Made in Hollywood

One of the greatest things Hollywood has done in the past two decades is to upgrade virtual technology into a sharp tool for restoring the real world. However, it is rare to use extreme special effects and logical structure to fully present the consciousness picture in the human brain.

"Inception" wants to show the effect of four layers of dreams within a limited space, so it relies heavily on post-editing. It's the same as sorting out your dreams.

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

He asked the colorist to give each different scene and dream a completely different feeling, so as to effectively avoid the confusion of expression that may be caused by cross-editing.

“We wanted to have some variation in tone from one place to another,” Duke told the colorist and Mike Dawson. “Calgary has a barren, cold feel to it, the hallways are warm, the vans are dark.” It’s neutral. Even if we cut to a small scene, even if we cut to something isolated out of the background, the audience can immediately know where the character is.”

This is a way to facilitate storytelling, and it also enhances the friendliness of the film to the audience, making it easier for the audience to watch and understand the entire film.

"We're going to rely heavily on cross-splicing,"

Before all the work started, 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 on the picture. Instead, we need to find each The natural tone of the place. In the script, I just wanted to have different cues of action take place in places that were inherently different in design and feel. I asked everyone to pay attention. Art and sound departments included."

In "Inception", the editing between dreams can be said to be time and space according to the setting, especially the last four-story dream. Duke wants to make the cross-editing of the four time and space create a tense atmosphere, especially in the final preparation In the part of waking up, the people left by the four layers of dreams try to fall in their respective layers, and cross each other continuously. At the same time, but due to the time difference caused by different deep dreams, at the moment of waking up, the cross-edited close-up shots of the characters are 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 very well.

Probably due to the relatively free relationship recently, Sofia Coppola occasionally comes to Warner Studios to exchange some views on film production with Duke, and after watching the rough cut samples made by Duke and Mike Dawson, even if the Most of the special effects are not added. She's still a little emotional.

While drinking coffee at the break table, Sophia said to Duke, "You have profoundly changed mainstream Hollywood movies."

"I just participated in the transformation of mainstream Hollywood movies in the 21st century."

Picking up the coffee, Duke took a sip and said. "Essentially speaking, those people are not wrong to say that I am just a superficial director and producer. Everything I do is just to give the audience a sense of pleasure."

Sophia didn't agree with Duke's words, and turned the coffee cup gently with her right hand. Speaking of combined influence on contemporary Hollywood cinema, you can at least rank among the top three directors of the last two decades. You may be compared only to James Cameron and Quentin Tastineau. "

Seeing what Duke wanted to say, Sophia, who knew him well, said first, "Don't talk about my father, George. And Steven and Martin, they are too old after all, they belong to the previous era. The impact of such a specific object as a movie, and I am not judging by the box office."

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

"I agree with that." Sofia nodded before drinking her coffee.

Hollywood's mainstream commercial films do not welcome subversion, they only accept improvement. When it comes to filmmaking, though, improvements aren't something to brag about.

There are many good directors and movies that don’t make improvements, and there are also many creators who make improvements but end up with mediocre works.

In fact, Sophia is very aware of the views of some old men in the academy on Duke.

They think his films are a kind of vulgar and popular modernism, like processing some techniques that have long been popular in serious art into fake versions, so as to entertain more people.

In Sophia's view, ordinary audiences can comfortably understand and enjoy some original avant-garde artistic concepts through Duke's films, but Duke's commercial positioning of films determines that they always lack the kind of thinking and fascinating Connotation and philosophical depth, they are too much like a building block game with only one solution, precise and stable, so mechanical and patterned.

It can only be said that Sofia Coppola's concept is very different from Duke's, which is also an important reason why Duke has not used her in any commercial works until now.

However, Sofia also acknowledged Duke's achievements in the innovation of Hollywood movies, "For example, superhero movies, you brought a completely different superhero movie, and you introduced some real political and social issues in superhero movies. In the past , these are not discussed."

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

After saying this, Duke spread his hands, "Hollywood won't do that, because superhero movies are essentially fairy tales. Some of the conflicts involved in "The Dark Knight" can indeed find corresponding versions in real life, but It's still a fairy tale."

It is indeed profound to let Batman deal with some real social problems instead of those pseudo-problems faced by Superman, but this is still a commercial method. If you choose many hot public issues and throw them into the narrative of the film, the audience will naturally Find out what they care about and increase their attention to the film.

When Duke was busy with the post-production of "Inception", something happened in Hollywood that shocked the whole world - the box office record of "Titanic" that had been dusty for twelve years was once again captured by James Cameron himself refresh.

It is impossible for any film to run at a high level all the time, even "Avatar", which does not conform to the normal film market rules. After the incredible reverse growth in the fifth weekend, the North American box office of this film finally showed a A normal downward trend, except that the rate of decline is unusually slow every weekend.

"Avatar" did not break out a box office of more than 100 million US dollars in any weekend in North America, but its most fearful thing is that its trend is terribly stable. Now that it has been released for more than 11 weeks, the weekend box office still has as much as 13.65 million US dollars!

This cannot but be frightening.

And in just eleven weeks, the North American box office of the film exceeded 700 million US dollars, as high as 720.6 million US dollars.

This created a new North American box office record!

Not only in North America, but also in the global market, the trend of this film is also stable and terrifying. The global box office also easily crossed the threshold of "Titanic", breaking the global box office record with a score of 2.41885 billion US dollars.

More importantly, "Avatar" has also brought about changes in the film market, pushing the 3D and IMAX craze triggered by "Transformers" to a peak, and theater companies around the world have not only set off a wave of opening IMAX theaters Even the 3D eyes, which have always been uninterested, have become a hot commodity.

On the other hand, the success of "Avatar" has also aroused the market's desire for 3D films. Even "Alice in Wonderland", which is a pseudo-3D film that has been converted through post-production, has achieved crazy with the help of "Avatar". big sale.

Similarly, Duke, which had been prepared for this, has also become one of the winners of this wave.

The 3D converted 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 the form of three consecutive releases. In less than a month, it has harvested more than 70 million US dollars in North America. box office and nearly $250 million worldwide.

This not only brought handsome profits, but also played a certain role in the pre-heating publicity for the upcoming "Hobbit" trilogy.

The 3D wave has also penetrated into all aspects of the mainstream Hollywood film circle. Major production companies have formulated 3D film shooting plans one after another. Even the films that have already started shooting are also preparing to convert them into 3D films through post-production.

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

In the office of Universal Studios, David Ellison, the executives of Universal Pictures and Vin Diesel, who had finalized the cooperation after a long negotiation, gathered together. David Ellison stood up and emphasized, ""Speed "With Passion 5" must also be a 3D film!"

"I have no opinion!" Vin Diesel recognized David Ellison's statement.

Of course, people from Universal Pictures have no objections. Now everyone can see that the 3D film will definitely bring more box office revenue.

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

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

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

Vin Diesel thought for a while and said, "Let's get rid of her."

This short meeting ended, and 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 found Jessica Ellison. Alba." (To be continued~^~)

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