Made in Hollywood

Los Angeles is extremely hot this year, and the scorching sun seems to scorch every inch of the land. Because of the heat wave, a forest fire broke out in the San Gabriel Mountains on the back of Los Angeles. Miles of the area became hotter, like being in a big furnace being baked.

The bad weather and raging forest fires have brought a lot of troubles to work and life in the Los Angeles area, and some companies near the San Gabriel Mountains simply took a holiday.

But none of these affected Duke's preparatory work. After Warner Bros.'s initial funds of 60 million US dollars arrived, the entire preparatory work started smoothly.

Duke first led Hannah Serena and John Schwartzman to spend more than ten days to investigate several countries including Paris, France and Tokyo, Japan. Go back to Los Angeles and review the studios that have been built here.

Just like what Duke thought at the press conference, the film will have a lot of location scenes, and it will also span several countries and regions, but the proportion is not particularly high, and the main scene of the film is still in the studio Set up green screen shooting in China, relying on CGI to generate.

Of course, Duke will not use film to shoot, but will mainly use digital technology to produce, and besides shooting with IMAX cameras, the film must also be a 3D film.

Duke will not ignore the high ticket price of 3D movies. "Avatar" will be released soon. Next year and even in the following two or three years, the market will be full of enthusiasm for 3D movies, especially "Avatar" will explode. In the period after the boom, the audience's enthusiasm for 3D movies can only be described as unbelievable, which directly made Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" such a converted 3D movie a big hit.

Although after acquiring Relativity's investment in some films, Duke also owns part of the shares of "Alice in Wonderland". But he will not let this movie enjoy the 3D feast brought by "Avatar" alone. He has already discussed with Warner Bros. and will release several converted 3D movies like "Alice in Wonderland" in due course.

Duke's plan is to turn the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy into a 3D movie, and take advantage of the "Avatar" to make another fortune. Even if this series is only DVD and has already released 3 different versions, the capital is not enough. Not right with profits.

The plan to turn the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy into a 3D movie will officially begin next month. It was re-released in January this year, and once again started the journey of making money.

In the huge studio of Warner Studios, Duke walked in front of the green screens erected piece by piece. While walking, he considered whether the green screen met his needs. Then make some appropriate changes.

After passing through the studio with many green screens, he came to the real scene construction area. In today's Hollywood, even "Transformers" and "Avatar", which rely heavily on CGI, still use some live-action scenes.

Duke first came to a section of stairs, walked up and turned around, and gave a thumbs up to the special effects team responsible for the construction. The special effects team refers to the Penrose staircase described by the illusion master Escher, and actually builds a closed staircase that looks like an infinite loop from a specific angle.

In order to shoot the weightless scene in the hotel, Duke also asked the special effects team to build the entire corridor set on a giant "Vientiane Ring" device.

Turning around the entire set area, Duke came to a model train. It's a real prop, driven internally by a truck and several trailers. The outside is covered with a fiberglass train shell to make it look like the real one.

There are many models that have been made or are being made nearby, such as the miniature model used to photograph the snow bunker...

Leaving the studio, Duke entered the actor's rehearsal hall next to it, headed by Leonardo DiCaprio here. Including Joseph? Gordon? Levitt, Scarlett? Johansson, Ken Watanabe, James? Franco, Mark? Ruffalo and others are rehearsing some scenes that need to be coordinated.

Before each film is shot, the actors will rehearse to a certain extent, especially for this group play, their Inception team must cooperate with each other tacitly.

Not only rehearsal, even during the break, the six people headed by Leonardo DiCaprio all called their respective characters by their names in order to find the feeling as soon as possible.

In Duke's eyes, the play of these six people, combined with their goals, is like making a movie.

From another point of view, Saito is the film production company, who insists on supervising the production of the film; Arthur is the producer who takes care of everything and knows that everything is running smoothly; Cobb directs actions, brings others into his dreams and In the plan, he is the director; Adrian is responsible for constructing the dream, and he is the screenwriter; Eames knows how to transform, and he is the actor; Yusef provides the sedative, and he is the technical department; and Fisher is the audience...

