Made in Hollywood

As with previous films, Duke also decided to include the audience in the film as part of a complex scheme in which the film itself was removed in pre-production—as if turning them into criminal partners. The same - in this way, he declared his ambition in this genre.

One of the fascinating things about a heist movie like this, and one of the reasons why Duke serves as a template, is that in most movies, the way it is explained to the audience is dubious, boring, dodgy, unbearable—but in The Heist In the film, it is the meat of the drama, which becomes a part of the fun, which is an essential part of the heist film, and their discussions, their plans for things, will also become the audience to continue watching the story reason.

Duke has studied in depth that a pattern in this genre is that, at a certain point, the viewer starts to stop receiving information, and then experiences it only as a spectator, until the end of the action, where they are kept fresh and drawn. Admired by careful planning.

But he is not going to repeat this routine and make some subversive changes. Duke does not intend to keep the audience out, but decides to take them all the way.

This small change can make the audience sweat together with the characters in the film when any accident happens.

With such a wonderful world to explore, Duke will take the time to think about what is missing from the film that would make it seem plausible on an unreasonable basis.

That's the motivation of the actor Cobb, he planned the whole operation, for what? It's not as simple as just getting financial rewards!

Although Duke is not a father, he is very clear that home and children are in the hearts of most people in the world. This is a value that prevails all over the world. Life. Back to the family.

Such sentiments and motives seem peculiarly vulgar, but they are the highest human sentiments.

One of the biggest difficulties bat dramas faced when writing characters’ emotions was that they needed to make enough balance to maintain the boundaries between the seriousness of the plot and the affinity with the audience. The plot of a film can often be summed up in a one-sentence introduction. Card logos, but the creation of characters' emotions needs to find another way.

Different from the past. There are certain passages in this film where you have to sit and let the emotions flow from the writer's pen - in a very emotional way for the actors to say them, and then spend a lot of time revising them until they feel believable .

That is to say, several screenwriters need to follow Leonardo in the preliminary preparations, and adjust Cobb's lines and even behaviors according to some of his own habits and characteristics. They need to analyze, deconstruct, and reorganize these into a part of the film.

This is to make the situation of the role of Cobb more real, so that the audience can experience it more closely.

When watching the films of some directors. As a movie fan, Duke should have gotten a certain emotion when watching the movie, but he didn't find that the author of the movie was sharing this emotion.

These directors just think that the audience will feel it, but it is not the case. What the audience can feel is often a kind of alienation.

So whenever Duke finds out what he and the writers have written other people don't react to. But still saying to myself, 'It's okay, the audience will love it. ’, he knew he had gone astray and had to abandon them.

In addition to emotion. There are also video settings.

Although there are some lurid techniques involved in planting an idea in the mind of an unsuspecting businessman, the job ultimately comes down to it. Test the businessman's emotions and find a way to push him against his original wishes.

That's the concept Duke had in mind when he looked at the script through the lens of emotional projection.

It's more of a narrative adventure, a team of people trying to make up a story, like filmmakers get together and start working—maybe it's just because people themselves immerse themselves in such things. felt more of a similarity - it wasn't just relying on technology to plan their crimes, it was more like an invasion of the individual.

In Duke's eyes, this should be a human experience, not just a classic symbol associated with an espionage operation.

The cooperation of Leonardo DiCaprio also helped Duke a lot. During the rehearsal process, he discussed his character script with Duke one by one to understand the character’s emotions. Truth and motivation.

One of the things that forces me to do is to dramatize every rhythm of the commentary session. Every character gets a message because he needs it. Duke once told Anna Prinz Having said that, When a movie presents an important topic, such as being trapped in a dream and unable to wake up, there must be a rhythm. I used to arrange it as a neutral commentary link where the characters were relatively passive. But after much discussion with Leo, I came to the conclusion that the use of dramatic conflict created something different than before, making the commentary part indispensable for the character as well.

When planning the specific shooting plan, maybe because of the influence of the plot, Duke made the plan a little complicated, and even he himself was a little dizzy.

He filled his drawing board with exaggerated diagrams and timelines, trying to mark where transitions occurred in the film, and for weeks it felt like he was banging his head against the drawing board.

Looking back, however, Duke realized that he had actually solved some problems and made some important progress.

You know, you're going to face new problems because you know you're really making progress. Eventually, you're like, 'This thing isn't perfect right now, and I have a bunch of things I want to do with it—but it's At least it's whole and I can show it to people.'”

This is a conclusion Duke has come to.

Duke continued to revise the shooting and post-production plan countless times, knowing that when the plan went into production, it had to become more organized.

In the film, many different characters are in different dangerous situations at the same time, and he, the director, has to sit down and have a lot of conversations with the characters.

It's very difficult.

Duke believes that there is a limit to this, that is, making plans as an independent individual can only do so much. After that, it is necessary to let others join.

Fortunately, Duke spent nearly two decades building a strong team.

He often felt that working with Charles Rowan or Anna Prince or other team members was of great value, and as it turned out, their participation made the plan more reasonable and continued. With the modification, Duke finally found the perfect balance.

According to Leonardo's suggestion, Duke also fine-tuned the roles and scenes.

The most important point is that Cobb summoned his team to carry out a dangerous mission. After he assigned all the tasks, he forgot to mention that he himself was the biggest uncertainty factor of this mission.

In Leonardo's words, Cobb did not forget, but actively hid the secret in his heart.

In this regard, when discussing with several main actors, Duke used Hitchcock's Vertigo as a reference, which made the audience completely trust the protagonist of the movie-because of the actor's lovable performance and the character's Expertise—but they were wrong.

Audiences trust them because they are confident, knowledgeable, experts...etc. But, in Vertigo, at the end it's just the fact that people realize -- oh, how fooled this guy is, he's not who I thought he was at all -- and that's a really fascinating way to tell a story.

Lawrence of Arabia is another classic example that Duke and they discussed, half of the film has such a successful halo protagonist, it always makes people forget that in the second half, he will become Just how dark it is, it challenges the conventional wisdom of 'protagonist vibes'.

To achieve such an effect is difficult, you must have the right actors, fortunately, Duke has Leonardo? DiCaprio.

Everyone who becomes a superstar always has his merits.

There is indeed no one in Hollywood who cannot be replaced, and roles are always used to make actors, but Hollywood production companies are willing to pay a lot of money to invite superstars to play, instead of just choosing a small actor who has no reputation and appeal but has equally good acting skills. The truth is in it.

These principles are also very simple, and basically everyone can understand them at a glance.

Duke invited Leonardo DiCaprio not only because of his relationship with the leading actor and being a good friend with him, Warner Bros finally signed a basic salary of 15 million US dollars with Leonardo plus 100% The eighth profit sharing contract is not because of Duke's relationship.

Leonardo? DiCaprio itself represents the value is exactly the normal embodiment of this contract.

In addition to all these, Duke is also very aware of another key to the success of this film-mystery!

That's right, it's just playing tricks.

Of course, it's enough to keep mystifications to a minimum. After all, this is a commercial masterpiece, not a niche literary film.

The success of this film also lies in the harmony between the rhythm of the story, the degree of understanding of the audience and the narrative structure of the film. That is to say, it is not difficult to play reverse chronological order and layered narrative, but the difficulty is not to turn these elements into a niche experimental film. Fans are interested, and the film must be a good-looking commercial film. This is the value of Inception.

The whole concept of Duke is very clear. This is a commercial film with large investment and large production. The real core of the film is mainstream commercial elements such as sci-fi action, and others are derived from this basis.

After more than four months of preparatory work, Duke officially started filming Inception in Los Angeles in mid-November. (to be continued ~^~)

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