Greg Rucka talks about Batman Gotham Knight Film
DC Comics -
Want a nice, frank conversation? Corner Greg Rucka
and pick a subject. He is anything but restrained,
speaking freely and constantly exuding the kind of
creative flashpoint from which arises his
fascinating array of benchmark characters.
Raised on California’s Central Coast, Rucka brings a
street sensibility to his work – which has ranged
from nearly a dozen novels and several short stories
to a daunting list of comics, non-fiction essays
and, now, a segment of the highly-anticipated
animated film, “Batman Gotham Knight.”
“Batman Gotham Knight,” the third film in the
ongoing series of DC Universe animated original
PG-13 movies, will arrive July 8, 2008 on DVD and
Blu-Ray disc, and will also be available that day On
Demand via digital cable and for download through
broadband sites. The film is produced as a
collaboration between DC Comics, Warner Premiere,
Warner Home Video and Warner Bros. Animation.
Rucka will make the trek from his Portland, Oregon
home to Wizard World Chicago this June to attend the
world premiere of “Batman Gotham Knight” and
participate on the post-premiere panel. With Rucka
joining producer Bruce Timm and fellow BGK writers
Alan Burnett and Brian Azzarello on the panel (and
quite possibly a few yet-to-be-announced special
guests), it promises to be an extremely entertaining
evening.
But Batman is the subject today – and Rucka is happy
to share his thoughts. For his segment, entitled
“Crossfire,” Rucka brings to animated life the
detectives familiar to fans of his “Gotham Central”
comics – highlighted by the starring role of Crispus
Allen. In the segment, which is the second chapter
of the six-part film, the Gotham City police don’t
trust the mysterious Dark Knight – until they get a
first-hand experience of his power and integrity
while both detectives and super hero are under fire.
There’s even more interesting information, images,
shout-outs and a brand new widget at the film’s
official website:
www.BATMANGOTHAMKNIGHT.com
And now … the Q&A with Greg Rucka:
Question:
As this is your first time writing for animation,
how did you feel about the translation of your words
to the screen?
Greg Rucka answers:
It was dynamite, especially the final sequences of
my segment. It was almost exactly what I was going
for. What was really cool was to hear Kevin Conroy
say stuff that I typed. I’ve written some screen
stuff before, but I haven’t written Batman for the
screen before. That’s cool on one level. But I love
those Alan Burnett-Bruce Timm-Paul Dini animated
series – I thought it was revolutionary – and Kevin
was central to that.
Question:
As this film is produced in an anime-style, does the
look of your segment come close to the way you
envisioned that world?
Greg Rucka answers:
I try not to set my expectations to high or have any
preconceived notions, because everything has to go
through so many hands of creation. “Batman Begins”
did such a great job of building Gotham that that
was the Gotham that I was writing. In that sense, it
is the city as I imagined it.
My biggest gripe is the pacing of the dialogue – I
think I heard everything a lot crisper in my head.
Like during this one conversation between the two
main cops, I was trying to achieve the unique
relationship between partners, and the familiarity
that comes when they spend hours at a time talking
in their car. Instead it was very heavy and
argumentative.
But the flipside is that I really like the segment,
and the film itself is brilliantly done. In a way,
this is just like writing a comic in that it’s an
entirely collaborative process. But trying to always
be open to that collaboration and what it’s going to
bring is a hard part of the job.
Question:
Were there any particular visuals that struck you
within your segment?
Greg Rucka answers:
The image of Batman coming through flaming wreckage
was pretty much exactly as I wanted it. I really was
trying to get the psychological impact of seeing
this man, who maybe isn’t a man if you don’t know,
coming through the flames – literally a walking,
talking, burning bush, standing and staring the
villain down. If somebody was staring me down from
the middle of flames, they could have anything they
want. I think the animators executed that really
well.
I also really like this moment when you’re in the
squad room and you see the Batman silhouette through
the dusted glass – because that was an image that I
clearly had in my mind when I wrote it. You see what
the detectives are seeing – not the Batman, but a
shadow of the Batman. That visually goes to the
trust issues.
Question:
Was there anything you definitely wanted to
incorporate into your segment?
Greg Rucka answers:
I wanted that revolutionary moment for Crispus
Allen, that moment of understanding of exactly what
Batman is in the context of Gotham. I won’t give
away any spoilers, but in that moment, that came
across really well, too.
Ultimately, getting to use Cris was just great. And
it was especially neat seeing Cris get picked up in
some of the other pieces I didn’t write. In my 10
years of working for DC, there aren’t a whole slew
of characters that I created that have been given
legs and moved into the wider world. So just seeing
Cris in three other segments was kind of a hoot.
Question:
How were you approached and what made you say yes?
Greg Rucka answers:
It was pretty much a no-brainer for me. It’s Batman,
it’s animated … if you’ve gotten to write Batman
before, then you know – it’s a thrill. It’s really,
really fun. Plus, I was asked to bring that Gotham
Central segment to this film, and that appealed to
me on so many levels – particularly to my ego, in
the sense that I love that element in that universe.
That approach really gives the everyman element –
the view from the street. Most of the time in
comics, and even in animation, we’re with the guy in
the suit. And you forget what that guy in the suit
looks like to everyone else.
Question:
How was the writing process for an animated film
different than for comics?
Greg Rucka answers:
When you script comics, you can’t script action –
you can only script a moment of action. Writing for
film or television or animation or live-action
changes that. You can write a sentence that says
“running across the road” and they’ll actually run
across the road. That’s the most obvious mechanical
element. When you write a comic strip, I tend to be
very controlling of what the camera is doing. When
you’re writing for film, whatever the format, that’s
not really your job. That’s the director’s job. So
it becomes a task of conveying what information has
to be seen – what the viewer must know – and
hopefully the director gets it..
