Dark Knight Rises Starts to Be Unveiled Piece by Piece.

While shooting in Pittsburgh, Dark Knight Rises had a shadow of secrecy covering details about the movie from the media.  Slowly, the shadow is starting to go away and we are receiving glimpses of what the final product will look like.  During shooting in Pittsburgh, some media interviews were given with the directors and stars.  These details are starting to be revealed to the general public.  This is an interview with some of the movie's stars about their character, shooting in Pittsburgh, and their love of Batman.

Going by what can be gleaned from the recent Dark Knight Rises trailers and TV spots, the film picks up with Bruce Wayne during a transitional period (Pulp Fiction reference not intended), wherein the onetime masked vigilante has essentially hung up his cape and cowl – as Gotham has become a relatively peaceful metropolis. 

Bale confirmed as much, when he said the following about Bruce in DKR:

BALE: To me, [Bruce Wayne] has it all; it’s all in there.  The thing is, he is still that child basically.  The one thing that I do know, and there’s an awful lot in the graphic novels, which we’ve played with a little bit, is this whole notion of him genuinely being a playboy versus what we’ve done, which is he sort of performs that but his heart’s not really in it.  And the eternal problem that Alfred has with watching this guy who has no life.  He’s put his entire life on hold because, yeah, he still does.  He’s got this fierceness in his mind and emotions that he just will not forget the pain of the parents.  With most people it’s like time heals all wounds, but with him it’s like, “No, no, no. ”  He doesn’t want to forget it, he wants to maintain that anger that he felt at that injustice but equally he wants to present this very vacuous soulless persona to Gotham so hopefully no one will suspect him but will just think he’s a spoiled bastard.  But consequently in his most intimate moments he has Alfred, he has Rachel and there is not a whole lot there, because it’s complete arrested development.  And the recognition that at some point he’s got to start living.   He is seriously behind in terms of life and enjoyment of life.  That’s all been sacrificed and at some point, hopefully it’s Alfred’s wish that he will start to live again.  Of course this tragedy has defined him but to a degree he’s sacrificed everything that most people would consider worth living for in life and he’s going to have relearn that, embarrassingly late in life.

Dark Knight Rises has two entire movies to draw on for context, with regards to backstory for Bruce and how he has reached this stage in his life. 

However, the film’s iterations of famous Batman femme fatale Catwoman and muscly madman Bane are drawing from different sources, including the original comics and the sheer imagination of the film’s cast and writers (Chris Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, and Davis S. Goyer).

HARDY: I had no immediate knowledge of the world of Batman at all.  I’m quite incubated.  I just keep myself to myself and my dog.  He’s not with me anymore.  And if something comes in, it’s always a neat experience.  So it started when I first got the part… [Bane is] a different character.  Of course, I’m playing a different character than I’ve ever played before.  But you know way too much of this story of me.  So I can’t answer that.

THOMAS: Without saying too much [about Bane], I think we’ve retained what works for this universe and for our world. He’s definitely recognizable. But then there are some things that we’ve changed, because I think they wouldn’t have fit into Chris Nolan’s version of the world…We were obviously never going to revisit the Joker and you don’t want to be trying to chase that. So it’s fun to have a very different sort of villain in this and a different sort of challenge for Batman to meet, much more physical. It’s almost a more even match in some ways, you know, in a physical sense. You just don’t want to do the same thing again.

As far as the film’s approach to Catwoman is concerned:

HATHAWAY: Well the first thing you have to say is what an honor.  It was funny for me because when I got my start, I kind of got my big break with ‘The Princess Diaries’ and during the press rounds for that everyone asked me: “Did you always want to be a princess growing up?”  And the truth was, no I wanted to be Catwoman.  And I think a lot of women feel that way… I loved Catwoman’s sense of humor.  I love how sly she is.  I love how she, to use a cat metaphor, walks the fence and you don’t know which side she’s going to come down on.  She’s totally independent.  And let’s face it, she’s badass.

