Tim Burton’s Batman was the definition of “awesome comic book movie” for me. First of all it was PG-13, which meant it had far more action than PG rated films; I was 12 when I saw it, and the “pen is mightier than the sword” moment still freaks me out. Second, the visual design was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Up until that point live action Batman meant Adam West and the ‘Bat-tucci’, so Michael Keaton’s brooding vigilante was just so cool.

It’s no surprise Batman was the third Spanish video I made.

Google Readers click here for video.

The story: Gotham Nuclear Power plant has been taken over by the Scarecrow, and Batman goes to stop him. (Points for super-brief recap!)

If you’re wondering how the scenery actually looks like a power plant and not my basement, it’s because my father, who works for Xcel Energy in Minneapolis, was able to get me permission to shoot at one of the coal fired power plants in Minneapolis. We were allowed to shoot in the old control room and in some of the unused parts of the plant (with supervision of course). For a high school video, the setting looks fantastic.

I’m still amused by the “Danger! Nuclear plant!” sign on a music stand used for the establishing shot.

The costumes were done by my mother (who also does the costumes for the Movie Monkey) and Jason’s mother Penny who did his Scarecrow costume. This was a zero-budget production, so there was a lot of creative use of sweatpants.

Penny did the Scarecrow costume, and my mom did the Batman costume with help from an actual rubber cowl provided by Jason. The main problem is that the actor playing the main character, me, was a 98 lbs weakling in high school and there was no way I was going to fill it out. I’m the frumpiest Batman ever.

I look like I’m posing for a “Before” photo.

Before Photoshop

After Photoshop

This was the first (and last) time I ever wrote my own score, composed and played on an Amiga 2000 (the computer for the creative mind). I had dreams that I the second coming of both Steven Spielberg and John Williams, but it was apparent after the fact that I was a kid with a copy of Deluxe Music. If you can play three notes and play them backwards than you can play the challenging Batman score.

It was also my first use of green screen/chroma keying

The live action from the above shot was taken from the third floor of my high school, looking down at some of my sister’s friends from her Spanish class. According to her, her Spanish class had seen my videos their sophomore and junior years, and by senior year they were asking her if they could be in them. Apparently it was cool. I’ve never had outside confirmation on that so it may have been something you tell your little brother to make him feel good, but I’d like to believe it’s true.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 4:10 pm and is filed under Life, Movies, music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.