Made in Hollywood

Warner Studios No. 12 is heavily guarded, and the film crew is preparing to shoot a shot in a surreal setting.

A huge cave room with a high ceiling and black walls is divided into several areas by thin white grid lines. More than 100 high-altitude lights are suspended in the air. Below is a layer of soft light cloth and a thin and transparent gauze. The cast light was neutral, clean, and without shadows. Under the light, actor Cillian Murphy knelt on the floor.

With an "ation" order, two ima cameras began to operate, one with a wide-angle lens to capture the entire scene, and the other to record the action.

Suddenly, a crack appeared on the floor, and a large piece of weird set fell down. Hillian Murphy and the scene fell into a hole in the ground. The dust was flying for a while. After listening to the director Duke yelling "ut", not much time. The hydraulic press returns the collapsed floor to its original position, ready to take the second shot.

After returning to Los Angeles from the Whitler Mountain Ski Resort in Canada, Duke returned to the studio to shoot the remaining scenes.

Like the previous shooting, although the setting of the whole film is absurd, Duke still pays attention to the realism of photography.

"In the final analysis, when we dream, we feel that the dream is real. This is also a line in the film,"

Between shooting, Duke said to Sophia Coppola, who came to visit the class, “This is very important to photography and to all aspects of this film. We don’t want the dream paragraphs to reflect the super-realistic sense of super-realism. I want these paragraphs. It’s as reliable as the real world. So our approach is to make dreams look real."

Sophia Coppola had seen Duke’s script, and nodded slightly at this time. In addition to her friend, Duke is more like her teacher. Even though the two are very different from production concept to filming style, each Come here again, always get something.

"Sometimes the characters don't know what they see is a dream, so the visual connection between reality and dream must be traceless, unless there are certain points, I want the audience to know the difference between this." Duke again To Sofia, “In most cases, the surrealism in the film comes from the environment, not the photography skills. By maintaining a sense of realism, I believe that when needed, I can create a subtle feeling of strange or uneasy, without The audience needs to be brought out of the story."

"Why not use film?"

Taking advantage of Duke’s time, Sophia Coppola couldn’t help asking, “You’ve always been interested in high-definition and high-quality formats. Film has extremely high exposure latitude and dynamic range. It has higher With creative flexibility, I can underexpose 3 stops and overexpose 5 stops in the same frame, and finally show the entire range on the screen."

In the face of his friends, Duke has no need to cover up, "Because the cost of film is too high, especially the cost of post-processing, and digital technology represents the future."

In the past few years, Duke has not only looked at digital technology, but also paid attention to other aspects.

He met the legendary master Douglas Strumbu, visited Shosan to demonstrate a 65mm film high-speed shooting and projection technology invented by Trumb, and also studied 70. This is a system designed by Robert Weisberg, which can shoot and show at 48ps. Although 70 has extraordinary clarity, its picture quality is only better than hd...

There is another factor that Duke cannot ignore, and that is cost, which is much higher than digital technology.

Later, Duke started shooting again. Unlike before, the next shooting was some high-speed slow-motion.

A large number of shots in this film use high-speed photography, and Duke mainly uses photo-sonis4er and panavi private on lens to shoot. The frame rate can reach 360ps, and the photo-sonisrotaryp day sm, and the frame rate can reach 1500ps. In some high-speed photography scenes, panar day 435esa and hd cameras are also used.

High-speed slow motion is an indispensable part of Inception. Because the time relationship between the dream world and the real world is very special, Duke hopes to use high-speed photography and drastic changes in speed to achieve narrative effects, not just to pursue visual effects.

Next, Duke asked the crew to switch to another set location for shooting. In the film, this is a hotel bar, where the gravity changes suddenly. The weather outside will also change suddenly.

The scene built by Hannah Serena’s team is tilted 30 degrees, with a green screen outside the window, which will be replaced with a real street scene later.

In order to achieve the change of lighting, Duke asked all the devices to be connected to a dimming panel. The light at the beginning of this scene was sunset, so I used a touch lebeam light and a ts filter, and then used a 60-foot-long soft The light box is filled with mai-b milk te lamps and covered with soft light cloth to create cloudy light.

This is a scene that uses photography skills and lighting to embody surrealism. It is a technique of naturalism. All light sources are based on grounds. What is extraordinary is the way it changes, combined with the original tilt of the set, to create A very disturbing feeling.

