The Groundbreaking Camera Piece Christopher Nolan Helped Invent For 'The Dark Knight' That Zack Snyder And J.J. Abrams Immediately Asked To Borrow
Christopher Nolan is a true pioneer of cinema. If there isn’t a piece of camera equipment he can get his hands on to capture the image he desires, he’ll invent it. The director has become incredibly involved in camera technology, especially when it comes to shooting in the very rare 70mm IMAX format, which he has been experimenting with since working on The Prestige. He is so specific with his sensibilities, that while he was shooting The Dark Knight, he invented a specific lens that was so innovative that directors like J.J. Abrams and Zack Snyder had to get their hands on it.
In an exclusive interview with CinemaBlend’s very own ReelBlend Podcast, the director opened up about how IMAX technology has evolved since working on The Dark Knight, which he shot when the format was experimental at the time. It was so experimental that the filmmaker had to help invent a specific lens for the immense amount of night shots needed to make the nighttime sequences so immersive.
In an exclusive interview with CinemaBlend’s very own ReelBlend Podcast, the director opened up about how IMAX technology has evolved since working on The Dark Knight, which he shot when the format was experimental at the time. It was so experimental that the filmmaker had to help invent a specific lens for the immense amount of night shots needed to make the nighttime sequences so immersive.
Transcript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - When you go back to the Dark Knight,
00:06 which I think turns 15 years this year,
00:09 I wonder what you look at there in the IMAX
00:11 that you and Wally were dealing with at that point,
00:13 and now with Hoyt and Mahir,
00:15 I'm just curious kind of what you see over that time span
00:18 and how IMAX has expanded.
00:19 - I mean, a lot of changes.
00:20 When we did the Dark Knight,
00:22 Wally and myself and everybody involved with that,
00:25 it was the first time a feature film,
00:29 you know, a two-hour feature film,
00:31 Hollywood feature, had used the format.
00:34 It had always been used for 40-minute films
00:38 that were shown in institutions.
00:40 But the DMR process that had come along
00:42 that allowed us to take Batman Begins, for example,
00:44 and blow it up from 35 mil,
00:46 but play it in IMAX theaters,
00:48 had led to this proliferation of Hollywood movie
00:52 playing IMAX theaters around America
00:56 and other places in the world.
00:57 And so we, sort of in tandem with that,
01:00 that showed me an opportunity to say,
01:02 okay, I first saw that format
01:05 when I was about 15, 16 years old
01:08 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago
01:10 on an Omnimax screen, you know, one of the dome screens.
01:13 And as an aspiring filmmaker, my first thought was,
01:16 why isn't Hollywood using this format?
01:17 Why aren't we making films
01:19 that can be as viscerally impactful,
01:23 you know, as these documentaries are?
01:26 With The Dark Knight, we got to do that,
01:28 but it was very experimental, really.
01:32 And we had a lot of planning,
01:33 we had a lot of uncertainty about how much it was gonna cost,
01:36 how difficult it would be,
01:37 how we would deal with the long reload times on the cameras,
01:41 the noise of the cameras, all these sorts of things.
01:44 But it worked very well,
01:46 and I wouldn't say it was easier than we'd expected.
01:48 You know, I mean, the first time we mounted an IMAX camera
01:51 on a Steadicam, it broke, it sheared off,
01:53 you know, broke the arm and stuff.
01:55 So, you know, okay, we need a stronger Steadicam,
01:57 you know, that kind of thing.
01:59 But over the years, we've refined things.
02:01 And so, you know, we built,
02:03 Wally and I built a lens for The Dark Knight
02:06 that at the time was the only IMAX lens
02:09 that could open up to a T2.
02:12 So it was very valuable for shooting night scopes.
02:14 That's why we built it,
02:15 for the night work on The Dark Knight.
02:17 And, you know, all the filmmakers
02:19 used to fight over this lens,
02:20 'cause it was the only one that existed.
02:22 And, you know, I had lent it to J.J. Abrahams
02:24 and he would send it back
02:25 and it would go to Zack Snyder, you know, whatever.
02:27 And then over the years,
02:29 IMAX started making more and more lenses.
02:31 We got Panavision involved, collaborating with IMAX.
02:34 And so, Hoyter has been able to
02:37 make all kinds of interesting demands
02:40 on what those lenses can do
02:42 and what sets of equipment we're able to take.
02:46 [BLANK_AUDIO]