… Each Catwoman is specific to the Gotham City she lives in and the director that helps shape her.  So it’s kind of hard to have a favorite and I’m not just being political, it’s hard to have a favorite because each one is so specific as themselves.  And you look back at the history of the comic and Catwoman gets reinvented every ten to fifteen years anyway.  You can have preferences but the core of the character remains… I grew up with [several different versions of Catwoman] so I was well acquainted with the character’s dimension; she’s one of my favorite characters in the comic book world and in the movie world.  But I didn’t go back to any of the other ones because I’m in Chris’s Gotham City.  For me it didn’t make a lot of sense to look at them for inspiration, even as extraordinary a performance that Michelle Pfeiffer gave, that was Tim Burton’s Gotham. So for me that didn’t make a lot of sense.

'

Whereas Joker in The Dark Knight represented more of a mental challenge for the Caped Crusader, Bane and Catwoman are well-renowned for both their craftiness and physical prowess – the sheer power of the former, acrobatic maneuverability of the latter. 

The Dark Knight Rises cast was not only willing to spill on the physical challenges of training and executing hand-to-hand combat sequences for the production, but also to touch on how said fights reflect the shifting power balance between their characters (especially, with Batman and Bane).

BALE: We have fantastic stunt guys.  Buster Reeves, who’s have been with us since the first one, and Tom Struthers.  And thing is, this is sort of what we do.  They kind of work out what they’d like to see in the fights and Tom [Hardy] and myself come in and bring in the story to the fights.  Because a fight that is just a knock down, everyone punching each other, ceases to be really exciting after a while.  You’ve got to figure a way to tell a story within the fight.  And also you can get some very trained fighters who can follow and incredibly fast and furious fight, but I don’t know about you guys but as you watch UFC sometimes you’re going “I dunno what’s going on. ” It looks like a bloody mess.  You sometimes have to be able to just look at it with eyes like myself, someone who’s not a trained fighter and understand what’s happening, and it’s amazing the difference that between the fantastic stuntmen that come in and do their jobs and when we, Tom [Hardy] and I, come in and say “all right I get that, but this is what I’ve got to be thinking here, so I’ve got to do it this way. ” And actually seeing a fight that has description and a beginning, middle, and end to it is a wonderful thing, keeps it so much more entertaining and means so much more then showing off a few martial arts moves.
HATHAWAY: I’d always thought I was pretty healthy and I always thought I had worked hard in the gym and it turns out that what I thought was hard, in Catwoman’s world, is actually light to moderate.  I’ve had to ratchet everything up.  I have the most incredible stuntwoman in the world and she’s got me and the character to another level… I don’t actually know the name of [Catwoman's fighting style] – sorry this makes me sound like an airhead.  The stunt department are all phenomenal fighters and so I’ve just been mimicking them and doing whatever they tell me to do.  I do all sorts of kicks.  I do a roundhouse kick, I think its all mixed martial arts.  I don’t know what the martial arts technique is called but I’ve been doing it in heels!

Previous reports indicated that Dark Knight Rises could includes nearly an hour of native IMAX footage, as was shot using the traditional IMAX camera system (a 150-200 lbs. device) often coupled with the use of a steadicam (an unprecedented approach). 

However, according to Thomas, that isn’t a certainty… because, as it turns out, probably MORE than an hour’s worth of IMAX footage was actually shot; how much eventually makes the final cut, is the question.

THOMAS: Gosh, that’s actually very difficult to say at this point because basically, at the moment we’re shooting a lot in IMAX…a LOT in IMAX, much more than we shot in ‘The Dark Knight’. We’re actually shooting a lot in IMAX and 35mm, and then some exclusively in 35mm. So, I don’t know at this point what the final [percentage will be.] We’re still using the big [IMAX cameras], which is great. Obviously there are real limitations in terms of dialogue scenes and heavy drama stuff, so we’ve shot some of that with both and some of it exclusively with 35mm. There’s no doubt there’ll be a lot more on IMAX than there was on ‘The Dark Knight’.

