Made in Hollywood

After a short break and adjustment, Duke quickly transferred to the post-production of The Dark Knight Rises. As in the past, he still chose Warner Studios as the post-production base camp.

The special effects team involved in the production is also from Industrial Light and Magic and its many partners and sub-contractors. The special effects director of the team has worked with Duke to produce all the Batman series of films and Inception. Under the circumstances, the team has produced a lot of visual effects and animation shots, and the shocking scenes have also been recognized by Duke.

According to Duke's plan, the film will last at least two and a half hours, and there will be more than 3,000 computer special effects and visual effects shots, and some shots will even make people dizzy.

In terms of quantity, the production of these special effects shots is a must for superhero movies.

This also fully reflects Duke's production method and production philosophy, that is, to make use of special effects as much as possible, and many of the actual shots need to be processed by computer special effects. The advantage of this is that the presentation of the film screen is as large as possible And impactful.

Moreover, those real shots will also provide sufficient data basis for the production of special effects shots. This approach can create a high-level reality, that is, the visual effects images can match the high quality of real images, and it is closer to Duke's idea. desired movie status.

As early as the beginning of the pre-production, the post-production team spent a lot of time on file production, surveying terrain, scanning crew members, and accurately recording scene lighting. In order to achieve better results, the team also developed a key for this film. tools, which are ray-traced rendering systems that work with existing pipelines and lighting setups.

This system can accurately calculate the energy exchange between different surfaces and create realistic lighting effects for different surfaces. This process requires powerful computer capabilities for calculations, and the effects produced by this technology will be quite perfect. Because it makes objects such as the Batbike and Batman's motorcycle look inherently realistic, it can be easily tweaked.

It is worth mentioning that this new toolbox does not need to give precise grading instructions when creating effects, such as making surfaces look brighter, canceling highlighting, contrast effects, etc. Now you only need to adjust the light and shade, and the effect can meet the requirements of the lens, which not only simplifies the operation steps, but also makes the post-production work more efficient.

The visual effects of The Dark Knight Rises are divided into several important parts. The first choice to be completed and delivered to Duke is the aerial hijacking scene at the beginning, in this scene. The actor parachuted from a C-130 onto another CIA jet, broke into it, escaped with a prisoner and destroyed the jet's wing before it snapped in two.

This shot produced high-precision samples in the early stage, including how to display special effects and so on. The detailed dailies allowed Duke to study how stunts and live action would be handled, and what special effects needed to be made to match the shot.

The final effect is also a mixture of various production methods, miniature models and special effects, creating a scene where the aircraft wing breaks. Green screen keying replacement, combined with a real aircraft model and two live-action actors. Finally, the CG animation of skydiving was added to complete the realization of this difficult shot.

Another clip is the explosion effect of the football field. In the film, Bane the Destroyer detonates explosives on the football field. Created a scene where the venue collapsed. In order to create a realistic on-site effect, the team used the visual preview to plan the live-action shooting. In this scene, the stuntman will fall from the crack of the platform above the venue. In order to match the effect, the team used CG The animation featured some extra actors, and the entire playing field was also CG.

The challenge with this shot was that the entire set was physical, and the team needed a high level of production ability to control the realism of these simulations and get those physics in sync with the actors' movements. The crowd was also expanded in this shot, and some shots on the court were made based on the fact that about 20,000 people were sitting in the stands watching the game.

Like most visual effects movies, the application of CG is usually on the digital double of the main actor, and The Dark Knight Rises is no exception.

Digital substitutions mainly include Batman and Catwoman. When characters appear to be driving vehicles, many shots actually use digital keyframe animation. Digital doubles are not only for characters, but also for some locomotives, such as Duke One scene in the shot required the Batmobile to climb a slope and use the slope as a springboard to escape from a trap.

The biggest difficulty with this shot was that since the Batmobile is not a moped, it was difficult to get it to jump off the slope and look very difficult, this shot was made using a real stunt motorcycle to film the stunt, and then the visual effects team gradually replaced it with a digital Batbike, adjusting it to the physics of a real motorcycle jumping.

