Wuershan, director of the Creation of the Gods movie, put out some videos explaining the filming which I thought were interesting. There are spoilers for the movie below the cut.
Wuershan picked these four scenes to discuss because he felt that they were iconic/representative of this movie.
I saw this in the documentary series before but basically because the camera was always moving in this scene, it was kind of hard to show with static story boards, so instead the movie was animated in Previz.
This first scene with Yu Shi in the fiery battlefield was presented almost as one take. Wuershan pointed out the places where they edited scenes together.
Oh lol for the soldier who was shot with arrows while Yu Shi was trying to carry him, the arrows were added with special effects. Which would seem logical, but that just never occurred to me XD
Now that I'm watching these scenes again, the fire special effects look really good.
According to Wuershan, this scene took the most amount of tries, around 70 takes. First of all, it was difficult because the camera had to start off super close to the horse's eye, but horses don't feel comfortable with things close to their sides like that. So they had to be very careful in filming next to the horse (with a special extended camera tool?) and hoping that the horse doesn't move because it'll smash the camera. Secondly, as the camera moved out, Yu Shi had to get the horse to do that maneuver where it goes on their hind legs. But he kind of has limited control of that because sometimes the horse will go left or right. And they really wanted the horse to do that thing where its hooves went in the air and you just kind of have to hope that the horse will do it. To get this shot, Yu Shi had gone through 8-9 months of horseback training. The horse was bought in 2017 and trained until now. So a lot of things had to come together to get this shot.
Wuershan also mentioned the ringing sound, meant to show audiences how out of it Ji Fa was when he found himself in this chaotic battle.
The second scene was the patricide scene. He explained how this might be the most important scene in the movie, and I see what he means by that. It's at this point that Ji Fa starts to think a little differently from what Yin Shou's been telling him all this time. While the other sons kill their fathers (because their fathers forced them to or because they decided it was the right thing to do), Ji Fa instead tried another route to save his father's life. Like Ji Chang said, if Ji Fe really believed in Yin Shou's values wholeheartedly, he wouldn't have hesitated to kill Ji Chang. But he did hesitate, and that starts Ji Fa's journey as a hero.
Ah so it was on purpose that Ji Chang was seated to the side. And it makes sense symbolically, to show that Ji Chang won't bow to Yin Shou's tyranny and doesn't recognize him as a sovereign. The three other dukes faced the front, and in the end they were killed by their sons. Not Ji Chang.
Wuershan explained that the scene was set up like a musical, and also pointed out Kris Phillips' musical theatre background.
Yin Shou walked behind the hostage sons so that the sons would be caught between Yin Shou and their fathers, to signify the two sides fighting for the sons' trust.
It's nice to see that even though these are not major characters, the other sons and dukes did have fleshed out personalities. We saw the differences in their body language as they reacted to Yin Shou's tyranny.
Yin Shou told the sons to think of what had happened to Su Quanxiao, who at the beginning had been forsaken by his father. When Yin Shou said that, instead of doing a full flashback, they included only the sounds of that scene, both the background sounds as well as Su Qianxiao's words. In my opinion, with the combination of that big hall, it makes Su Quanxiao's voice feel almost a bit ghostly.
Wuershan goes on to explain the difference in personalities between the four sons, which I noticed during the movie too!
Chong Yingbiao was the most ambitious one. He paid respects to his father but then he stabbed him without hesitation. Chong Yingbiao totally buys into Yin Shou's brand of logic and authority. The actor who played his father said that he was moved by Chong Yingbiao's expressions, because when he'd stood up, his face was tearful and remorseful, so his betrayal was that much more surprising. This was taken in one take, though it was edited in the middle.
Steadicam was used during this scene to give us a better picture of each of the patricides, and also to capture Ji Fa's freak out.
I didn't know this, but the southern duke had a daughter who had married into the royal family to Yin Qi (who if I remember correctly was Yin Shou's older brother). After Yin Qi died, so did his daughter. The background behind the southern duke was that he knew that Yin Qi wasn't the kind of guy to commit treachery, so he believed that Yin Shou had manipulated or cast a spell on him. So that was why from the beginning, the southern duke did not like Yin Shou. That being said, he still feared him and wanted to protect his son. He yelled at his son to make a move (to kill his father). Now, at this point E Shun (the son) smiled, and the reason behind that was that he knew his father was always this kind of hotheaded guy, and hearing him yell at him again made him feel a little at home. So E Shun smiled, and then turned around and then tried to kill Yin Shou but was killed, as was his father. So this was a situation where the son tried to fight to defend his father but failed, and they both died.
Jiang Wenhuan's struggle with his father was distinct in that his father was clearly making his son kill him. When his father pulled on the sword, I liked that we saw Jiang Wenhuan shake his head a bit. It's maybe a bit childish, and it showed that maybe Jiang Wenhuan was a bit frozen and shocked, but in his heart he didn't want to do this. And then Jiang Wenhuan knelt before his dead father. Wuershan contrasted that with Chong Yingbiao who knelt before Yin Shou after killing his father. In the end of Movie 1, Jiang Wenhuan was the one who let Ji Fa go, because he said that he'd killed Yin Shou. So we know Jiang Wenhuan is one of the good ones lol. He had also asked Ji Fa to live on his behalf. So the only two remaining songs from this patricide would be Chong Yingbiao and Ji Fa, who from the beginning were always at odds.
