Both of these movies were made before 2010 (2000 and 2008) so the technology used is obviously not up to the same standards as some movies produced in more recent times. For example, as a product of DC Universe, The Dark Knight had less CGI and less refined technology used to create it than 2017’s Wonder Woman. These two movies are my twinned favourite movies – which is why I chose to compare them, yet they are so different in so many ways, with some similarities.
The Grinch is a Christmas movie, a jovial story based on a Dr. Seuss book, and The Dark Knight is a story about a chaos creating maniac (The Joker) almost blowing up half of Gotham’s population and includes the murders of judicial officials in order to reveal the identity of Batman – the two stories do differ quite a bit. I first watched The Grinch when I was 6 years old, I then watched The Dark Knight a year later. The target audience for The Grinch was young children – it being a Christmas movie with targeted moral messages for children. The Dark Knight, however, has a very different target audience, with its overtones of violence and undertones of mental health disorders from the Joker, the movie is more aimed at adults and older teenagers (aged fifteen and above). Then again, why did I watch it at such a young age and still enjoy and understand it? Even though it wasn’t filmed with a target audience of children like other DC movies – Teen Titans for example – are, I enjoyed it and still do to this day. It’s because, much like The Grinch, the movies were not created with the sole purpose of fitting a specific target audience as this often puts a cap on creativity. Instead the movies were created to get a story across and to look good, which they both do very successfully. I enjoyed The Dark Knight as a child and my mother gets just as excited about watching The Grinch as I did as a 6-year-old (and still do), because the storylines, moral messages and final productions of both movies are so ‘one size fits all’ and include a variety of different things – some of which only children find good and some of which only adults find good.
The main visual technique used in both movies is costume and makeup design. Jim Carrey (who played the Grinch) had to have an FBI trained specialist to teach him real life torture survival techniques in order to film for so long each day in his Grinch suit! Every extra was dressed to the highest extremity of Christmas outfits and makeup. Production spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on all this as well as prosthetics used for the Who’s (the people of Whoville) noses, which had to be upturned and similar to that of a chipmunks. The Dark Knight also updated Batman’s suit from Batman Begins (the first part of the trilogy) and much thought went into the Joker’s suit, even including on one whole side of his jacket and series of grenades all linked with one string, which he threatens some of Gotham’s mobsters with during a meeting. CGI as well as very detailed use of prosthetics and makeup had to be used for Harvey Dent’s half-burned face towards the end of the movie. My favourite makeup use in The Dark Knight though, is the fact that Heath Ledger (playing the Joker) went to the nearest drugstore and picked up his own makeup and did it himself. The production team also chose to have face-paint on his fingers throughout the movie so it looked like the Joker did his own makeup. So both movies put a lot of money, thought, effort, time and planning into the costume and makeup design for all the characters in them – one of the few similarities.
The Grinch used very basic filming techniques and basic cameras such as the Panavision Panaflex Lightweight Camera and the Panavision Panaflex Platinum Camera since it was made it 2000, although a lot of CGI was used to create the locations and the mountain. The Dark Knight had a lot more funding and made many filming breakthroughs, in a first for a non-documentary film, IMAX cameras were used to capture four major scenes in the film. Not only were the cameras heavy and bulky, they were very loud due to the built-in fans to stop from overheating, which often led to the frustration of actors like Ledger, Bale and Caine as they struggled to be heard. Nolan and his team had a difficult time working with the new $250,000 technology, and even ended up breaking one of the only 4 cameras in existence! Also unlike The Grinch, CGI was used less because director Christopher Nolan prefers on-set special effects and stunts to be used in his movies.
Jo's Media Blog 