hey everyone i'm rebecca and welcome to
watch mojo
today we're counting down our picks for
the top 10 secrets about the filming of
christopher nolan's scenes
what's that
you want the tumblr oh you wouldn't be
interested in that
[Music]
for this list we're looking at
extravagant christopher nolan scenes
and detailing how they were reportedly
made
so what's your favorite christopher
nolan movie be sure to let us know in
the comments
all right let's get into it number 10
crashing a real plane tenet crashing
this plane
is a quote from the dark knight rises
now what's the next step of your master
plan
crashing this plane but it also applies
to tenet
christopher nolan prefers to use
practical effects over cgi
even if a scene involves constructing an
entire abandoned town
or crashing an airplane through a
building nolan told total film that he
originally planned to utilize miniatures
and quote
a combination of visual effects to film
the scene from the sci-fi action
thriller but
later realized that it would be cheaper
to just buy a 747 and do it for real
so that's exactly what they did like
there's no way they're gonna crash
this thing into that building tenets
plane crash sequence is 100
real and as robert pattinson hilariously
claims
quote it's so bold to the point of
ridiculousness
yeah we've got a 747 or crashing it into
a building that's how we're achieving
the 747 crashing into a building
it feels very very real essentially
because it is real
that could be christopher nolan's motto
number nine
gun cartridge memento this is arguably
christopher nolan's most reserved and
grounded movie but it's still
filled with a lot of nolan-esque
flourishes like non-chronological
storytelling
and reversed playback if you have a
piece of information which
is vital writing on your body instead of
on a piece of paper can be
the answer it's just a permanent way of
keeping a note
one of the most brilliant examples of
the former comes in the film's opening
sequence
as memento shows the result of teddy's
murder before rewinding to the shooting
itself
during the rewinding a bullet case spins
rises from the ground
and goes back inside leonard's gun in
nolan's own words in terms of the film
that quote was the height of complexity
an optical to make a backward running
shot forwards
and the forward shot a simulation of a
backwards shot
number 8 football field explosion the
dark knight rises
regardless of how much nolan loves his
practical effects
sometimes he is forced to utilize cgi
and
one of the biggest uses of cgi in his
filmography can be found in the football
field explosion of the dark knight rises
let the games begin the scene was shot
in a real stadium
pittsburgh's heinz feeled to be exact
and employed a mix of practical effects
and cgi
the real stuff included pyrotechnics and
a raised turf
allowing stuntmen to fall through the
field obviously the complete destruction
of the field itself was done in post
using cgi
obviously i challenge everybody to put
as many real elements of that frame as
possible
from the dirt flying in the air to the
guys falling up the halls
we know nolan is a fantastic filmmaker
but he's not about to blow up a football
stadium
right
number seven victorian london the
prestige
this is one of nolan's most
underappreciated efforts grossing just
109 million dollars at the worldwide box
office
the story takes place in london at the
end of the 19th century
and concerns two stage magicians one of
the working class
the other an aristocrat he's squandering
the goodwill of the audience with these
tired
second-rate tricks they're all favorites
please favorites come on give me
something fresh so
how did nolan and his team achieve such
a believable and authentic victorian
london
by filming in los angeles the theater
stuff was filmed in the city's broadway
district due to its unique victorian
architecture
and other la locations were simply
dressed up in period detail
do not be alarmed what you're about to
see
is considered safe
other than that the film was shot on
sound stages and even the parking lot of
the mount wilson observatory
sometimes the most convincing effects
are the most simple
number six the tumbler batman begins
what's that
you want the tumbler well you wouldn't
be interested in that
this was christopher nolan's first big
blockbuster complete with a 150 million
dollar budget
he certainly put the money to good use
like building a real batmobile because i
had a very specific idea in my head
about
a contemporary approach to a batmobile
and our approach to it would tell
everybody who saw it a lot about
what we're doing with the whole film
which is a more grounded
reality in which we're trying to base
this story officially known as the
tumbler
the batmobile took nine months to make
and included things like a racing truck
suspension system
hydraulics and a 5.7 liter chevy v8
engine
chris known and wanted the batmobile to
be a real car not just a car that looked
pretty
and but didn't actually function you
know his gem was like
i want this to be a mean machine i
wanted to perform
the visual effects team built four
separate tumblers at a combined cost
of one million dollars one with a fully
functioning jet engine
these tumblers were then actually driven
through the streets of chicago by a team
of professional stunt drivers
each of whom required six months of
training
number five bistro explosion inception
while it may seem like inception is
filled with cgi
most of the effects were done