Question:
What were you setting out to accomplish in your
segment in terms of balancing the theme of trust
with all the action?
Greg Rucka answers:
The action element is easier to accomplish because
you know there’s going to be a gun battle – I
described some specifics, but I’m not going to
script out the action beat by beat by beat. That
would take 40 pages for 20 seconds of screen time.
But the trust issue influences the writing at every
level. My overriding thought was this: Gotham has no
trust in the people it should trust, and that’s had
a tremendous effect on all cops, especially the few
good cops who have tried to do right. Crispus Allen
is one of the good guys. But what he wonders is
that, in a world where the most reprehensibly
corrupt group is the cops, how are we going to fix
that by turning to a masked guy who doesn’t have to
answer to anybody?
Question: You’ve had some notable experience working
on Batman – can you compare the differences in
working on this Batman tale vs. the Batman,
Detective Comics and Gotham Central comics??
Greg Rucka answers:
Almost everything I’ve written for Batman treats him
as a fully established entity in that world. He’s
known and he’s trusted. Every now and then there’s a
story line that tries to shake that up, but we all
know how that’ll end. Gotham Knight fits very
tightly in the gap of continuity between the two
(live-action) movies, right between that moment of
introduction in Batman Begins and his first major
battle in Dark Knight, so I’m getting to write it
fresh – to write characters who are seeing Batman
for the first time. Those were rich moments..
Question:
Are there any rules for you in writing for Batman?
Greg Rucka answers:
This is my favorite kind of Batman – when you see
him in short bursts. Chris Nolan really made that
point in “Batman Begins.” For Batman to work
psychologically, you can’t see him coming. That’s
the essence of the character. If YOU are watching
the movie, and he’s about to leap off a building,
sure, do a long sweeping shot of him and eat it up
with a spoon. But if your point of view is that of
one of the characters, nobody should see him for
long. If you’re in Gordon’s POV, then he shouldn’t
get a good look at the guy. Batman is always goal
oriented – he’s not going to waste time. I think the
key to writing Batman is to give him the fewest
words possible, because he’s there to get the job
done.
Question::
What’s your attraction to Batman?
Greg Rucka answers:
Aside from the cool factor? I love the inherent
tragedy of the man. The really good characters in
Gotham are filled with pathos. Your heart breaks for
them – and especially for Bruce Wayne. When Batman
is made properly, and Batman Begins certainly did
this, what you’re seeing is a man who is driven by a
fundamentally altruistic mission, even if it’s for
the most personal reasons. And it’s a mission that
he’s doomed to fail at. Still, he doesn’t stop.
There was a line that I used in a Batman comic – and
I’ve heard it echoed elsewhere – that Batman is on a
fool’s errand. Well, it is a fool’s errand, but that
doesn’t make him a fool..
Question:
You have extensive experience within comic book
arena – what made this your genre of choice?
Greg Rucka answers:
It was purely by accident. I’m a novelist, but I’m
also a novelist who has always loved comics. So when
the opportunity came, I was going to take it. I had
written a couple of novels, and I had an idea of a
comic – Whiteout – and as a result I was brought to
the attention of Denny O’Neil at DC Comics. He had
read my novels, and he asked if I had any interest
in doing some Batman stories. I was in New York at
the time, and I said “Hell Yeah!” On the flight
back, I wrote the whole script for the first story.
I typed it up when I got home, sent it off a day
later, and they called and said “What do you want to
do next?” And all of a sudden, I was in the clutches
of DC Comics, from which I’ve never fully escaped..
Question:
Where else would you like to creatively venture?
Greg Rucka answers:
I’ve got an interest in everything – books, comics,
live-action, animation. I’ve got two young kids, so
I’m trying to come up with a good young kids story.
If I’ve got it in me, I’d like to find it. I’d also
love to do a project that involved the colonial
period of American history – it’s a period of such
remarkable courage, and that appeals to me, maybe
because of where we are in the journey of this
nation right now..
Question:
As a writer, what do you see as the positives and
negatives of the extreme passion of the comics fans
today?
Greg Rucka answers:
The great thing about comics fandom is that it’s
immediate. I write a novel and it’ll be a year
before people tell me what they think of it. Comics
fans react that day. Comics are in many ways like
soap operas in that the fanbase rests mostly in the
characters. Consequently, the fans can be prone to
hysteria. With the prevalence of the internet,
there’s been this movement where everyone wants to
be an insider, everyone has an opinion, and everyone
wants to spread the information as quickly as
possible. Unfortunately, a lot of times, the
information is wrong or horribly incomplete. That’s
the huge downside. You have people reviewing the
first 22 pages of a story arc that is going to span
months, and that’s like judging a novel on the first
paragraph of the book. You can’t judge the story
before you know what it is – that’s what I find most
annoying. But at the end of the day, you also have
to remember that these things don’t exist without
that fanbase – and they are devoted … and vocal.
Question::
As a comic book fan, and a comic book writer, is
there a better time to be a “geek”?
Greg Rucka answers:
This is the summer of the geek. Go down the line of
movies and look what’s coming up, and it’s going to
be insane. It’s truly fantastic and flattering to be
a part of it. It’s not often you get to have a role
in something that is going to live and endure long
after you’re gone, and to have been a part of that
legacy in any way, shape or form is an honor.
Question:
There have been so many different takes on Batman –
how did you know yours was the right one?
Greg Rucka answers:
I don’t. But it’s the right one for me..
|
