10 More Epic Movie Moments You Won't Believe Didn't Use CGI
3. That Pencil Trick Was Achieved Via A Few KOs And Some Editing - The Dark Knight
Of the many memorable moments Heath Ledger managed to bring to the screen during the shooting of the all-time classic that is The Dark Knight, it's The Joker's unsettling pencil trick that perhaps sticks out as one of his most shocking.
And with this once again being a Christopher Nolan picture, it shouldn't come as a surprise to learn that this horrifying pencil moment was once again done without computer-generated assistance.
Despite it being relatively easy to create a CG pencil for someone to have their head slammed into, according to the movie's VFX supervisor Nick Davis (via Vulture), the fact the team were shooting with IMAX cameras meant that they wanted to keep from using unnecessary visual effects shots as "digitally, you can never really re-create an IMAX image."
So, after two days and 22 takes, with some of them involving stuntman Charles Jarman having to yank the pencil away quickly before his head smacked off the table, Nolan was able to get his shot, with production designer Nathan Crowley adding that "at the end of the day, you just shoot it twice: one with the pencil and one without the pencil. Then the edit does its magic."
Doing things practically can have its downsides, though, as Jarman would also note that he ended up knocking himself out on three separate occasions when trying to pull off the rapid stunt on two different kinds of table.