Made in Hollywood

"Do you need a substitute?"

Standing in front of the Vientiane Ring, Duke asked Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who was about to shoot the weightless fight scene in the corridor, and the latter shook his head, saying solemnly, "I have done a lot of practice, and I will complete these scenes myself. "

Having said that, Joseph Gordon Levitt still had a bit of nervousness on his face.

Although protected by coercion, this action scene still has a certain degree of difficulty and danger. With Duke's work style, the first choice for this kind of scene must be a stunt double, but he will not completely ignore the opinions of the actors themselves.

Most of the scenes here will be performed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt himself, but some difficult action scenes will inevitably use stunt doubles.

On this point, the actors have no right to speak. Duke can't let the main actors take such a risk. Not to mention the possible troubles in their agency and the actors' union after the injury, he can't afford to delay it just because of time.

The shooting here is also the most typical scene of the combination of traditional setting and digital technology.

In this scene, it is not enough to just have gravity to change direction, Duke also resorted to the "zero gravity" trick.

During filming, the change of gravity is generated by the rotating set, so how do you get complete weightlessness?

The traditional method is that the crew build a high-speed rotating centrifugal system to allow the actors to perform in a real state of weightlessness; the digital technology method is that it is too troublesome, directly hang the actors in front of the green screen to shoot, and then blend with the background Combining them together is easy.

However, Duke relies on the perfect combination of traditional scenery and digital technology to achieve it-this is the crystallization of superb art direction imagination combined with advanced digital technology operations.

First of all, the entire weightless scene was done in a real set, and actors including Joseph Gordon Levitt were suspended in the set to create a weightless effect.

But this kind of suspension is not as simple as just hanging a few wires. According to the request of action director Jimmy Carter, the number of wires on the shooting site is as large as a forest. There is no need to worry about these appearing in the film and causing interference to the film itself, because digital special effects artists can easily erase them all using the latest computer technology.

Duke knew that shooting the conventional way would be a disaster for digital effects because it would mean massive wire removal. So he came up with a brilliant shooting method-making the original horizontal set into a vertical one, and shooting the camera vertically upwards at the same time!

That is to say, the walls on both sides of the corridor become the ceiling and the floor in the true sense, and the vertical relationship of the shooting scene becomes the depth relationship—and vice versa, the depth plane in the shooting scene is actually physically vertical In this way, the vertically suspended wire can be viewed according to the spatial relationship of the shooting scene. It becomes extending from both sides of the corridor instead of hanging from the ceiling.

This greatly increases the chance of using actors to cover the suspension device, and the special effects artists who did the wire removal can breathe a sigh of relief.

In this respect, traditional shooting techniques have helped digital technology a lot, but digital has also helped traditional special effects.

for some actors. Especially people who face the camera head-on—meaning they’re facing down—like Ken Watanabe and Cillian Murphy, who can’t afford to be hung for long periods of time and have to use stand-ins, but Don't forget that they have to show their faces in front of the camera...

In this way. Facial replacement is indispensable, which of course can only be done by digital special effects technology. The digital special effects artist scans the actor's face, makes it into a digital model, and then pastes it on the body of the stuntman, which is almost the same as himself.

Such a special way of shooting. It requires traditional shooting and special effects techniques to be seamlessly combined.

In Duke's view, this is the sublimation of special effects production. Traditional special effects and digital special effects do not have to be at the same level. Digital special effects represent the future development direction, and traditional special effects are not useless. The two can completely complement each other.

Duke's production of "Inception" is not a game between tradition and digital, but a comprehensive application of the entire film process.

Of course, for Duke, digital special effects are used much more than traditional special effects.

After ILM's special effects artists completed the rewinding of Paris, they started working on another all-CG scene—a complex of buildings on the edge of the subconscious.

To make the audience believe that Dom Cobb and his wife spent 50 years building the city on the edge of the subconscious when watching the film, it means that the film needs a huge number of three-dimensional buildings, and the special effects artist only has a few months to complete the 50-year-old city. Work.

At the same time, the diversity of architectural styles also increases the complexity of modeling work.

In order to further amplify the authenticity of the architecture, Duke specifically requested that the cities on the edge of the subconscious must embody modern architectural aesthetics of different time spans, from Bauhaus-style buildings to skyscrapers to post-modern styles.

