Book Binding + Book Packaging: Research Publication

Book Binding

The string and lines in this book are interesting, they remind me of the look of some of the inception things I had seen. They also look like connections and the film entails connections.

This bind maybe quite easy but I didn't like the shape of the book but this could be changed.

This is very different, and very visual, I don't think it is appropriate for a research book where there is quite a lot of copy. 

The stitch on this book really stands out, I do like this and they particularly look good as a set however I have stitch bound before, I wanted to try something different.

Like this book I could create a landscape or several, the idea of multi-layered is in the book, but again it is very visual and I feel that there wouldn't be enough written context for a research publication.

Again I like the lines on this book, however I felt that it looks best like this and there is no room or need for a title, but a research document does need some kind of indication. 

I saw this type and I found it inspirational, and the thread looks quite vibrant. 

This map fold would be difficult to read, however I do like the way it opens out.

 I found that looking on the internet was okay but I needed to look at some book that where specific to book making and bookbinding, this would help me to see what I could achieve. And I found a few more ideas, and the in some of the books they showed how it was done which is also helpful and that meant I could adapt the methods. 

This concertina fold is interesting, it again provides levels.

I liked this book again for the stitch bind. However when I looked into this more, there would need to be 4 sets of 4 pages to provide that many threads and to fill the spine of the book, this would provide too many pages.

I saw a similar bookbinding technique in this book, I like the effect it has. And I think that they look good as a set. Also pop outs can/could be adapted and extra detail can be added. 

I felt that this concertina and inner concertina style is simple enough but different to a traditional bind, I also think the effect is appropriate to my content, which is about thoughts etc being on different levels, and this book bind provides different levels. This also shows that the concertina can go throng to the back and that it can be double sided, and this is allows for more content and adds another dimension.

Book Packaging

This case packaging is interesting, it would be appropriate to my theme as their is a 'dream machine' in a case in the film, however as I have only a book to put into the case it is too much to use as the packaging.

I knew I would need two books, and I like the way this would box up the books and the shelves keep them separate. 

However I then found this match box . I thought that was this was interesting and the two books would fit in, plus it could be quite mysterious as it can open either way, again connecting to the theme of surreal.

And so I  looked for some basic instructions on how to make the box, I needed a net to see how to construct the box, I could then draw this out to make my own measurements.

Dreams Further Research

http://shine.yahoo.com/living-well/11-surprising-things-affect-dreams-160500212.html

In a small 2008 study, German researchers introduced either a positive smell (roses) or a negative smell (rotten eggs) when women entered rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep -- a prime time for dreaming. When the women were woken up, they were asked about what they’d dreamt. Smelling roses yielded positive dreams, while smelling eggs yielded negative dreams. 

Loewenberg explains that if you smell flowers, chocolate or perfume when you’re awake, it tends to evoke positive emotions, so it makes sense that the dream would follow a similar pattern. But there’s a biological explanation, too: “The limbic system part of the brain that controls the ability to receive smell also receives emotions,” she says.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/28/dream-facts_n_4003477.html

Spicy Food

It’s simple: Anything that could cause indigestion—cheese, spicy foods, a big meal—makes you stir more, meaning you have a better shot of remembering that nightmare. “The rule of thumb is that you need to wake up within five minutes of having a dream to recall it,” says Dr. Ware. For rest that’s more peaceful all around, eat dinner at least two hours before bedtime, and choose nighttime snacks wisely (read: no Haagen-Dazs if you’re lactose intolerant). Since caffeine can have the same disruptive effect, it’s best to cut off your coffee intake post-2 p.m. too.

http://www.womansday.com/health-fitness/conditions-diseases/how-to-have-good-dreams#slide-4

What can you eat before bed to make your dreams more vivid?

Eating Cheese Before Bed:

One of the age-old beliefs is that eating cheese before bed will give you nightmares. But is it true and do different cheeses have different effects? Well, British researchers gave 200 people cheese every night for a week before bed. No one had a nightmare but it did affect their dreams. People who ate cheddar dreamt about celebrities. While another British cheese, Red Leicester, sent people back to their schooldays.

Eating Spicy Foods Before Bed:

When and what we eat may affect our nighttime rest, if not our tendency toward bad dreams. A study published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology had a group of healthy men eat spicy meals before bed on some evenings and compared their quality of sleep on nights where they had non-spiced meals. On the spicy nights, the subjects spent more time awake and had poorer quality sleep. The explanation is that spicy food can elevate body temperatures and thus disrupt sleep. This may also be the reason why some people report bad dreams when they eat too close to bedtime. Though few studies have looked at it, eating close to bedtime increases metabolism and brain activity and may prompt bad dreams or nightmares.

