cats, if he was willing to pursue long-term development in the film and television industry, the sky will be his limit!

He sincerely hoped that Zhang Zian would be the Andrew Simpson of his crew and also become China’s Andrew Simpson.