Another thing I remembered was how after Chong Yingbiao and Jiang Wenhuan killed their fathers, Yin Shou would "congratulate" them because they would take on the titles of duke after their fathers died. To me that was kind of haunting.
Representing the choice Ji Fa would make between Yin Shou and Ji Chang
This entire time, Ji Chang did not react to the violence around him because he was prepared for death himself. However, he did react a tiny bit at the moment when Ji Fa fell to the floor and knelt to Yin Shou, because Ji Chang cared about his son. He was watching how he would speak and act, and that led to the prison scene, where Ji Chang said that if Ji Fa really believed in everything Yin Shou said, he would have killed him.
A small point on the styling by Wuershan was that Yin Shou's eyebrows during this scene were purposely combed a bit upward to show ferocity.
Third scene was the pseudo-sex scene between Daji and Yin Shou while Bo Yikao nervously third wheeled XD
This would have been the first time that Daji was allowed to exist out in the open. Before, she was either cooped up in Yin Shou's bedchamber, or she would only sneak out as a fox to eat people. Now she's allowed to go out and about.
Also Yin Shou was in basically his underclothes, and they both had their hair undone, so this is basically them in their bedchambers...but with tons of people watching lol. It's also a good juxtaposition against Bo Yikao who is always extremely formal. From my perspective it also highlights the power imbalance. Bo Yikao is entirely at their mercy, and they both know it. In fact, Yin Shou is feeling his oats right now because he finally has something to threaten Ji Chang with.
The drum that Yin Shou played with was made with alligator skin. A professional drummer provided the actual audio, and Kris Phillips practised drumming for three months to mimic the drummer's drumming.
Naran didn't have any dance training so she essentially trained for about a year and a half to get to the point where she could perform Daji's dance. Daji's hair was 2.2 m long so it would have been really difficult to dance with that. Her robes are also very long and made of wool so it would have been pretty heavy.
The dance scene took 3 days to shoot.
The colour on Daji's eyes is actually feathers, going back to the animal motif for Daji.
Ah so Daji's robes were purposefully blood-red.
In the original story, Bo Yikao was playing guqin, but they changed it to a flute in the movie. However, this flute is not the modern Chinese flute, but rather it was based on an artifact. As we can see the placement of Bo Yikao's hands on the flute is different from how a flutist would normally play. Also, we don't know what it would have sounded like so that's also up to creative liberty.
A reason why the guqin was changed to a flute was because when Yin Shou went to see Ji Chang in prison, it would have been easier for him to bring a flute than a guqin.
Wuershan described the scene of Bo Yikao bringing the horses to Ji Fa as the warmest scene in the second half of the movie :3 And they purposely lit the scenes a bit gold to show that.
Bo Yikao was looking very nervous (because he knew what awaited him), but as soon as he noticed Ji Fa looking at him, he put on a smiling face ;_;
During the entire scene where Daji was dancing and Yin Shou was playing the drums, Bo Yikao's eyes were always downcast. The only time he made eye contact in that scene was when he told Yin Shou that he would die in place of his father.
The last scene that Wuershan chose to speak on was the chase scene by the taotie >3
First we're looking at the design of the taotie. They would have been made of clay on the outside, with wooden frame inside.
Wuershan also discussed the design of taotie sounds. Apparently in Shanhai-jing (Classic of Mountain and Seas), taotie made sounds like infants, but Wuershan noted that that wouldn't be very scary so they didn't go with that lol.
I'm guessing the blue is for the animators to later add trees and bramble.
It's kind of wild that they have a set like this. Like, an artificial forest. Apparently it was built in the world's biggest filming set. It was 160m x 60m large. It had to be this long because the horses needed that long of a distance to reach a certain speed. As well, the horses could only run for 8 minutes so they had to get all the filming done during those 8 minutes.
So the filming of these taotie chase scenes lasted 2-3 months. If I understand correctly it was because they would film the horses for 8 minutes and then the horses would go rest. Then the production crew would move the trees around to give it another appearance, and then they would get the horses in to run for 8 minutes again. They moved the trees to give the impression of a larger forest when really they would have just been running around the same set.
Ahh so when the taotie got stuck under a tree, its clay paw splashed in a puddle and at that point Ji Fa would have seen his paw disintegrate a bit. So that's what would have given Ji Fa the idea to lead the taotie to water.
The lighting in this scene was meant to highlight that the riders were riding west, at sunset, to Xiqi (which is Ji Fa's home). And then when he got to the Yellow River, it would have been morning already, which is why the sun would have come from behind. We also see this change by the lighting on Shen Gong Bao's face. At the beginning of the chase, the light came from his right side, but when he caught up to Ji Fa at the Yellow River, the light came from his left side.
LMAO ok finally confirmation that no horses were harmed in the scene where Ji Fa jumped into the river ^^;; He was riding a prop horse that was later animated into his Xue Long Ju. The horse falling into the river was also animated!!!!! So now we know X3 Wuershan himself was quite amused at the expression of the horse falling into the river.
Ji Fa struggling in the river was filmed in a pool. A huge wave was created to show the taotie falling in the water. Wuershan noted that water in general was difficult to animate.
This was super fun to watch. Wuershan has a calming way of speaking and he is rather eloquent. He also clearly has a lot of passion for this movie to be able to talk about it to this extent. I know he spent a lot of time recruiting and preparing for the movie. Even at the end of the video he was like "if you have any more questions, y'all can reach out." Like he cares a lot and knowing that a movie was made with love honestly makes it even more engaging to me.
