Batman Begins (2005)

The Batman Begins Costume FX workshop, codenamed “Cape Town” for security purposes, was located at Shepperton Studios in London. The workshop was a 24-hour security-controlled compound, comprised of a whole village of portacabins that contained administration office and canteen, as well as all the technical workshops, including the Sculpt Room, Dye and Laundry, Spray Room, Cutting and Sewing Room, Art Finishing Room, Mold Shop and Foam Lab. Upwards of 40 people worked on the Batsuits at the height of the Workshop’s output.

Christian Bale was sculpted and molded for the Batsuit at Cape Town months prior to filming, before he began training to build up his body into the necessary physical shape and condition for the role. “We always knew that when Christian came back from training, he would have developed into a different shape,” Hemming says. “He did get enormously bigger, and when he first came back, we were like, Oh, no. It’s never going to fit!” (Bale gained back the 63 pounds that he had lost for a previous film role, then put on an additional 20 pounds of muscle to complete his Batman physique.)

Once a full body cast was taken, a plastic model of Bale was produced from that mold and then sculpted with clay. Next, a specialized material called plastiline was added to achieve a smoother surface – if the suit were molded straight from clay, imperfections would be picked up that would be visible on-screen. After the plastiline molds were made, they were taken to the foam lab, where they were injected with a latex foam mixture. 

An enormous amount of research and development went into finding just the right recipe for the mixture – hours were spent trying to achieve the level of foam that would give the suit flexibility and lightness, as well as the durability that it needed. Getting the foam as black as possible was also a problem, as that process reduces the durability of the material – the more pigment that is added, the more it undermines the strength of the foam. After arriving at the perfect balance, the molds were injected with the foam mixture, cooked in a large oven, and the pieces were de-molded and trimmed very patiently with fine scissors, as they must appear as if they were cut by laser rather than by hand.

“It was like a chemical lab, with people actually stirring big pots and sticking stuff in ovens and getting the perfect temperature, then testing and working out the flexibility,” Bale says of Cape Town.

One aspect of the Batsuit that Nolan was determined to capture was Batman’s cape. “There are wonderful illustrations of Batman striking iconic poses with his cape flowing, and we wanted to capture that element into our portrayal of the character,” says Nolan. “We designed a flowing cloak that’s used for concealment and therefore is a matte black fabric that blows and flows as it does in so many of the great graphic novels.”

“I’m especially pleased with the cape,” says Hemming. “Chris didn’t want that armored feeling. He wanted to take the romanticism of the cloak from the comics, and he wanted him to be able to emerge from the darkness and fade into the darkness in places on the screen – it’s almost like parts of him vanish.” 

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