After concluding the China itinerary, Gilbert led the crew to Chicago to film the street gunfight scenes and the sequence where a train crashes onto the street.
The scale of this segment was enormous. Instead of choosing Los Angeles, the crew came to Chicago for the shoot.
According to cinematographer John Schwartzman's suggestion, shooting this scene at night would have been easier and more relaxed. However, Gilbert vetoed the idea and decided to shoot it during the daytime.
Normally, rain scenes are filmed at night because backlighting makes the rain streaks look better.
But shooting during the day—especially with sunlight—is a completely different matter.
It's like watching a football match when it suddenly rains during the day, and you realize you can barely see anything. This is the lighting problem caused by rain.
Another challenge was creating the rain itself. Making artificial rain wasn't the issue; the problem was the sheer scale of the scene.
The crew brought in a large number of crane towers, suspending sprinklers high in the air. The scale was unprecedented—large enough to make two to three city blocks experience rainfall at once, creating a realistic and layered downpour.
During a test shoot, the interference from sunlight was too strong, placing very high demands on the filming.
John complained, "This scene is really a bit bizarre—scorching sunlight on one side, and heavy rain on the other."
Gilbert replied, "This is a dream, John. In dreams, nothing is impossible."
Indeed, dreams are meant to have this kind of absurdity. The design of a train crashing onto the street also stems from the surreal logic of dreams, because it's something impossible in reality.
Of course, sunshowers do happen in real life, and not infrequently.
But the scene of a train bursting onto the street carries an unmistakable Freudian dreamlike absurdity. Even though they knew it was a practical effect, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page were still thoroughly amazed while filming it.
After the scene was completed, Ellen Page felt her legs go weak.
She came down and said to Gilbert, "That was too outrageous. I never imagined I would experience something like this."
Leonardo DiCaprio looked completely unsurprised. "Trust me, you'll experience scenes like this many more times."
Gilbert also laughed and said, "Judging from your performances, at least the goal was achieved, wasn't it?"
"That's true," Ellen Page said. "Not having to rely on imagination alone really helps the performance. It makes everything much easier."
Although acting without props is a basic course in acting training, performing through imagination ultimately can't compare to having real physical elements to anchor the performance.
Besides maintaining his reputation as a practical-effects fanatic, helping actors perform better was also one of the reasons Gilbert insisted on shooting practically.
By the time all the Chicago scenes were finished, it was already October. The crew moved back to the Los Angeles soundstages. Aside from the exterior scenes in Canada, the remaining footage would all be completed on soundstages.
"Joseph, you're about to face a major challenge. Are you confident you can pull it off?" Gilbert asked.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt patted his chest and said, "Don't worry. I trained for two months just to prepare for this scene."
With nothing else to do, the other lead actors also showed up on set. Tom Hardy, always the joker, shouted loudly, "Arthur, need me to be your stunt double?"
Joseph fired back, "No thanks, Eames. I'm afraid you'd get smashed into ground meat."
In the film, the two characters also have banter-filled exchanges. This habit extended from on-screen to off-screen, helping the actors become more familiar with their roles.
Fully prepared, Joseph and the stunt performers entered the massive rotating hotel corridor to begin filming.
Before shooting, the cinematography and lighting teams spent a long time discussing camera angles and lighting, testing several different approaches.
Simply put, one camera was fixed to the hotel corridor so that the rotation wouldn't be noticeable. Another was controlled by a mechanical crane arm, used for tracking shots.
Fortunately, thanks to thorough preparation and practice, the difficulty of this scene wasn't too great for Joseph. Even so, the rotating hotel corridor sequence took a long time to complete before it was finally wrapped.
The actors were all excited, because this kind of filmmaking experience was incredibly fresh—something you don't encounter every day.
Leonardo DiCaprio handled it well; after all, he had been through the filming of Titanic, which involved an even more extreme director.
As for Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, they were more accustomed to working on small-budget films and hadn't yet been tempered by true blockbusters.
Robert Downey Jr. had plenty of green-screen experience, given how much the Iron Man series relied on it. Even so, he had never experienced practical effects on such a massive scale.
In his previous life, Marvel films were indeed a culmination of green-screen technology. Large-scale use of green-screen filming was one of the important means of reducing production costs.
Moreover, some scenes truly cannot be filmed without green screens.
However, later on, even a simple café scene would be shot against a green screen, with no willingness to go out and find a real location. That was clearly an overcorrection.
After becoming the boss of Marvel Studios, Gilbert naturally would not allow such absurd situations to occur.
Any technology or filming method must be used appropriately and suitably—used when necessary, but never abused. This applies equally to green-screen technology and practical filming.
Just like Inception, which is a textbook example of the perfect combination of visual effects technology and practical shooting.
Participating in the filming of Inception made Robert Downey Jr. feel thoroughly exhilarated.
Although he played a supporting role, Robert Downey Jr. still excitedly posted on social media:
"Guys, you absolutely won't believe the crazy things we did. I can't wait to see this movie in theaters. Trust me, it's going to blow your minds."
Leonardo DiCaprio was also a big talker. As soon as the Chicago exterior shoot wrapped, he couldn't wait to post photos on social media with Ellen Page, as well as with Gilbert.
He excitedly revealed, "This is one of the most imaginative and best films I've ever been part of. I had an absolute blast shooting it. The action scenes and gunfights are amazing, and there are so many wild ideas.
Most importantly, all these wild ideas come from reality. I'm really looking forward to the finished film."
Although the two big talkers said a lot, they also said nothing at all, leaving fans itching with curiosity, all eager to see what huge spectacle Gilbert had cooked up this time.
Of course, some leaked on-set videos from Inception were also circulating online.
Unfortunately, most of the footage was very blurry. Apart from showing that the scale was huge, there wasn't much else to see. The clips were also very short, far from satisfying the fans' cravings.
Large numbers of fans launched petitions online, requesting the production team to reveal more content.
But regrettably, the crew maintained complete silence. Even the two big talkers seemed to have been placed under a gag order and were no longer willing to reveal even the slightest detail.
For a film like Inception, revealing too much in advance would greatly diminish its impact. Spoilers were simply unacceptable.
Thus, fans could only continue to wait in anticipation, praying that they would be able to see the film in theaters as soon as possible.
The filming itself went very smoothly. By late October, more than half of the footage had already been completed. Then, when November arrived, Calgary, Canada finally saw the heavy snowfall the crew had been waiting for.
...
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