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IN-X-CEPTION
By Pierre Maertin
The buzz around Hollywood is that now that Chris Nolan is done with the Dark Knight trilogy and the Man of Steel, that he and Warner Brothers are fretting on whether he should do a sequel for the immensely successful movie, Inception. The movie by some measures grossed almost a billion dollar for a budget of $160 million. The movie garnered exceptional critical response.
Many in the entertainment industry have identified the film as an elaborate and disguised literary treatment on the very process of filmmaking, what a film or movie is and how it impacts the viewing audience.
Nolan has recently been on record denying that he intentionally set out to make a movie on movie-making and that his structure for the film was about an elaborate heist, influenced by the recent success of movies such as The Matrix series and his own interest in brain mechanics and behavior as well as the role of dreams in the field of cognitive processing and social interactions.
The process of building the shell of a dream, creating a structure, inviting the dream follower, sharing the dream, allowing the dream follower to populate the subject matter with their own projections and then stealing their ideas is the same as a present day filmmaker creating a demo outline of their film, going to the studio executives, getting their feedback and then producing the first of a series of sequels in the franchise, inviting a few of the audience at a limited premiere screening, getting their reaction and those of select film critics and then either re-editing or re-shooting some key scenes or the ending for a worldwide release.
The process that critics alluded to Inception and Nolan is true of any effort involving modern day stage-gate product development and launch. A prototype is created, samples are produced for securing green light from key executives, focus groups and surveys as well as sampling tests are conducted with invited consumers and at special venues such as malls or supermarkets. The results of the tests are evaluated and the final product is polished for mass production and release.
The process of inviting opinions via polls or surveys or in a web driven society by building online forums and posting boards allows the creator of the product, dream or idea to take input for free from the public or target audience, in essence stealing their reactions, insights or inputs and using them to create a more viable and successful product.
Is this an interpretation of filmmaking or modern day marketing and product development process and techniques? Millions of moviegoers went to the theater repeatedly, á la Star Wars phenomenon, in attempting to pierce a hidden message in the muddled storyline and believing there was a larger revelation in the same manner as The Matrix debut film. Once more clever marketing is the guilty party.
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