This term Film Club has been looking at spectacular scenes in films and trying to work out how they filmed them. We started with a very ambitious attempt: the students have been looking at the corridor scene in Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Here Noorie and Alice discuss the process.

Alice G (Lower Sixth): “Going to Film Club is one of the highlights of my week. Since I enjoy both photography and watching films, it is great being able to learn about filming techniques that have been used in iconic films. I have really enjoyed working on the Inception project, as it got me to think creatively about the different camera angles we had to use to give the illusion that the corridor was turning. It also made me appreciate just how incredible Christopher Nolan’s directing really is.” 

Noorie S (Year 9): “Working on the Inception corridor scene was great fun as we built the set and played with different angles to cast the different illusions needed for the scene, such as tilting the camera and set, to make it look like the character was standing sideways. I enjoy Film Club and hope to continue with it into Year 10.” 

Incidentally, Christopher Nolan used Cardington Hangar just down the road as a film studio where they built the three sets that enabled the making of the scene. One of the corridor sets was vertical, so that actors could be suspended by ropes and look as if they were floating, another was a rotating corridor so that the actors could appear to be bouncing off the walls in zero gravity and a third was a sloping hotel room which enabled the actors to slide across the floor as the dream within a dream responded to the external car chase. 

After half term we are looking at how Damian Chazelle uses whip pans to create a visual conversation between characters in La La Land. If you are interested in making and talking about Film, please come to Film Club on Friday lunchtimes at 1.15 pm in M114.