SET REPORT
Dark Knight Filming, Tuesday 24 April 2007
By Syren Callista at Batman-On-Film
I arrived at 9am. At that point they were already in the process of filming in front of the post office, using a grey jeep with a camera crane mounted on it to film:
The gray suburban comes around the corner and comes to a fast stop in front of the post office/ ank stairs. The three goons and The Joker (Heath himself, in mask) jump out of the car. He hangs back for a moment, looking around and scoping out the area as the others run straight through the doors and inside. Wash, rinse and repeat, for three times that I saw.
(Click here for Video of Scene being filmed)
Done with that. . . pretty much the entire production crew that was out on the street for that scene. They move down the street to where the school bus is in the fake wall. (Fake wall was constructed so they wouldn't have to damage the building's walls.)
Commence an hour of setup work. The scene is partially being filmed by the camera truck, which is on its own wooden ramp right next to the bus.
As they are setting up, SEVEN other school buses come down Van Buren, facing towards Wacker, cued up on the street. At this point an idea started to form in my head...and it turned out to be right.
Last chance to avoid your SPOILER here!
The extras are all set, normal cars, Gotham Police cars (regular and SUV type) and Gotham cabs are all set. The scene begins to roll:
All of the school buses begin to drive past the fake wall where the school bus is lodged. Who is driving it? Heath Ledger's stunt double (who has green hair, identical costume, no makeup, and clown mask).
In between the sixth and the seventh bus, the Joker-driven school bus pulls out of the broken wall (with debris on top no less) and joins the caravan of school buses. As they are pulling away, five Gotham squad cars rush up to the broken wall and CUT!
(Click Here for Video of schoolbus escape sequence)
This scene repeated approximately five times, and on the sixth time, after the scene began to run, it was interrupted by the accidental roof fire ( click here for more info and link to video).
So there you have it, the school bus is the escape vehicle, and it escapes by joining a convoy of seven other buses.
After the fire debacle, which occurred around 11:20am, they were preparing to shoot again around 1 or so. During this time, after the fire trucks had cleared out, partial demolition took place on the fake wall, with the doors and broken framework being removed.
As this was happening, the grey suburban was being set up just around the corner from the bank. The actors playing The Joker goons and the identically dressed stunt drivers were all there, and eventually one of the stunt drivers got behind the wheel.
Unique to this scene being filmed was that in the back of the surburban, inside, was a camera, and at least three people and Christopher Nolan all crammed into it.
When they were finally ready to shoot, Heath Ledger appears in mask and costume. The extras and cars begin moving and they film Ledger getting into the car. Then the car goes around the corner, stops in front of the bank, and all four clowns get out and storm the bank. Seems to be a continuation/extension of what I saw earlier.
They ran this scene about four times, before they stopped. Ledger talked with some people briefly (which let me get off a few pictures) and then waved to them and went inside.
I left at this point, though I understand that more filming was being setup to take place.
All in all it was a very exciting day.
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A member of the Chicago crew has said that the preliminary scenes being filmed in April (that are described above) are being filmed for a trailer. Whether or not his statement is accurate, we do not know. Nor do we know if the scenes will also be in the film, as well as in a trailer. The above should be considered rumor and comes from DSpiral at SuperHeroHype.
Phyllis, HH Admin