Micro Analysis Inception

Micro Analysis - Inception.

I’ve chosen the three-minute inception scene ‘ Inception Hallway fight ‘, because I found its use of the creation of suspense the most entertaining and frustrating scene out of the 5 films we had to analyse.

Immediately at the start of the scene the use of a soundtrack, being of a mixture of a piano and cello creates the suspense. As a member of the audience, we begin to pay attention to the situation, the character Arthur (Joseph Gordon – Levitt). Now with the use of the soundtrack, scene has been structured, this also symbolises that once the soundtrack is over there will be final conclusion to whether the characters survive or not, during the chase scene.

Interesting, piece of editing for the scene to present suspense even further is the use of cross cuts. Every fifteen to twenty seconds, we as an audience are presented scenes of action of a car chase in the real world and a fighting brawl between Arthur (Joseph Gordon – Levitt) within the dream world. The build up of suspense continues to grow, with the use of constant cross cuts, this is because the audience is visually looking into two different worlds with different scenarios that are happening simultaneously and that danger surrounds the characters, leading to a possible unexpected disaster.

In terms of the mise en scene within the film there is a use of low-key lighting within both worlds. In the dream world the only source of light are from lamps on the wall . While in the real world the colour is dull and grey. With the lack of colours in both worlds, represent a possible chance of death, which continues to hold suspense upon the audience. Furthermore with the main prop, being guns in both worlds increase the chances of death for either characters and continues to maintains the suspense within the action sequence.

Also, there is very little dialogue within the scene, which mean that the audience has very little verbal information to take in, but mainly to concentrate on the visual aspects. The most amazing technique used within the scene is the mixture of both tracking and tilt/rotation, when the scene takes place in the dream worlds. Portrays the fight scene to be more exciting and gripping. This is, because when given a cross cut, half way within the scene the van that holds the main characters crash and flips. Now, because of the situation happening in the real world. Causes effect within the dream world. The dream world begins to spin while the fight continues. This engages with the audience further, as if they were actually there.

Finally the scene ends with humour and the soundtrack fading away with the man driving the van yelling while laughing, ‘WWWWWOOOOOOH, DID YOU SEE THAT’. Now, because the characters in the van are asleep  they were unable to witness and congratulate the driver on his success of escape. This give time for the audience to take in what has just happened and slowly accept the conclusion of the character’s safety.

In conclusion with the use of the micro feature used, along with others the scene ‘Hallway FIGHT’ in Inception maintains its projection of suspense and entertainment for the audience. Without the correct use of editing, sound, camera angles/shots and Mise en Scene then the same reaction and affect may not have occurred as the scene had done


Image of the real world on the (left) and image of the dream world on the (right):

Class you have a mission:

Preliminary task:

Recently after being given a tutorial on how to use the media/film equipment (Camera. Tripod, Editing software). all the group in the class were given a task to create a small film sequence having any theme of genre. The class was split into groups of three, which our teacher had organised. Everyone in the group had to take part and have a particular role when filming.

With two actors chosen for the task 'Stephan' and 'Anthony', i took on the role, being the cameraman for the task. This gave me the opportunity to give my final thoughts on what was just recorded and what should be recorded. With me being the cameraman, this allowed me to be a team leader during the task. however when filming, there was a lack of consistency to getting the right shot, whether being P.O.V, Longshot, Medium shot etc. For example one minute I'd capture a great medium shot, but struggle to get an effect shot reverse shot. Also, because of the lack of communication I had at the start, less work was made, causing us to create a short sequence with very little footage.

Overall there were more preferred shots, then there were of disapproved shots, for example the use of the close up shot of our character opening the door, followed by a cut into a medium shot of him entering the new location. However when reaching the editing process of our short sequence a problem occurred when, our character would teleport on the screen for a second, then carrying on walking. This was due to the lack of effort put into our editing time. The problem hadn't been resolved, because we didn't have enough time to. To avoid these future problems instead of recording the entire scene in one take, we shall pause at certain points to record at desired shot types. Another problem is the interference involving the micro phone when filming, because the microphone wasn't attachable with the filming camera. When recording there were moments of the microphone appearing at either the left or right hand side of the screen, causing further interference to capture diegetic sound.

Even though there were issues, being in charge of capturing the right shots, allowed me to experiment onto how certain shots, could be captured more effectively. Also when proceeding with the editing process this also allowed the group and I to discuss what we like and didn't like for future reference when recording our actual opening sequenceImprovement is well needed for a better impact for our opening sequence. This will requirement immediate communication when filming. Then the use of repeated checks of what was captured to provide satisfactory results from all members of the group.


If we were giving the chance to repeat the exact same task, a better success rate to satisfaction with our audience would be gained, because of the further practice we have had with teachers and observations of online tutorials on YouTube, for professional techniques. Our task would definitely be more successful then what is displayed to you below.

Preliminary Task Below: