《金刚狼》导演的高科技生活

    传统的蓝光和DVD光盘依然是重要的收入来源，像福克斯这样的电影公司正在通过增强版实境游戏等新功能吸引技术爱好者。《金刚狼》的4D“子弹头列车战斗”体验是一款发布于谷歌电子市场和iTunes的免费应用，它可以与这部电影任何一种基于光盘的版本相连接，让影迷从多个角度亲身体验休•杰克曼饰演的金刚狼与日本犯罪集团的战斗场景。在结尾部分，用户甚至可以拍摄一张自拍照（金刚狼爪当然是必不可少的背景），还可以把照片分享到Facebook和Twitter上。

    “许多非常出色的工具不仅可以让人们参与到电影之中，还可以把电影与其他事物——比如人们正在玩的游戏——连接在一起，”曼高德说。“福克斯公司正在投入巨大的精力，希望让影迷们以前所未有的方式融入电影。他们正在打造的4D世界真的很酷。”

    《金刚狼》的多点触控体验是另一个跨媒体步骤。这款发布于iTunes iBookstore书店的免费应用是一本50页的数字图书。书中包含幕后花絮的链接，前期视觉开发，以及一些关于电影和漫画的互动性背景材料。

    参加2013年圣地亚哥动漫展(San Diego Comic Con 2013)时，曼高德和杰克曼为动漫迷们带来了这本专为他们设计、极富技术冲击力的数字图书。它所支持的是当今世界最受欢迎的漫画人物之一。金刚狼也将成为菲尔德娱乐公司(Feld Entertainment)和漫威娱乐公司(Marvel Entertainment)即将主办的“奇迹宇宙展！”(Marvel Universe Live!)的重要角色之一。在《X战警：逆转未来》(X-Men: Days of Future Past )和尚未命名的《金刚狼》续集中，杰克曼将再次扮演这个角色。

    “影迷们非常喜欢金刚狼反英雄的一面，以及他并不认为自己是超级英雄这个事实，”曼高德说。“他对人类持怀疑态度，这的确是一个非常奇妙的要素。从武士电影到约翰•韦恩和克林特•伊斯特伍德扮演的美国西部片角色，这一直是英雄人物的特征之一。”

    早在1995年，曼高德就执导了他的第一部独立电影《说不出的情话》(Heavy)。当时距离众筹网站Kickstarter的出现还有很长一段时间，众筹还远远不是筹集电影拍摄资金的主流方式。

    “我第一部电影的资金并没有采用众筹方式，当时还没有这样的平台，但《说不出的情话》的拍摄资金确实来自一笔笔5,000和1万美元的投资，”曼高德说。“年轻的电影制作人其实拥有许多筹资渠道，他们完全可以采用全新的筹资技术募集25万美元左右的资金，拍摄出一部真正个性化的电影。我刚刚看到哈尔•哈特利正在Kickstarter上为他的独立电影《内德的步枪》(Ned Rifle)筹集资金，他是我非常钦佩的一位导演。”

    “我认为，这是一种非常好的方式，它可以让观众亲身参与非常昂贵的电影制作过程。独立电影一直在努力寻找某种平衡，它面临的不仅仅是令人气馁的现实——由于电影现在似乎越来越多地围绕着电影公司的帐篷杆来拍摄，独立电影的拍摄比过去更艰难了。然而，在某种程度上，这或许是完全脱离片场系统来拍摄电影的新机遇。”

    随着亚马逊、网飞(Netflix)和YouTube等流媒体娱乐帝国的崛起，传统的片场系统也在不断演化。曼高德表示，每家制作机构和每位导演现在都非常重视流媒体。

    “看到许多流媒体平台业已成为向广大受众提供娱乐和艺术作品的重要渠道之后，那些过去轻视这些平台的业内人士都懊悔不已，”他说。“人们正在探索各种途径。我不知道还有哪位电影制片人不钦佩网飞或有线电视网络的分销力量。这些是你无法在电影中获得的机遇。拜这些全新的传播方式所赐，我们现在有很多方式绕过许多令电影人头痛的事情，无论是向喜欢在影院观看大片的老年群体营销电影的难度，还是有可能严格限制独立制片人的评级系统。”

