Chapter 322: Dream Stealer

Chapter 322: Dream Stealer

Chapter 322: Dream Stealer

Wang Hao didn't stay in Hollywood for long.

It only took him three or four days to get familiar with the new equipment, and then he returned to Beijing with the expensive equipment, employees who had been trained for a month, and foreign actors who had passed the auditions.

On March 2011, 3, which was the third day after Wang Hao returned to Beijing, the launch conference of Inception was officially held in the open space in front of Studio 12 of Galaxy Film City.

Participating in the launch conference were reporters from major media outlets including Sina, Tencent, and CCTV-6.

Although they were not able to take pictures of the Hollywood superstar on the spot due to Leonardo's tight schedule, the presence of Wang Hao more or less ensured that they would not return empty-handed.

After the launch conference, the crew of "Inception" officially started the intensive shooting and production.

Before Leonardo came, they mainly filmed scenes that did not involve the protagonist, and most of the scenes took place in the studio.

However, even for the simplest scenes at the beginning, the filming of this part was not smooth.

This is not a problem with the on-site management, or the actors' performances, but rather that everyone from Wang Hao to the crew's behind-the-scenes workers are still somewhat uncomfortable with the 3D movie live-action mode.

After all, this is the most advanced film shooting technology currently available. Although the crew's photography team went to Hollywood to study for a long time, learning is learning, and they will still encounter many problems in actual operation.

On the third day of filming, Wang Hao and his team had to stop work urgently.

Because they found that the 3D effects of the scenes shot two days ago were not outstanding.

This is mainly because Wang Hao and his colleagues lack experience. When designing these shots, they still retained the habits of shooting and producing 2D movies.

The footage designed in this way, after being shot by a 3D camera, does appear to have a 3D effect, but it only makes the audience feel that they are not watching a flat screen.

How should I put it? When these shots are shown in a cinema, the audience will feel like they are watching a live performance and can watch the story unfold in three dimensions, but they are actually still spectators.

Even if you are sitting in a cinema, the movie is 3D, but that three-dimensional world is still far away from you. The story presentation is no different from that of an ordinary 2D movie, it's just that the picture has become 3D.

However, this was not what Wang Hao needed. He discovered this problem when he was checking the footage he had taken at night.

“This is not the 3D visual effect we need for Inception. The main core of our movie is ‘dream’, ‘illusion’, and the implantation of consciousness.

Everyone has seen "Avatar". The 3D visual effects of our "Inception" require more than "Avatar".

In terms of lens design and 3D effects, we need more plots, images and actions to interact with the audience!"

Wang Hao’s words are actually very easy to understand. That kind of shot is like in a 3D movie, where a ball or a bullet “flies” towards your nose, and it feels like you’ll be hit if you don’t dodge. This can give the audience a greater sense of involvement.

At this time, the story is no longer on the distant screen, but happens right next to you.

However, these images also have to be specially designed according to the 3D shooting production mode, and in practice they pose great challenges to directors and photographers.

After all, the interactive scenes in many 3D movies are mostly unnecessary from the perspective of the story itself, and are designed purely to increase the sense of "presence".

Therefore, 3D movie directors not only need to design interactive methods, but also integrate it with the movie, rather than just doing it for the sake of being there. This requires a fundamental change in design, and even needs to be designed based on the story.

Wang Hao had not realized this before, but fortunately he discovered the problem in time and immediately arranged for personnel to work overtime overnight to make adjustments to the visual design of the movie's dynamic storyboard.

At the same time, he and the camera crew repeatedly tried and explored, experimenting with different camera positions, angles, depth of field and light little by little, in order to achieve the best picture balance for shooting the 3D version of "Inception".

In other words, their crew has sufficient funds, otherwise the cost of such preliminary experiments would be enough to make the producers and investors pay attention.

Of course, these attempts and explorations are also necessary.

You have to know that when filming "Avatar", Cameron also tried and explored step by step, spending so much manpower and money, which accumulated a lot of relevant experience.

Of course, it is impossible for Wang Hao to complete it all at once. Even when he was shooting, teachers, professors and graduate students from the Photography Department of Shanghai Film Academy would come to study and conduct research with them.

The 3D shooting and production process of "Inception" alone is probably enough for several people to write papers on.

Fortunately, Wang Hao and his team did not start from scratch. They had the previous experience of "Avatar". With the personnel guidance and technical support provided by Sony Pictures and 3ALITY, the "Inception" crew quickly transformed knowledge into experience.

After about a week of experimentation, the new dynamic storyboard was finalized, and the crew members basically mastered the tricks of 3D shooting and successfully coordinated with each other.

The shooting plan after that went on smoothly.

In early April, after the crew had a day off, some members began to set off and boarded a plane to New York, USA, to meet up with the film's star Leonardo Dicaprio, who had vacated his schedule, and to carry out location shooting at the same time.

The temperature in New York in April is still relatively low.

After arriving in New York, the crew members did not delay. They spent a day adjusting to the time difference and then immediately started shooting and producing the film.

In New York. There are quite a few main filming locations for "Inception".

For example, the famous Commodore Heim Bridge, named after Commodore Heim who was responsible for the construction of the Naval Operating Base Pier in 1942, is one of the largest vertical lift bridges on the West Coast of the United States.

In the movie, after the protagonists dived into the dream, they took a small passenger car to escape from the pursuit of the subconscious vehicle. They were forced onto this iron bridge, and then rushed out of the bridge railing and fell into the river to end the dream.

There is also Wilshire Boulevard, which will be the first scene after the "Dream Planting Operation" officially begins, and their target was kidnapped here.

In addition, East Seventh Street and West Seventh Street are also street scenes that New Yorkers are very familiar with.