As Duke said, movies are often an art of deceiving the audience.

Through the production of special effects, Duke hopes that The Dark Knight Rises can present a particularly realistic and elegant picture texture. Those cold and proud colors combined with the fine composition like industrial design give superhero movies another possibility. It builds a bridge between the comic book style and traditional film noir.

IMAX technology is an important basis for realizing these.

Undoubtedly, the IMAX footage that Duke obtained during the shooting is unprecedented. About 50% of the shots were shot in large HD format frames, and the data required by the large IMAX frame is 20 times that of a normal 2K image. Left and right, the operation of these data is a huge logical work, and from a creative point of view, in fact, most people can't really see what IMAX is doing, because there is no digital screen that can support this. image device.

What visual effects engineers can see is a proxy image or a part of the image. The only way to see the overall image is to output it to IMAX, and the output process also takes several days. It was completed in the Los Angeles branch of the IMAX company, and the first person who finally saw the production effect of the film was not the production staff, but the director Duke.

Therefore, the whole film is a huge challenge for the team, both in terms of creation and production.

However, Duke and his team have never been afraid of any challenge, just like they are not afraid of competition.

Before the special effects work was completed, Duke temporarily handed over all the editing work to Mike Dawson. In addition to being busy with the special effects team on special effects production, he also frequently met with Hans Zimmer to discuss matters related to the soundtrack.

The Dark Knight Rises missed its Super Bowl commercial in early February due to tight schedules, and while the Los Angeles Raiders achieved a three-peat, Duke didn't have time to pay too much attention to its own team.

In early March, Hans Zimmer submitted some first versions of the soundtrack to Duke.

In the final chapter of this trilogy, Hans Zimmer sums up the theme scores of the first two volumes, and then has the current first edition.

In the recording studio, the passionate music came to an end, and when Duke put down his headphones, Hans Zimmer explained in detail, We chose a completely different soundtrack direction for Bane. I want to use the symphony orchestra to provide the character's thinking, Emotional endorsement, I have explained to the players, let them put aside everything they know, and be a group of the most original drummers.'

Speaking of this, Hans Zimmer laughed, The result is very ideal, everyone feels very liberated, like feeling a musical adventure.

Duke also nodded slightly. Although it is the first version and some areas need to be improved, it already has the effect he wants.

In addition to the soundtrack, Hans Zimmer also specially dubbed a remarkable chants for Bane.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, the publicity department of Warner Bros. specially asked Hans Zimmer to interact with the majority of Batman fans in order to allow fans to participate in the production process of the original soundtrack of the film and create a topic of publicity and hype.

Fans can send in their own arias through UJAM, a website dedicated to uploading compositions, music production and music publishing.

Tens of thousands of netizens around the world responded to this activity. After the received audio files were synchronized, a strong chanting was made, which was arranged into the video by Duke.

Hans Zimmer said in an interview: I suggested to Duke that this is a channel to give back to fans and fans and let them actually participate. We still had some concerns at the beginning, but the final result is beautiful. Extremely.

“I’ve never worked with someone who is so committed to an idea, so desperate for his own life, and the idea is almost all-or-nothing. But the most dangerous places are often the least risky,”

Later, Duke also expressed some opinions on this matter in an interview, Hans taught me the way to find the truth by taking sideways, if you don't take these sideways, maybe you will never be able to make an amazing performance. He can set new goals for each movie, and each time you feel unattainable, even completely impossible.

Like the characters in the film, the music composed for Selina Kyle is 'ambiguous and ambiguous, which is much more interesting than straight-up judging whether a person is good or bad. Duke produced this There is a considerable part of the gray blur in the film, and Hans Zimmer expresses this blur with music.

Connecting each part of the trilogy with a musical thread is the movement specially arranged by Hans Zimmer for Bruce Wayne.

The theme of the Batman soundtrack is the simplest and clearest, and the theme of the two identities is almost never the same.

When it was busy until April, the post-production of the film had entered the end stage, and the release date in May was getting closer and closer, so the promotional offensive was naturally more and more fierce. (to be continued ~^~)

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