The producer also touched on the decision to shoot the bulk of the Gotham City exterior/establishing shots in Dark Knight Rises in Pittsburgh, rather than return to Chicago (as was used for Batman Begins and Dark Knight):

THOMAS: ['Dark Knight Rises definitely has] a different aesthetic. Once again, we didn’t want to just be repeating the same old thing. I don’t think anyone would want to see just the same old thing and it certainly wouldn’t be any fun for us to tell the same old story. Visually, I think the same thing applies to that. It’s meant to be winter in Gotham, so that right there is going to lend a whole different look to the film. So far, we have shot rather more in the daylight than we did in ‘The Dark Knight’, but we’ve got a lot of nights coming our way, too.

It’s great to be in Pittsburgh. We’re having a really great time here. One of the biggest reasons we came here was that Chicago…we had a fantastic time there and we loved it, but we literally have shot every inch of that city. As I said, we don’t want to be retreading old territory, whether that be visually or in terms of the storyline. We want this to be a stand-alone movie that just doesn’t feel like something anyone’s seen before… Gotham is meant to be a massive metropolis; it’s meant to be a huge city. I think we felt like if we went back to Chicago we would be limiting the scope and we just wanted to make it feel massive.

For more information check out Screenrant.

Carrie Furnace Lights Up Again for New Movie

"Out of the Furnace" is another Hollywood movie using Pittsburgh as it's main backdrop.  The Carrie Furnace, which has not been in operation since 1978, is being used as a backdrop for a pivotal fight scene in the film.

The Carrie furnace is roaring again, but this time, it’s a movie.

The rusted reminder of Pittsburgh’s steel heritage is the backdrop for a fight scene in a film called “Out of the Furnace.”

“These are Carrie furnaces numbers six and seven that operated from 1907 to 1978,” Ron Baraff said.

He is museum director for the Rivers of Steel Heritage Area. The non-profit, which conducts tours of the old iron plant, is leasing the area to the visitors from Hollywood.

“It’s been kind of hectic, at times. It’s a lot of folks on the site,” he said, “But the main thing is they’ve been really, really, really respectful of what this site is.”

Producer Michael Ireland is a self-proclaimed history buff.

“What’s remarkable about this place is that this is just a small footprint of what used to be here,” he said. “The fact that it used to be so much more expansive and stretched all the way to the trestle bridge where we also shot is just amazing.”

Unlike many other films, in which this region masqueraded as someplace else, in this case, what you see is what you get.

In his quest for authenticity, director Scott Cooper even shot scenes at Hidy’s Cafe in Braddock. He also wrote the script. He was captivated by this region during a previous movie shoot.
The film provides lobs for local freelancers, Rivers of Steel gets funding for Carrie furnace upgrades, and Pittsburgh is portrayed as Pittsburgh. It’s a win-win-win.

“A good movie promoting this region making this region look good and feel good and be presented as itself – you can’t ask for anything more,” Baraff said.

For more information go to kdka.com.

Foxcatcher may film in Pittsburgh in October

Variety is reporting that “Foxcatcher” could begin filming in Pittsburgh in October.

The film is about John du Pont, great-great-grandson of E.I. du Pont, the industrialist who founded the chemical company. In January 1996, he shot and killed David Schultz, a 1984 gold medal winner who came to live and train at the state-of-the-art Foxcatcher National Training Center that Mr. du Pont had built on his 800-acre property in Newtown Square, Pa.

Police arrested du Pont after a two-day standoff. He was found guilty but mentally ill and sentenced to 13 to 30 years in prison, which is where he was found unresponsive and died in December 2010.

The trade publication says Steve Carell would play John du Pont, Mark Ruffalo from "The Avengers" is in talks to portray the slain wrestler and Channing Tatum -- soon to be seen in "G.I. Joe: Retaliation" and "Magic Mike" -- is attached to play Mark Schultz, David's brother and also a champion wrestler.

Dawn Keezer, director of the Pittsburgh Film Office, said Monday, "We've had some discussions with 'Foxcatcher' but nothing's been finalized." The production, for instance, hasn't applied for tax credits, which would be a likely step if the project plans to spend at least 60 percent of its budget here.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/ae/movies/foxcatcher-may-film-in-the-area-in-october-635944/

Common Law's Pittsburgh Roots

USA debuts its new cop procedural Common Law tonight, focusing on a dysfunctional cop duo. What's interesting to us about the show, other than the show itself, is its Pittsburgh roots.

