One of the greatest things Hollywood has done in the past twenty years is to upgrade virtual technology into a weapon to restore the real world.↖↖, however, it is rare to fully present the conscious picture in the human brain with extreme special effects and logical structure.

"Inception" wants to show the effect of four levels of dreams within a limited space, and relies heavily on post-production editing. The narrative order of this film is not based on common sense, just like when a person wakes up, he cannot organize his dreams clearly.

In order to be able to show the situations in different levels of dreams at the same time and to explain the special time difference of dreams at different levels of dreams clearly, Duke once again chose "cross editing" and put forward higher requirements.

He asked the dimmer to give a completely different feeling to each different landscape and dream, effectively avoiding the confusion in expression that cross-cutting may bring.

“From one place to another, we want to have some changes in tones,” Duke said to the dimmer and Mike Dawson. “Calgary has a barren and cold feeling, the corridors are warm and the van is neutral. Even if we cut to a small scene, even if we cut into isolated things that are out of the background, the audience can immediately know where the character is.”

This is a convenient way to tell stories, and it also enhances the video's friendliness to the audience, so that the audience can watch and understand the entire video.

“We will rely heavily on cross-splicing,”

Before all the work began, Duke specifically explained to Mike Dawson, "If the appearance of different scenes is completely different, you can be very relaxed when editing, but I don't want to do too artificial processing of the picture. Instead, we have to find the natural tones of each place. In the script, I want to let different action clues happen in places where design and feeling are inherently different. I ask everyone to pay attention to observation, including the art and the sound department."

In "Inception", editing between dreams can be described as time and space, especially in the last four levels of dreams. Duke wants to make the cross editing of four time and space create a tense atmosphere, especially in the last part of the preparation for waking up, the people left behind the four levels of dreams find ways to fall in their respective layers and constantly cross. At the same time, the time difference caused by different dreams is caused by different time, and at the moment of waking up, the close-up of the cross edited characters is used to edit the characters to wake up layer by layer.

The tense atmosphere created by cross editing can also mobilize the audience's emotions well.

Perhaps because of her relatively idle relationship recently, Sophia Coppola occasionally comes to Warner Studios to share some opinions on film production with Duke. After watching the roughly cut samples by Duke and Mike Dawson, she still feels a little bit even though most of the special effects are not added.

While sitting at the rest table drinking coffee, Sofia said to Duke. "You have profoundly changed the mainstream Hollywood movies."

“I was just involved in the transformation of mainstream Hollywood movies in the 21st century.”

He picked up the coffee, Duke took a sip, and said, "Essentially, it's nothing wrong for those people to say that I'm just a superficial director and producer. Everything I do is just to give the audience a sense of movie-watching pleasure."

Sofia didn't agree with Duke's words, and gently turned his coffee cup with his right hand, talking about the comprehensive impact on contemporary Hollywood movies. You can be at least the top three of directors in the past two decades, maybe only James Cameron and Quentin Tastino can compare with you."

When I saw Duke, Sophia, who knew him well, said first, "Don't talk about my father, George, Steven and Martin, they are too old after all, they belong to the previous era. I mean the impact on a specific object like Hollywood movies. And my criterion is not box office."

Duke put down his coffee cup and smiled, "I am at best a reformer, not an innovator or a disruptor."

"I agree with this." Sofia nodded before drinking coffee.

Mainstream commercial films in Hollywood are not welcome to subversion, they just accept improvements. However, for filmmaking, improvements are not something that needs to be praised.

There are many good directors, good movies, and many creators who have made improvements but have the final response to the work.

In fact, Sophia knew very well what some old men from the academy thought of Duke.

They believe that his films are vulgar and popular modernism, such as processing some techniques that have long been popular in serious art into copycat versions, thereby entertaining more people.

In Sophia's view, through Duke's movies, ordinary audiences can comfortably understand and enjoy some of the originally avant-garde artistic concepts, but Duke's commercial positioning of the movies determines that they always lack the kind of thinking and fascinating connotation and philosophical depth. They are too similar to building block games with only one solution, precise, stable, so mechanical and patterned.