Garlic:

There are a few people who claim garlic affects their sleep, as well as causing them to have weird dreams and really vivid nightmares.

Vitamin B6 - Pyridoxine:

Some people swear taking Vitamin B6 before sleep will produce very vivid dreams. In addition scientists have found that vivid dreams are often a symptom of an excess of vitamin B6 in the body. Individuals who are taking a lot of vitamin B6 as a supplement may notice an increase in vivid dreaming. Foods that contain vitamin B6 include; ananas, oranges, fish, liver, beans, nuts, eggs, chicken, carrots, spinach, and other healthy foods.

Tryptophan:

Tryptophan is an amino acid taken by Vitamin B6 and converted into Serotonin. Serotonin can cause extremely vivid dreams at higher levels. Tryptophan is found in such foods as cheddar cheese, chicken, salmon, lamb, egg, flour, white rice, and milk. Cheddar cheese has the most amount of tryptophan.

Apple Cider Vinegar:

Apple Cider Vinegar has been said to cause extremely vivid and realistic dreams. Mix 2 tablespoons in a large glass of water, add some honey if you don't like the taste.

Other foods that are said to create vivid dreaming:

Pizza before bed is another food that many people suggest causes vivid dreams. It has also been reported that eating cabbage or brussel sprouts close to bedtime will bring your dreams alive in smellovision.

Various herbal supplements and medication can also be a cause of vivid dreaming. For example, individuals who start taking anti-depressant medications will often notice an increase in vivid dreaming. Certain herbs, such as valerian root and chamomile, which are used to induce sleep, can also bring on more vivid dreams.

Nicotine Patches:

Though certainly not a food, one of the side effects of nicotine patches include hyper vivid dreams that last for hours and feel very real. Here is a link (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16782142) to a medical study titled, "The effect of transdermal nicotine patches on sleep and dreams."

http://www.disabled-world.com/health/neurology/sleepdisorders/vivid-dreams.php
40 more facts about dreaming

1. Every human dreams. There are tons of people who can’t remember their dreams when they wake up, but they still get them
2. Human beings spend roughly around 6 years of their lifetime dreaming
3. Sometimes we dream outside of our REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement)
4. Thousands of years ago, the Egyptians were the first to create a dream dictionary in 4000 B.C.E
5. We roughly spend around 1/3 of our lives sleeping
6. People who suffer from a personality disorder lack dream activity
7. Our brains tend to be way more active when we sleep, than when we’re awake
8. Humans tend to have around 3 to 7 dreams a night. We dream around 2 to 3 hours in a whole night
9. 90% of the dream is lost the first minute we wake up
10. Men tend to dream about men more than women, and women dream about people of both genders
11. Drug withdrawal can cause more intense dreams. People who also quit alcohol and smoking experience heavier dreams and nightmares
12. You can lucid dream for up to 30 minutes if trained properly
13. It’s impossible to dream when you’re snoring
14. Babies don’t dream of themselves until they reach the age of 3
15. More women than men experience deja-vu in their dreams (eg. you have been in the dream before)
16. People who experience Sleep Paralysis hear voices and see strangers in their rooms
17. Nightmares happen more to kids than adults
18. Blind people dream. Their dreams are auditory if they were born blind. If they became blind at an early age, they still dream of what they remember
19. Did you know around 100 000 drivers a year crash going in and out of sleep in their cars
20. Thousands of people suffer from sleep apnea in America
21. Men get erections in their REM sleep and women have an increased blood flow to their vaginas
22. You can translate over 5000 dream symbols
23. The word “Nightmare” was used a long time ago for a female spirit who besets people at night while sleeping
24. On average, dogs sleep around 10 to 13 hours a day
25. The colder your house is, the worse your dreams are. They say that if your room is at an average temperature, you have better sleeps
26. Your body burns more calories sleeping than it does in the day time
27. Information that we learn before we go to bed tends to stick with us longer than information any other time
28. On average, cats sleep 10 to 15 hours a day
29. If you avoid your sleep for more than 10 days, you will die
30. A giraffe sleeps for only 2 hours a day
31. Most dreams are based on visual images (Except in people who were either born blind, or who lost their sight at an early age). Occasionally, dreams will include sound and touch.
32. The normal rules of logic do not apply in dreams. For example, the dream may be taking place in one location – then, abruptly, the dreamer is translocated to a completely different place.
33. Most dreams occur in a house – but this is usually not your own home. The most frequently reported room is the living room. People rarely dream about their work place or school.
34. The most frequent scenario is the dreamer plus two other people.
35. Famous people seldom appear in our dreams. The vast majority of people dream about people who are significant to them, especially if there is an ongoing conflict.
36. Mundane activities (such as brushing your teeth) rarely appear in dreams.
37. Dreams tend not to be happy events, and the three most common reported emotions are anger, sadness and fear.
38. Some themes are so common that they are reported the world over. These universal themes include the loss of a tooth, falling or flying, exhibition, arriving late for exams or other important events, and being chased or attacked.
39. Cross-cultural research indicates that our dreams reflect normal life events in our own country and culture.
40. There appear to be some differences in the content of dreams between the two sexes. Specifically, women are more likely to dream about their children, family or household activities; men are more likely to dream about strangers, violence, sexual activity, achievement, and outdoor events.