Showrunner Craig Sweeny (who has written for Medium and The 4400) hails from Squirrel Hill and Point Breeze. He graduated from Allderdice High School in 1992, and still has family in the region. From the feature in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Although it's set in Los Angeles, "Common Law" has some significant Pittsburgh roots. Showrunner Craig Sweeny, who previously wrote for "Medium" and "The 4400," grew up in Squirrel Hill and Point Breeze and is a 1992 graduate of Pittsburgh Allderdice High School. Mr. Sweeny still has family in Pittsburgh, including mother Maureen Sweeny, who recently moved back to Squirrel Hill after 15 years outside of Western Pennsylvania, and stepmother Dawn Sweeny of Fox Chapel.

While writing on "The 4400," Mr. Sweeny delighted Pittsburgh viewers with references -- street names, park names -- from Western Pennsylvania. He said not to expect quite so many on "Common Law."

"The Pittsburgh references started from, 'I need a name of a street,' and the first name I think of is Schenley. Or, I need the name of a park, and so I used Boyce Park. And then it made it through all the way onto air and it became a thing people started noticing," Mr. Sweeny said in January at an NBC Universal party in Pasadena, Calif.

 Actor Warren Kole's grandparents are from the Pittsburgh region:

"Common Law" co-star Warren Kole is a self-described "Army brat" who grew up all over the U.S. but his grandparents lived an hour south of Pittsburgh.

"The one constant was Western Pennsylvania," he said about his childhood and frequent visits to the area. "I had a countryside, Huckleberry Finn existence out there."

 Let's hope the show does well and helps buoy the burgeoning film industry of Pittsburgh.

Steeltown Film Factory Competition

via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

On May 12, the winner of the 2012 Steeltown Film Factory competition will be announced -- along with a new award named in honor of co-founder Ellen Weiss Kander of Squirrel Hill.

The contest launched by Steeltown Entertainment Project drew 180 scripts, now whittled to three finalists: "Echo Torch" by Christopher Preksta, creator of the SyFy Web series "The Mercury Men" and YouTube favorite "Pittsburgh Dad"; "Perils of Being Flat Chested" by Yulin Kuang, a 2011 finalist about to graduate from Carnegie Mellon University; and "Escape From St. Quentin's" by writing team Scott Peters and Anthony Poremski.

CMU Drama School students will read the final three revised scripts -- also available at www.steeltownfilmfactory.org -- for an audience and panel of judges at the "And the Winner Is ..." finale.

Scheduled to select the winner: actor David Conrad, an Edgewood native who could return to TV if NBC picks up the pilot "Beautiful People"; Emmy-winning producer Bob Kusbit; "Sesame Street" director Jim Martin; Steeltown's first intern turned producer Tom Pellegrini, an Ambridge native whose "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" recently played at the Manor Theater; and Steve Cuden, co-creator of the musical "Jekyll & Hyde" and writer of animated TV shows.

Comedian, writer and producer Maxine Lapiduss will present the Ellen Weiss Kander Award to the winner or winners who will receive a total of $30,000 to turn their script into a short film.

The seeds for the Film Factory were planted in 2003 in the living room of Ms. Weiss Kander after the Steeltown Entertainment Summit at WQED. The competition emerged as a way for Pittsburgh expatriates to give back and serve as mentors for a new generation of talent in their hometown.

The first funds were raised in 2005 at a sold-out screening of "Land of the Dead" at the Byham Theater that doubled as a salute to George Romero, the godfather of ghouls who put the city on the moviemaking map. The event drew such hip luminaries as Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg.

By naming the award after Ms. Weiss Kander, it celebrates her persistence, dedication and passion and makes good on those long-ago conversations about allowing Pittsburgh to lead the charge into the digital age as it did during the industrial days, Steeltown co-founder Carl Kurlander says.

The May 12 event will be held in CMU's Purnell Center for the Arts. Doors open at 10:30 a.m., competition starts at 11 a.m. and advance tickets -- $15 for general admission, $5 for students -- are recommended. Go to www.steeltownfilmfactory.org or call 412-622-1325.