I can only say that Sophia Coppola's philosophy is very different from Duke, which is also an important reason why Duke has not used her in any commercial works so far.

However, Sophia also acknowledged Duke's achievements in innovation in Hollywood films, "For example, superhero movies, you bring completely different superhero movies, you introduce some real political and social issues into superhero movies. In the past, these were not discussed."

"Since Superman has such great ability, what's the point of catching robbers and thieves every day? He can completely change the laws of the world's operation and truly benefit mankind."

After saying this, Duke spread his hands, "Hollywood won't shoot that much, because superhero movies are essentially fairy tales. Some of the conflicts involved in "The Dark Knight" can indeed be found in real life, but they are still fairy tales."

It is indeed profound to let Batman deal with some real social problems rather than the pseudo-problems facing Superman, but this is still a commercial means. If you choose many popular public issues and throw them into the narrative of the film, the audience will naturally discover the content they care about and increase their attention to the film.

Just as Duke was busy with the post-production of "Inception", something shocked the whole world happened in Hollywood. "Titanic" had a box office record that was covered with twelve years, and was refreshed by James Cameron himself.

No film can always run at a high level, even "Avatar", which does not conform to the normal film market rules, is no exception. After an incredible reverse increase on the fifth weekend, the North American box office of this film finally showed a normal downward trend, but the decline rate is extremely slow every weekend.

"Avatar" did not have a box office result of more than $100 million in North America on a weekend, but the most feared thing is its terrible trend. Now it has been released for more than eleven weeks, and the weekend box office is still as high as $13.65 million!

This cannot help but make people feel terrified.

And in just eleven weeks, the film's North American box office exceeded US$700 million, up to US$720.6 million.

This sets a new North American box office record!

Not only North America, but also in the global market, the trend of this film is also terrifyingly stable and terrible. The global box office easily crossed the threshold of "Titanic" and set a new global box office record with a record of 2.418.85 million US dollars.

More importantly, "Avatar" also brought about changes in the film market, completely pushing the 3D and IMA craze triggered by "Transformers" to the peak. The theater companies around the world not only set off a craze for opening IMA cinemas, but also the 3D eyes that have always been unpopular have become a shortage of products.

On the other hand, the success of "Avatar" has also aroused the market's desire for 3D films. Even pseudo-3D films such as "Alice in Wonderland" that were transformed through later stages have achieved crazy sales with the help of "Avatar".

Similarly, Duke, who was prepared for this, has become one of the winners of this wave.

The 3D version of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy has landed in more than 1,000 theaters in North America and more than 60 overseas markets in less than a month. In less than a month, it has earned more than 70 million US dollars in North America and nearly 250 million US dollars in global box office.

This not only brought considerable profits, but also played a certain preheating and promoting role for the upcoming "The Hobbit" trilogy.

The 3D wave has also penetrated into all aspects of the mainstream Hollywood film industry. Major production companies have formulated 3D film shooting plans. Even if the films that have already started shooting are ready to convert them into 3D movies through post-production.

“Fast and Furious 5 will definitely be a 3D movie!”

In the office of Universal Studios, David Ellison, who had decided to cooperate after a long negotiation, Universal Pictures executives and Vin Diesel gathered together. David Ellison stood up and emphasized, "Fast and Furious 5 must also be a 3D film!"

"I have no objection!" Vin Diesel agreed with David Ellison's statement.

Of course, people from Universal Pictures will not have any objection. Now anyone can see that the 3D video will inevitably bring more box office revenue.

"Justin Lin has agreed to continue to serve as director of "Fast and Furious 5." said a Universal Pictures executive. "The main actors of the first film have basically agreed to return..."

He paused and said to David Ellison and Vin Diesel, "But we didn't find Jessica Alba."

Since Jessica Alba was released from prison, she has completely disappeared from Hollywood, and in fact she can't continue to gain a foothold in Hollywood.

Vin Diesel thought for a while and said, "Exclude her."

At the end of this brief meeting, Vin Diesel and David Ellison walked out of the office together. When they entered the elevator, David Ellison suddenly lowered his voice and said, "My people have found Jessica Alba." (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!