Oasis- Fruit

Fruit Research 

After deciding upon a concept, fruit. I wanted to look at how other people had represented fruit in a design context.

http://designspiration.net/image/1517003423788/

This piece is very realistic and photographic, but there is also a lot of negative space which makes it look sophisticated. And the fruit is the main focus. 

http://designspiration.net/image/2507339278100/

I like the way the fruit has been dissected it gives a real sense of shape.

http://designspiration.net/image/9862638455281/

The digital nature of this design is interesting, its also realistic but its not real. 

http://designspiration.net/image/13997406834230/

This example is fun, you can still see that it is fruit but its not exactly identifiable. This is also looks like a print, and prints are used in fashion quite regularly and so I think that it would be applicable. 

http://www.behance.net/gallery/2014-CALENDAR-NEW-FLAVOURS/13754205

I like the colour contrast of this piece I think it adds vibrancy to the work and it is quite fun in its appearance.

Sayings about fruit 

'Going bananas'

'Grapes of wrath'

'Comparing apples to oranges'
'Adam's apple'

'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree'

'an apple a day keeps the doctor away'

'Sour grapes'

'something going pear-shaped'

'going up the apples and pears'

'It's all gone pear shaped'

'Make like a banana and split'

'Apple for teacher'

'top banana'

'How do you like them apples?'

'I heard it through the grapevine…'

'The apple of my eye'

'forbidden fruit'

'(As) sure as God made little green apples' (suggests certainty)

http://fruitfortheoffice.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/fruit-sayings.html

Dreams- Inception

(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/)

Inception 2010 
A skilled extractor is offered a chance to regain his old life as payment for a task considered to be impossible.

in·cep·tion

noun

1.

beginning; start; commencement.

2.

British .

a.

the act of graduating or earning a university degree,usually a master's or doctor's degree, especially atCambridge University.

b.

the graduation ceremony; commencement.

3.

(in science fiction) the act of instilling an idea into someone's mind by entering his or her dreams.

Director and Writer: Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan
Nolan's films are rooted in philosophical, sociological and ethical concepts and ideas, exploring human morality, the construction of time, and the malleable nature of memory and personal identity. Experimentation with metafictive elements, temporal shifts, solipsistic perspectives, nonlinear storytelling and the analogous relationship between the visual language and narrative elements, permeate his entire body of work. Described as "one of the most innovative storytellers and image makers at work in movies today".

"I'm fascinated by our subjective perception of reality, that we are all stuck in a very singular point of view, a singular perspective on what we all agree to be an objective reality, and movies are one of the ways in which we try to see things from the same point of view".

His characters are often emotionally disturbed and morally ambiguous, facing the fears and anxieties ofloneliness, guilt, jealousy, and greed; in addition to the larger themes of corruption and conspiracy. By grounding "everyday neurosis – our everyday sort of fears and hopes for ourselves" in a heightened reality, Nolan makes them more accessible to a universal audience.

In Inception, Nolan was inspired by lucid dreaming and dream incubation. The film's characters try to embed an idea in a person's mind without their knowledge, similar to Freud's theories that the unconscious influences one's behavior without their knowledge. Most of the film takes place in interconnected dream worlds; this creates a framework where actions in the real (or dream) worlds ripple across others. The dream is always in a state of emergence, shifting across levels as the characters navigate it.

