The film started filming in March 2004 and was completed in September. In 129 working days, the crew traveled to Iceland, Chicago and London for live shooting. It was also filmed at the famous Shepperton Film Studio in the United Kingdom and rebuilt from a hangar. Shooting in the huge Cardington Studio.
Normally, when the director focuses on shooting the main content, another camera crew will be responsible for shooting the action shots and auxiliary shots. But Nolan, the director of the film, does not want to "do one mind and two purposes", but instead shoots step by step and meticulously, so as to ensure that his idea of the film can be implemented consistently. In order to make all aspects of the film highlight the realism style, Nolan led the crew to create the magical world of Batman using a combination of on-site shooting, studio settings, real scene models and a very small amount of computer animation.
The Vatnajökull Glacier in southeastern Iceland is the first location chosen by the crew. Vatnajökull Glacier is the largest glacier in Europe and occupies one-tenth of Iceland's national territory. The undulating, rocky terrain is very suitable to express the scenes in the movie with the harsh environment of the Himalayas as the background of the story. Since Iceland has only one two-lane road running through the country, the crew had to build roads on their own to lead to ice lakes, villages and monasteries.
Gotham is an important place where the film’s story takes place. Chicago is not only used as the blueprint for Gotham City, but also used to shoot many exterior scenes that represent this fictional city, including a spectacular car chase scene, where the Batmobile follows a well-designed route. Speeding on the highway like a rocket and hitting a police car chasing it. This car chase shot was mainly shot on Lower Wacker Avenue in the south of the Chicago River and received unprecedented support from the city of Chicago. In order to shoot crazy car chasing scenes, several blocks of the city were temporarily closed. Some particularly tricky parts of the car chasing shots were shot with a set, and the roof model was built according to one-third of the scale. When the roof tiles are crushed by the car, the effect can be almost fake. The large model of the exterior of Gotham City was built in Cardington Studios, which used to be a hangar in North London. Cardington’s huge No. 2 hangar is 812 feet long and 180 feet high. Its area is equivalent to 16 Olympic swimming pools and can accommodate 8,338 London double-decker buses, which is beyond the reach of ordinary studios.
Most of the interior and exterior scenes of Wayne Manor were shot at Mentmore Tower in England. This estate was built by the Rothschild family in the 1850s and is located about an hour and a half drive north of London. It was under this manor that the young Bruce Wayne discovered a huge cave with countless bats and a very spectacular waterfall.
The Batcave set was built in the Shepperton Studio. It is about 250 feet long, 120 feet wide, and 40 feet high. It uses 24 water pumps. 12,000 gallons of water flow through the set every minute to form a waterfall. Wet cave walls with streams and dripping water.
In the film, you can see Batman "flying" through the sky of Gotham City with his high-tech cloak. This shot was not made with visual effects, but was done in a studio without using any green screen technology. The flying action is done with a wire and a real camera. The crew hangs the camera on the wire, allowing Batman to glide a distance of 800 feet in the studio.
