Almost a decent fan poster.

We pretty much skipped over the frenzy over the “lazarus pit photos” bullshit, so I’m not going to apologize for acknowledging a press release from WB and recapping all of that nonsense while I’m at it. A good opportunity to kill two bats with one stone.

Today Warner Brothers sent out a fairly standard press release acknowledging that shooting has begun on The Dark Knight Rises. You can read the entire thing below, but the only remotely notable part is the section that mentions Nolan’s increased use of IMAX cameras.

In helming “The Dark Knight Rises,” Christopher Nolan is utilizing IMAX® cameras even more extensively than he did on “The Dark Knight,” which had marked the first time ever that a major feature film was partially shot with IMAX® cameras. The results were so spectacular that the director wanted to expand the use of the large-format cameras for this film.

It’s not particularly specific about how much more the cameras are being used so we can guess it’s more than the 30 minutes that showed up in The Dark Knight, and less than whatever the full run-time of the film ends up being. If the format is going to be used more extensively though, one wonders how they might solve the problem of changing aspect ratio. In The Dark Knight it was well timed and often occurred with dramatic shifts in scenery and location- if the frequency of the change is increased though, they might need to be a bit wary of giving the film too much of a flickering, seizure effect. I have no doubt they’ll be planning accordingly, but it’s an answer I’m interested in hearing.

EDIT: A college buddy of mine and huge Batman enthusiast, Andrew Kosarko pointed out that the press release contains no mention of James Newton-Howard, who collaborated with Hans Zimmer on the last two Batman films. I wouldn’t count him out until post really begins (or Zimmer confirms he’s going solo), but it’s worth noting at least. Zimmer has seemed to be the driving force behind the progressive, awesome scores of Nolan’s last two (Inception was all Zimmer baby), so I’m worried not at all by this potential departure.

Beyond that yes, there were some rumors that shooting began with a sequence filmed in India that involved what appears to be a wide green-screened pit or hole or field. The photos are from so far away that it’s silly to take anything for granted, but with baby Ras and the presence of the League of Shadows playing such an apparently large role in the story, it’s hard to completely ignore. It could also be a total ‘shop job.

Just wait for the conspiracy theorists to note that the press release didn’t go out till after that shoot, as if WB didn’t want to announce filming to the world until after the super secret plot-revealing sequence was shot. I just did that thing where you plant the seed of a concept while simultaneously writing it off, I know. Silly as it is, the thought occurred, so there you have it.

Expect more photos as one of the most scrutinized shoots of all times gears up and gets trucking. If The Amazing Spider-Man is any indication, there will be daily goddamn spy photo leaks. It’s going to be exhausting.

via Collider

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