Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

The Dark Knight Rises. Camera Too Heavy?

Jeffrey T. Morgan

Jeffrey T. Morgan

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 30, 2007
Messages
750
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Michigan
So... Impossibly huge Batman fan here. My camera's name shirked the tradition of having a womans name, I called it The Dark Knight. Why? Because Batman is f*cking awesome.

So the new movie is out, I saw it, I enjoyed my time, and am also very glad Nolan is (supposedly) done. I think Harry Knowles did a great job with his critique on AintItCool.com, and I will leave all the story and tone parts to him. But here I want to pose a question to you all about visuals.

How lazy was the shooting in Dark Knight Rises!?

There is so little coverage, so few engaging shots, such lazy uninspired choreography, such passe terrorism ( I know, a couple cool moments. But a couple in a $250 million movie is lame. ) I think there are a few factors, but I think it really FEELS like a 100 lb IMAX camera, while producing arguably the prettiest footage possible, might have been a part of the equation for lazy shooting.

I mean, tell me one great reveal shot in the whole movie? Where was the great moving reveal of Batman, Catwoman, The Bat (the flying machine), Gotham, or almost anything!? Any tracking shot of battles? a great big "not really there".

Thoughts?
 
Nolan is a great director. Nolan's fight and action choreography though has always been abysmal. Go back and watch Batman Begins. The fight scenes are laughable. He made Batman an engaging and interesting story--but never really seemed to be interested or comfortable framing martial arts.
 
Please tell me you saw it IMAX? Also, I was actually very satisfied with the camera work. I felt the shots were very well composed. I would hardly call any of those shots Lazy. I witnessed someone in control of the camera.
 
Less camera movement because of large heavy cameras != lazy filmmaking.

Still, the movie didn't do all that much for me besides the IMAX cinematography. Seriously, 15-perf IMAX made the anamorphic 35mm look just terrible by comparison.
 
One great factor to why the EPIC DRAGON will become such a well accepted and appreciated camera sensor combination.
The POWER OF IMAX in the Palm of you hand.

LUIS
 
Yeah I really hate it when the camera doesn't jerk around all crazy during action scenes so I can't see anything.

I don't think anything about TDKR is lazy. This is Christopher Nolan you're talking about, not Brett Ratner.
 
I totally agree that the images, as stills, were beautiful. What was missing was the motion of the motion picture, for me.

Staging fights where two people basically take turns hitting each other is tiresome.

But really, trying to keep this beyond the way I FEEL it should be shot, it seemed like basic cinema language was being ignored. This was starting to feel a little bit like a Woody Allen flick in that you set one pretty frame and let things happen inside for as long as possible. All fine and good for a stage-like experience, but Batman?

This is kind of the inverse Michael Bay, Transformers 3 effect. I thought shooting 3D finally slowed Bay down enough to compose beautiful shots with great editing / pacing in the 3rd Transformers. Still didn't save the story, lol.




I guess overall I feel there is an overwhelming coldness to Nolans work. Like he has to fight himself really hard to put any truly meaningful moments of human emotion. Look at the first movie when his parents die. That is such a neutered scene, and it is literally the single motivation for the characters entire life!




That is why I started this talk, because people are all over the map on this movie, and I find intelligent discourse entertaining, especially re: Batman. :-)
 
Imax is amazing, and the Bank Robbery scene that opens The Dark Knight is amazingly crafted. This movie just had so little of that grandeur.
 
I wonder why the action was so satisfying in Inception, but not TDKR?
 
Honestly, I thought much of the movie from the screenplay up was pretty perfunctory. I wouldn't necessarily say the filmmaking lazy, but it was pretty hard for me to care about much of what was going on in the movie, exceptions for some moments of Hathaway (her scene with the shootout in the bar was great) and most everything with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who I thought was fantastic. Also the IMAX, which looked beautiful.

I think some of it has to be that Batman Begins and TDKR were really part of the same story, which put them in the odd position of making The Dark Knight, clearly the strongest movie of the three, oddly irrelevant to the overall flow of the trilogy. Obviously, a lot of this had to do with trying to work around Ledger's death, but it's more than a little jarring, and not sure it helps the third movie much.
 