Shortly after finishing Insomnia (2002), Nolan wrote an 80-page treatment about "dream stealers" envisioning a horror film inspired by lucid dreaming and presented the idea to Warner Bros. Feeling he needed to have more experience with large-scale film production, Nolan retired the project and instead worked on Batman Begins(2005), The Prestige (2006), and The Dark Knight (2008). He spent six months revising the script before Warner Bros. purchased it in February 2009. Inception was filmed in six countries and four continents, beginning in Tokyo on June 19, 2009, and finishing in Canada on November 22, 2009. Its official budget was US $160 million; a cost which was split between Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures. Nolan's reputation and success with The Dark Knight helped secure the film's $100 million in advertising expenditure, with most of the publicity involving viral marketing.

Cast and their Characters

	Leonardo DiCaprio	...	Cobb
	Joseph Gordon-Levitt	...	Arthur
	Ellen Page	...	Ariadne
	Tom Hardy	...	Eames
	Ken Watanabe	...	Saito
	Dileep Rao	...	Yusuf
	Cillian Murphy	...	Robert Fischer
	Tom Berenger	...	Browning
	Marion Cotillard	...	Mal
	Pete Postlethwaite	...	Maurice Fischer
	Michael Caine	...	Miles
	Lukas Haas	...	Nash

Storyline

Dom Cobb is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb's rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible-inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming.

Synopsis : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/synopsis?ref_=ttpl_pl_syn

A young man, exhausted and delirious, washes up on a beach, looking up momentarily to see two young children (Claire Geare and Magnus Nolan) playing in the sand before he passes out. An armed guard (Tohoru Masamune) discovers him and has him brought to a large, seaside palace where the proprietor, an elderly Japanese man, is told of the stranger's arrival. The only objects found on him were a handgun and a brass top. The old man allows the stranger entry. He is dragged in and given some food which he struggles to eat as the old man picks up the brass top and says, "You remind me of someone...a man I met in a half remembered dream. He was possessed of some radical notions." The stranger looks up in realization as the scene shifts...

Dreams and Reality

In Inception, Nolan wanted to explore "the idea of people sharing a dream space...That gives you the ability to access somebody's unconscious mind. What would that be used and abused for?" The majority of the film's plot takes place in these interconnected dream worlds. This structure creates a framework where actions in the real or dream worlds ripple across others. The dream is always in a state of production, and shifts across the levels as the characters navigate it.

Penrose stairs are incorporated into the film as an example of the impossible objects that can be created in lucid dream worlds.

Nolan himself said, "I tried to work that idea of manipulation and management of a conscious dream being a skill that these people have. Really the script is based on those common, very basic experiences and concepts, and where can those take you? And the only outlandish idea that the film presents, really, is the existence of a technology that allows you to enter and share the same dream as someone else."

Box Office

Budget

$160,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend

$62,785,337 (USA) (18 July 2010) (3,792 Screens)
£5,912,814 (UK) (18 July 2010) (452 Screens)
PHP 21,589,780 (Philippines) (18 July 2010) (70 Screens)
RUR 215,963,613 (Russia) (25 July 2010) (895 Screens)

