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  • Chris wanted his legs to be more supple...

  • ...let him be able to kneel down when necessary.

  • And he also really wanted Christian to be able to move his head more...

  • ...and not do the superhero movement...

  • ...of turning the shoulders and the head at once, you know.

  • It had a really high-tech inside mixed with a wet suit.

  • You actually saw the inner workings of this suit.

  • It's kind of carbon-fiber plates.

  • It protects the core of your body from falling below a certain temperature.

  • He goes into the workshop and decides to spray it with a latex black spray.

  • Which removes the heat signature.

  • So if you look with night glasses, which detect body heat...

  • ...this refuses to allow you to see it.

  • And as he linkers with it, you see how he develops it from that...

  • ...into the black Batsuit.

  • Once it was actually getting made for me...

  • ...there was all sorts of interesting processes that you go through...

  • ...where you have to have your whole body molded.

  • A plaster Christian Bale is then produced out of that mold.

  • And as soon as the concept sculpt was approved...

  • ...then it's literally broken down and remolded...

  • ...into the different parts of the costume.

  • The cowl, the torso, the legs, they all have to be sculpted individually...

  • ...from that original one piece.

  • Getting the foam as black as possible was a problem...

  • ...as that reduces the durability.

  • We're not painting the foam. It's kind of the foam as it is.

  • When those molds have been injected, they're cooked in a big oven.

  • And then they come out of those molds. They're wet.

  • It's just a very efficient way...

  • ...is just to put it through an old Victorian housemaids mangle...

  • ...just to extract the water.

  • The piece is taken out and dried. They're then prepared for trimming.

  • The mold doesn't produce, like, a cookie-cutter kind of effect.

  • There are flashings...

  • ...these sort of waste areas on the edges of the foam that have to be trimmed back...

  • ...before it's glued down to the suit.

  • And they're trimmed very patiently by our wonderful girls in Art Trimming.

  • It has to appear as if it's cut by laser, and not by hand.

  • It's not the most comfortable thing to wear. I mean, it's foam latex. It's hot.

  • But on the first day shooting, Christian managed to wear it all day...

  • ...including the cowl and the gloves...

  • ...not really wanting to take it off...

  • ...so I think the level of comfort has improved somewhat as well.

  • It gives you this huge neck, you know, kind of like a panther.

  • This real kind of feral look, you know...

  • ...as if you're gonna pounce on somebody all the time.

  • I was surprised at how intimidating he becomes...

  • ...and how much it changes him.

  • He really channels this other character.

  • When he's confronting an individual that he wants to take down...

  • ...he kind of ceases to be human.

  • There's naturally, after six months of filming...

  • ...a kind of a love-hate relationship with the thing...

  • ...because you get headaches in that thing, you know.

  • And I kind of say to myself, "Use it.“

  • You know, the guy's meant to be kind of fierce.

  • When you get a headache you feel fierce anyway, you know.

  • You got no time for anybody, you're impatient.

  • So I just said to myself, “Use it," you know.

  • And I just put up with it, you know. This is--

  • This is a hell of an honor, really, getting to wear this.

  • We did prototype using actual velvet fabric.

  • One. Go.

  • We got quickly bogged down because it got waterlogged...

  • wand, you know, became sort of too heavy.

  • So we invented our own fabric.

  • Which is the finest, finest parachute silk...

  • ...which is a nylon, so it's waterproof, and then flocked...

  • ...which means you shoot little tiny hairs into it...

  • ...so it ends up as if it's a velvet pile.

  • So it's got the animal feeling on the outside...

  • ...and the waterproof nature and the lightweight-mess so that it flies.

  • I was doing a lot of research with the Department of Defense...

  • ...and there's something calledmemory fabric" that they're experimenting with now.

  • It's very soft and supple, but when an electrical current is applied to it...

  • ...it can take on a rigid shape.

Chris wanted his legs to be more supple...

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