The movie had no tension for me, the pacing was a disaster, scenes just happened and were all over the place, time jumped from days to weeks to months, there weren't many establishing shots, I didn't care about anything that was going, the fights were goofy... sadly nothing worked for me. And I love Nolan's other films.
 
The Ridiculously HUGE Camera set up is to blame no doubt, but you can only blame it so far, as even with such a HUGE camera set up, Movement and a TONE more of action following breath taking up your neck fast moving images in your face, can still be achieved, just definitely not as easy as with an EPIC... ;)

So, lets be nice to the Director and say, 30% The Huge camera set up was the issue, and 70% The Director's choices were the issue... ;)
 
With 200 + million dollars as a budget, even if it weighted a ton, the camera should be like a "feather" to capture the action. It should pose no issue whatsoever to the vision the director had for it!
 
And while I am, of course, a Red owner, I am a movie fan, not a camera fan. If something great comes out from a different good company tomorrow, I would be interested. I also believe in doing the best with what you have, no matter what.

So really, camera is not to blame at all in that the producers and director picked the camera.




Oh well, Nolan is done now, I think. I am excited for whatever he does next. For me I will go watch Batman: The Animated Series, play Arkham City, help my sons play Lego Batman 2, and read Frank Millers The Dark Knight Returns. :-)
 
KETCH ROSSi said:
So, lets be nice to the Director and say, 30% The Huge camera set up was the issue, and 70% The Director's choices were the issue... ;)
Click to expand...

There isn't any "issue." Chris Nolan made the movie he wanted to make, with the shots he wanted to compose. He cut the movie the way he wanted. He achieved exactly what he wanted creatively. That doesn't mean everyone has to like the result, but the notion that it was somehow "lazy" or that the equipment choices dictated the style are simply unfounded speculation. If he wanted it to look and feel like a "Bourne" movie, he would have shot it that way. The man had practically a blank check to do whatever he wanted. And he did.
 
Matthew Richard Harris said:
The movie had no tension for me, the pacing was a disaster, scenes just happened and were all over the place, time jumped from days to weeks to months, there weren't many establishing shots, I didn't care about anything that was going, the fights were goofy... sadly nothing worked for me. And I love Nolan's other films.
Click to expand...

From what I've learned over the last few days, the movie we saw in theaters was a lot different than what was originally shot or what may have been planned as there are numerous shots and bits in scenes that were key to moving things along and making it flow properly that were excised from the final cut to speed things up with the long run-time.
 
M Most said:
There isn't any "issue." Chris Nolan made the movie he wanted to make, with the shots he wanted to compose. He cut the movie the way he wanted. He achieved exactly what he wanted creatively. That doesn't mean everyone has to like the result, but the notion that it was somehow "lazy" or that the equipment choices dictated the style are simply unfounded speculation. If he wanted it to look and feel like a "Bourne" movie, he would have shot it that way. The man had practically a blank check to do whatever he wanted. And he did.
Click to expand...


If you read carefully what I wrote, there is "The Director's CHOICE was the issue" could be that my English is not as good??

I didn't start the Thread complaining about it, and I am here in fact saying that the camera had little to do, 30% IMO, which is not an opinion of just any one off the street either, and that 70% was Nolan's Choice of wanting to shoot the way He shot it, as no matter the size of the camera and the bulk of it, even so will limit you on matter the budget, Nolan chose to do what He did, didn't came out that way?

I guess not since you CHOSE to quote me in a reprimanding tone, in defense of Nolan, don't forget, I'm also a Director, and very Stubborn one, so the list I can do is support other Director's Choices, even when I don't like them, or even HATE them as in the case of JJ in Cloverfield, a Blair Witch WANT to BE Disaster with so much bad footage moving all over the place I never had the chance to watch but few minutes of it before I go really stomach sick... ;)


PS: I love Nolan's work... ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top