threebodytrilogy

Introduction:

This trailer is based on and adapted from the first and second books of the Three Body Trilogy. Due to the limited equipments and fundings, a couple of the original plots have been adjusted. This trailer aims at providing a background story for the audience who haven’t read the trilogy and creating a foreshadowing for the publish of the trilogy in May.

Story

Year 1967 was the craziest time of the Cultural Revolution in China. Anyone who had different ideas from Chairman Mao was regarded as the enemy of the republic. Ye Wenjie was an astrophysics student. She witnessed the brutal death of her father, a respected physics professor, during the Cultural Revolution.

Several years later, by a stroke of fortune, Ye became a technician in the Red Coast Base, a top-secret military project to establish contact with alien intelligence. After eight years’ experiment, Ye accidentally received a response from the space. She learnt the existence of the much advanced Three Body civilization four light-years away.

With three suns around, the Three Body planet had extremely unstable orbit. Civilizations rose and fell in cycles of destruction and rebirth. Therefore, they were dedicated to finding a new home before their planet was destroyed.

Embittered by the horror during the Cultural Revolution and believing that humanity is beyond redemption, Ye agreed to help the aliens conquer the Earth. She hoped that humanity would be reformed through external intervention.

Partnerships and Connections

Publisher: China Educational Publication Import and Export Corporation (CEPIEC)

    We contacted the publisher in March and they were happy to know about our project. At the beginning they only expected us to operate as a fan project within academic field. At that time, we already have about 100 likes on Facebook and the official Facebook page almost had nothing. So we volunteered to manage the Facebook and Twitter account for CEPIEC and they agreed.

    We reported our progress to CEPIEC along the project and sent them posting schedule on a weekly basis. They shared with us some news and information about the book. We had good cooperation throughout the project. Now we had sent the video of our presentation to CEPIEC and waiting for their decision to see how to continue the whole project. But they had  invited us to go on managing the social media for them and asked us to give them some suggestions after the book is published.

Translator: Ken Liu (Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards winning Sci-fi writer)

    Ken has helped us a lot along the whole project.  We contacted him in March and he recommended us to Ms. Song, the executive of Three Body Trilogy in CEPIEC. After we got the approval from CEPIEC, Ken had sent us some media content and also offered valuable suggestions for our project. He also recommended some people for us to follow on Facebook and Twitter.

Honorable team members :

    We had more than 10 people who participated in our project as honorable team members. Without  their help, we couldn’t have completed the project.

    We sent several emails to professors in the music and game department, introducing  this project and requesting them to repost the email to their students. This was how we found three members in the music team.

    We also reached out to whatever resources we could think of.  Some of our friends participated as director, cast members and voice actors/actress in our trailer. One  of our friends who works in Facebook helped us to promote the facebook page. Some friends didn’t have the time to write the game, but they offered to be our game consultants and gave lots of valuable insights about game design. Some friends in China gave us suggestions on how to improve the music to tell the story.

Behind the Scenes

The supporting actress, Pu Cong, is from CMGT class. In the original storyline, Ye Wengjie was 8-year-old when she witnessed her father’s death. But we chose Pu Cong, for her appearance and her natural acting skills! The scene was taken on campus, backside of JEF building. After the post production, the black-and-White pictures successfully made the scene look like China in 1967.

This scene was taken in the conference room of the Orsini apartment, downtown LA. We invited Peter, Jessica and Zhang Haiyang as our supporting actors and actress.

We have been to the Muholland Drive for three times for the best effects. Therefore, it was part of our fortune and part of our effort that the fog suddenly began to fill the full valley when we shot the Sunset scene and made it extremely mysterious. (We didn’t have enough funding to make the “Foggy” special effects…)

The tomb stone you see from the trailer was actually be built by us, using several marble stones someone discarded there. No, the flowers were bought from Ralph’s, not picked there. Professional.

Trailer Script

—Scene 1—

[Fade In]

China 1967

[Fade Out]

[Fade In]

Frenzy Atmosphere (Movie Clips)

[Fade Out]

[Fade In]

A middle-aged man was beaten by four teenagers, surrounded by celebrating crowds

[Fade Out]

[Fade In]

A 12-year-old girl hided behind a wall, staring at the scene with tears, clenching her fist.

She muttered: Papa…

[Close up: Her clenched fist]

—Scene 2—

[From Her fist to her face]

Ye was staring blankly at the monitor: her childhood memory suddenly hit her out of nowhere.

She shaked her head and forced her mind to focus on the monitor again.

At that moment, she found that the waveforms in the screen seemed somehow different.

[Close up: the waveform on the screen]

She suddenly realize something. Her pupils contracted.

—Scene 3—

[In the corridor]

Ye walked so fast that she almost ran.

One colleague was walking toward her and he was curious:

Everything OK?

Ye covered her emotion and smiled:

Yeah yeah.

—Scene 4—

Ye walked into a lab room.

She put a disk into a computer.

The computer started to decipher the content.

[Close-up: the computer screen]

She was so nervous that she clenched her hand unconsciously.

[Close-up: Her hand ]

The words began to appear in the screen.

[Close-up: the computer screen]

[Letter by Letter]

We received your message.

[Close-up: Ye’s face]

Don’t respond.

Or your planet will be located and be invaded by us.

DO NOT RESPOND.DO NOT RESPOND.DO NOT RESPOND.

[Close-up: Ye’s face]

She read the message again.

She looked around and made sure that she was alone.

She took a deep breath and started to write.

[Close-up: the computer screen]

[Letter by letter]

Come here.

I’ll help you to occupy Earth.

This civilization is corrupted.

We need your help.

—Scene 5—

[United Nation]

President of UN:

We are facing the threat of Three Body invasion.

We have been exposed and been watched.

Human beings no longer have secrets.

But the only thing we haven’t expose is our mind.

Now, I, on behalf of the council of United Nation, announced that we have selected four Pillar Dwellers to defend our mother planet.

They will use their minds as weapons.

They will never reveal their real plan.

They will lead us to victory.

—Scene 6—

[Conference Room]

First Pillar Dweller walked in.

[Freeze, and his name and resume on the screen]

Former U.S. Defence Secretary

Second Pillar Dweller followed him.

[Freeze, and his name and resume on the screen]

President of  Venezuela

Third Pillar Dweller walked in.

[Freeze, and her name and resume on the screen]

The first scientist with two Nobel prizes

They sat around the table and looked at each other confidently.

[Silence]

Luo rushed in with casual t-shirt and jeans.

He seemed more confused:

I’m the fourth Pillar Dweller? Why?

-Scene 7-

[Cemetery]

[Close-up: a simple tombstone]

Luo put a bunch of white flower on the dirt.

[Long shot: a woman was walking near]

Ye went up to Luo. She also held a bunch of flower:

My dad said you are his favourite student.

Luo looked at Ye and smiled:

Professor Ye is like my father and he is the reason I choose physics as career.

They all looked at the tombstone in silence.

Ye broke the silence:

Will you like to go for a walk?

Luo seemed a little surprised:

Sure.

—Scene 6—

[Overview platform]

Ye asked abruptly:

Have you heard of the Dark Jungle Theory?

Luo:

No, what is that?

Ye looked up to the sky and into the space:

Universe is like a dark jungle, full of arch enemies.

Only humans are naively searching for friends.

Luo seemed curious:

What if we do find aliens?

Ye stared at Luo and smiled with sadness:

We are exposed.

They are coming.

[Long shot: The Sunset]

Ye:

Look, it’s the sunset of mankind.

—Scene 8—

[Fade In]

Three Body

[Fade Out]

[Fade In]

Invading Soon

[Fade Out]

[Fade In]

Apr. 26

[Fade Out]

Trailer Credits:

Director: Yu Zhikun (New York Film Academy, Los Angeles)

Writer: Liu Cixin (Scripted by Rui He)

Producer: Rui He

Director of Photography: Yu Zhikun, Pei Moran

Leading Actor: Geng Mengyao

Leading Actress: Cheng Mengyao

Supporting Actors & Actresses: Pu Cong, Paul Dykman, Peter, Jessica, Zhang Haiyang

