Movie Chronicles

Why So Serious? July 27th, 2007

Why So Serious?

Joker Bill

http://​www​.whysose​ri​ous​.com/

You have, as of writ­ing, approx­i­mately 4 hours to get to the co-ordinates on the site — they are intrigu­ingly in San Diego and the page itself is titled “Antic­i­pa­tion”. The clock is tick­ing. Good hunt­ing my friends.

Joker Wants You

Joker Wants You Too

In the thick of the action July 27th, 2007

Today we have for you a fan­tas­tic set report from Chicago thanks to our tip­ster “Tony”, where he viewed first hand the action, dam­age and destruc­tion that trav­els along­side The Joker. Warn­ing, Spoil­ers ahead.

So I’m still at work and decided to look down at the street below and can see the crews set­ting things up for tonight. LaSalle is closed head­ing south of Mon­roe because it appears there is a “mock up” heli­copter in front of the Chase build­ing. Looks like it will be a fun night and I might actu­ally get to see some­thing blown up. An all-nighter at work is actu­ally a good thing tonight! My cam­era is ready to go so I will send pic­tures if I can get them.

He con­tin­ues,

Okay, so I went down­stairs and the Joker semi is right out­side my build­ings front door. There was a crew rig­ging stuff up inside the trailer and there was a dummy body lying on the ground. I also noticed they added “teeth” to the front of the truck (think of a cir­cu­lar saw). The Mer­cedes cam­eras were out and the PA said they were going to flip the truck end over end (cab over trailer). Lots of hydro­gen (gas) bot­tles in the back of a truck and Chicago PD every­where, along with fire trucks and ambulances.

And a short while later,

Patience is a virtue. I finally got to see real Bat­man action and it was well worth the wait.

I just wit­nessed the Joker’s semi being flipped over from the back to the front. It drove North on LaSalle and shortly after it crossed Mon­roe it did the flip. I would give it a 10 for nice form and degree of difficulty.

Turns out that the spikes in the front were for the front end to dig into the pave­ment to help it flip. Now the truck is crushed!!

Saw The Joker in full makeup hang­ing around in front of North­ern Trust Bank. He was doing things any vil­lan would do…high-fiving, text mes­sag­ing, smok­ing, and actu­ally look­ing bored.

And here are some pic­tures and the report summary:

So, I work for an invest­ment bank in down­town Chicago and had a great view of today’s film­ing action which was the Joker’s semi being flipped end over end. Heath Ledger was on hand in full makeup but not full wardrobe and there were a TON of peo­ple work­ing on the set. My view was much bet­ter than even Nolan’s and I was able to get this video and pictures.

If you look beneath the truck in the pic­tures you will see a black pis­ton and then “teeth” on the front grill. The pis­ton is what cre­ated the force to send the truck over and the teeth were used to dig into the asphalt to help flip it over.

The pic­ture of the white heli­copter shell is a prop. Appar­ently they blew up a heli­copter last night and did it again tonight. The helo was the start­ing point for the Joker’s semi and was on fire when I left work, after they flipped the truck. As I was walk­ing to the bus I saw just the cab of the Joker’s truck with a bul­let hole filled wind­shield but it was attached to a tow truck rigged w/ lights and pos­si­ble cameras.

MyFox Chicago were also on the scene and they have some higher qual­ity but ground floor footage of the event, which is also worth a watch. Thanks for the heads up Steve, check the video out here.

Slaughter is the best Medicine July 25th, 2007

“I’m a man of my word. I guar­an­tee every­one here is going to die tonight.”

So says Hol­ly­wood Chicago’s descrip­tion of The Dark Knight teaser (via pro­jec­tion­ist Fran­cis Farmer) … which is dif­fer­ent to SuperHeroHype’s pre­vi­ous report. The cause? Hol­ly­wood Chicago claims that there will be two sep­a­rate videos, one for The Simp­sons, another for Comic-Con.

Here is their full trailer description:

It was just the new Bat­man logo for 50 sec­onds with light rays slowly destroy­ing it. There was dia­logue between Bat­man and Alfred.

The last line is: “Some peo­ple just want to watch the world burn.” When the logo gets destroyed, its last piece flies toward the cam­era, turns and has a Joker card on it.

Bruce Wayne says some­thing about “they crossed a line this time”. Alfred says: “They put all their hopes in a man they didn’t understand.”

Joker says some­thing like: “I’m a man of my word. I guar­an­tee every­one here is going to die tonight.”

This is clas­si­fied as a rumor.  Not long left now.

Gotham City Vehicle Props July 25th, 2007

Jeremy Farmer has returned from a Dark Knight prop stor­age locale with these great pic­tures, which he has kindly released under a cre­ative com­mons license. These are some super hi-res shots.

These shots are from his flickr gallery.

Filming Location Report Part Deux July 25th, 2007

Tony came back to tell us this lit­tle bit of juicy gos­sip (beware, spoil­ers ahead):

Was walk­ing around today on Randolph/Washington and saw a brand new, Black Corvette Z06 parked with all of the trail­ers. On the dash­board there was a yel­low sign that said some­thing to the effect of “This car is to be used in film­ing. City of Chicago..blah, blah, blah.” I’ve heard that a new Lam­borgh­ini is sup­posed to be in the film but am curi­ous about the use of the Z06.

I also ran into some “secu­rity guards” when I was check­ing out the Bat­mo­biles and they told me that they filmed a scene the other night where The Joker jumped off of a building!

