Just a different style. Wally and Nolan wanted Inception to have a very real, documentary feel to it, which is why the vast majority of the film was shot handheld and doesn't have an overbearing color grade. So all though it may appear non-deliberate, it's very intentional. I personally thought the snow sequences looked gorgeous, but that's just me.

As for The Dark Knight, I'm not sure what you're referring to. Depth of field was used frequently in that film... Not for wide shots or landscape compositions of course, but most of the film utilized fairly shallow depth of field (as does nearly every film not shot on a camcorder).

:goNF:

Crazy Eight wrote:Just a different style. Wally and Nolan wanted Inception to have a very real, documentary feel to it, which is why the vast majority of the film was shot handheld and doesn't have an overbearing color grade. So all though it may appear non-deliberate, it's very intentional. I personally thought the snow sequences looked gorgeous, but that's just me.

As for The Dark Knight, I'm not sure what you're referring to. Depth of field was used frequently in that film... Not for wide shots or landscape compositions of course, but most of the film utilized fairly shallow depth of field (as does nearly every film not shot on a camcorder).

I know they wanted it to have a documentary style, and I realize they would do things non-deliberate, but with that said, it just didn't seem as focused camera wise, in terms of capturing what was necessary. Why do you think they didn't want an 'overbearing color grade' do you think? A lot of sequences just sort of fall flat because of that, and they always talk about the depth of color film has, so why not utilize that in a film with so many colors?

As for TDK, It was, especially with IMAX since IMAX has a very narrow depth of field, but... I guess I felt like I could see more of most images more clearly than in Inception. Maybe I'm imagining it, but I've revisited the film quite a few times testing out various settings on my new tv and I just notice a huge leap in clarity (and pop) within many sequences, even in shorter ones.

Another film, Inception overall, appears quite dark and has no pop, (great depth though), which seems strange for a film like Inception. Do you have any thoughts on that?

That's a loaded question, but I like it.

I want to start by stating you and I appear to be on different sides in terms of INCEPITON's aesthetic. I love the use of shallow depth of field in INCEPTION which is that background blurriness you're talking about. It creates a softer overall feel. It's not as rigid as TDK. A lot of surreal films make use of shallow depth of field or this kind of "glowing" or "softening" of the image. You can really see this during the bits with Mal and Cobb in Limbo City (strong use during the train part)

The first dramatic difference right off the bat is style of shooting. INCEPTION is shot mostly on Wally Pfister's shoulder. Chris wanted a lot of handheld for this film and I can't exactly remember why, but I'm sure you could find footage of Wally explaining it. I believe it had something to do with immersion , but again not 100% sure. This also could be what's causing this sense of lack of deliberation for you. Pfister is simply following action, it never feels like the camera is moving for any subtextual reason.

Pfister & Nolan do continue their brilliant use of the "creep", which is when Wally slowly dollies into the actors face during a tense or emotional scene. You see it in the end when Cobb is back to get Saito, it goes from a medium shot to an extreme close up on Cobb. It's subtle, but Nolan uses it on every film in different spots and I absolutely love it.

As far as palette goes, INCEPTION is juggling about 3-4 different color palettes. There's the harsh blues of first dream level, super warm yellows for layer 2, brisk white for layer 3. The film uses these different palettes to distinguish the levels, Chris was very worried people wouldn't be able to keep up. It works, but it lessens the overall cohesion of the film visually. I don't think one part of the film necessarily stands out as out of place, but that third layer comes pretty close.

The third layer to me is missing something. It feels trite and borderline out of place. We all know Chris was inspired by OHMSS and all the countless other Bond films that feature similar sequences, but I don't believe he and Wally brought anything new to the table. As far as lighting goes, there ain't much of it for the outdoor bits. Wally's got some diffusion panels up, some flags, trying to wrangle the natural light, but there ain't much to lighting a big outdoor snow chase. It feels very basic as where the camera movements in say the second layer, with the rotating hallway and anti gravity feels a lot more dynamic.

