I’ve said it before, and ’ll say it again - You haven’t seen The Dark Knight, unless you’ve seen it in IMAX. OVer 20 minutes of the film was shot with 70mm IMAX cameras, and the result is a cinematic experience like you’ve never seen before. But how did this all come together?
“It was always Chris [Nolan]’s idea, he’s wanted to shoot on IMAX for years,” producer Emma Thomas told us at The Dark Knight junket. “I mean a long long time, has been talking about doing this and then this, when we were talking about where to go with the sequel to Batman Begins and he really wanted to expand the world and make the film feel really huge and it just seemed like the right, finally we had the right project.”
Part of the preparation included a couple test shots on The Prestige, explained Emma Thomas: “We actually, on The Prestige shot, did a couple of shots with the IMAX camera just so that we could get a sense of what the issues were going to be
Nolan originally planned to shoot five of the scenes in IMAX but he kept increasing the use of the cameras through out the production.
“He liked what he was seeing,” says producer Charles Rovan. Thomas adding: “As we went along there was just some shots that just he felt like would be great in IMAX and so we just sort of peppered those, so we definitely an added some, because it just turned out to be much much easier than we thought it would be.
Not that filming using IMAX cameras is necessarily easy. They are big and clunky, and a short load time of two and a half minutes.
“Yes, two and a half minutes. Well, they actually have two cameras, one is even shorter like, one is 30 seconds. And there’s one that’s two and a half minutes,” said Rovan. “We had to modify the arms that we put on the equipment that we attached those IMAX cameras to in order to carry the weight.”
“We found ways and we planned ways of getting around for example, the short load-times which is you know, we would just swap one camera for another when it ran out of film and that kind of thing,” explained director Christopher Nolan. “Generally with action sequences which is mostly what we were shooting you really rarely roll for more than ten seconds for example so it tends not to really be a factor. Shooting a dialog scene with an IMAX camera would be a bigger challenge because of the noise of the camera and the short length of the loads and so forth but we got better and better at it, we had a terrific crew, a lot of our camera mounts and things were 35 millimeter they were ones they’re built to withstand enormous abuse, so they can take the weight of a much larger camera.”
However they did break one steadicam rig with the enormous camera. Chris explains that it “literally sheered off, dropped the thing on the ground.”
“The camera department had a great system in place where they would have instead of reloading they would have another camera body loaded ready to go and it worked out well,” said Thomas. “It actually ended up costing us a lot less time that we thought it might.”
And the result is just amazing.
“You’re completely immersed in a way that you’re not with a smaller frame, and that’s huge, obviously but then also the clarity of the image just I think you feel like you’re there, you know,” says Thomas.
“And also we would down-rez the IMAX to 35mm and knew that that experience even in 35mm would be great for people to see. It’s so much more vibrant. You don’t even realize it, you just go wow! This is like so much more in your face.”
You can check out the full listing of IMAX Theatres playing The Dark Knight on Film School Rejects.
July 14th, 2008 at 1:39 am
Absolutely can’t wait to see how TDK looks on Blu-ray. (It won’t be at the IMAX forever!) I’m guessing it’ll just be the down-res’d 35mm, but as she said there is still quite a difference in “vibrance”/quality.
July 14th, 2008 at 1:40 am
awesome read.
July 14th, 2008 at 1:57 am
yup… just bought my dark knight tix for imax. see you in line fanboys!
July 14th, 2008 at 2:10 am
Can’t wait to go and see this on an I-Max screen but how will it work there? Have they up-rezed the rest of the film that’s shot on 35? Or will the actual size of the projection change during the film? Any answers?
July 14th, 2008 at 2:15 am
Curious George, the rest of the movie that was filmed in 35mm will have been converted to 70mm in order to fill the entire screen. The parts that were filmed with IMAX cameras will just be much more noticeable. The parts that weren’t filmed with IMAX cameras will still look great across the entire IMAX screen.
July 14th, 2008 at 3:03 am
Parts of this article look familiar to me…. Did you already post this elsewhere?
July 14th, 2008 at 3:07 am
Dan:The quotes were gathered during my roundtable interviews at The Dark Knight junket. Other outlets at the same set of roundtables included movieweb, firstshoiwng, filmschoolrejects, and dark horizons. So you might have seen some of those quotes used in articles on those other sites.
July 14th, 2008 at 3:18 am
damn, wish we had an IMAX in ireland. I can’t afford to go over to england!
i’m sure it’ll still be amazing, i’d just REALLY like to see it on a mother-effing huge screen
July 14th, 2008 at 5:53 am
I got an email from the Joker…
He is getting a crew together to hand out a small BOLD bullet point list of plot point spoilers to hand out before the movie starts. He’s also only going to be doing this at the IMAX.
They will also be there reading the list to the people in line at high volume! HA HA hHahahHahah HAHA HA HA!!!
If Dark Knight sucks, it will not be because people didn’t see it on IMAX. It will be because it sucks.
July 14th, 2008 at 6:19 am
I find the “You haven’t seen The Dark Knight, unless you’ve seen it in IMAX.” comment a bit odd.
A larger screen and 20 minutes of footage with a larger frame.
If someone sees TDK in a normal cinema the only difference will be a smaller screen and 20 minutes of a cropped image (No doubt anything that has been cropped off won’t be important).
If you see the TDK in either a cinema or an IMAX venue you will have seen The Dark Knight.
