Transcription
The armored car chase was an interesting one because we did look at other locations within the states for this. Ultimately, we kept coming back to Lower Wacker, which Chris had filmed on briefly on the previous Batman, so he knew the environment extremely well. Increasingly, we started looking at this area, and again, the city were were fantastic. We closed sections of that every night for three weeks to do this chase for this film.
Chris wanted to do another action sequence in Lower Wacker. Certainly, what tickled me when Chris first proposed is at a time when a lot of filmmakers are going towards digital medium and digital capture systems, which I think are inferior to 35 millimeter film. Chris proposed this notion of going to IMAX, which is a 70 millimeter release print, going the complete opposite direction of the digital and putting the absolute best possible image quality on the screen.
We filmed the entire chase using these lightweight IMAX cameras called MSMs. Because we had access to fewer cameras in the IMAX format, there are very few cameras. We were more precise about just having to choose exactly where we wanted to film them from. The cameras are are enormous in size. They're they're heavier cameras, and all the mounts for the camera had to be beefed up from our 35 millimeter mounts. We went to the ultimate arm boys with the notion of coming up with a beefed up Lev head that could handle the weight of the IMAX camera, and they they came through for us and built a larger, more robust version of the head that we had been using, and it performed fantastically.
Mike Lewis came up with these great rigs, hood mount rigs for the IMAX camera, a side mount off the side of a car. We hung an IMAX camera off the left head off the side of an 18-wheel tractor-trailer with Heath Ledger hanging out the door, and so we really did end up announcing that IMAX camera in every place we would have mounted a 35 millimeter camera. Oddly enough, the size really didn't become an issue in almost any circumstance. A $300,000 camera on a motorcycle, it's not uncommon during the shooting of this kind of action to damage a camera if you're trying to really get the machine in where it needs to be. And the left head mounted on the Mercedes is very, very effective at putting the camera right into the middle of the action, but obviously, you take a risk of the equipment when you do that.
We did destroy one MSM. The problem with work in the IMAX format is there were only four of these cameras in the world. Now there are three, and that that was a little uh a little depressing for us all because we grew to quite like these cameras. But I think the piece of film is used in the car was a very dramatic shot, but unfortunately, the camera got crushed.
The main thing it changes with our job is that you have to be that more careful about hiding things. You know, with a normal 35 mil format and when we're wiring things up, whether it be explosions, you know, it's very easy to run a bit of black tape up it and it all blends in. Whereas the detail on the IMAX, you had to be quite careful and spend more time hiding the stuff and making sure that it, you know, it wasn't obvious to be seen. That was the main thing for the IMAX. It was a learning curve for us, but it was fun.
Lee and I came on early, and we um basically looked at a lot of IMAX movies to see what you could get away with and what you couldn't get away with. We did a lot of tests with scanning with the visual effects people, and then came up with a a whole plan. Well, there's several action set pieces in the film. Each of these areas and sequences, uh, you you do try and give slightly different rhythms too to keep them fresh. What we tried on this one, because of specifically because of IMAX, was to slow down a little bit and get to see a little bit more. Because the natural all tendencies in action films are to cut them very, very quickly, but the the action sequences in this film are a little more, let's say, lovingly held because the shots are so stunning.