In an effort to combat confusion, television broadcasts in Japan include text in the upper-left corner of the screen to remind viewers in which level of the dream a specific scene takes place.
In an interview with "Entertainment Weekly", writer, producer, and director Sir 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.
In spite of this movie's extensive surreal effects sequences, the majority of visual effects throughout the movie, such as the Penrose stairs, rotating hallway, mountain avalanche, and zero-gravity sequences, were created through practical methods, not through the use of computer graphics imagery. This movie only has around five hundred visual effects shots, as opposed to most other visual effects epics, which can have upwards of two thousand visual effects shots.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt performed all but one of his own stunts during the fight scene in the spinning hallway.
Sir Christopher Nolan has said that the snow-based third-level dream was inspired by his favorite James Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969).
Christopher Nolan: [Murphy's bag] The third Nolan movie in five years in which Cillian Murphy's character spends a significant portion of his on-screen time with a cloth bag over his head.
Christopher Nolan: [college] University College London was a location for several scenes, including when Miles introduces Cobb to Ariadne. Nolan studied at this university and has used it as a location for several movies, such as Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).