Series: Batman: Gotham Knight

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Timm, Drake and Rucka talk 'Gotham Knight'

At the recent Wizard World Chicago, Comics2Film sat down with the various men responsible for bringing the Dark Knight to his latest animated adventures in 'Batman: Gotham Knight'.

Bruce Timm needs no introduction as the man who redefined Batman for a new generation, with his dramatic designs for the character that appeared in 'Batman: The Animated Series'. Timm oversaw the production of 'Gotham Knight'.

Q: What was your involvement in the movie?

A: Well it was kind of an odd position for me, I was hired to not give notes. I still had to oversee things, it was along the lines of being a traffic cop. I was involved early on at the script stage, then sat out on the pre-production, and then more involved again in the post-production. It was an interesting project because we would get the story board back from the Japanese, and I would say ‘cut away here, close up here' and I would have to stop and say ‘that's how I would do it'. Would it work? Well, honestly there were times when I wasn't sure, but in the end it did.

Q: Was there a pre-set order?

A: The scripts were laid out in such a way that they had a pre-set order.

Q: How was it having Kevin Conroy back as Batman?

A: It was great seeing him again. It was cool, the thing that surprised me the most was that he was a little bit rusty. He did his whole performance in ADR [additional dialogue recording], it gave me a whole respect for people who do dubbing. It took a little massaging to get it right. The thing that worried us the most about using Kevin was that in one of the segments the animation house designed batman looking very, very young and we weren't sure that Kevin could get his voice quite in that natural placement. But it turned out good in the end.

Q: Was it weird to hear Kevin's voice coming out of a different character?

A: We were initially concerned about that, but there's been so many different Batman's that it wasn't really a problem.

Q: Were there other name actors that you wanted to get for this movie?

A: Initially we wanted to use the Dark Knight cast, but we just couldn't make the schedules work. It didn't take long to fill in the blanks after we got Kevin.

Q: Are you concerned with is coming out so close to Dark Knight?

A: It might overshadow it to a degree, but this is an opportunity to add our PR in with the movie. So far that's been very successful. I think the pros outweigh the cons.

Q: Is this a purely DVD release?

A: Save for one episode 'On Demand' [Comcast] there's no plans to release the episodes individually.

Q: So it Wonder Woman your next project or is Teen Titans next?

A: Teen Titans is still on the backburner for various reasons, but Wonder Woman is our next project. Footage is starting to come back, it looks great. It will be coming out in the beginning of next year.

You could argue that Batman is nothing wihtout his moody score to back him. In 'Gotham Knight' it falls to Chris Drake to provide the score for two of the segments.

Q: What do you think of the finished product?

A: It's a Batman like you've never seen before. Visually and musically it's six totally different movies.

Q: What's your best segment?

A: "In Darkness Dwells", I love the theme for it. It turned out so appropriate.

Q: Is it all synth?

A: It's 100% synth, I take great pains to make it sound like a full orchestra. The biggest thing is that I add mistakes, this makes it sound more real

Q: Does anyone help you with your music?

A: My son, I'll bring him in and ask if it's cool or not. I know it's cool if he throws the horns; it's all about the horns.

Greg Rucka is an award-winning novelist and comics writer, who has penned many a Batman comic book. For 'Gotham Knight' he wrote the "Crossfire" segment.

Q: When were you brought on board?

A: Azzerallo and I were on the same call, and they gave us the whole back story. They asked if I wanted to do Gotham Central. I said "What?" they told me about the story and I said "yeah" and that was that.

Q: What do we see in this segment?

A: Gordon gets a promotion, and is chummy with Batman. We've always known Batman is a good guy, but the people in Gotham don't. There's no reason for anybody to believe (with the exception of Gordon) Batman is a good guy.

Q: Were you happy with the voice characterizations

A: Yeah, you know it was weird. This is the first time I wrote animation, primarily I wrote two cops talking in a car. It become tonally different after the voice actors put there spin on the lines. That was different for me.

Q: How difficult was it writing it into the rest of the story.

A: It's like a party game, you have to use the words, car, geranium, and piston rotary engine, go! Yeah it might sound funny, and I like collaboration, just like 52. As hard as the work is, it's incredibly rewarding.

Q: How different was the script from the screenplay you turned in?

A: Except for a few minor changes it was remarkably close to my original draft. There were a few basic plot changes throughout but those were fairly few.

'Batman: Gotham Knight' is available now on DVD and Blu-Ray.