Dubbing Actor & Actress: Eric & Lauren

Editor: Rui He

Music Composer: The Sarmans

Footages used in the trailer: Farewell my concubine (1993), Chen Kaige, China; News clip from Prime Time News

Special Thanks to:

Professor David Craig & Keyvan Paymani

CMGT 550 Class

Muholland Drive View Point

California Science Center

Theme Song

   As Three Body Trilogy is being translated into English and have not been published yet, readers in the western world are not able to actually read the novel at this time point and understand the story. In order to overcome this language barrier, music becomes a perfect platform to cross the cultural boundaries and express the theme of the book. Through melody and lyrics, this theme song also tells a mini version of the Three Body story. It expresses a feeling of infinite melancholy, however, hope still exists.

   The main idea of the song is a lullaby a mother croons to her child before Three Body civilization invades the Earth. The Earth, a planet where mankind has lived so far is like a mother and human beings are all her children. The extermination is approaching, people have to bid farewell to her. Although the end is coming, we do not need to be afraid. The future of human civilization is unknown, but when we review the past, we should realize that all of us have already had a happy life and many beautiful memories. The lyrics are also created based on the same theme, telling people that this is the end of the world, but it is not the end of human civilization. Hope is still there.

Also, in order to make the theme song visually impressive, our team edited a music video to match with the singing (the original video is from Hubble Space Telescope’s “a space journey”). In the second part of the video, the Three Body Trilogy’s story background information is included so that the audience can have a brief idea about what the novel is mainly about. Then it is easier for them to understand the trailer our team produced.

Thanks to the cooperation with music talents Matthew Cohen, Jessica Leigh and Tim Brochier from USC Thornton School of Music, a great theme song was born.

Lyrics of “Not Afraid”

Quiet now, my children

rest your weary head

night is falling

day is calling,

you will rise again

Awake, hear my song, there are shadows on the dawn,

They move, closer every day, the end is coming,

Pack your things, say goodbye, find a home beyond the sky

In your, hearts i will remain, so do not be afraid

Do not be afraid, memories will bind us, fortune it will find us, do not be afraid. Do not be afraid

If they, come to stay, if they take it all away,

We’ll find, courage in the stars, reminding us to

Let our hearts, beat as one, there will be another sun

One song, join in the refrain, we will not be afraid,

Do not be afraid, memories will bind us, fortune it will find us, do not be afraid. Do not be afraid

We are not afraid, memories will bind us, fortune it will find us, we are not afraid. We are not afraid.

Interactive video

Our intention of creating this interactive video is to explain the fundamental theories of Threebody Trilogy in an entertaining way. Different from Star War and Harry Potter, we do not have either books or movies to elucidate the storyverse. However, The Primary Axioms of the universe and the Dark Jungle Theory are the bases for the audience to understand Threebody—why human beings cannot communicate with other civilizations; why we cannot be a friend of them; and why the only choice for two civilizations is being enemies. Therefore, we decided to use an interactive video the moment Professor David Craig introduced it to us, in order to let the audience find the answer and understand the universe in the fiction by themselves.

One fortunate and delightful thing in the process is about the reporter. Even though the reporter in the video looks really professional, he was totally a stranger before we shot the video, or to say, he was a surprise for our team. We could not contact our original reporter when we were ready and badly in need of shooting the video. Trying to make every possible effort, we tried to ask strangers nearby if they wanted to be our reporter. At that moment, Cullon Hecox came into sight and agreed without any hesitation. Out of our expectation, he was so cooperative and creative that it only took us a little over one hour to shoot the video.

Guaranteeing the interactive video look good and work well, while the response from the audience made it worthwhile.

Primary Axioms: The universe is the biggest society with numerous civilizations, human beings included. Every civilization has to bear two axioms in minds: 1) survive, or to say, guarantee its personal safety; 2) civilizations are expanding and they need to compete for the limited resources.

Dark Jungle Theory: The whole universe is like a dark jungle, in which one cannot decide if the other civilization is its friend or enemy. Communication might help it to know the others, but will expose itself as well. Meantime, it stand a large chance to be destroyed by other civilizations to support their development. The friendship in the dark jungle is nonsense whereas the adversarial relationship is unconditional. Therefore, the best strategy to survive in this dark jungle is: hide yourself and “clean up” possible dangers.

