Tight security is in place on Universal Studios’ Stage 12 as a film crew readies for a take on a surreal-looking set: a large, high-ceilinged vault with black walls divided into blocks by a grid-like pattern of thin, white lines. More than 100 space lights are positioned overhead, above a layer of Full Grid and another layer of muslin; the light they cast is neutral, sterile and shadowless. Actor Cillian Murphy kneels on the floor. At the call of “Action!” two cameras roll, one capturing the scene in anamorphic 35mm, the other recording the action in 65mm. Suddenly, a crack appears in the floor, and an irregular chunk of the set collapses and falls away, sending Murphy and some set pieces plummeting through a hole. Dust rises into the set as director Christopher Nolan yells, “Cut!” A moment later, hydraulic pistons lift the collapsed floor back into position for take 2.

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