The crew first filmed the simplest scenes here so that Leo, who had just joined the crew, could get familiar with everyone before starting the difficult part of filming.

This involved a rainy action sequence at the intersection of Seventh Street and South Spring Street in downtown New York City. The biggest challenge they encountered was that the weather forecast said it would be sunny throughout April.

So they had no choice but to use oversized flags to block the sun and use sprinkler trucks to create artificial rainfall.

Of course, before that, they still have to deal with local government departments and apply for street closures.

Fortunately, Hollywood itself is the filming location for many movies, and the government officials here have had many dealings with major film crews, so they are easy to talk to in this regard.

Of course, even with artificial rainfall and sun blocking, photographers sometimes find that the glaring sunlight occasionally sneaks into the lens.

This made the members of the camera crew very upset, but after watching the footage, director Wang Hao just laughed and waved his hand to remind the camera crew.

"It's okay, just leave it like that. This is a dream anyway. Although we feel that dreams are real when we are dreaming, in movies, there must always be a sense of surrealism to make the audience realize that the scene they are watching is not reality, but a dream."

The same surreal dream scene, of course, also includes the extremely famous train derailment and speeding through the city streets.

Wang Hao and his team did not plan to use computer special effects in the studio, nor was it possible to actually drive a train onto the streets of New York, so they asked the art designer to build a fake locomotive with an 18-wheel chassis underneath and a pickup truck inside.

In this way, the scene of a train speeding through the streets of New York was realized.

Wang Hao was very satisfied with the skills of the prop designers in Hollywood. The locomotive looked as if it were real, and the details were portrayed very well.

They used a super-large crane to shoot these shots and action scenes on the streets of New York, and used handheld cameras to shoot the dangerous shots of the train hitting them head-on.

Unlike the original version, this scene will be made into 3D effect, and the audience in the screening room will be able to enjoy the thrill of a train crashing towards them.

The New York location shooting lasted a total of 17 days, after which the Inception crew packed up and moved to Canada.

At the Fortress Mountain Resort there, the crew will film scenes about the Snow Mountain Fortress Dream.

After this part was filmed, the "Inception" crew was divided into two teams.

One of the teams of photographers, led by the assistant director, went to Japan.

They needed to stay there for two days, and the shooting schedule mainly included aerial photography and some exterior shots of the castle tower and Japanese buildings.

As for Wang Hao's group, they went to Tangier, Morocco, where part of the dream at the beginning of the movie took place.

After finishing the filming in Morocco, Groups A and B will return to China and then arrive in Shanghai.

Unlike the original "Inception", since it is a movie directed by a Chinese director, it must of course include Chinese scenery.

This can also be considered a form of cultural propaganda.

Therefore, many exterior scenes that were originally supposed to be shot in France were instead placed in Shanghai, an equally modern metropolis.

In the early morning of late April, at a street cafe in Shanghai, the crew of "Inception" surrounded it early in the morning and blocked the street with the help of relevant departments.

Then the props and art departments quickly started working and arranged the relevant props.

The next scene to be filmed is that the protagonist Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, will explain the dream system structure to the new dream builder Qin Yanni. At this time, an unrealistic wonder that only happens in dreams will occur, that is, the coffee shop on the street in Shanghai will collapse and explode.

It’s just that they were filming on the streets of Shanghai, and in a city like this, the government naturally wouldn’t allow the crew to use explosives.

Fortunately, Wang Hao had the memories of his previous life and had watched the behind-the-scenes footage of the original "Inception". He knew that Nolan used an air cannon made of high-pressure nitrogen to simulate the explosion scene.

Therefore, their team had already conducted testing for several weeks in advance, and now after arriving in Shanghai, they started filming without any delay.

The final effect was also perfect. The entire scene was filmed through the coordination of twelve cameras in different positions and speeds. Under the coordination of director Wang Hao, the shooting was successfully completed in just half a day.

The trajectories of the explosives were perfect in the replay on the monitor. The two actors at the center of the explosion also had no safety risks at all, thanks to the light simulator prepared in advance by the crew. Even the paper cups on the table in front of them did not shake at all.

In addition to this, they also have a scene where the male lead and the dream builder Qin Yanni walk on the streets of the Magic City.

After finishing all these shots, the entire crew finally finished the outdoor shooting and returned to the Galaxy Film City in Shangjing TZ District.

There, the sets and props for indoor shooting have been prepared one by one. All the indoor shots of "Inception" and many special effects shots will be shot and produced in the Wanping Studio there and another studio next door.

The entire crew achieved a seamless transition with almost no delay.

On the second day after the "Inception" crew arrived in Beijing, after getting used to the huge studio and related equipment and preparing to start filming, Han Sanping, who received the news, came here.

Han Sanping, who had come to visit the set, got out of the car and walked into the heavily guarded Studio No. 1. The first thing he saw was the crew of "Inception" preparing to shoot a shot in a surreal setting.

It was a huge cave with a high ceiling and black walls, divided into several areas by thin white grid lines.

More than 100 high-altitude lights are suspended in the air, with soft light cloth laid underneath. The light they cast is neutral, clean, and without any shadows.

Actor Cillian Murphy, who played the target of the dream, knelt on the floor. At the command of director Wang Hao, a 35mm camera for capturing the scene and another 65mm camera for recording the action started at the same time.

Then the next second, a crack suddenly appeared in the floor, a large piece of strange-shaped scenery fell down, and Cillian Murphy and the scene fell into the hole in the ground.

The scene was suddenly filled with dust, which scared Han Sanping, who thought there was some filming accident.

Fortunately, after director Wang Hao shouted "Cut", the staff came in to clean up the mess. After a while, the hydraulic press under the stage sent the collapsed floor back to its original position.

(End of this chapter)