The Dark Knight Trilogy: 18 Cool Behind-The-Scenes Details You Didn't Know

Nolan loves his practical effects, and if something can be done for real... then he'll probably do it for real.

Obviously though, with three gigantic films like the Dark Knight Trilogy, a bit of CGI here and there is simply inevitable, and so, this led to Nolan developing a curious technique: he would try to "balance" the number of practical shots against the number of visual effects shots.

In the documentary, Nolan explains that this allowed editor Lee Smith to continually alternate between something that was real, and something that was digital, so that viewers were constantly exposed to things that had been shot in-camera.

Something else the director liked to do was to end each visual effects-heavy sequence with a practical shot (for example, the train falling off the tracks in Batman Begins). He describes this as a "stamp" on the end of an action scene, allowing him to leave his viewers on a gritty and tangible note, rather than a clearly-fake mess of pixels.

Now try not to notice this the next time you watch one of these movies.