Made in Hollywood

The studio was dim. Right across from Duke, Leonardo DiCaprio turned his back to the main camera lens. It seemed to be busy. Then Scarlett Johansson broke into the lens. She looked at Leonardo's back and walked over there. ⊙

"Are you going to enter the dream state alone?" she asked actively.

"No, no..." Leonardo turned around and immediately denied, "I'm just doing some experiments. I didn't expect there to be people here, so..."

"Oh, sorry,"

Scarlett first looked down at the gadget in her hand, and then brightened to Leonardo, "Actually, I'm working on my totem."

"Let me see." Leonardo picked up his pocket and walked over.

Scarlett put it away immediately, Leonardo just smiled, "You learn quickly."

"This way of distinguishing between dreams and reality is very elegant." Scarlett nodded lightly and said, "Is this your idea?"

"No, actually..." Leonardo walked closer. "It was actually Sally's idea."

Since the heroine was not French, Duke changed her name accordingly.

Leonardo took out a spinning top and placed it in his palm so that Scarlett could see it more closely, and explained, "The spinning top won't fall when it turns in a dream."

He turned the top on the table next to him, "Just keep spinning."

"Listen to Arthur saying he passed away?" Scarlett asked.

Leonardo changed the subject, "How is the design of the maze?"

Duke left the camera lens and shouted, "Cut!"

Scarlett and Leonardo both looked here, and it was clear that the first one had not been booted, but the scene was not difficult. They don't understand where the problem is.

"Hannah, Cork, John..." Duke called out the names of the three directors of the crew in one breath, and then beckoned, "Come here."

This shot failed and has nothing to do with the performance of Scarlett and Leonardo. It's the light distribution problem. Since Zach Schneider left Duke's team and became a director, Kirk Lundier has been responsible for the light distribution of his crew.

Film can also be said to be a dream of photochemistry. The requirements for light are very complex. Although a lot of light can be deployed in post-production, the light used for shooting on site is also extremely important.

The so-called light distribution, in popular terms, is toning. There are two main reasons why the film should be matched with light: one. There are inevitably differences between the shots taken at different times and under different light source conditions. If they are directly printed without processing, the shots will appear inharmonious when they are edited together. Secondly, the creators will also make them out of their own artistic pursuits. The film screen presents a certain style.

The English original of the term “light distribution” is colorti fan ng. From the literal meaning of English, many people may wonder what this process has to do with “time”.

This has to be traced back to the era of black and white movies, because there was no color intervention at that time. The light distribution only involves the light and dark control of the picture, so all the photometricist has to do is to debug and record the exposure time required for different lenses. The term ti fan ng comes from this. After the advent of color technology, the term "ti fan" is still retained, even in today's digital age.

Today's photometric work is carried out entirely in a digital environment. The efficiency and freedom that photometricists can obtain are extremely high. Electronic photometric technology has developed rapidly in recent years. Through the electronic circuit display of the electronic light distribution machine, the optometrist can directly preview the light distribution result and work quickly.

Compared with traditional light distribution, this method is more efficient.

Duke’s crew has always used the most advanced technology in the industry. He is not Christopher Nolan, who is still in the independent film industry. Will not stick to those traditional and time-consuming and labor-intensive ways to shoot.

How to spend the least amount of money to achieve the best results at the fastest speed is what Duke wants. For this reason, he doesn't care whether the way of realization is to stick to tradition or use new technology.

The problem of light distribution was easily solved. In the following days of shooting, Duke used both new technology and some more traditional methods.

The first shocking scene that appeared in the previous "Inception" is the first dream crossing triggered by Daum Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, being pushed into the bathtub. The feeling of water in the world on the upper level is transferred to the dream on the lower level, producing a surreal effect-the entire Japanese palace is submerged by torrential water.

This very sensory scene was actually filmed by Christopher Nolan using real scenes. His crew built a huge palace interior and stored a total of 5,000 gallons of water in 26 carefully arranged windows in the scene. In each water tank, these water tanks are opened in sequence under the drive of the mechanism, and the scene of "water overflowing with golden mountains" is produced.

But such setting up and shooting are extremely time-consuming and costly. Duke simply thought about it and gave up the idea of ​​real shooting.