Many, many playwrights have a half-written tome lying in their drawers. They hope that "someday in the future, they can pick it up and finish it", but in fact, few people actually do it.

Especially "Inception", if it is not proposed by a director with a certain status and status, with the style of Hollywood film companies, I am afraid that I will not pay attention to it. From this point of view, the former Christopher Nolan is also quite smart. And someone who understands Hollywood style.

This director insists on 'originality', but is not limited to 'originality'. It is clear that the 'original' type of ordinary directors, screenwriters and even producers is not popular in Hollywood. His first goal in entering the mainstream film industry is to adapt movies, relying on The huge success of the film adaptation has won the opportunity for the 'original' which requires a large investment and production.

"The theater is a very dream-like experience for me."

During the break, the actors gathered around Duke to discuss the film and the characters with him. When Joseph Gordon-Levitt asked about the source of the idea for the film, Duke could only blurt out, "I have always been Attracted by dreams, I want to make a movie about dreams. Because I think there is a connection between the way imagination works on dreams and the stories you create yourself. Watching a movie is similar to experiencing a dream, and in It should be an unknown experience for theaters to appreciate and accept that."

"Dreams also visually influence the creation of many directors."

James Franco, who is called a geek in Hollywood, echoed Duke's words, saying, "In my dreams, I often get some wonderful pictures, or some small elements, and I will write them down immediately after waking up. .”

"Oh, oh, oh...". Joseph Gordon-Levitt teased him deliberately, "It turns out that James also has a dream of becoming a director."

James Franco shrugged, but didn't deny it, "I'd love to be a comedy director, Joseph, and then we can work together."

Everyone laughed. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's style is more literary now, and it seems unlikely that he will appear in a shit comedy.

"I admit that my dreams are very little instructive on the story elements," James Franco continued, "but I believe that the human brain can also solve problems in sleep."

Duke has a deep understanding of this, and nodded slightly, "I always think about things before going to bed. With that state of consciousness, I can often get a flash of inspiration before I actually fall asleep. If you think about the script and think about it, Hit the wall and tell yourself before going to bed: 'Okay, stop thinking about it, time to go to bed.' And then you actually stop thinking about it - but it often frees up another part of your brain that just gives you the answer .”

"Dreams are indeed a very magical thing." Scarlett Johansson handed Duke a glass of water, "I have often had the same dream since ten years ago..."

Leonardo DiCaprio winked at Scarlett, "Honey, did your dream come true?"

"Of course!" Scarlett looked at Duke, with a beautiful arc on the corner of her mouth, "When dreams come true, they will be extraordinarily beautiful and sweet."

Headed by James Franco, there was a booing sound all around.

Perhaps because the main actors of the crew are basically men, and the most important woman is the relationship with the director’s girlfriend, Duke, the internal atmosphere of the crew is much more harmonious than when filming "Fury Road", even though the actors have their own thoughts and opinions. Intended, but not like Tom? Cruise and Charlize? Theron, almost "I don't like you" written on the face.

The topic gradually returned to the movie and the script. Duke and Scarlett left because of an accident. Looking at his back, Leonardo DiCaprio said, "When I first read the script, I thought Duke To set the movie up as a heist movie, with a team of corporate espionage led by Cobb, invading the unsuspecting man through dreams and stealing his ideas, is enough in itself to make a good movie. Movie."

He shrugged his shoulders and said in a slightly playful tone, "But Duke obviously has higher pursuits. He has always been interested in penetrating someone's psychology layer by layer. If he just takes something from there, it's really Not attractive enough."

"I've had enough conversations with Duke. He has created a bigger goal for himself. His task for these thieving experts is..."

Leonardo had a bit of admiration on his face, "Put an idea in other people's minds, an idea that should be resisted under normal circumstances, but after their planning, this idea will take root and eventually make the target Characters do what their employers want, what a genius innovation!"

James Franco nodded solemnly, followed by Leonardo's words, "You need to place something in a person's consciousness to make it grow in a certain way, and you must first predict how it will grow into chaos. grow in the same way—this seems to be the biggest conclusion we can get from the script." (To be continued~^~)