The Dark Knight Rises Costume Design

Costume designer Lindy Hemming explained that Bane uses a mask to inhale an analgesic gas, which, in director Christopher Nolan's words, "keeps his pain just below the threshold so he can function."

In designing Bane's costume, Hemming needed it to look "like an amalgam of all sorts of bits and pieces he cobbled together, as he passed through some very remote places.

We made parts of his vest, for example, from fragments of an old military tent. His clothes are militaristic, but are not in any way a uniform." Hemming also designed Bane's mask to look "animalistic".

Costume effects supervisor Graham Churchyard created a three-dimensional model of actor Tom Hardy's face and skull to design the mask, allowing the mask to perfectly conform to the contours of Hardy's face.

Hemming personally designed Bane's coat, which she admitted took two years to complete. Taking inspiration from a Swedish army jacket and a frock coat from the French Revolution, it was designed to make Bane look like equal parts dictatorial and revolutionary.

The design was difficult as Hemming struggled to find a tailor in Los Angeles who could work with shearling. The Batsuit consisted of 110 separate pieces, each of which had to be replicated dozens of times over the course of the production.

Carbon fiber panels were placed inside the sections on the legs, chest and abdomen. The cowl was sculpted from a cast of Bale's face and head to become a perfect fit for Christian Bale. The suit remained unchanged for the film since The Dark Knight.

In creating Selina Kyle's catsuit, two layers of material were used, with the outer layer being polyurethane coated spandex, embossed with a hexagonal pattern. The catsuit also consisted of elbow-length gloves, a utility belt, and thigh-high boots with spike heels.

The Dark Knight Rises
Production Design

Concept artist Tully Summers commented on Nolan's style of cinematography when asked about the difference between his designs for this film and fantasy-based designs for Men in Black 3: "The difference for me was Christopher Nolan's visual style.

One of the things that makes his Batman movies so compelling is their tone of plausibility. He will often prefer a raw, grittier design over one that is very sleek and product design pretty. It's sort of a practical military aesthetic. This stuff is made to work, not impress shoppers.

The Dark Knight Rises is a war film." Producer Emma Thomas stated this Batman film has a different visual aesthetic from the first two Nolan-directed features, explaining that "it's meant to be winter in Gotham, so that right there is going to lend a whole different look to the film."

The film introduces a vehicle that has been compared with the Batplane, dubbed "the Bat". In designing the Bat, Nathan Crowley approached it as if it were an actual military project, emphasising the need for it to "fit into the same family" as the Tumbler and the Batpod.

The final version of the Bat takes its design cues from the Harrier Jump Jet, Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey and the Boeing AH-64 Apache. Chris Corbould described the Bat's size and shape as presenting a major challenge for filming given Christopher Nolan's emphasis on practical effects over computer-generated imagery.

In order to make the Bat "fly", it was variously supported by wires, suspended from cranes and helicopters, and mounted on a purpose-built vehicle with hydraulic controls to simulate movement.

When designing the Batcave set, Crowley and fellow production designer Kevin Kavanaugh hit upon the idea of flooding the Batcave and having Batman's equipment, the Batsuit and a supercomputer rise from the water.

Another set was designed at Cardington as an "underground prison", a rough-hewn labyrinth of stone cells in a vast abyss with a 120 foot (37 m) vertical shaft leading to the surface. Exteriors above the prison were filmed in Jodhpur, India, chosen because the "forbidding landscape added to the desolation".

The Dark Knight Rises Music

In an interview in October 2010, composer Hans Zimmer confirmed that he would be returning to score The Dark Knight Rises.

James Newton Howard was offered to return and write the score with Zimmer as he did for Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but he chose not to because he noted that the chemistry established between Zimmer and Nolan during the making of Inception would make him seem like a "third wheel".

Zimmer included several cues from the earlier scores, but explains that he wanted to go in a "completely different direction" for Bane's theme. While the theme accompanying Selina Kyle is deliberately ambiguous, the musical thread spanning throughout the trilogy was composed exclusively for Bruce Wayne.

The film features a prevalent Moroccan chant of the phrase deshi basara (proper transliteration: teeji basra), which translates to "rise up" (literally: "come quickly"). In November 2011, Zimmer crowdsourced online audio recordings of the chant to be used in the film's score.

