Batman: The Dark Knight

This was my major course project in my first year at the Beijing Contemporary Music Academy, and also the first film scoring work I delved into.

Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy portrays a rather oppressive tone overall, and in composing the score for a segment of it, my first consideration was to maintain consistency with the film's overall atmosphere. The specific segment I worked on features a car chase scene, a crucial point in the movie's plot development, characterized by a tense and urgent mood. Therefore, I decided to use ostinatos as the primary musical element, interspersed with melodic cues to highlight specific characters or plot developments appearing on the screen. For instance, to accentuate the evil character of the Joker at his appearance, I used a cello with a distortion effect to play a tense melody.

A similar approach was considered for the moment when Batman, the film's protagonist, makes his entrance in the Batmobile. Coincidentally, while I was working on this project, the Robert Pattinson version of "The Batman" was released. I utilized the very iconic motif from "The Batman" (which seems to have its roots in "Star Wars'" Imperial March) to create an interesting link between the new and old versions of Batman, as a sort of tribute.