All of these have to be done by those digital special effects artists who are not very high in the industry.

Don't look at the current box office blockbusters that often have thousands of digital special effects shots, the status of the digital special effects team is actually quite embarrassing.

On the one hand, they are important contributors to visual effects films. On the other hand, Hollywood, which has not yet fully adapted to digital film production methods, does not pay them due attention. This is because digital special effects technicians always appear at the very end of the credit list. It's not hard to see.

Anyone who is a little familiar with Hollywood productions knows that most film crews seldom consider how the original footage can coexist harmoniously with the visual effects when shooting, and just throw their finished shots to the digital special effects department. This is why digital special effects often Known as "post-processing".

Of course, the situation is changing little by little, and the projects of directors like Duke and James Cameron are the dawn of digital special effects artists-they are no longer just engaged in "post-processing". In the project, digital technology special effects artists successfully penetrated the entire process of the film from the early stage to the post-stage.

The visual effects supervisor of "Inception", Paul Franklin from Industrial Light and Magic, has been involved in the film project since it was established. This alone is a rare thing in the Hollywood industry. During the entire filming period, he was always A member of the core creative team consisting of Duke, Anna Prinz, Hannah Serena and John Schwartzman, etc., flew to each shooting location, participated in framing, scene construction and shooting Discussions, and plenty of prep time to gather FX references.

The special effects team of Industrial Light \u0026 Magic has fully won the trust of Duke through many previous projects and years of cooperation. The nearly 2,000 visual effects shots of "Inception" this time will all be completed by Industrial Light \u0026 Magic.

It took nearly a month for Duke to complete all the studio scenes in Warner Studios, and then the crew left Los Angeles, rented two planes, flew directly to Tokyo, Japan, and began shooting a few shots here .

Among them, there is a scene on the Shinkansen. It turned out that Duke planned to shoot on-site, but because of the uncertainty of the shooting location and the management of the Shinkansen, he simply set up the scene in the studio and completed the shooting. During post-production, Then use CGI to replace the scenery outside the car window.

Leonardo DiCaprio once said that Duke wanted to use filming to travel around the world. This is obviously impossible. The crew is busy with work, and the time for filming is also quite tight. There will be other scenes later To rush, after Duke arrived in Tokyo, he would use it for shooting during the day, and review the shots and deal with other aspects of work at night.

In addition to being a director, Duke has other identities after all, as well as a series of investments and industries that need attention.

For example, after he acquired the corresponding shares in Theory of Relativity, "Avatar", which has accounted for nearly 40% of the investment and revenue sharing, is launching a bombardment-like publicity campaign in North America and the world, and will also push it to global theaters in December market.

On a temporary leased apron in Tokyo, amidst the roar, a helicopter took off into the sky. Duke looked up, and when the plane circled around and was about to land, he signaled his own notes.

"Scene seventy-eight, scene eleven..."

Placing the signboard in front of the main camera lens, the signer yells, "Now!"

The lens of the main camera was deflected and aimed at the landing helicopter, and followed the plane back to the apron. After the helicopter stopped, the hatch was pulled open from the inside. Joseph Gordon Levitt and Leonardo? DiCaprio has jumped off.

Duke made a gesture, and the No. 2 camera controlled by a camera assistant immediately aimed at the face of Ken Watanabe showing the cabin, and the microphone used for recording also moved from the side to the side of the cabin.

"Hey, Mr. Cobb." Ken Watanabe shouted to Leonardo's back, and when Leonardo turned his head, he said in a seductive tone, "If I let you go home, go back to the What do you think about being around the child?"

"You can't do this!" Leonardo obviously didn't trust him, "No one can do it!"

"Is it harder than Zhimeng?" Ken Watanabe said again.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt shook his head in front of him and reminded, "Cobb, let's go."

The longing for home and children was gradually written on Leonardo's face. He didn't heed Joseph Gordon-Levitt's reminder, strode back to the helicopter, and asked Ken Watanabe, "This How complicated is the idea?"

There was a faint smile on Watanabe Ken's face, "It's quite simple."

The shooting in Japan was generally smooth. By mid-December, Duke had finished all the exterior scenes in Tokyo and temporarily handed over the crew to Anna Pulitzer, who returned to Los Angeles with Leonardo. Get ready for James Cameron's Avatar! (to be continued ~^~)