BJ: Technical Analysis - The Dark Knight (Nolan, 2008)

I have decided to analyse the interrogation scene in the Dark Knight. This is a very appropriate scene as our whole film opening will be an interrogation scene, so this scene can give us ideas on how to use camera shots in this context.

Camera Shot	Duration	Mise-en-Scene	Sound
Over the Shoulder/Long Shot. Slowly moving in towards the character as he enters and sits down.	20s	It is very dimly lit, so much so that we only see the Joker’s face lit up by two desk lamps.	Diagetic sound of the door opening and the officer sitting down. No soundtrack. First piece of dialogue.
Medium shot of the Joker’s face. The camera is slowly moving in towards him.	19s	Low key lighting used to light up half of the Joker’s face. Make up used on the Joker. We can also see that he is wearing handcuffs.	Still no soundtrack, just dialogue. This creates more tension and unease.
Medium close up of Commissioner Gordon’s face.	5s	Again the lighting is so dark that we can only see half of his face. His facial expression tells us that he is nervous or intimidated by the Joker.	Just dialogue from the Joker.
Medium close up of the Joker’s face	4s	Low key lighting again to create tension.	Dialogue once again with some ambience to create tension.
MCU of Commissioner Gordon’s face. This time the camera has moved further into his face so we get a clearer reaction shot.	7s	Once again only half of his face is lit.	Just dialogue between the two of them.
MCU of Joker’s face.	2s	Lighting is used so you can only see the Joker’s head, where as when we see Commissioner Gordon there is more lighting in the background. This could have been used to portray the Joker as a darker person than Gordon.	Dialogue once again with added ambience to create suspense.
Low shot behind the Joker with commissioner Gordon in full view. Kind of an over the shoulder shot but lower.	5s	Still very low key lighting. This time the Commissioner stands up and unlocks the Joker’s handcuffs. When Commissioner Gordon stands up it shows his authority over the Joker.	Still just dialogue and ambience.
CU of Joker	3s	Low key once again with Joker leaning forward.	Dialogue
Medium shot of Commissioner Gordon by the door.	3s	The door is lit brighter.	Diagetic sound of the Commissioner walking and the sound of the door buzzing open, which suggests it was locked.
CU of the Joker	7s	The room is still low key lit but then the lights come on and Batman is revealed to be standing behind the Joker.	Diagetic sound of the door closing and of batman slamming the Joker’s head onto the table.
MCU of Batman	2s	We can see by Batman’s facial expression that he is very aggressive. This is where Batman is revealed to the Joker. Batman is wearing all black, his signature costume.	No sound to create more tension.
CU of the Joker	3s	The Joker is clearly dazed by the hit to the head and he continues to lick his scars to draw attention to them and try to intimidate Batman.	Dialogue.
Long shot behind Batman from the back of the room.	1s	The room is well lit now so we can see both characters. Batman is positioned standing up so we know he is the one in control, not the Joker.
Close up of the Joker’s hand getting crushed by Batman.	1/2s	This is just to show what Batman did to the Joker.	Diagetic sound of Batman grunting and the loud bang when his hand hits the table. Still no soundtrack.
Over the shoulder shot of Batman	2s	Batman, through character exposition, has been positioned higher than the Joker, showing his power over him. Non-verbal Language is also used as by Batman’s facial expression we can see he is aggressive.	Some heavy breathing sounds by Batman to show his frustration and anger.
MCU of Joker.	4s	Joker’s face looks surprised.	Just dialogue.
Over the shoulder shot of Batman	3s	Again Batman’s NVL tells us he is angry as well as his tone of voice.	Dialogue.
Over the shoulder shot of the Joker. The camera is also slowly moving to the other side past batman’s head.	10s	The Joker is trying to intimidate Batman by licking his scars.	Dialogue.
Over the shoulder shot of Batman	2s	Again NVL tell us Batman is angry.	Dialogue
Over the shoulder shot of the Joker. The camera has now moved to the other side of Batman and is still slowly moving horizontally.	8s	Again the Joker is very calm but intimidating	Dialogue.

Evaluation

• This scene mainly uses close ups and over the shoulder shots to show the conversation between two people. This is something we would like to use extensively in our opening, however we could try to expand ideas a little further.
• The lack of soundtrack in this scene creates a lot of tension. This is something we would like to emulate, however not to the extent Nolan has done it in this scene.
• The lighting is something that we believe is very effective as it creates a sense of enigma around the character as we can only see half of his face. 
• We would like to add more non-diagetic sound to our opening than they did in this sequence.

  

  A good idea for lighting as it creates tension.

In this shot you can see that the camera is on Batman's left shoulder.

In the next shot, the camera has moved to Batman's right shoulder.