Trivia

Characters
Music
Director
Production
Dream Symbolism

• The name of the character Cobb references Henry N. Cobb, an American architect notable for designing skyscrapers. The world Cobb and Mal made in Limbo consists mostly of skyscrapers.
• If you take the first letters of the main characters' names - Dom, Robert, Eames, Arthur, Mal and Saito - they spell "Dreams". If you add Peter, Ariadne and Yusuf, the whole makes "Dreams Pay", which is what they do for a mind thief.
• "Yusuf" is the Arabic form of "Joseph", the Biblical figure from Genesis 37-50, who had the gift of interpreting dreams. He was sold out by his brothers to slavery. Through his gift of dream interpretation he helped Pharaoh to prepare for the disaster of the "seven lean years" and was rewarded as a result. The same story is also told in the Koran.
• In an interview with 'Entertainment Weekly', Christopher Nolan explained that he based roles of the Inception team similar to roles that are used in filmmaking - Cobb is the director, Arthur is the producer, Ariadne is the production designer, Eames is the actor, Saito is the studio, and Fischer is the audience. "In trying to write a team-based creative process, I wrote the one I know," said Nolan.
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt performed all but one of his own stunts during the fight scene in the spinning hallway.
• The slow, gloomy, blaring trombones in the main theme of the film score are actually based on an extremely slowed down version of the fast, high pitched trumpets in the beginning of the Édith Piaf song "Non, je ne regrette rien," which is used as a plot device in the film. Furthermore, when music is heard by someone who is currently within a dream, the music is perceived as slowed down. Thus, the main theme of the film score is almost exactly what the beginning of "Non, je ne regrette rien" would sound like to a dreamer. This thematic device is brought to its logical conclusion when the song plays at the end of the credits, signaling that the audience is about to 'wake up' from the film.
• The running time of 2 hours 28 min is a reference to the original length of Édith Piaf's song "Non, je ne regrette rien", which lasts (on its first recorded edition) 2 minutes 28 seconds.
• When Cobb gave Ariadne the puzzle test, Ariadne's final solution was a diagram of King Minos' Labyrinth. Ariadne is the name of King Minos' daughter in the same mythology.
• Marion Cotillard's character is called 'Mal', short for name 'Malorie', a name derived from French word 'malheur', meaning misfortune or unhappiness. The shorter version 'mal' means wrong/bad or evil (when a noun) in French, as well as some other Latin-based languages.
• The fifth Christopher Nolan movie (out of the seven) to enter the IMDb Top 250, along with Memento (2000), Batman Begins (2005), The Prestige (2006), The Dark Knight(2008).
• Dom Cobb's main objective is to get Home. His name, Dom, literally means 'home' in most Slavic languages. The root word "*dom" comes from the Latin word "Domus". Words like 'Domesticated' and 'Domicile' all share the same "*dom" root.
• Christopher Nolan first pitched the film to Warner Bros. after the completion of his third feature, Insomnia (2002), and was met with approval from the studio. However, it was not yet written at the time, and Nolan determined that rather than writing it as an assignment, it would be more suitable to his working style if he wrote it as a spec script and then presented it to the studio whenever it was completed. So he went off to write it, thinking it would take "a couple of months", but it ultimately took nearly eight years.
• In spite of the films extensive surreal effects sequences, the majority special effects throughout the film, such as the Penrose stairs, rotating hallway, mountain avalanche, and zero gravity sequences, were created through practical methods, not through the use of computer generated imagery. The film only has around 500 visual effect shots, as opposed to most other visual effects epics which can have upwards of 2000 VFX shots.
• The running time of the movie INCEPTION in DVD is exactly 8888 seconds.
• During production, details of the film's plot were kept secret. Christopher Nolan, who wrote the script, cryptically described it as a contemporary sci-fi action thriller "set within the architecture of the mind."
• Just like Christopher Nolan's previous movie The Dark Knight (2008), no second unit team was hired for making the movie. All the shots were filmed by Nolan himself with his usual DP Wally Pfister.
• When explaining why he thinks implanting an idea is not possible, Arthur says "don't think about elephants" to actually make Saito think of them and thus "insert" an idea into his mind. The line is a reference to the title of a famous cognitive semantics book, 'Don't Think of an Elephant' by George Lakoff. The book describes conceptual framing, the use of certain words to literally insert certain ideas about a subject into the listener's mind in a surreptitious way, e.g. implanting the idea that taxes are a bad thing by using the phrase "tax relief."
• A series of numbers keeps appearing: the number that Fischer gives Cobb/Arthur is 528491, The two hotel rooms used are rooms 528 and 491, the number that Eames (as a woman) gives to Fischer is 528-491, the combination to the strongroom starts with 52, and the combination to the safe is 528-491. This is all to reinforce the importance of the number throughout the film.
• In the city scene on the first level of the dream with Fischer, the state motto on the license plates of the cars reads "The Alternate State".
• The exterior of Fischer's snow fortress is based on, and actually contains some elements of, the Geisel Library at the University of California, San Diego, designed by famed futurist architect William L. Pereira.
• The barrel chairs in Saito's dining room were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1937 for Wingspread, the Herbert Johnson house in Wisconsin. Saito sits at the head of the table in a copy of the Willow Chair designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1903. This further plays on the Architect theme that is prevalent throughout the movie.
• While shooting the snowmobile chase there were intermittent wind gusts. In order to preserve continuity during the takes without natural wind the camera helicopter was used to blow snow into frame.
• The "Penrose stairs" (with a woman perpetually picking up papers) that Arthur shows Ariadne is a reference to a lithograph print by the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher. The print is usually called "Ascending and Descending" or "The Infinite Staircase", and was first printed in March 1960; Escher is well-known for his drawings exploring optical illusions and real architectural, mathematical, and philosophical principles rendered in fantastical ways.
• The character of Eames is named after Charles Eames and Ray Eames, a married couple well known in the fields of furniture design, buildings architecture and avant-garde / documentary filmmaking.
• There are 399 questions asked in the film, including "tag questions" (i.e. - "Subconscious is motivated by emotion, right?"). Cobb leads all characters with 113, followed by Ariadne (93), then Arthur (44).
• Mal's totem, a spinning top, is (probably) a reference to the Clifford D. Simak's story 'Ring Around the Sun' where the spinning top is used as a way to skip from one parallel Earth to another (by way of helping characters to concentrate).
• Not counting flashbacks, Cobb's wedding ring only appears in scenes where he is dreaming. Many times in the film, the scene cuts away just as Cobb's left hand comes into view.
• Ariadne's hair is in a tight bun in the hotel sequence so filmmakers didn't have to figure out how her hair should move in zero-gravity.