    詹姆斯•曼高德，这位正处于事业巅峰期的导演正在顺应娱乐产业的演变趋势，使用一切有可能利用的传播渠道，让电影《金刚狼》进入笔记本电脑、电视、游戏机和平板电脑前的眼球之中。（财富中文网）

    译者：叶寒  

    The traditional Blu-ray and DVD discs are still important to the bottom line, and studios like Fox are luring technophiles through new features like augmented reality gaming. The Wolverine 4D Bullet Train Battle experience is part of a free Google Play and iTunes app that connects to any disc-based version of the film, allowing fans to experience a fight scene between Hugh Jackman's Wolverine and the Yakuza first-hand from multiple angles. Users can even snap a selfie at the end (complete with requisite Wolverine claws) and share their pic on Facebook and Twitter.

    "There are a lot of great tools for getting people involved in movies and getting movies connected to other things like gaming that people are doing," said Mangold. "Fox is putting a lot of effort into trying to reach people through movies in ways that we haven't before. The 4D world that they're building is really cool. "

    The Wolverine Multi-Touch Experience is another transmedia step for the franchise. The free app in the iTunes iBookstore is a 50-page digital book with links to behind-the-scenes footage, pre-visuals development, and interactive background materials on the movie and comics.

    Designed for the comic book fanboys that Mangold and Jackman visited with at San Diego Comic Con 2013, this onslaught of technology supports one of the most popular comic book characters in the world today. Wolverine will be featured in the upcoming Marvel Universe Live! show from Feld Entertainment and Marvel Entertainment. And Jackman reprises the role in X-Men: Days of Future Past and the untitled The Wolverine sequel.

    "Fans like the antihero aspect of the Wolverine and the fact that he doesn't embrace his superhero-ness," said Mangold. "He has a skeptical view of humanity, which is a really magical and wonderful ingredient that has been a part of heroes in films from the Samurai films to Western characters that John Wayne and Clint Eastwood played."

    Mangold directed his first feature, Heavy, back in 1995. That was long before Kickstarter and crowdfunding was an established way to raise money for movies.

    "My first feature wasn't crowdfunded -- there was no such thing at the time -- but it was a collection of $5,000 and $10,000 investments that allowed us to make Heavy," said Mangold. "There's a lot that can happen for young filmmakers when you can find a way to make your film, for a quarter of a million dollars or less and use new financing technology to actually still get a really personal film out there. I just saw that a filmmaker I really admire, Hal Hartley, is raising money for his feature Ned Rifle on Kickstarter.

    "I think it's an awesome way to involve an audience in the production of a very costly medium. Independent films have been struggling to find some balance in the face of -- not only the fact that it's harder to make independent movies because movies seem to exist more and more built around tentpoles now for studios -- but in some way it may be a new opportunity for movies to get made completely outside the studio system."

    That traditional studio system is also evolving with the advent of streaming entertainment empires like Amazon, Netflix (NFLX), and YouTube. Mangold said every agency and every director is taking streaming seriously.

    "Anyone who held up their nose at some of these platforms in the past has gotten burnt by seeing a good number of them become very serious delivery methods for delivering entertainment and art to a large audience," he said. "People are exploring every avenue now. I don't know a single filmmaker who doesn't admire what's going on on Netflix or on cable. These are really opportunities that you can't do in movies, whether it's the difficulty in marketing to an older crowd who appreciates more sophisticated movies in theatrical release, or it's also the rating system which can be quite restrictive on independent filmmakers. There are a lot of ways around that stuff now given all these new delivery methods."

    Now at the top of his game, the director is using every possible delivery method to get The Wolverine in front of eyeballs on laptops, TVs, game consoles, and tablets as part of entertainment landscape evolves.