Batman Begins:                                 

Saturday, August 21st, was one exciting evening.  Three of my friends were visiting me in Chicago from Minneapolis.  Amir, Roshan, and Sheehan I have known from childhood.  We had spent most of the day shuttling back and forth from the hospital where another of our friends was bed bound with stomach pains and cramping.  After handing the reigns of visitation to others we headed out to dinner.  Over dinner we discussed our plans to infiltrate the filming of Batman Begins that night.  Amir's sister had called to tell him about a web site that had information on the filming location and times.  According to the site, they would be filming on Lower Wacker all night long.  With little preparation or further thought, we drove downtown. After driving around hoping to stumble across something interesting for half an hour, we decided to just park and start walking.  We parked at about Lasalle, right next to the river and directly above Lower Wacker.  We then procedeed to wander around, and made a big arc right back to where we started by the river.  Our next step was to jump down from the side of the bridge onto the closed off stairway to Lower Wacker.  For those who have never been on lower Wacker, it is a part of a system of streets that run under downtown Chicago. There are no shoulders, just several lanes of traffic whizzing by. Once down there, we ducked from pillar to pillar and ran across the street during pauses in traffic.  Eventually we wandered down what is kind of like an underground frontage road.  We spotted a few flashing lights and a bunch of people moving around.

We kept walking until we came to a Chicago PD car blocking the way.  Here the officer told us they were going to be filming some stunts with the Batmobile.  Way off in the distance we could see some police cars parked, and I could almost read GPD (Gotham Police Department) on the side.

Lots of people were moving around, there was a camera crew that rolled a camera back in our direction before taking it away.  After a few minutes, the cop that was next to us shut off the car and walked away.  We immediately seized the opportunity to advance further in.  Needless to say, we didn't make it far before being regulated back to the spot we started in.  And from then on, one of the crew stood watching us all the time.  We started talking to this babysitter of ours, and she told us that they were filming some other movie, some suspense thriller. She even came up with a plot. We traded looks.  The GPD in some other movie? Ha. Besides, we were pretty sure we could see a Batmobile of in the distance.  Amir and Sheehan decided to sneak off and find a better spot.  Not too long later we heard our dedicated crew member's radio chatter about two guys claiming to be part of the crew. That was Sheehan and Amir.  Eventually Amir came back and told us that he had a pretty sweet spot until he got kicked out.  Sheehan was still in hiding.  According to what he overheard, they were going to bring the Batmobile right down the street we were on.  Amir then convinced Roshan that he would have better luck sneaking around.  Amir considers Roshan to be a good liar.   Roshan left, threatening us with bodily harm if he missed any action.  Not long after he left, things started to happen.  The police cars way down the steet started sqeauling their tires and they moved away from the center of the road in a cloud of smoke. From the space formed by the cars parting, the Batmobile emerged.  It then came flying down the street.  It accelerated straight at us, until it came to a screeching halt six feet way from us.

All the pictures are terrible, since I was trying to hide the camera so it wouldn't be confiscated.  The top of the Batmobile then opened, and they backed the Batmobile back down the street.  They than did it all over again, but this time with two GPD cars following all the way down the street.

We called Roshan on  his cell.  He had seen it from a different angle, albeit from much further away. However, were he was, there were four more Batmobiles within 50 feet.  After awhile he left his spot and rejoined us.  Some more time went by, and they did a third run, this time without the Batmobile, but with a big camera rig.  They then appeared to be setting up to do it all at once.  As the hours went by, we grew tired of waiting. They had several false starts and appeared to be working on some problems.  It was now about 3:30 am, and Roshan was scheduled to work in Minneapolis at 10:00 am.  Tired of waiting for action, Amir and I left to find Roshan's previous spot to see if we could get some pictures.  We went back up to surface street level, and came down a different stairway, through a fence, across some more streets.  Amir hung back while I ran close to the staging area. I then hid behind a pillar and occasionally peered around and snapped a few pics.  I could see three Batmobiles from where I was and one GPD car.  I was waiting for the area to clear.  After awhile I decided to just go in.  I stepped around the pillar and went for it.  And there was a crew member walking straight toward me about 30 feet away. I was faced with two choices.  I could sprint, touch the Batmobile, and run away, or I could start talking to the guy and hope for the best.  I started talking.  "So...can I touch the Batmobile? I just want one touch, and I will leave."  Instead the guy started to show me around.  "As long as you don't take pictures or break anything you can do wander around." So I did.  I stood next to the Batmobile and drooled.  Another guy came buy and I started talking to him.  He told me that he (and his team) built them from scratch.  They built nine and there were seven left.  Some were for stunts, some for effects, and some spares.  They could get over 100 mph.  They had Chevy 350s under the hood.  He pointed at one and said that they jumped it 60 feet, twice, the day before. He let me climb on the Batmobile and peer in the cockpit.  At some point, Amir saw what was going on and ran over to join me.  Roshan and Sheehan then showed up to.  We hung around for awhile longer while they started one up and drove it around some.  Eventually we had to leave :(  But we were ecstatic.

Some more really bad pictures of an awesome night:

Pictures from the official Batman Begins site: