Batman Begins

Wally Pfister, ASC helps director Christopher Nolan envision the Dark Knight’s “origin story” in Batman Begins. In one scene, Batman spreads his cape and plunges down a stairwell to escape pursuers in Gotham City’s Arkham Asylum. Pfister and Nolan used numerous wire rigs to get the shot. They had Steve Adelson handholding a camera and tracking down with Batman. They tracked parallel to him, and also had cameras at the top and bottom of the stairwell to get those angles.
Wayne and his loyal butler, Alfred, return to Wayne Manor, where they find the furniture and paintings shrouded in white, ghostlike sheets. To illuminate this scene, Pfister positioned a Lightning Strikes 100K SoftSun outside the window. To help Pfister soften his sources for a birthday-party scene in Wayne Manor, gaffer Perry Evans and his crew clamped 4'x8' frames of diffusion together and either hung them from the ceiling or positioned them on stands.
Wayne’s visit to the Himalayan monastery turns hostile, forcing him to defend himself against an entire contingent of battle-hardened ninjas. The monastery’s tri-level courtyard was built on Stage C at Shepperton. Production designer Nathan Crowley left the set’s top and sides open and kept the roof low to accommodate the cinematographer’s lighting plans. Quarter Wendy Lights and four 20Ks on an overhead platform were used to provide general ambience, while 20-25 2K Blondes were used to send additional light through the walls.
After an explosion in the monastery sends Wayne and Ducard hurtling down an icy slope, Wayne manages to save his mentor from certain death with a last-second grab. Several different setups were used to create this sequence, but stuntmen Buster Reeves and Mark Mottram (doubling for Bale and Neeson, respectively) risked life and limb to perform the “money shot” for real. The key moment was captured from cameras mounted on a 30' Technocrane and a dolly.
In my favorite scene, Batman descends from a rooftop. In an attempt to keep CG effects to a minimum, the filmmakers staged the show’s stunts as practically as possible. Buster Reeves was the stuntman, and they could shoot him practically in a medium shot and not give away that he wasn’t Christian Bale. Steve ‘Creepy’ Crawley created the wire rigs that supported both Buster and the camera, and he did a great job.
The Batmobile attempts to elude police pursuit during the film’s climactic chase. In designing the car together, Nathan and Chris came up with a very clever pattern of lights for the headlight arrangement. I love the way the lights looked; they were very tiny, pinpoint sources that were very bright. A tracking vehicle captures some driving action in the tunnel of Chicago’s Lower Wacker Drive. Existing fixtures provided much of the illumination, but U.S. gaffer Cory Geryak and his crew augmented light in areas where stunts would take place.
"Batman Begins" is the kind of Batman movie I've been waiting for. I really enjoyed the special visual effects and the sound. Christian Bale was the perfect actor for the portraying of Bruce Wayne. The movie works dramatically in addition to being an entertainment. "Batman Begins" was a tour de force.