When he was shooting, Leonardo was just standing surrounded by a green screen, and the scene where the palace was submerged by torrential water was shot using miniatures, and then the two were combined together after being processed with cgi technology.

According to professional calculations, this can save at least half of the preparation time and one-third of the shooting capital.

In Duke's style, there is no reason not to choose this way of shooting.

In some respects, Duke also used traditional techniques extensively for shooting.

For example, Arthur's action scene in the corridor was disturbed by the upper level dreams. In the second level dreams, there were several changes in gravity. In fact, they were all produced by real laws of physics when filming.

During the filming, Joseph Gordon Levitt was flying over the walls in the hotel corridor because the entire corridor was set up on a giant rotatable "Vientiane Ring" installation.

When the entire corridor starts to rotate and tilt, the actors hanging on the pressure only need to adjust the balance naturally, and the fixed camera makes it all look like the direction of gravity is changing. In order to ensure the safety of the actors in the rotating set, many props including the walls are made of soft materials.

There are also many props used for dream shooting, which are actually built by the crew.

The first is the Penrose ladder.

Anyone who has a little research on illusion should know the famous perspective paradox "Penrose Ladder". As an imaginary infinite loop ladder, it can only be established in two dimensions. Once it is tested in three-dimensional space, it becomes A self-contradictory structure.

The special effects group referred to the Penrose Stairs described by the illusion master Escher, and built a closed staircase that looked like an endless loop from a specific angle in the studio of the Warner Studios, the shooting location. Of course, viewed from any other angle. , This set will be worn instantly, because it is not closed at all.

It is precisely by using this that Joseph Gordon Levitt's Arthur can clearly explain the maze phenomenon in the dream like Scarlett's Adrian and the audience.

The second is the memory elevator.

Daum Cobb built an elevator to thirteen floors in his dream to store his memories. This memory elevator is a separate set during the shooting, and they are all real props made by the crew.

Take the elevator on the top beach, for example, when Duke was filming, a large hole was dug and built on Nancy Josephson's private beach.

There are also subconscious trains.

The most exaggerated prop prepared by the crew for the filming is probably the train that appears in the first dream. This train is indeed a real prop.

This big guy is internally driven by trucks and several trailers, and the outside is covered with a fiberglass train shell to make it fake. Finally, the computer cgi replaces the car tires with train wheels. Everything is impeccable.

In Hollywood, almost all large-scale commercial films are made with computer special effects and real-time shooting. There is no special effects blockbuster that does not use cgi special effects lenses with investment of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Not to mention that Duke’s version of "Inception" uses more than 2,000 cgi special effects lenses. Just talk about the former Christopher Nolan. Many people’s impression of Nolan is that this man is full of film madness and is extremely sensitive to digital technology. Resisting and even contempt, this is correct from a certain angle, but this does not see all the facts.

In fact, cgi special effects have been widely and even crucially used in the production of Inception.

The rewinding Paris is one of the iconic shots of this film. Without going into details, it can be seen that this is a scene generated by cgi. In addition, the whole film uses more than 600 cgi lenses!

Curly Paris is also one of the iconic images of Duke's version of the entire movie. In his hands, this will be a 100% digital special effect.

As early as the preliminary preparations, the special effects team of Industrial Light and Magic had arrived in Paris, where they took a T-size photo as a material, from the exterior structure of the building to the interior rooms, with precision to every detail.

These high-precision photos are finally pasted on the 3D model as "baked textures" with the purpose of making the entire virtual scene believable.

However, it is not enough to have real textures. The entire scene needs to consider the changes of many elements, including the light source-the whole scene occurs during the day, and the simulation of skylight is very difficult-shadow projection, perspective, etc., also need to be considered How to hide the penetration between buildings?

Although Duke plans to show the urban curl in the movie, it will be cut into several shots, but the initial special effects of Industrial Light and Magic are just a complete shot.

According to Duke's request, the special effects team can cheat by switching the camera, but they faced the difficulty and handed him a beautiful answer sheet that exceeded expectations-there are no duplicate blocks, as small as street lights and curtains. Details, even the interior structure of the building. (To be continued.)

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