CHRISTOPHER NOLANDIRECTOR-SCREENWRITER-PRODUCER

ByKAUSTAV GHOSHDEPT. - ECE, 2nd YEARCLASS ROLL NO. -52WBUT ROLL - 14800313028FUTURE INSTITUTE OFENGINEERING & MANAGEMENT.

INDEX :

1. EARLY LIFE

2. CAREER

3.FILMMAKING

4. RECURRING

COLLABORATORS

6. PERSONAL LIFE &

TRIVIA

7. RECOGNITION

8. AWARDS & HONOURS

1. EARLY LIFE :

His British father, Brendan Nolan, was an advertising copywriter, and his American mother, Christina, worked as a flight attendant and English teacher.

He was born on July 30, 1970 in London, England.

At 7 years old, Nolan began making short movies with his father's Super-8 camera.

Nolan was educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College in Hertfordshire and later read English literature at UCL.

From the age of 11,he aspired to be a professional filmmaker.

2. CAREER :

The second was Larceny (1995)-It appeared at the Cambridge Film Festival in 1996 and is considered one of UCL's best shorts.

During his college years, Nolan made two short films . The first was the surreal 8 mm-Tarantella(1989).

After graduation, Nolan directed corporate videos and industrial films.

A) SHORT FILMS:

DOODLEBUG (1997)

~ THE STORY CONSISTS OF A PARANOID MAN

WHO IS TRYING TO KILL A SMALL BUG-LIKE CREATURE

THAT IS SCURRYING ON THE FLOOR OF HIS APARTMENT.

~ It is a short(3 min.) psychological thriller film.

~ STARRING : JEREMY THEOBALD

~ He squashes the bug with his shoe. But every movement the "doodlebug" makes is later

matched by the grungy man himself and he is later squashed by a larger version of himself.

~ Later it revealed that the bug resembles

a

miniature version of himself.

B) MOVIES :

• FOLLOWING IS A WICKEDLY CLEVER STORY OF HOW

A YOUNG MAN'S OBSESSION WITH FOLLOWING

PEOPLE LEADS HIM INTO A DARK UNDERWORLD.

• With a $6000 budget, His debut feature and British neo-noir drama thriller film. It was filmed in London on black-and-white 16mm film.

• STARRING : JEREMY THEOBALD, ALEX HAW, LUCY RUSSELL .

• Apart from writing , directing and photographing the film,Nolan also helped in editing and production.

FOLLOWING (1998)

• Won the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam International FilmFestival and the "Best First Feature" prize at the San FranciscoInternational Film Festival.

MEMENTO (2000)

• IT ‘S A NEO-NOIR-PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER FILM AND THE SCREENPLAY WAS WRITTEN BY NOLAN BASED ON HIS YOUNGER

BROTHER JONATHAN NOLAN'S SHORT STORY "MEMENTO MORI“.

• The film is about a man with anterograde amnesia whouses notes and tattoos to hunt for his wife's murderer.

• STARRING : GUY PEARCE,CARRIE-ANNE MOSS, JOE PANTOLIANO.

• The film received two Academy Award Nominations for Original Screenplay and Film Editing .

• The film is represented as two different sequences of scenes interspersed during it --- a series of black & white and a series of color sequences .

INSOMNIA (2002)

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL MYSTERY FILM AND BASED

ON THE 1997 NORWEGIAN FILM OF THE SAME NAME.

STARRING : AL PACINO,ROBIN WILLIAMS,HILARY SWANK .

With a $50 million budget, it was described as "a much more conventional Hollywood film than anything the director has done before“.

It is about two Los Angeles detectives sent to a northern Alaskan town to investigate the methodicalmurder of a local teenager.

It was well received by critics and performed well at thebox office, earning $113 million worldwide.

BATMAN BEGINS (2005)

Superhero film based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman.

STARRING: CHRISTIAN BALE, MICHAEL CAINE, LIAM NEESON,KATIE HOLMES, MORGAN FREEMAN, GARY OLDMAN, CILLIAN MURPHY.

It is a film grounded in a "relatable" world more reminiscent of aclassical drama than a comic-book fantasy . Nolan brought a level ofgravitas back to the iconic hero.

It tells the story of BRUCE WAYNE’S initial fear of bats, the death of his parents, his journey to become BATMAN and his fight against RA’S AL GUL’s plot to destroy GOTHAM CITY.

It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematographyand three BAFTA awards.

Fear was a common motif throughout the film.

THE PRESTIGE (2006)> DRAMA FILM BASED ON CHRISTOPHER PRIEST'S WORLD

FANTASY AWARD-WINNING NOVEL OF THE SAME NAME.

> The story follows two rival stage magicians in London at the end of19th century. Obsessed with creating the best stage illusion, they fallunder a bitter battle of supremacy .Terrible consequences happenwhen each seeking not just to outwit - but to destroy the other man.

> STARRING : HUGH JACKMAN, CHRISTIAN BALE, MICHAEL CAINE,SCARLETT JOHANSSON, REBECCA HALL .

> The Prestige received critical acclaim including Oscar nominationfor Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction.

> English musician and film score composer DAVID JULYAN penned the musicfor The Prestige . Like the film , the soundtrack was divided into threeSections : the Pledge the Turn and the Prestige .

THE DARK KNIGHT (2008)

~ WITH THE HELP OF ALLIES LT. JIM GORDON AND DA HARVEY DENT, BATMAN HAS BEEN ABLE TO KEEP

A TIGHT LID ON CRIME IN GOTHAM CITY. BUT WHEN A VILE YOUNG CRIMINAL CALLING HIMSELF THE

JOKER SUDDENLY THROWS THE TOWN INTO CHAOS, THE CAPED CRUSADER BEGINS TO TREAD A FINE

LINE BETWEEN HEROISM AND VIGILANTISM.

