Warner Studios Studios' 12th studio is on high alert, and the crew is preparing to take a shot in a surreal set.

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 hanging in the air. Below is a layer of soft light cloth and a thin and transparent gauze. The light cast is neutral, clean and without shadow. Under the light, actor Cillian Murphy kneeled on the floor.

With an "ation" command, two IMA cameras began to operate, one captured the entire scene with a wide-angle lens, and the other was used to record the action.

Suddenly, a crack appeared on the floor, and a large strange-shaped set fell down. Cillian Murphy and the scene fell into a hole. The dust was flying for a while. After the director Duke shouted "ut", the hydraulic press returned the collapsed floor back to its original position and prepared to shoot the second one.

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

Like the previous filming, although the setting of the whole film is absurd, Duke still focuses on realism in photography.

"At the end of the day, when we dream, we feel that the dream is real, which is also a line in the film."

During the shooting, Duke said to Sofia Coppola who came to visit the set, "This is very important for photography and all aspects of this film. We don't want the dream passages to reflect the surreality of adding to the snake. I want these passages to be as reliable as the real world. So our method is to make the dreams look like real."

Sofia Coppola has read Duke's script and nodded gently at this time. In addition to being her friend, Duke is more like her teacher. Even though the two have a huge difference in production philosophy to filming style, they always get something every time they come here.

"Sometimes the characters don't know that they are seeing dreams, so the visual connection between reality and dreams must be traceless, unless there are certain points, and I want the audience to know the difference." Duke said to Sophia again. "In most cases, the surreality in the film comes from the environment, not the photography skills. By maintaining a sense of reality, I believe that when needed, a subtle feeling of strangeness or uneasiness can be created without taking the audience out of the story."

“Why not use film?”

Taking advantage of Duke's time, Sofia Coppola couldn't help asking, "You have always been interested in high-definition and high-quality formats. The film has extremely high exposure tolerance and dynamic range. It has higher creative flexibility. I can under-exposure 3 and over-exposure 5 in the same screen, and finally show the entire range on the screen."

Duke has no need to hide it when facing his friends, "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 focused on other aspects.

He has met the legendary master Douglas Trumb, visited Shousan to demonstrate the high-speed shooting of 65mm film invented by Trumb, and also studied the projection technology of 70. This is a system designed by Robert Wesberg, which can be shot and screened at 48ps. Although the 70 has extraordinary clarity, its image quality is only better than HD...

Another factor that Duke cannot ignore is the cost, which is far higher than digital technology.

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

This video requires high-speed photography. Duke mainly uses photo-sonis4er and panavi private on lenses. The frame rate can reach 360ps, and the photo-sonisrotaryp daily SM, with a frame rate of up to 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 speed changes to achieve narrative effects, not only to pursue visual miracle effects.

Next, Duke made the crew switch to another set site to shoot. In the film, it was a hotel bar, and the gravity inside would suddenly change. The weather outside the house would also change suddenly.

The scene built by Hannah Selena's team is tilted by 30 degrees, and there is a green screen outside the window, which will be replaced with real street scenes later.

In order to achieve the change in lighting, Duke asked people to connect all devices to a dimming board. The light at the beginning of this scene was at sunset, so use a ts-beam lamp and a ts filter, then fill the Mai-B milk lamp with a 60-foot-long soft box and cover it with a soft light cloth to create cloudy light.

This is a scene that reflects surreality with photography techniques and lighting, and is a naturalistic technique. All light sources are well-founded. What is extraordinary is the way it changes. Combined with the original tilt of the set, it can create a very uneasy feeling.

Duke always tries his best to keep the picture from being too complicated, and does not want to look too heavy or not to have any traces of lighting. The secret is to work as quickly and simply as possible, and at the same time, not to be rushing to work.

There is also a scene filmed on the third floor of a hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Leonardo's role as Cobb stepped back and stepped into a bathtub filled with water. His dream was awakened...

In order to improve the effect and show that Cobb returns to awake from his dream, Duke requires a drastic frame rate to reach 1000ps, and he must use a faster photo-sonis camera.

After nearly a week of busy shooting in Los Angeles, the shooting has reached its end. All the main actors gathered again at the Warner Studios in Burbank, sitting in the set site in the inner warehouse of the plane to shoot the final scene.

"start!"

After Duke's order, the shooting kicked off. The main camera first gave Leonardo DiCaprio a close-up. He opened his eyes and looked around with a little confusion and horror...

"We will arrive in Los Angeles in twenty minutes," a flight attendant walked up to him. "Do you need an entry application?"

"Thank you." Leonardo was a little confused.

Then, he looked at the other row of seats opposite. Joseph Gordon Levitt and Scarlett Johansson made a gaze with him one after another, then smiled slightly, and Ken Watanabe immediately picked up the phone and started calling...

"ut!" Duke stopped.

All the cast and crew looked here, as if waiting for Duke to announce the completion of the filming.

However, the sentence did not jump out of Duke's mouth. He stood up from the director's chair, turned around in front of the set site, and shouted, "Shot it again."

Then Duke waved to Leonardo and the actors came over and stood nearby.

"Leo, you're still maintaining the performance you just now."

Duke turned to Joseph Gordon Levitt and Scarlett Johansson, "You two should pay attention, and when shooting next, you two will go to Leo by looking at strangers."

"Look at strangers?" Joseph Gordon Levitt and Scarlett Johansson didn't quite understand what Duke meant.

Duke didn't explain in detail, and said directly, "You have fifteen minutes to adjust."

Back at the director's monitor, Duke looked at the replay he had just filmed, but his mind was not on it.

The fanatical participation and interpretation of countless movie fans can be said to be an important reason for the success of "Inception" box office. What he just made was to add a new interpretation. As for whether these interpretations are related to the setting of the film, it is actually not important. There are a thousand Hamlets in the minds of a thousand people, and interpretation is only an integral part of the promotion and marketing of this film.

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

After Leonardo's male protagonist wakes up from his dream, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Scarlett Johansson's characters do not communicate with him in any way with eyes or expressions. Duke is to expand the possibility of more interpretations.

On the one hand, their targets are still sitting in the same cabin, and it is normal for them to have no communication with each other.

On the other hand, this can easily make people think of it. In fact, Cobb is not a dream inception at all. The stop or non-stop of the top has nothing to do with dream inception. All the stories about dream inception are a bizarre dream of the protagonist in the first class of the plane. The protagonist just returns to the United States to meet his child.

The filming later began, and Duke called for a stop again. He made Leonardo aggravate the horror when he woke up from his dream, as if he was surprised why all the passengers on the plane became dreamers...

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

As long as someone can have such an association, Duke will achieve his goal. Even if no one sees this, he has a huge online navy, and it is easy to publish this interpretation.

The audience watched some movies with some vague answers to some extent and always wanted to seek the truth, but their search for the truth was exactly the marketing trap of the director and the producers and publishers.

Compared with the floor-like advertising bombing, this viral marketing strategy is more clever.

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

Fortunately, Warner Bros.'s publicity and distribution department is experienced in this area and has formulated sufficient strategies, so Duke is not worried about this issue.

The next shooting went smoothly. After two more filming, Duke announced that it would be approved. All the shots of "Inception" ended, and others could enter the holiday, but Duke did not plan to give himself too long vacation because the plan this year was quite tight. Only three days later, he joined other post-production members with Anna Prinz and transferred to the post-production of "Inception". (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!