INCEPTIONA Media Analysis – Using Institution, Audience, Genre and ReputationBy Ben Rodol

Institution – legendary Pictures and Syncopy

filmsLegendary pictures is an American film production company based in California. The company was founded in 2000 and five years later, Legendary pictures signed an agreement to produce and finance their films with Warner Brothers. In 2014 this agreement ended and later that year they signed with Universal Studios.

Syncopy films is a British film company founded by award winning director Christopher Nolan. The company was founded in 2001 and has produced many award winning screen plays along with Inception.

Audience

The target audience of Inception are Teens and young adults which are interested in confusing Sci-Fi action movies.

The film is available on DVD, download and in movie retailers such as supermarkets and DVD shops such as Blockbuster.

The film was advertised to its target markets by billboards, by posters, TV-Trailers and on websites

Genres

Science Fiction - The film was based upon futuristic science. A traditional Sci-Fi film contains occurrences which are not yet accepted by mainstream science such as aliens, time-shift and alternative dream worlds.

Heist Film - A film that contains a complex plot based around a group that are trying to steal something, in this case, dreams.

Film Noir – A French term used to describe stylish, Hollywood crime dramas

Background information

Dominick Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and his business partner Arthur, who is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt are people who experiment with dreams to find out information. Their employee is a Japanese Businessman Sato, who is trialing them to see if Inception actually works. Sato wants an idea planted into his competitors sub-conscience, to shut down his business, so that he can become the worlds only energy supplier and eventually gain world dominance.

The Production Process

Pre-Production – originally, Inception was meant to be a horror film about dream stealers, but the plot was changed by Nolan, because he thought that the film would be emotionally and mentally hard.

Inception was based upon late 90’s Sci-Fi films such as the Matrix, a film about reality and how it is perceived by the population of the world in the film and Dark City which is also a confusing Sci-Fi movie.

The Production ProcessThe film began in began in Tokyo, where the main characters meet there boss to meet their customer, Sato to find out the details of the deal.

The film then enters the UK to film the flight in which the job is being carried out in a private air-field. Staying in London, Dom travels to UCL to find his ‘Dream Architect’.

Next Dom and his architect travel to Paris, this is used as a test from Dom to see if his prized student Adriane, played by Ellen Page is capable of shifting time and reality.

The final phase of principal photography took place in Canada, in order to film a snowstorm in which a ski-chase was filmed.

The Production Process

Nolan used little CGI, he said he preferred to keep the film as natural as possible. But in the scenes where Gravity switches and Adriane's architecture comes to life, CGI played a key role in making the occurrences realistic and believable.

The soundtracks which are used in the final scene of the ski-chase and constant slow, guitar based sad tunes to allow the audience to feel the same way as Cobb does in handling his emotions. These are edited in after production to add tension.