I'm one of the guys who isn't exactly in love with the way The Dark Knight looks. I much prefer the overall look of Batman Begins, but that has a lot to do with art direction. Hope this big long ramble of a post was worth something.

EDIT: I disagree with the both of you, Dark Knight outside of those early IMAX CUs doesn't utilize SDoF as much as INCEPTION. INCEPTION has odd bokeh though, the top of the frame on some of those shots, like when Mal wakes up from Limbo, are fuzzy. I've never seen that on the Panny lenses before. It pops up in some other spots too. Downright weird.

Thanks for the long response! That makes sense, and I think Inception's camera movements do aid immersion, but I dunno, I think of the surrealism in Kubrick's films and those (if I remember correctly) use mostly, if not strictly steady cam.

Once my eyes are fixed (they're having issuse) i'm rewatching inception and I'll take this stuff into account.

Question: Wally always says he shoots with natural lighting, and doesn't like a lot of post work and unnatural stuff. What exactly does he mean by 'natural lighting' since much of his films, Inception in particular, have really bizarre lighting, and a lot of shadows and complexity there (to my untrained eye- I really should look more into cameras), so I dont' see how 'natural lighting' figures into this.

Vader182 wrote:Thanks for the long response! That makes sense, and I think Inception's camera movements do aid immersion, but I dunno, I think of the surrealism in Kubrick's films and those (if I remember correctly) use mostly, if not strictly steady cam.

Once my eyes are fixed (they're having issuse) i'm rewatching inception and I'll take this stuff into account.

Question: Wally always says he shoots with natural lighting, and doesn't like a lot of post work and unnatural stuff. What exactly does he mean by 'natural lighting' since much of his films, Inception in particular, have really bizarre lighting, and a lot of shadows and complexity there (to my untrained eye- I really should look more into cameras), so I dont' see how 'natural lighting' figures into this.

Wally is a "naturalist" cinematographer. He goes for a realistic lighting approach. He's not overly flashy. You just described natural lighting. It's not really bizarre at all. There are shadows all over the place. Look around you they're everywhere! AH! No but seriously, in many hollywood films its the opposite. No shadows, high lighting, big huge sources, loads of fill light. Wally Pfister owes a great deal to Gordon Willis, ASC. Deakins also identifies himself as a naturalist cinematographer.

Wally loves his lights though, never have I heard of man using so many lights! That is until Deakins pulled out 30 18Ks for a night scene in True Grit. 30!!!!!!!!! That's like 150,000+ in lighting lol.

RomanM wrote:EDIT: I disagree with the both of you, Dark Knight outside of those early IMAX CUs doesn't utilize SDoF as much as INCEPTION.

I never said it has as much shallow depth of field as Inception...

Vader... it's just the style Nolan and Wally went for. There's no technical reason for it, that's just the color palette and style of shooting they wanted. Inception was probably shot with faster lenses to achieve the extra depth of field, but other than that I can't give you a technical explanation, because their isn't one.

Wally always says he shoots with natural lighting, and doesn't like a lot of post work and unnatural stuff. What exactly does he mean by 'natural lighting' since much of his films, Inception in particular, have really bizarre lighting, and a lot of shadows and complexity there (to my untrained eye- I really should look more into cameras), so I dont' see how 'natural lighting' figures into this.

He means that as much as possible, he likes to use the light that already exists wherever he's shooting. This isn't always possible, as you've observed, but he prefers to shoot that way when he can. As well as that he prefers his lighting to look as natural as possible, as opposed to a lot of the flashy stuff in Hollywood (i.e: Star Trek)

EDIT: Roman beat me to it.

I find this entire subject fascinating, as has been probably shown, so insight into the technical side of the creative process within film and particularly Nolan &Wally's work is particularly exciting to know and in watching their stuff in the future, reflect on. Thanks for the in-depth responses mates, I appreciate it.