~ STARRING: CHRISTIAN BALE, HEATH LEDGER, AARON ECKHART, MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL, MICHAELCAINE, MORGAN FREEMAN, GARY OLDMAN .

~It is a sequel of Batman Begins and the first feature film shot partially in the 15/70 mm IMAX format.

~ The film received 8 Academy Award nominations ; it won the award for Best Sound Editing and Ledger was posthumously awarded Best Supporting Actor.

~ Pitched at the divide between art and industry,poetry and entertainment, it goes darker & deeperthan any Hollywood Superhero movies ever made.

~ With a $185 million budget, it earned more than$1 billion worldwide.

INCEPTION (2010)

• STARRING : EONARDO DICAPRIO, JOSEPH GORDON LEVITT, ELLEN

PAGE,TOM HARDY, CILLIAN MURPHY, MARION COTTILARD.

• The film won OSCARS for Best Cinematography, Best SoundEditing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects and BAFTA forBest Production Design, Best Special Visual Effects & Best Sound.

• A sci-fi thriller film written, produced and directed by Nolan .The thought-provoking drama was a worldwide blockbuster, earningmore than $825 million dollars worldwide .

• A professional thief who commits corporate espionage byinfiltrating the subconscious of his targets. He is offered a chanceof redemption as payment for a task considered to be impossible :"inception", the implantation of a person's idea into a target's mind.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012)

EIGHT YEARS AFTER THE JOKER'S REIGN OF ANARCHY, THE DARK

KNIGHT IS FORCED TO RETURN FROM HIS IMPOSED EXILE TO

SAVE GOTHAM CITY FROM THE BRUTAL GUERRILLA TERRORIST

BANE WITH THE HELP OF THE ENIGMATIC CATWOMAN .

STARRING : CHRISTIAN BALE, TOM HARDY, MARIONCOTTILARD, ANNE HATHAWAY, MICHAEL CAINE, MORGANFREEMAN, JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT, GARY OLDMAN .

With a $265 million budget, Nolan directed his third & finalBatman movie and earned more than $1.084 billion worldwide .

Arguably the biggest, darkest, most thrilling, disturbing andutterly balls-out spectacle ever created for the screen.

The film introduces a vehicle that has been compared with theBat plane and the Bat copter .

INTERSTELLER (2014)

~ STARRING : MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY, ANNE HATHAWAY,JESSICA CHASTAIN, MICHAEL CAINE, MATT DAMON.

~ Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. co-financed andco-distributed the project .The film was shot on anamorphic 35mm and IMAX 70 mm Photography.

~ The film received 5 Academy Award nominations, including BestOriginal Score, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best VisualEffects and Best Production Design .

~ It is an epic sci-fi film based on the scientific theories of renownedTheoretical physicist Kip Thorne .

~ A team of explorers travel through a wormhole in an attempt toensure humanity's survival. The movie deals with worm hole, blackhole, space voyage, time travelling and also the concept of 5-D .

FILMMAKING :• He starts a film with a flashback or a scene that appears at the end of the movie.

• His visual style emphasis urban settings, muted colors, dialogue scenes in wide close-up

modern locations and architecture.

• He uses editing as a way to represent the characters psychological states.

• He chooses to minimize the amount of computer generated special effects

In his movies & prefers to use practical effects whenever possible .

• His film reality is often an abstract & fragile concept .

• His work explores existential , ethical themes such as subjective experience , distortion of

memory , human morality , the nature of time and construction of personal identity .

RECURRING COLLABORATIONS : His wife Emma Thomas has co-produced all of his films and he regurarly work with his brother Jonathan Nolan who is also screenwriter and producer .

Michael Caine is his most prolific collaborator having in six of his films and is regarded by Nolan to be his “good lucky charm “.

He is also known from casting stars from the 1980’s in his films like Rutger Hauer , Eric Robberts , Matthew Modine , Tom Berenger .

His team unit has been same for quite a long time –

EDITOR – Lee Smith .

MUSIC COMPOSER – David Julyan, Hans Zimmer .

SOUND DESIGNER & SOUND MIXER – Richard King & Ed Norick .

VISUAL EFFECT SUPERVISOR - Paul Franklin .

CASTING DIRECTOR – John Papsidera .

PERSONAL LIFE & TRIVIA:

Nolan is married to Emma Thomas whom he met at

University College of London .

They together founded the production company named

SYNCOPY .

He currently stays in Los Angeles with his wife and

their four children - Flory, Rory , Oliver and Magnus .

He is a big fan of James Bond movies and also a band

named “ RADIOHEAD ‘”.

He is colorblind to red and green .

He is the first director to have released two of the

billion dollar grossing films in 2D only .

RECOGNITION :

In 2013 , the official XBOX magazine named him along the 100 most important people in

games .

Steven Spielbarg referred to Nolan’s Batman series as an example of both art & Big –

studio film .

In 2012 , The Guardian ranked him 14 on their list of “ The 25 Best Film Directors in

the world “ .

He has been praised by many of his contemporaries and some have cited his work as

influencing their own .

Nolan is the rare director determined to make you walk out of the theatre after

watching his film and gasp , “ I’ve never seen anything like that before . “ .

AWARDS & HONOURS :

He was referred with awards & nominations from the

world Sci-fi Society , Nebula Awards , Saturn Awards etc .

He received Boards of the Governors Award from the

American Society of Cinematography in 2009 .

In July , 2012 he became the youngest director to be

honored with a hand with a hand and foot print ceremony

act Grauman ‘s Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles .

He was also selected as the 2015 Class Day speaker at

Princeton University .

THE END