Duke always tries his best to keep the picture from appearing too complicated, and he doesn't want to look too heavy or not to have any traces of lighting. The secret is to work as fast and as simple as possible without making it rush.

Another scene was filmed on the third floor of a hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Cobb, played by Leonardo, stepped back and stepped into a bathtub filled with water. His dream was awakened...

In order to improve the effect and express Cobb's return from a dream state to a sober state, Duke required a drastic change in the frame rate, reaching 1000ps, and a faster photo-sonis camera must be used.

After nearly a week of busy filming in Los Angeles, the filming completely reached the end. All the main actors once again gathered in the Warner Studios in Burbank, sitting in the setting venue of the inner cabin of the plane, and filming the final scene. play.

"Start!"

After Duke gave an order, the filming kicked off. The main camera first gave Leonardo DiCaprio a close-up. He opened his eyes and looked around in a daze and horror...

"We will arrive in Los Angeles in twenty minutes," an air hostess walked up to him, "Do you need an entry application form?"

"Thank you." Leonardo was a little dazed.

Then he looked at the opposite row of seats. Joseph Gordon Levitt and Scarlett Johansson made an eye contact with him, then smiled slightly, Watanabe Ken immediately picked up the phone and dialed...

"Ut!" Duke called to a halt.

All the cast and crew looked here, as if they were waiting for Duke to announce that the filming was complete.

however. This sentence did not jump out of Duke's mouth. He got up from the director's chair, turned around in front of the set, and said loudly, "Shooting again."

then. Duke beckoned to Leonardo and several actors came over and stood nearby.

"Leo, you still maintain the state of performance just now."

Duke turned to look at Joseph Gordon Levitt and Scarlett Johansson. "You two pay attention. In the next filming, you two will look at Leo like strangers."

"Look at strangers?" Neither Joseph Gordon Levitt nor Scarlett Johansson understood what Duke meant.

Duke didn't give a detailed explanation, and said directly, "You have fifteen minutes to adjust."

Back to the director's monitor, Duke watched the replay of the filming just now. The mind is not on this.

The fanatical participation and interpretation of countless fans is an important reason for the box office success of Inception. What he just did was to add a new interpretation. As for whether these interpretations are related to the setting of the film, it doesn’t really matter. , A thousand people have a thousand Hamlet in their hearts, interpretation is only part of the marketing of this film.

Just like the interpretation of countless fans when "The Matrix" was released, interpretation will only become a booster for the film's box office.

After the actor played by Leonardo wakes up from his dream, the roles of Joseph Gordon Levitt and Scarlett Johansson do not have any eye and facial communication with him. Duke is to expand more possibilities for interpretation Sex.

on the one hand. Their target was still sitting in the same cabin, and it was normal for them not to communicate with each other.

On the other hand, this is also very easy to associate, in fact, Cobb is not a dreamer at all. The stopping or non-stop of the spinning top has nothing to do with Pirates. All stories about Pirates are a bizarre dream of the hero in the first-class cabin of the plane. The hero just returns to the United States to see his children.

After the filming just started, Duke called to stop again. He made Leonardo increase his horrified expression when he woke up from a dream, as if wondering why all the passengers on the plane became dreamers...

Everything is a dream. A wonderful dream made by Cobb on his way home. The so-called story of his wife, his crimes, and the dreamer, all are things in the dream, and have nothing to do with reality.

As long as someone can have such an association, Duke has achieved his goal, and even if no one sees this, he still has a huge network of navy, and it is easy to publish this interpretation.

The audience watched some movies whose answers were somewhat vague, and they always wanted to seek the truth, but their search for the truth happened to be caught in the publicity and marketing trap of the director and the producer and distributor.

This kind of viral marketing strategy is more clever than the ground-covering advertising bombing.

Of course, whether it is a film or a related publicity strategy, you must grasp the degree. Viral marketing is a double-edged sword. Once it is done too much, it will only arouse people's disgust.

Fortunately, Warner Bros.'s publicity and distribution department has rich experience in this area, and the strategies formulated are sufficiently complete. Duke is not too worried about this issue.

The next filming went smoothly. After two more shots, Duke declared it passed. All the shots of "Inception" are over. Others can enter the vacation, but Duke does not intend to give himself too long. Fake, because this year's plan is quite tight, only three days later, I joined other post team members with Anna Prinz and transferred to the post-production of Inception. (To be continued.)

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