July 14th, 2008 at 6:24 am
Continuity error in the image above!
SPOILER IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FIRST 6 MINUTES OF THE DARK KNIGHT FOOTAGE THAT WAS ONLINE…
Look at the picture of the clown in the foreground aka the joker. You will notice in this image he is clearly not wearing any joker makeup underneath the mask. Look at his eyes. Yet later on in the scene when he takes his mask off he clearly is in full joker makeup.
July 14th, 2008 at 7:01 am
IMAX is the way to go, Iam sure its going to be amazing
July 14th, 2008 at 7:40 am
The latest estimate is 38 minutes of the final cut according to Int’l Camera Guild article.
–Your pictures aren’t accurate because the film prints are anamorphic—-no masking at all.–
July 14th, 2008 at 9:18 am
4 more days, 4 more days, 4 more days, 4 more days, 4 more days…..
Jesus the wait is killing me!
4 more days, 4 more days, haha…
July 14th, 2008 at 9:38 am
If you want to check out how they shot the film on both IMAX and 35mm, American Cinematographer has a great piece/interview with Wally Pfister. It’s also very generously illustrated with photographs..
http://www.ascmag.com/magazine_dynamic/July2008/TheDarkKnight/page1.php
July 14th, 2008 at 10:36 am
@ Peter
If the Imax image is compromised in 35, is it also the case vice versa? Since the Imax screen is taller than it is wide and the 35 footage isn’t, does that mean that they crop the 35 footage when presented in imax or is it just stretched?
July 14th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I’m also curious as to whether the entire film will be presented with the full frame, even with the sequences filmed in 35mm. Last thing I would want is a repeat of “Attack of the Clones” in IMAX where it was basically a pan & scan blowup that filled the entire screen by cutting off the images on the sides. Image and audio quality were spectacular, but it was impossible to follow the action on the screen.
I thought that the IMAX screenings of “Batman Begins” were done right — use the same widescreen aspect ratio as the 35mm screenings, and use the full width of the IMAX screen without panning the image to fit the full height of the 4:3 screen. The enhanced image quality with the IMAX DMR mastering and the 24-bit audio used with IMAX prints (higher audio resolution than Dolby Digital and DTS) are already incentive enough for going with IMAX.
I’d even be okay with a full frame 4:3 presentation, so long as it does not chop off the sides in order to fill the screen.
July 14th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
@canasian
Thanks for the article link! It actually answers my questions. Indeed, the 35mm sequences will be centered on the IMAX print, while the IMAX sequences will fill the entire screen. Best of both worlds!
July 14th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
If only I had an IMAX theater near me. :(
July 14th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I read in an article that the 35mm footage of TDK will open up VERTICALLY when the IMAX filmmed sequences are seen on the IMAX screen.
You won’t loose any information on the sides of the 35mm widescreen of the IMAX screen, instead what you will get is a much bigger canvas as the widescreen is lifted OFF and OPENS up the TOP and BOTTOM sections of the frame. if you understand Super35, it’s just like that.
I’m excited to see TDK on IMAX…seeing it with my buddies on Saturday…bought 13 advanced tickets for a 10PM SOLD OUT SHOW!!! :D:D
July 14th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Dude, Dark Knight totally ROCKS!
JT
http://www.FireMe.To/udi
July 14th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Just saw the movie on IMAX today for a press only screening and I agree. The Dark Knight is an amazing movie, but on the IMAX it surpasses on so many levels.
Email me if you want to talk about my review or anything, I am not posting it publicly.
July 14th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
DUDES. i saw TDK on IMAX just last night and it is SO GOOD. holy far out dudes you have no idea….. It is probably one of the best movies i have ever seen, not just because it was on IMAX either9although that def added to the experience). i can Assure You all that this movie does not suck
July 14th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Your little graphic comparing the stock sizes really isn’t fair, the 35mm was shot Anamorphic not Super 35 or Spherical.
July 16th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Dark Knight totally ROCKS!
July 16th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Wonderful, I cannot wait to see this!
July 21st, 2008 at 4:15 pm
This is a trick to get more people into IMAX theaters. Let me ask you this. What do they do with the 35mm film? Do they crop out some of the image? Do they change their framing to suit 35mm or IMAX? One format is loosing out in the end.
Crap
July 21st, 2008 at 4:17 pm
This is a trick to get more people into IMAX theaters. Let me ask you this. What do they do with the 35mm film? Do they crop out some of the image? Do they change their framing to suit 35mm or IMAX? One format is loosing out in the end.
junk
July 21st, 2008 at 4:17 pm
This is a trick to get more people into IMAX theaters. Let me ask you this. What do they do with the 35mm film? Do they crop out some of the image? Do they change their framing to suit 35mm or IMAX? One format is loosing out in the end.
July 21st, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Can someone tell me if the rest of the non IMAX shot scenes are still displayed as widescreen? I haven’t seen an IMAX film since SW Ep II which was 4:3 and I couldn’t stand it. If DK is shown widescreen and then blows up to fill all screens upon these special IMAX shots, that would be cool.
July 25th, 2008 at 11:44 am
TO ANSWER THE QUESTION:
Yes, they change the format throughout the movie. Most of the aerial shots are in 70mm, as well as a few other scenes. For the major part of the movie you will see black bars on the top and bottom which are hardly noticeable. It’s still a giant picture. But when the IMAX sequences come up, you are kind of blown away, it’s so frickin huge.