‘Investiture of the Gods’ is to Chinese audiences what The Lord of the Rings and Shakespeare is to Western culture. The epic novel, written in the 16th Century, combines ancient mythology with Chinese traditional arts to depict an epic historical tale. Also known as Fengshen, the tale has now been brought to the screen in a suitably epic trilogy, the first of which, Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms, was released earlier this year.
The fantasy feature spins numerous dramatic plot lines and contains many multilayered battle sequences, but for Director Wuershan and Cinematographer Wang Yu, the most important job was to capture the story’s emotional heart.
“The core of the story is the characters and especially the relationship between a father and his son,” says Wang Yu. “They fight each other, they love each other, and while we have dozens of complex action scenes, we knew the story would only work if audiences could feel the passion of the performances.”
Kingdom of Storms features 2,400 shots, including 1,800 VFX shots, and was filmed back-to-back over 438 days with A/B units with the other two parts of the series beginning in 2018. Wang Yu was intimately involved with preproduction and previz, which entailed massive amounts of research and meticulous planning, including a trip to Digital Domain in LA with the director for VFX tests. Wuershan sought advice from Director Peter Jackson while The Lord of the Rings producer Barrie M. Osbourne participated in the production.
It was the creation of extensive VFX with storytelling grounded in organic performances that led Wang Yu to shoot exclusively on RED cameras.
“This is a story about heaven, earth and demon. The story needs to be grounded on earth if we are to feel moved about magic.”
The project was conceived to be shot in stereo 3D, requiring multiple, compact digital cameras suitable for stereo rigs. Although this idea was later abandoned, the project retained a requirement to shoot digital high resolution.
“We wanted to capture the absolute best image against blue and green screen that could hold up through the VFX pipeline. So, my choice of RED MONSTRO 8K VV was this perfect combination of large format sensor, ultra-high resolution capture and postproduction resilience.”
He adds, “There are so many moving parts in this production that I wanted to have something reliable and best in class at the core of everything we did. To me, that meant RED MONSTRO.”
Wang Yu’s main and second camera unit worked with up to 10 MONSTROs with multiple cameras arrayed on some of the most complex action sequences. They recorded full frame 8K in REDCODE Raw into an IPP2 workflow.