Resources:
IMDB.com, Wikipedia.org
screenmusings.org

Chapter Three: The Dark Knight Rises

Eight years after Harvey Dent's death, the Dent Act grants the Gotham City Police Department powers which nearly eradicate organized crime. Feeling guilty for covering up Dent's crimes, Police Commissioner James Gordon writes a resignation speech confessing the truth, but decides not to use it. Batman has disappeared; Bruce Wayne has become a recluse.

Cat burglar Selina Kyle obtains Bruce's fingerprints from his home, kidnaps a congressman, then disappears. Selina hands Bruce's fingerprints to Phillip Stryver, an assistant to Bruce's business rival John Daggett, in hope of having her criminal record erased. Stryver double-crosses Selina, but she uses the congressman's stolen phone to alert the police to their location.

Gordon and the police arrive to find the congressman, then pursue Stryver's men into the sewers while Selina flees. A masked man called Bane captures Gordon. Gordon escapes and is found by John Blake, a once-orphaned patrol officer who has deduced Batman's true identity from their similar backgrounds. Gordon promotes Blake to detective, with Blake reporting directly to him.

Wayne Enterprises is unprofitable after Bruce discontinued his fusion reactor project when he learned that the core could be weaponized. Later, Bane attacks the Gotham Stock Exchange, using Bruce's fingerprints in a transaction that bankrupts Wayne.

Alfred Pennyworth, concerned that Bruce has not moved on from being Batman, reveals to him that Rachel Dawes had intended to marry Dent before she died; Alfred then resigns in an attempt to dissuade Bruce. Fearing that Daggett, Bane's employer, would gain access to the reactor, Bruce asks Wayne Enterprises board member Miranda Tate to take over his company.

After being promised the software to erase her criminal record, Selina agrees to take Batman to Bane, but instead leads him into Bane's trap. Bane reveals that he intends to fulfill Ra's al Ghul's mission to destroy Gotham with the League of Shadows remnant.

He delivers a crippling blow to Batman's back, then takes him to a foreign, well-like prison where escape is virtually impossible. The inmates tell Bruce the story of Ra's al Ghul's child, born in the prison and cared for by a fellow prisoner before escaping—the only prisoner to have ever done so. Bruce assumes the child to be Bane.

Meanwhile, Bane lures Gotham police underground and collapses the exits. He kills Mayor Anthony Garcia and forces an abducted physicist, Dr. Leonid Pavel, to convert the reactor core into a nuclear bomb. Bane uses the bomb to hold the city hostage and isolate Gotham from the world.

Using Gordon's stolen speech, Bane reveals the cover-up of Dent's crimes and releases the prisoners of Blackgate Penitentiary, initiating a revolution. The wealthy and powerful have their property expropriated, are dragged from their homes, and given show trials presided over by Dr. Jonathan Crane, where any sentence means likely death with exile forcing the defendants to walk across the frozen bay.

After months of recovery and re-training, Bruce escapes from the prison and enlists Selina, Blake, Tate, Gordon, and Lucius Fox to help stop the bomb's detonation. While the police and Bane's forces clash, Batman defeats Bane, but Tate intervenes and stabs Batman, revealing herself to be Talia al Ghul, Ra's al Ghul's daughter.

Talia escaped the prison aided by her fellow prisoner and protector, Bane. She plans to complete her father's work by detonating the bomb and destroying Gotham, but Gordon blocks her signal, preventing remote detonation. Talia leaves to find the bomb while Bane prepares to kill Batman, but Selina kills Bane using the Batpod.

Batman pursues Talia with The Bat, an aircraft developed by Fox, hoping to bring the bomb back to the reactor where it can be stabilized. Talia's truck crashes, but she remotely destroys the reactor before dying. With no way to stop the detonation, Batman uses The Bat to haul the bomb over the bay, where it detonates.

In the aftermath, Batman is presumed dead and is honored as a hero. With Bruce also presumed dead, Wayne Manor is left to the city to become an orphanage, and Wayne's remaining estate is left to Alfred.

Fox discovers that Bruce had fixed The Bat's autopilot, and Gordon finds the Bat-Signal refurbished. While visiting Florence, Alfred witnesses Bruce and Selina together. Blake resigns from the police force and inherits the Batcave.

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