Inside the pages of the most recent Cinefex, a quarterly professional movie special effects magazine, writer Joe Fordham goes deeply into the production of Christopher Nolan’s latest thriller to explore the intensely complex visual and technical feats that carried Inception from Nolan’s dreams onto the big screen.
This article delves deep into the work done by special effects supervisor Chris Corbould, miniatures by New Deal Studio, and digital work by Double Negative, under the guidance of visual effects supervisor Paul Franklin.
Physical effects featured heavily during the inception – a bravura hour-and-20-minute action sequence in the second half of the film – where dreams within dreams create ripple effects of shifting equilibrium and weightlessness. [...]
Shifting-gravity sets included giant gimbal rigs that production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas designed in collaboration with Chris Corbould’s team and stunt coordinator Tom Struthers. “One set was 100 feet long with corridors branching off it,” noted Corbould. “One minute a character would be walking along the floor with room off to the side, the next minute he’d be on the wall and the side corridor would turn into a 12-foot drop.”