practically as is often nolan's way
for example the train in the middle of a
los angeles street
was actually a train in the middle of a
los angeles street
while a train engine on top of a tractor
trailer but still
but one of the most impressive effects
is the cafe explosion
that convinces ariadne that it's a dream
this is your first lesson in shared
dreaming
stay calm
[Music]
to film the sequence nolan and his team
blew the set with high pressure nitrogen
and caught the destruction on six
separate high-speed cameras
chris cobalt came up with this way of
creating an explosion using air cannons
and
we did tests with people sitting in
front and we showed them
to leo and showed it to ellen and said
this is what it's going to be
some supplemental debris was added in
post through the use of cgi
what we do in visual effects is we can
add more destruction we can have more
debris in particular
we can add the kind of stuff which just
wasn't possible to do
on the day when we actually filmed it
which is all the hard
rigid bits of masonry and glass and
furniture number four the tesseract
interstellar
even interstellar a movie about space
travel
black holes and dimension hopping
tesseracts was
mostly made through the use of practical
effects including the tesseract itself
the tesseract was built on a massive
sound stage and it reportedly took
months of planning procrastinating
brainstorming and building
it was the thing we started with nathan
and myself
uh and it was the very last thing that
we actually
pinned down even though it was a very
considerable set that needed to be built
uh that took a long time cables were
then attached to matthew mcconaughey who
was able to float and glide through the
set
and interact with its numerous elements
including the bookshelf he peers through
to watch murphy
his stunt double would rehearse
everything we'd have it all dialed in
we'd bring matthew over we'd show him
the action and what he would have to do
and he'd be like okay put me up so we'd
put him on
take him up and and he'd replicate it
again and again when they needed it and
it worked
really well this is the sort of stuff
movie lovers get with a genius and
ambitious filmmaker with a 165 million
dollar budget
number three flipping a truck the dark
knight one of the most famous scenes
in the dark knight sees batman flipping
joker's truck upside down with the use
of some cables
and how exactly does a filmmaker make
this convincing
by actually flipping a truck of course
this truck flip devised by chris
caldwell and his guys
came about very much as a result of me
just
pushing them and pushing them to do this
flip with a
18mm articulated truck the stunt truck
was equipped with tnt and a giant steel
piston
the tnt would trigger the heavy piston
with a small explosion
which in turn pushed the truck onto its
back we actually tested it on the side
of the where we blew the hospital up
just asking the stunt guys at this test
site did the run up
press the button and it just sailed over
i
couldn't believe my eyes all of this was
filmed on chicago's lasalle street
and the piston was bravely triggered by
stunt driver jim wilkie
who was actually inside the truck when
it flipped
number 2 plane hijacking the dark knight
rises
the concluding film to nolan's batman
trilogy contains one of the greatest
opening sequences
in action movie history no one cared who
i was till i put on the mask
if i pull that off will you die it would
be extremely painful
you're a big guy for you it sees bane
and his henchmen hijacking a plane
kidnapping a nuclear physicist and
subsequently dumping the plane over
uzbekistan
the image of the wingless airplane
dangling from the bigger aircraft is now
iconic
and it looks absolutely spectacular
especially on the big screen
and that's because it's all real the
entire scene was accomplished using
stuntman and a real dangling aircraft
and nolan has admitted that successfully
pulling it off in just two days was a
high point in his filmmaking career
now is not the time for fear
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number one the spinning hallway
inception
the plane stunt is undoubtedly
impressive but the rotating hallway from
inception just has a certain beauty and
filmmaking majesty to it
to film the iconic sequence in which
arthur fights henchmen in a zero-gravity
hallway
the production team built a massive
100-foot long hotel corridor on eight
spinning concentric rings
the rings then spun the constructed
hallway resulting in the scenes
disorienting zero gravity effect i mean
the idea of using a centrifuge to
manipulate gravity it's been done on
various films most notably cubics 2001
and i like the idea of repurposing that
technology
and really trying to to choreograph
entire fight sequence
joseph gordon-levitt also did his own
stunts inside the hallway contraption
stunts that required weeks of planning
training and getting bruised
the result was well worth it as he's now
part of what's arguably nolan's most
iconic action sequence
this scene and its construction are pure
filmmaking wizardry it just doesn't look
possible
it's very clever in my head christopher
nolan makes thriller movies but then i
looked at this list and i was like
he really does do amazing action scenes
gotta love practical effects
anyway be sure to let us know in the
comments if you learned anything new in
this video
or if you think we missed something or
come tell me on twitter or instagram
rebecca brayton or on my youtube channel
see ya