Why THE BATMAN is so beautiful. | A Cinematography Video Essay
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Published 2022-03-13
Director Matt Reeves and cinematographer Greig Fraser have created an immersive world draped in darkness and mystery that makes most modern blockbusters look like amateur student films, and it’s an answer to a trend that’s cursed the entire filmmaking industry which is to make every shot look clean. But what makes The Batman dirty then? What’s so unique about how The Batman was shot that makes it so… beautiful? In this video we’re going to dive into the approach Matt Reeves and Greg Fraser took to bring their Batman to life, the lenses they used, their cinematic references, the lighting, color grading, and an interesting new approach to digital cinema with 35mm film. We also do a recreation of The Batman using an anamorphic lens and the Sony A7iv to show how you can apply the principles from The Batman to your own work.
This is The Cinematography of The Batman.
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Check out Dolby's Full Conversation with the filmmaking team of The Batman:
• The Cinematography of The Batman | So...
00:00 - Intro
00:54 - Intro & Context
01:54 - Cinematic References
02:12 - The Lenses
02:34 - Make The Frame Dirty
02:53 - Angles & Framing
03:30 - SE7EN
04:09 - I Am The Shadows
04:40 - Color
04:53 - Gotham City
05:45 - Why So Real?
06:15 - VFX
06:37 - Color Grading
07:36 - Thesis
10:16 - The Batman Recreation
11:49 - Free Pizza
Camera: SONY A7iv: geni.us/ptsonya7iv (affiliate link)
35mm F1.8 Lens: geni.us/pt35mmsony (affiliate link)
Voiceover Mic: geni.us/ptvideomicII (affiliate link)
Dialogue Mic: geni.us/ptvideomicntg (affiliate link)
The Batman is an upcoming American superhero film based on DC Comics featuring the character Batman. Produced by DC Films and 6th & Idaho, and set for distribution by Warner Bros. Pictures, it is intended to be a reboot of the Batman film franchise. The film is being directed by Matt Reeves, who wrote the screenplay with Peter Craig, and stars Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne / Batman, alongside Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Barry Keoghan, Jayme Lawson, Andy Serkis, and Colin Farrell. Set in his second year of fighting crime, the film sees Batman uncover corruption in Gotham City while facing a serial killer known as The Riddler.
All Comments (21)
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Honestly, I never thought the cinematography in Spider-Man: No Way Home was bad, but going from seeing the clips of The Batman to No Way Home almost blinded me and made my eyes hurt. The Batman is just so good.
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The first 5 minutes into the movie the first thing that came to my mind was that this was the best rendition of Gotham I’ve ever seen in a Batman movie. It was damn near perfect.
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The scene where batman holds the flare light, leading the people through the waters was absolutely breathtaking.
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“commercial gloss” is the exact term i’ve been struggling to bring to mind when trying to describe why certain movies, especially marvel, don’t do much for me. the cinematography of The Batman is so commendable!
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One thing I loved about The Batman was that Gotham really did look like a city that was riddled with crime. The last time Gotham(in a Batman movie) was shown like that was by Tim Burton, but never to this extent. Here the city really does look like a place where someone like Batman would exist.
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Honestly the cinematography has to win an Oscar for sure
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I really hope more of DC films are like this in the future, because the couple past years they've been really trying to be like Marvel with their bright color when it doesn't fit their DC style where it is dark and dirty.
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I stood on set for many of these scenes. I vividly remember the shot of the Diner. The slow push in… beautiful. Greig is truly a master cinematographer but also a lovely man to work with. Generous with his time. Collaborative…
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One thing I really appreciate about The Batman is the camera work during the fight scenes. There is none of that shaky cam, cutting every half a second, motion sickness inducing camera work, it's mostly slow long shots.
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I feel like The Batman is to live-action superhero movies what Into The Spiderverse was to animated films. It just kicked it to a whole other level stylistically and was so immersive and atmospheric that there's just no way the film industry could ignore it.
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The Batman using flare to rescue people scene captured the essence of Batman perfectly. Yeah, he might be broody and dark but it’s just the means to an end which is giving people a symbol of hope.
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I liked all the Batman movies. And then I watched this one. This is different. I feel like this is the Batman movie I always wanted to see but no one showed it to us until now. You can feel BW conflict and pain. And Paul Dano’s performance is stunning as the Riddler. I am looking forward to the next one. Well done!
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I personally loved the rooftop scenes. The scenery was so beautiful.
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Fun fact: They were going to make the Penguin smoke cigars in this movie but every time they put them on camera it made them look like sausages. I don’t know why it is. I think it it has something to do with the lenses.
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This is probably the best video essay I've seen. No pretentious script or editing. You have your knowledge, and the quotes from your sources. It's like an actual essay that's a video.
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This film has such a distinct and recognizable visual style. Take a random shot from The Batman and you can identify it just based on the style. Take a random shot from No Way Home and, well, you’ll probably be lucky if you guess it’s a Marvel movie, but I doubt you’re getting much better than that.
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You probably know this by now, but Greig Fraser just shared this video on his Instagram story! Congrats dude! Keep it up
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I am so happy to see that the people have spoken: we are done with CGI and we want painstakingly photographed “real cinema.”
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The amount of immersion you get from this film is at another level.
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I went into this completely blind because my friend had a spare cinema ticket and I wasn’t too sure about Robert Pattinson after only seeing him in Harry Potter so I didn’t check out any trailers. Holy crap was it great! I love film noire and I really didn’t expect the vibe from a big budget superhero movie. I really hope this group of creators gets a trilogy at the very least.
