Summer Task Media

1. Christopher Nolan
Re-worded Summer Task

2. Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan
is a brilliant
producer who has
made films like
“INTERSTELLAR”,
“INCEPTION” and
“The Prestige”.

3. Film topics
• His films often deal with really heavy topics like human
morality, distortion of memories and dreams like in
“Inception”, journey through time like in “Interstellar”
and problems with personal identity. I think it is really
hard to make films about themes like ethical or social
stuff. It is risky but to see films like it is really
interesting and fascinating. His narratives very often
include some streaks of the Science Fiction genre. The
new films of Christopher Nolan are really postmodern.
Unfortunately technology of today science can’t enable
you going into the dreams of other people. I wish, I
could control my own dreams and could change
nightmares in nice dreams. (Inception)

4. Inception

5. References to “the Prestige”
• Fortunately, the earth is not so destroyed yet
that we have a need to look on other planets
like in Interstellar. On the other hand, Nolan
can also make films witch are older or take
place some years ago like “The Prestige” when
you look after their clothes. “The Prestige” is a
really interesting film about a competition or
later a battle between two (three) magicians
who want to outplay each other and being
better than the other one.

6. The Prestige

7. Characters
• The characters in Nolan’s films are always a bit
psychologically damaged. Some time it is a
psychic trauma because of the suicide of his
wife like in “Inception” or making other ones
responsible for her death. Some other time it
was an accident in a magic show (The
Prestige). In this film you can see how Angier
(one of the two magicians) is getting insane
more and more by finding out the secret
behind Borden’s trick “the transported man”.

8. Characters 2 with references to
“Interstellar”
• But then in Interstellar the people are very normal. A bit crazy of
course but everything is in the normal range, at least in the
beginning of the film.
• As they decide to save doctor Mann you realize that the long
loneliness and the long sleeping-time made him mad and eager to
fly back to earth. He is so confident or crazy you don’t really know.
In the end he destroys their ship back home.
• You really often get the impression that there is always one
innocent person.
• The other ones are definitely blameworthy in some way. In
“Inception” thera are the children of Dr Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio),
in “The Prestige” it is the wife of Angier and in “Interstellar” it is the
daughter of the main character Cooper “Murphy”.

9. Interstellar

10. Setting/Locations
• When you see the films of Christopher Nolan you first have the
impression of a completely normal setting of the background of his
films. I mean America (LA/plain) or London are absolutely normal
places where you can live, aren’t they?
• Well when you watch the films you will see that nothing is normal
in this world. You just see the surface at the beginning. After some
minutes you realize that the focus lays on different things no
different worlds. The real world in “Inception” are memories and
dreams, in “Interstellar” it is the space. And in “The Prestige” it is
actually about magic, tricks, swizzes and secrets, just that what we
call magic.
• The views in other “worlds” are very typical for Nolan. And it is
special; yes something different. That also includes his nonlinear
kind of storytelling.

11. Crew
• He is often working with the same staff: the caterer, the editor (Lee
Smith), the producer (his wife Emma Thomas), the production
designer (Nathan Crowley), the cinematographer (Wally Pfister) and
the special effects supervisor (Chris Corbould).
• In fact you could assert that Christopher Nolan is a creature of
habit.
• The film music of Nolan’s films is often written in the same style.
That has the reason that Christian Nolan’s film music is composed
by nearly only two composers either Hans Zimmer or David Julyan.
Both of them are geniuses in their composing. The most popular
composition of Hans Zimmer is “Pirates of the Caribbean” I guess.
Of David Julyan it could be the film music of “The Prestige” or
“Outlaw”. Two out of three of my best liked film music has been
written by Hans Zimmer.

12. Cinematography
• Christopher Nolan opposes the using of digital
cinematography and digital intermediates. In
his opinion they are less reliable and offer
inferior image quality to film. He also prefers
shooting on film to digital video.
• When the films were made the
producer/Christopher Nolan used single
cameras for the dramatic-action scenes and
multi cameras for the stunt scenes.

13. Explanations
Single Camera Multi Camera

14. CGI
• Nolan says he wants to minimize the amount
of computer-generated-images (CGI) for
special effects in his films. He only uses it
when he needs to enhance elements witch he
has photographed in camera
Example for CGI

15. Nolan’s point of view
• Nolan shoots his films in one unit entirely. He
says, he prefers it rather than do it in two
units. So you can keep your point of view in
“every aspect and scene of the whole film”.