Whether or not you understood what was happening throughout most of Christopher Nolan’s Inception, Joseph Gordon-Levitt duking it out with a dream baddie in a perpetually rotating hotel corridor is one of the most memorable fight scenes of all time. Nolan, as usual, opts for practical effects over CGI, making the scene all the more amazing. But how did they pull it off? CineFix’s latest video provides a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the answer: They built a giant centrifuge.
To track the actors’ motion, cameras had to be attached to the set itself, and since the actors were moving to every corner of the set, all of the decorative sconces and lighting also had to actually illuminate the set. But one of the greatest feats was JGL’s performance: The actor took two weeks to familiarize himself with the set, train himself physically, and work on his wire skills. And to make sure he hit his marks and didn’t go crashing into the wrong part of the set? He silently sang Bach to himself.
