nayani

The Batman is one of the best cinematically filmed movies I've seen in recent times. It changed so much of my perspective on how a superhero comic-book movie can be shot. How it doesn't all have to be VFX. Matt Reeves and Greig Fraser made it look as so real, as Matt Reeves keeps saying, he wanted it to be visceral.

1. What i mainly noticed was, The Batman was majorly POV.

We were the characters. We were really there, walking behind Gordon while entering the mayor's house. Not just that but the brilliant car sequence scene. It was more like we were in the middle of it all, experiencing it all, when they chose to place the lens where they did. Matt and Greig intended on doing this. Matt said in a recent interview how Greig made silicon filters, which when exposed to water also got wet, basically how our POV would be if stood in the rain.

2. They used anamorphic lens.

There were several close up shots in the movie, hence they needed a wider view. Anamorphic lenses provide a wider ratio and they distort the edges of the frame. So this distortion of the edges brings center sharpness and thus bringing all our attention to the center. These anamorphic lenses bring out involuntary beautiful lateral flares too. But my favourite characteristic of the these lenses are the 'Bokeh' they produce, which is the out of the focus area in the background. They are far more soft and are ovul in shape, in difference to the circular shape in spherical lenses. As you might notice in the GIF I've attached to this post.

3. I love the sodium vapour.

The orange-yellow of the sodium vapour, the red, cyan and neons really brings out the qaulity of Gotham along with it's own gothic darkness. The contrast created by Greig Fraser is fucking magnificent. Gives Gotham it's own quality, considering it isn't a real city. Truly, the world building of Gotham as this dark gothic isolated crime inducing city makes Gotham a character in itself. There's something about it, you can feel even in the daylight scenes, the darkness to it. Also I love how they made Batman's night vision red.

4. Se7en and The Batman

Besides the storyline, which seems majorly inspired by Se7en, two detectives running around the city solving the clues and murder cases, trying to find the psychopathic serier murderer. It is the rain. Everything was wet. Kudos to the set design. I feel like Matt tried capturing the same aesthetic as Se7en, with the rain, dark gothic environment, close up shots of the clues, and again the sodium vapour.

5. Colour Grading

So something very technical here. A lot of the scenes were digitally developed negatively, and then a process called IP - Interpositive was done to it. In IP, a positive image is developed from a edited camera negative, which gives a orange-based motion picture, and makes it low-contrast which helps to preserve the shadow details. Considering it's DC, and most of the film was shot at night in dark settings, and in shadows, this process was very helpful. And the colours that form again out of the negative images, are distinct and provide a more inmersive visual experience. I really appreciate how they tried no to over-saturate the orange, red and cyan, and desaturate the shadows.

All in all, the anamorphic lenses, colour-grading, aesthetics, camera angles and framing, all these elements worked and matched with each other to give us such a unique film experience. For once, giving gotham its own features and aesthetic, than inspiring gotham from any other city we already know of.

I hope the cinematography of The Batman can change and inspire cinema for years to come and especially comic-book movies, because in the process of making a comic book superhero movie, filmmakers forget it's just another story they wanna tell, and end of the day it's all cinema.