Nolan studied for an English Literature degree at University College London. He also advanced with his film making, shooting his films on a 16mm camera at the same university.
His first short film was called 'Tarantella' (1989). He's directed two other notable shorts before hitting up feature-length mainstream films: 'Larceny' and 'Doodlebug' (the latter is part of the Cinema 16 short film collection whilst the former was screened at the 1996 Cambridge Film Festival).
His degree in English Literature and action toys he used to play with as a child may explain why he's so narrative oriented when it comes to film.
Whilst he directs feature-films and some of them are cliche, his films don't comply with the codes and conventions of films structurally. He notably meddles with structure; so his films are a mental puzzle-box. Nolan works mainly under the mainstream commercial production company Warner Brothers. He's been nominated for and won a ginormous amount of film awards in his career in the film industry.
The awards he's won are multitudinous, amongst them are an MTV Award for Best New Film Maker, a 2 Saturn Awards for Best Writing, 2 Empire Awards for Best Director. Nolan is a testament to film.
Untitled Batman Project (pre-production)
This short film, 'Doodlebug' below is one of a few which he directed.
The titles are cleverly made up, with the two 'oo's in 'doodle' as a pair of eyes, resembling someone looking for something; they come first before the film - in his later films he makes a habit of using a pre-title sequence in order to set up the film's plot. It zooms out and we realise that the eyes in the title graphics were the man's. There's no speech from the one character in the film. The film depends on the visuals and the music to tell the story.
The music is synthesised and cryptic in tone. The lighting is low-key, making it shadowy. Christopher Nolan has done this intentionally so that we can't see much of what the man's trying to look at. The colour of the film is black and white even though film cameras were capable of colour films as early as the 1940s. This is clearly a directorial choice. Before we know what he's attempting to catch, we hear the diegetic sound of a ticking clock faintly in the background - the alarm rings all-of-a-sudden - startling us and startling the man. The alarm is in fact the sound of a telephone ringing. He picks it up and as he gets more anxious - dukes it in water; the reason as to why he does that is left ambiguous. We see a second close-up zoom of the ticking clock, symbolising a time-limit, but for what? It cuts to an extreme-close-up of the phone sound-waves bubbling in the water. It could represent the claustrophobia he feels - after all, we know that he's trying to catch a bug.
The camera tracks the man as he tries to catch the 'bug'. High-angle shots are used to maximum effect: to show the man's vulnerable and petrified state of mind. Worms-eye shots are used a lot in this film too, so that the audience can see where the bug in and track it as he tries to catch it. When the man finally uncovers it, we realise that 'the bug' is actually a miniature version of him - hence the reason he's been unsuccessful in killing it. But as the bug copies his every movement (high-angle shots to show him and the bug simultaneously) we assert that as there's a miniature version of himself copying his every movements, there might be a larger version of himself who will be trying to squish him.
He squishes the miniature version of himself with his shoe, and our suspicions are confirmed as we see a larger version of himself squish him with the shoe that he used to squish the miniature version. The man has brought it upon himself and the moral of the story is simple: what goes around comes around. This expression is based on Newton's Third Law of Motion. Without getting too philosophical, this is a politically incorrect view to hold, none-the-less, it's a morale. This is a short, but extremely visually effective film and as with most of Christopher Nolan's films, the visual content is awe-inspiring and thought provoking, it proves that he uses mis-en-scene to maximum effect.
To find out more about Christopher Nolan, visit his fansite:
http://www.nolanfans.com/
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