Shot Size/Angle and Camera Movement

The very first shot of the film is a wide angle, covering a several buildings. Like many of the shots in this opening, the camera is mobile, here it zooms in slowly toward a window of the building in the centre of the shot. The aerial view and movement is used repeatedly throughout the film, to establish a change in setting and to engrandiose the scene, which is fitting for the superhero movie this is. The large amount of things on screen makes the scene feel big and impressive. Another thing the wide angle does is give the audience a sense of vertigo - the view is airbourne, and travelling. This can enhance the feeling of anxiety and suspense the audience feels as the scene moves on.

Soon after we have a shot of the Joker, with his back turned. The camera once again zooms in, only stopping when the car pulls up and the Joker moves. Music overtakes the feedback whine at this point, signalling a heightening of action. The next shot of the clowns sailing down a wire extends on this, and once again the camera gives the audience that vertigo rush, by following the clowns out the window and tilting down at the road beneath. The camera then flies over the men and the wire, again with a wide angled shot.

It should be noted that the camera so far has never been still for more than a few seconds or so. The camera moves constantly and tracks or centres characters whenever it can. The point of focus (The window that breaks in the beginning, the clowns, the banker, the vault door, the bus) are all centred in their shots. If a character moves when the camera is close-up, the camera will pan or track with them, depending on direction of movement.

As a sidenote, if you used your hands to demonstrate the camera's movement, you'll find it moves continuously - that is, if one shot ends with the camera moving leftward, the next one will start with it moving leftward. If the last shot had the camera swoop out the window and look down at the road, the next shot is from above, and continues to tilt down, right, and back up. This is a very natural movement, and if it weren't for the obvious cuts between locations, it may well have been one take.

The shots used are all big. The director obviously wanted to convey the scale of the superhero film right from the beginning, and has done so using wide angles, establishing shots, long shots, the like. Because of this, the backgrounds of each shot are always deep - this is noticeable in the bank's vault and lobby. These shots make the scale of the setting very large (superheroes never work in shantytowns), and that scale reflects back to the characters by making the operation large as well. Rob a big bank, be a big bad guy.

Many of the props used are also very large, hence the huge shots. Shots have to fit buildings, a car, a bus within a building, a comically exaggerated bank vault, and city traffic. The last shot of this opening is down a main road, with cars and buses driving up and down. Once again, this is a grandiose size.

Close-ups and extreme close-ups are very rare. The most noticeable extreme close-up and that is of the Joker's face after he takes off his mask. This is for dramatic effect, as this is the first real glimpse of the Joker (who is the primary villain in the film). Other than that, there is a brief segment where Clown E pulls his gun on the Joker, the part where the clowns are talking in the car, the banker before he shoots at them, and Clown E adressing the hostages and piling the money into a bag. There are close-ups of equipment (guns and explosives) and a man "holding on [to a grenade] for dear life". These are all symobolic - the double crossing, the hidden agendas, the mystery of the Joker, uprising of a self-righteous vigilante, fear and control, and greed. These symbols are recurring themes throughout the entire film. The close-ups of weapons and explosives are a first look at the "terrorist attack" style the Joker uses repeatedly.