And today he sent this infor­ma­tion in:

On my way in to work this morn­ing I noticed “No Park­ing signs 7/26–7/30 for Film­ing” all over LaSalle, par­tic­u­larly head­ing South towards the CBOT. Also heard that a very explo­sive scene will be filmed Thurs­day night on Wells & Wacker.

X-Realms have also posted this film­ing report from El Eshoo:

The crew was set­ting up at a place where every­one can look down from the street above and just gawk. Lots of peo­ple in SWAT gear and what looked like Joker hench­men (assum­ing since they were in long black hooded robes and their faces sort of looked in makeup).

In this area were SWAT vehi­cles, Cop SUV’s, the Joker Semi (with bul­let holed wind­shield). A lot of crew peo­ple were wan­der­ing around get­ting ready for tonight’s shoot. Nolan was on hand to chat with crew and actors. Just then, from up the road, Gary Old­man comes run­ning up to the mid­dle where Nolan is stand­ing, stops with a hop, throws his arms out jok­ingly as if to say “Tah-Dah … I’m Here!” It was kinda goofy but funny.

Old­man (com­plete with that cheesy mus­tache) was putting on SWAT gear as well. So, I’m guess­ing he might be involved with the Joker/Semi chase. There was a SWAT Truck rigged with a cam­era in the pas­sen­ger win­dow and the SWAT truck was hitched behind a camera/main truck (where Nolan and com­pany can sit and direct. Just then, the Secu­rity told us to scoot since they were about to film.

I then decided to walk to Mon­roe St (on Upper Wacker, where rumored film­ing was to occur) to see what was up. There were peo­ple with Walkie-talkies about and fig­ured this was the spot. That’s when the rigged SWAT truck and some Gotham Police escort came down the road from the area we were just at. Basi­cally, what they did was did repeat street runs of the SWAT Truck and Police cars dri­ving from Upper Wacker to Lower Wacker via the ramp that heads down there. They did this over and over … noth­ing excit­ing. I guess this is what they meant by the “street level” film­ing that was to occur that night.

I headed back to the River (to view Lower Wacker stuff) to se what was up there. Saw some Tum­blers (2 were uncov­ered) down below but never saw them in action all night. Walked to where I’d seen the Bat­pods nights before. There were 3 of them (2 uncov­ered and 1 cov­ered). Never saw the Bat­pod in action either. In fact, when I returned later, all 3 were cov­ered. I didn’t stay all night so per­haps there were scenes shot in the wee morn­ing hours.

They did shoot some scenes on Lower Wacker with the Joker Semi and the SWAT Truck rid­ing along side (on other side of median) giv­ing chase. There were loud explo­sion sounds as they went by but it was dif­fi­cult to see exactly what they were from since there wasn’t any fire or bright light or smoke or any­thing. Also, pop­ping noises (gun fire) were heard, too.

Later on, they just made passes on Lower Wacker with only the SWAT Truck and some GPD cars. Noth­ing too crazy. For most of the night, I played good Samar­i­tan to peo­ple by telling them where to gawk at the Bat­mo­bile. I’m nice like that.

Be sure to check out the new can­did shots from Bat­man on Film and Hol­ly­wood Chicago

Dark Knight Teaser Trailer Description July 23rd, 2007

Super­Hero­Hype got the scoop again (via ‘BDE’) with this one, a report of what we shall be see­ing in the upcom­ing offi­cial video release — how accu­rate this is we’ll have to wait and see:

I have seen The Dark Knight Teaser. I don’t want to reveal everything…

It starts out with the WB logo grac­ing the screen, fol­lowed by the DC logo and the Leg­endary pic­tures logo. The screen goes black.

It opens back up as a com­mer­cial paid for by the friends of Har­vey Dent. We are shown shots of him talk­ing, mak­ing pub­lic speeches, and walk­ing in a suit, while a deep voice comes on and talks about Har­vey Dent. A generic politi­cian commercial.

What seems to be halfway through the com­mer­cial, it is inter­rupted by sta­tic, and blacks out. Out of nowhere a crys­tal clear image comes onto the screen of a blacked out man with large win­dows behind him. The cam­era slowly zooms in on him. He’s talk­ing (about what I won’t say) and as he fin­ishes he begins laugh­ing. Light­ning strikes, light­ing up his face, as the laugh­ter grows more manic. Cut to black.

The Bat­man Begins (now The Dark Knight’s bat) emblem is shown with the words The Dark Knight. Then it says Sum­mer 2008 and has the web­site at the bottom.

What is said… is a sur­prise that I must keep for now. It gave me chills.

Life Size, Fully Functioning Warthog July 21st, 2007

We have all, by now, seen Neill Blomkamp’s brief E3 trailer which had been made in part­ner­ship with Weta Work­shop. Now we can reveal the full life size replica, fully func­tional Warthog that Weta cre­ated for Blomkamp to use in his shorts. This is a thing of beauty.

Click for full size image

user posted image

Via Bungie​.net

Halo 3 Arms Race July 21st, 2007

From the offi­cial press release,“A col­lab­o­ra­tion between Bungie Stu­dios, direc­tor Neill Blomkamp, WETA Work­shop and Origami Dig­i­tal LLC, brings the first dig­i­tal short depict­ing humanity’s strug­gle to save Earth.“This is our first offi­cial look at the cre­ative bril­liance that comes about when you com­bine the inno­v­a­tive think­ing of Neill Blomkamp and the artis­tic tal­ent of WETA. Just imag­ine throw­ing Peter Jack­son into the mix. The Halo movie, if it ever gets going again, will be some­thing truly special.

A vision of The Halo Movie…

Down­load Large HD versions

And, if you some how missed it, the newest Halo 3 trailer:

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