Inception's première was held in London on July 8, 2010; its wide release to both conventional and IMAX theaters began on July 16, 2010. A box office success, Inception has grossed over $800 million worldwide becoming the 40th-highest-grossing film of all time. The home video market also had strong results, with $68 million in DVD sales. Inception has received wide critical acclaim and numerous critics have praised its originality, cast, score, and visual effects. It won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects, and was nominated for four more: Best Picture, Best Original Score, Best Art Direction, and Best Original Screenplay.

Inception App 

http://inceptiontheapp.com

Other graphic design work surrounding Inception

http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/241/7/d/inception_infographic_by_neilmakesart-d2x5vou.png

I like the way the levels of the final dream have been visualised as it is quite confusing, I also like the icons used for the characters, and the involvement of the characters within the levels.

Visualisation of the totem's and which character they are related to. 

A Totem is an object that is used to test if oneself is in one's own reality (dream or non-dream) and not in another person's dream. A totem has a specially modified weight, balance, or feel in the real world but in a dream of someone who does not know it well, the characteristics of the totem will very likely be off. Any ordinary object which has been in some way modified to affect its balance, weight, or feel will work as a totem.

This is the single most important item in the movie.

It is a common misconception that the totem is used by the owner to figure out if he’s dreaming or not. That is not entirely accurate.

This is what the totem does: the owner uses their unique totem to find out if they’re in someone else’s dream or not.

It does not necessarily mean that they’re dreaming themselves.

The sole purpose of the totem is to avoid being trapped in someone else’s dream. This is why it’s important never to reveal the totem and how it works to anyone else. Only the owner is supposed to know exactly how the totem will function in reality and how it might react differently in a dream.

Arthur’s totem is the loaded die. Only he knows exactly how the die works. Even though he told Ariadne what his totem was, he never revealed to her how it works. In this case, if he suspects he’s in someone else’s dream he could roll the die and the result will prove to him whether or not he’s in reality.

Ariadne’s totem is a bishop that is hollowed out. It’s never explained in the film how her totem works.

The main totem in the film is Dom Cobb’s.

3ftDeep

I like the pop-up nature of this piece and the adaptation of the city skyline which is prominent within the film. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jordan_a/4838180478

The colour red is very strong in this and the lines relate to the machine that is used within the film to endure dreams. The silhouette is of the main character Cobb - (Leonardo DiCaprio) at the start of the film he is on a chair and falls back into the bath to awake himself. 

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Inception-explain-the-movie/1957699

Again another another attempt at trying to explain the levels of the dreams in the film, also involving the characters, a good way to show / explain the film by making it visual.

| Ricky Linn http://designspiration.net/image/1779806030046/

The use of the faces of the characters to represent the levels is interesting. Again the skyscrapers are present. And the saying 'your mind is the scene of the crime'

This piece again is representing the levels of the final dream. I think that this is easier to follow than the previous, you have to be carful when using 3D elements in describing- visually the levels of the dream.

I then watched the film, I had watched it before and so I knew quite a bit about the film. And this also meant I could really watch it from another perspective after doing all the research swell, I felt like I would be able to pick up on more things. I took notes on the film whilst watching. 

I found that I learnt more and understood more about the film and interpreted it differently, I also sketched some of the elements in the film so I knew what I had written.