The studio was dim, opposite Duke, Leonardo DiCaprio turned his back to the main camera, as if he was busy with something. Then Scarlett Johnson's figure broke into the camera, and she looked at Leonardo's back and walked over there. ⊙

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

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

"Oh, sorry,"

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

"Show me." Leonardo took his pocket and walked over.

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

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

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

Since the heroine's candidate was not French, Duke changed his name accordingly.

Leonardo took out a gyro and placed it in his palm so that Scarlett could see more clearly, and explained, "The gyro will not fall when it turns around in a dream."

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

"I heard Arthur say he died?" Scarlett asked.

But Leonardo changed the topic, "How is the maze design?"

Duke left the camera and shouted, "cut!"

Scarlett and Leonardo both looked here, and it was clear that the first one of them had not been opened, but this scene was not difficult. They didn't understand what the problem was.

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

This shot failed and had nothing to do with Scarlett and Leonardo's performances. Instead, there was a problem with the lighting distribution. Since Zach Schneider left Duke's team and became a director, his crew's lighting distribution has been in charge of Cork Lundyll.

Movies can also be said to be a photochemistry dream, and the requirements for light are very complex. Although many lights can be adjusted in post-production, the light used for shooting on site is also extremely important.

The so-called light distribution is tone-speak. The reason why movies need to be light distribution is mainly for two reasons: First, there are inevitably differences between the lenses shot under different light sources at different times. If they are directly printed without processing, the lenses will appear disharmonious when editing together; second, the creators will also make the film scene present a specific style out of their own artistic pursuits.

The original English text of the word "light distribution" is colori fan. From the literal meaning of English, many people may wonder what the relationship between this process and "time".

This has to be traced back to the era of black and white films. Since there was no color intervention at that time. Light distribution only involves the light and dark control of the picture, so what the light distributionist needs to do is to debug and record the exposure time required for different lenses. The term timi-ng comes from this. After the advent of color technology, the timi-ng statement was still preserved, and even in the current digital age, it is still being used.

Today's light distribution work is carried out completely in a digital environment, and the efficiency and freedom that the light distribution agent can obtain is extremely high. In recent years, electronic light distribution technology has developed rapidly. Through the electronic circuit imaging of the electronic light distribution machine, the light distribution agent can directly preview the light distribution results, thereby working 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 strolling in the independent film industry. He will not stick to those traditional and time-consuming ways to shoot.

How to spend the least amount of money to achieve the best results at the fastest speed is what Duke wants, and for this reason he doesn't care whether to adhere to tradition or use new technologies.

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

The first shocking scene that appeared in "Inception" was the first dream travel caused by Leonardo DiCaprio's role as Dom Cobb being pushed into the bathtub. Cobb's feelings about water in the upper world were conveyed to the lower dream, which produced a surreal effect - the entire Japanese palace was flooded with surging water.

This scene with great sensory impact was actually taken by Christopher Nolan using real scenes. His crew built a scene inside the huge palace and stored a total of 5,000 gallons of water in 26 water tanks carefully arranged in each window of the scene. These water tanks were opened in sequence under the drive of the mechanism, and the scene of "water flooding the mountains of gold" was created.

But such scenes and shooting are extremely time-consuming and financially consuming. Duke just thought about it briefly and gave up the idea of ​​real shots.

When he was shooting, Leonardo was just standing around the green screen, and the scene where the palace was flooded with surging water was shot using miniature models, and the two were then synthesized together after using CGI technology.

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

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

In some aspects, Duke also used traditional technology to shoot heavily.

For example, the action scene in Arthur in the corridor was disturbed by the upper dream, and there were several gravity changes in the second dream. In fact, they were all produced by real physical laws during shooting.

During the shooting, Joseph Gordon Levitt flew around the walls in the hotel corridor because the setting of the entire corridor was built on a rotatable giant "Vision Ring" installation.

When the entire corridor starts to rotate and tilt, the actors hanging on the pressure only use natural adjustments to balance, while the fixed camera makes all this look like the direction of gravity's force changing. In order to ensure the actor's safety in the rotating set, many props, including the walls, are made of soft materials.

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

First is the Penrose Ladder.

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

The special effects group references the Penrose Ladder depicted by the illusion master Aishchel. In the shooting scene, Warner Studios, a closed staircase that looks like infinite cycles from a specific angle. Of course, from any other angle, the setting will be instantly lost because it is not closed at all.

It is precisely because of this that Arthur, played by Joseph Gordon Levitt, was able to clearly explain the maze phenomenon in his dream like Adrian, played by Scarlett and the audience.

The second is the memory elevator.

In his dream, Daum Cobb created an elevator that could lead to the thirteenth floor to store his memories. This elevator of memory is an independent set during the shooting, and they are all real props created by the crew.

For example, the elevator on the top beach was dug out a big hole on Nancy Josephson's private beach when Duke photographed.

There is also a subconscious train.

The most exaggerated props prepared by the crew for filming are probably the train that appeared in the dreamland on the first floor. This train is indeed a real prop.

The big guy is driven by a truck and several trailers inside, and the outer part is covered with fiberglass train shells to make the real thing. Finally, he replaced the car tires with a train wheel with a computer cgi, and everything is impeccable.

In Hollywood, almost all large-scale commercial films are shot with computer special effects and real-life scenes. Special effects blockbusters with a investment of over 100 million US dollars without CGI special effects lenses do not exist at all.

Not to mention that Duke's version of Inception uses more than 2,000 CGI special effects lenses, just talking about Christopher Nolan, many people's impression of Nolan is that this is a film crazy and extremely resistant to digital technology. From a certain perspective, this is correct, but this does not see the whole truth.

In fact, the cgi special effects were widely and even critically used in the production of the once "Inception".

The rewinding Paris is one of the iconic shots of this film. If you don’t explain it in detail, you can see that this is a scene generated by CGI. In addition, there are more than 600 CGI shots used in the entire movie!

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

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

These high-precision photos were eventually posted on a three-dimensional model as "baking maps", with the purpose of making the entire virtual scene real and credible.

However, it is far from enough to have real maps. The entire scene needs to consider many changes in elements, including the light source - the entire scene occurs during the day, and the simulation of sky light is very difficult - shadow projection, perspective, etc., and also consider how to hide the penetration between buildings.

Although Duke plans to have city curls cut into several shots in the movie, the initial special effects completed by Industrial Light and Magic are just a complete shot.

According to Duke's requirements, the special effects team could cheat by switching the camera, but they faced the challenge and handed him a beautiful answer that exceeded expectations - no duplicate blocks, as small as street lights, curtains, and even the interior structures inside the building. (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!