Game

The iPhone game demo is designed to explain why the three body civilization tried to conquer the earth. There are three suns moves around their planet in a very unpredictable way. When the three suns appear in the sky at the same time, their planet will become extremely hot that no life can survive. And no one knows when will the day come. So the three body civilization has to find a new home as soon as possible, and the new home they found, is the earth.

In the game players will control the planet through the gravity-sensor in their phones, trying to keep an appropriate distance from the three suns-neither too far (too cold) nor too close (too hot). When the temperature is proper, the evolution of the three body civilization will continue. We designed a bar on the top of the game interface which shows the level of civilization. The players’ goal is to keep a proper temperature as long as possible until the three body civilization develop the Warp Drive Engine Technology(the highest level of technology showed in the bar) to get rid of the gravity, and start their journey to the earth.

We made five images showing the different temperatures on the planet: extremely hot and extremely cold (the civilization will be destroyed and game is over), hot and cold (the civilization will stop evolving), and proper(the civilization will evolve).

We will embed the game into our Facebook page after it completes.

Street Interview

At the very beginning of the project, we hoped to incorporate some offline interaction with the audience, like what Professor David Craig had said, a USC activity. We thought inviting Ken Liu, the translator of the Three Body Trilogy, to hold a Sci-fi forum in the USC campus would be a perfect platform. However, the publisher disapproved this plan according to their schedule of publicity.

Therefore, we had to come out with a new idea to involve our audience offline. We designed the street interview. The interview can bring several benefits to our project. First and foremost, we want to walk out of the classroom and introduce the Three Body story to the potential audience and invite them to follow our campaign. Thus we can have both online and offline interaction. Secondly, this is a perfect way that we can reach out to native speakers, instead of Chinese fans in the US. Thirdly, at that time we need more content for our social media. Lastly, in addition to the thrilling story, we wanted to add something fun and sweet to our presentation, something the audience would have emotional connection to. We thought the real life interview would be the perfect way.

First of all, we had to define our interview target. We carefully reviewed the fans demography of other Sci-fi works and found that  most of these people are young males between 15 to 30. However, there are also a group of hardcore fans that are not belonged to this main group. Therefore, we decided to expand our target base and made this group as diverse as possible. We had limited time and resources, so we carefully selected people with different ages, genders, occupations and cultural backgrounds. This is important because in this way we can hear different ideas and understand the US audience better.

Designing the survey questions was also not easy. We planned to have about 10 questions, starting from the general questions about aliens and universe, to their preference about Sci-fi works, and ends with some warm but profound question about life and love. We hoped to make this video fun at the beginning but warm at the end. From the audience response on the presentation day, we think we have made it.

After each interview, we introduced the Three Body story and invited them to interact with us on Facebook. Many of our interviewees said that they were very interested in the book and they would be looking forward to reading it when it comes out.

Facebook Page

         We set up the Threebody Trilogy Facebook page from the very beginning to reach out English-speaking fans and potential readers. It has become the primary social media platform to directly interact with fans and publish information about this book. Given the authorization from publisher, this page has become the official facebook page of Threebody. During the period of nearly three months, we’ve posted a bunch of related pictures, fans works, translator introduction, street interviews and periphery news on it. Most of the original contents are in written in Chinese. Our group members tried our best to translated them into English, in a way that make sense to English-speaking people. In the process, we have to consult native speakers many times.

        Up to now, it has generated more than 500 likes and has reached over 13,000 people from more than 30 countries. Every “like” from fans values to us. Many Chinese fans even break the Internet censor from the government to browse our page and get lated news. Although this book has not been translated into English, people from all over the world have known this Sci-Fi and are looking forward to its publishment. We received questions about this book almost everyday. In the near future, our group will continue managing this facebook page in order to make more contribution to Chinese Si-Fi.

Team Logo and Uniform

We designed the logo based on the original logo of Threebody’s logo for its Chinese novel. And then, based on the logo, we designed and made our own team uniform.