Mis-en-Scene

For this project, I analyzed the director of photography's role in the movie Inception. The director of photography is just a less fancy way of saying, "cinematographer." This person overlooks the camera crews and makes the technical/artistic decisions regarding the image.

Cinematographer Wally Pfister on the set of Inception. Photo by Stephen Vaughn.

The cinematographer who worked on Inception is a man by the name of Walter "Wally" Pfister. He even won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for this film. I think this is due to the fact that Pfister has a tendency to break the conventional 180-degree rule. Apart from Inception, Pfister worked on several films with director Christopher Nolan, including the current Batman movies (2005-2012). Nolan and Pfister share a taste for the dark action/adventure genre, as evident by the distinct style of their films.

During Inception's hotel fight scene, Pfister locked a single camera down into the set. This gave the illusion that the actors fought on the walls and ceiling. Pfister also used a rotating camera positioned on a crane to capture the many angles.

*6:27-7:48 shows how the cinematography came together in this scene.