The Batsuit is The Batman’s protective suit of armor, crafted by his own hand.  Bruce Wayne combined technical fabrics and bulletproof plating to give his vigilante alter ego a formidable, tactical defense against criminals.  With the Batsuit, he creates an intimidating silhouette amidst Gotham City’s shadows.

            Reeves had a very specific aesthetic in mind when it came to what would arguably be the most important element of iconography in the film:  “I felt that if Bruce was going to create this Batsuit, the purpose of the Batsuit would be twofold: one, to intimidate and scare the hell out of the criminal element, because that’s why he’s chosen this image, as he has to appear out of the shadows; and two, it has to be very protective, it has to be very tactical, it has to be like riot gear.  I knew that when you looked up close, I wanted to see the seams; I wanted to see the number of times he’d been hit in the head, and to know that that was reinforced, and to see the places where his suit had been scarred.  I wanted you to get the feeling that Bruce had put that together in the bat cave.”

            The effect of stepping into that iconic suit was immediate and transformative for Pattinson, who attests, “You immediately feel incredibly powerful.  Then you realize that if you even slightly exert yourself, you’re pouring sweat, all the while trying to figure out how to project a performance through a mask.  You realize pretty quickly that this is way harder than a normal role, and it comes with its own specific set of complications.  You’re very reliant on the lighting and the director, because basically, you have a new face, and anything you could rely on before in terms of performance is out the window.  You have to almost learn an entirely different language.  Eventually, you realize you can do tiny movements and that, in a lot of ways, the iconography of the cowl can be so much more impactful than anything you can do with your face.”

            “We wanted the Batsuit and the Batmobile to look obviously like it was designed by one man, by Batman himself,” says Clark.  “The suit is tactical, it’s military, it’s purpose-driven, it’s practical.  It’s also iconic; Batman has his own emblem, his cowl, his cape.  We chose a design that Bruce Wayne, at 30-years-old, would have built.”

            The Batsuit costume was designed by Batsuit chief concept artist Glyn Dillon and costume supervisor Dave Crossman.  Inspired by old Soviet pressure suits, it appears hand-made, with visible seams and evident battle scars.

            Pattinson was surprised at how comfortable the suit was, while also giving him physical protection.  That’s because, no matter how cool it needed to look, comfort was at the forefront of Dillon and Crossman’s designs; they didn't want to put the actor into something he could not sit in in-between takes or that would need five people to get him out of if he needed a break.

            “I immediately wanted to do rolls!” the actor confesses.  “You could jump around and actually crash into stuff.  And it had loads of scuffs and tears, so it didn’t feel too superhero-y.  There was a bullet indentation in the cowl, which is there throughout the movie.  Every little scar shows.  For me, it’s a reminder of Batman’s fallibility.”

            For efficiency, every part of the suit has a use, from the gauntlet concealing the iconic grapple gun that fires grappling hooks, to the bat motif that turns out to be a magnetized folding Glauca knife.  And unlike its predecessors, this Batsuit isn’t bulked up with exaggerated shoulders and powerful muscle definition.  Instead, it was designed not to be too noticeable, and as a suit for a slimmer man—a lean, mean streetfighter.

            The “make-do-and-mend” feel extended to every part of the costume, from the cowl—made of rubber meant to look like leather, which has been stitched and re-stitched very obviously by hand—to the utility belt, with its police issue-like ammo pouches and packs.  “It’s the same with the boots,” remarks Dillon.  “They’re not fancy superhero boots; they’re Austrian army boots, which Bruce has given a customized cover to protect his shins.”

            The Batman’s vambraces, or gauntlets, were partly inspired by the quick-draw sleeve gun Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle wears in “Taxi Driver.”  Again, these also come with a heavy nod to homespun technology.  “It’s meant to feel like Bruce has used found objects,” says Dillon, “which he has customized using something that could almost be the handle of a knife, or part of a washing machine.  The vambraces are based on bō shuriken, an ancient Japanese throwing weapon, but in Batman’s case they’re harpoons, which he can also use defensively against knives and so on.”

            For the flying suit Batman wears during a critical chase sequence, Dillon was guided by Reeves’ desire to have a kind of wingsuit, which creates surface area with fabric between the legs and under the arms.  Dillon’s design featured a lining inside the cape that Batman is able to flick out, so it opens up.  “He’s able to put his arms through, zip it up and then jump off the building,” says Dillon.

            The film’s visual effects supervisor, Dan Lemmon, says of the wingsuit: “There are always gadgets in Batman movies that allow him to step off the edge of a building and glide down to safety.  That presented a bit of a problem in this movie, where we were trying to be realistic and grounded.  If his cape becomes a rigid glider, there’s a suspension of disbelief that actually goes beyond what we were trying to achieve in this film.  Matt’s idea was that, rather than a rigid glider, his cape and his suit could become a wingsuit.  Even though with a real wingsuit you could never actually land without a parachute, because this is Batman and he’s an engineer and he’s tough, he’s developed a wingsuit that allows him to take a rough landing and walk away.”

            The sequence begins on the rooftop of the Gotham City Police Department, which combined elements of the famous Liver Building in Liverpool and the Chicago Board of Trade Building.  Wide aerials of Batman standing on the parapet were shot on location in Liverpool, then heavily altered in post to increase the height of the building and replace Liverpool’s waterfront with Gotham City.  However, the shot of Batman leaping from the building was filmed on a partial set at Leavesden, with a camera strapped to the back of a stunt performer on wires.  The stuntman only had eight feet of travel before he reached the bottom of the set, so the shot handed over to a digital GCPD Building and Batman as the wingsuit inflated and began to take flight. 

            Batman’s descent through the urban canyon was based largely on LaSalle Street in Chicago, where the production shot extensive plates from a drone.  “However, the drone didn’t have the correct flight dynamics and was not able to fly fast enough to realistically recreate wingsuit flight,” says Lemmon, “so, the VFX team used the Chicago footage as a springboard to create a grittier Gotham-ized street in CG that they could then race through with more appropriate flight dynamics.”

            Lemmon goes on to further describe, “We were using the LEDs at the same time that we were flying performers in the wingsuit on wires, and we had to be able to move a lot of air through that space so the suit would stay inflated, which is what gave the performers control and kept them ‘flying’ and not just hanging on wires.  We made a 20-foot-wide tube of LEDs to provide interactive lighting from the buildings racing by, but the LEDs also helped channel the air being pushed by the large fans—in effect, we created a wind tunnel out of LED panels that we flew Batman through.  We did the same thing with Rob Pattinson as well; Matt wanted it to feel completely believable, so that you get to the end of the scene and say, ‘Oh my God, Rob Pattinson actually just flew down the streets of Gotham in a wingsuit and landed on the street without a parachute!’”

            No matter the action required in a scene or the effect wearing it had on his performance choices as an actor, simply donning the Batsuit brought home to Pattinson the full force of playing Batman.  “You put on that suit for the first time, and you can feel the unbelievable level of power in it,” he says.  “There’s so much history invested in the iconography, and so many people connect to it on such a deep level for so many different reasons.  You can feel that when you put it on, you can feel that weight and responsibility, and it bleeds into how Bruce feels about being Batman himself.  You have some level of responsibility to the people who’ve invested so much in the character.  It’s the same way that Bruce feels a responsibility to Gotham in a lot of ways.  It’s a great feeling though.”

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