For this film analysis, I decided to take a study on the film Inception (2010) by Christopher Nolan. The scene I decided to analyse is the dream hallway fight sequence.

This scene serves as a very part to the film as it shows the importance of planning before shooting of scene. In research, the team took about 6 months in planning and preparation to shoot this scene. Reason being that they had to take care of safety precautions, the way the shot will be framed and the time it took for Nolan’s team to create the whole rotating structure. What’s more important to take note was this film was 8 years in planning, and was an original concept developed by Christopher Nolan without any pre-existing intellectual property.

What I found very interesting about this film was Nolan’s stance against using digital filming, instead he preferred shooting on film and depending on practical effects to achieve the fight sequence. It was mind blowing to discover that Nolan had to build 100 foot rotating structure from scratch, with the help of a crew that consist of 500 people in order to achieve the very popular dream fight sequence, which doesn’t even star the main character of the film. The entire rotating structure had to rotate in sync and with precision or it may cause the structure to vibrate, or even worst result in a structural collapse.

To complete this project, Nolan turned to his frequent production crew and director of photography. Wally Pfister was Nolan’s choice as a cinematographer for this film, and honestly I think he did an amazing job covering this amazing fight scene. The fight scene was shot on wide angle lens with no shaky cam was used for this fight scene. In the hallway, they made the decision to attach the camera to the floor, following the rotations of the whole structure. Another camera had to be placed on a crane which, which was attached to a telescoping arm in order to follow the actors and track the movement of the scene.

The lighting in the hall was another amazing factor that contributed to this scene as well. This is because they couldn’t use the typical approach to light the scene due to the rotation of the structure, the lights had to be build in to the hallway itself. Every light that was placed in the hallway was meant for essential illumination of the actors and the hallway.

Towards the second room, the fighting scene was not shot as easily. Due to the difference in height and length of the room, the rotation of the entire room had to be changed in momentum, slowed down when the actors are on the long side and increased in speed when the actors were on the shorter side of the hotel room. Reason is because if the actors failed to get across the room in time, it may cause serious injuries due to the height of the fall. Besides that, the actors had to be invested in the scene as well, Joseph Gordon-Levitt mentioned in an interview that he had to constantly focus on set and try not to look out because it might cause motion sickness, the directors experienced the motion sickness when they tried it out themselves. Besides that, Joseph Gordon-Levitt spent 2 week training for the scene before the shoot, this includes physical training as well to help prepare them for the scene.

Lee Smith, the editor of the film was so stunned by the footages that he received that he made a decision to let the whole footage of the hall room fight be played out as a one take. He said that the footage looked so amazing and clever that there is no way possible that anyone can pull it off. But After the hallway fight was over and the editing in the room fight was a little different, the cutting were a lot faster, there were a lot more close up shots in the final product. This was because the scene was so dangerous to pull of, that sometimes they had to call in a stuntman to do the scene, and the editing was their way to hide the stuntman.

This whole scene only lasted several short minutes, but it proved to be one of the most memorable fighting scene of the decade. This scene proved that practical effects when done correctly can create an amazing outcome. Besides that, it emphasizes the importance of planning in a film production. What I feel was most important was that everyone was invested and wanted to make something out of the ordinary, and Inception was definitely one of those films where you can feel that a lot of thought and hard work was put in to creating this film.

Hallroom Fight Scene – Timecode 01:06 – 02:30