On Dark Knight Rises we'd actually done a fair amount of dust work.
A lot of which didn't make it into the finished film.
But seeing the potential of how big an area was possible...
...for Scott Fisher and his guys to put dust in the air...
...from using this very safe product that's used as filler in food...
...and so forth, but it sits in the air. It really looks like thick dust.
Chris gives us a lot of leeway...
...to try and get more machines, and more material, and guys and whatever...
...to cover as big an area as we can. Obviously, they can come in with CG and enhance it.
But the idea is to get as much as you can in camera.
So each spot we just tried to get as many machines...
...and as much dust in the air as we could.
At the farmhouse, we'd work to where we were upwind, where it all worked in our favor.
We got the best effect we could. In the town, you couldn't just swap sides...
...or do some of the stuff we did at the farmhouse.
It had to kind of come from one direction.
So we just worked our way into where we could get in between buildings...
...at the end of the street, anywhere we could get a fan...
...and keep plowing dust in there as much as we could.
So it worked out pretty good. We got a lot in there. A lot in camera.
MYERS: I have to say, I completely underestimated...
...how much dust we would produce.
And on the day, I mean, the town was covered.
And I went back two days later and there was not-- No pun intended...
...there was not a speck of dust. So our cleanup crew was fantastic.
It was pretty impressive more that we got rid of it than that we were able to use it at all.
Something like a dust storm is very, very difficult to do with visual effects.
As soon as the dust is near, it completely transforms the lighting environment...
...how the light reacts. But to do something that actually really looks real...
...and really fits in with the tone of the rest of the film...
...you're struggling to give some reality to...
...you really have to do that for real.
CHASTAIN: I loved shooting in Calgary. I've never been there. I loved Canada.
They did such an amazing job creating those dust storms.
And it felt like the world was ending. It was perfect.
With Chris everything has to be real and practical.
So you find yourself sometimes standing by a totally fake, beautiful farmhouse...
...in the middle of a completely fake massive cornfield...
...in the middle of a totally fake dust storm.
That's when you know you're on a Chris Nolan movie.