"Beware the Batman" in 2013! New Animated Series

[Icemizer]

I like the 3d animation and the sparseness of GL should be mitigated by the roof tops and darkness of Batman.

[davejames]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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I think a Catwoman series could be cool but I don't know if the "boys" demo would go for it.

Oh I'm sure they would, if she looked the way she did in that recent Catwoman short...

[Donald Draper]

That depends on the age. If its actual young boys I doubt they will care too much...yet.

[USS Mariner]

Icemizer wrote:

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I like the 3d animation and the sparseness of GL should be mitigated by the roof tops and darkness of Batman.

Like GL, "Beware's" CG looks positively AWFUL for a modern TV series, and it has nothing to do with the art design (i.e. character environment design, color palette).

It's the material shaders, or what a layman would ID as "the lighting," though its far more than the brightness of a scene.

Nine times out of 10, the thing that betrays any CG model or background is the shadows and lighting, not actually the density or shape of the mesh. Physical models had/have to deal with this same issue. Scale, believe it or not, is more dependent on lighting rather than fidelity. This is one of the reasons that Jefferies supported the clean lines for the 1701, because any large aircraft or ship loses its details from a distance, but the way it reflects light from the sun and water is entirely different from how a scale, ultra-detailed model does.

In theater, light and shadow play an integral part in terms of mood, theme, and even to establish key info (i.e. blue lighting is a traditional stage short hand for " night", which was abused to death in the heyday of "day-for-night" shots in film.) Proper light and lighting allows an audience to accept a bunch of people and cardboard sets as a night scene in the country, because the lighting lets the brain accept the lack of fidelity because it "feels" right in terms of contrast.

In things like animation and static art, lighting is even more key as it must now communicate physical information from a 2D image, in additional to narrative information. Now, the trick in this realm is not how much info you need to communicate, but what information. On a piece of paper, try to draw a box in shadow with as few pen strokes as possible, and you'll know what I'm talking about.

While the character and set design are clearly from the same people who made B:TAS, S:TAS:, Beyond, Static Shock, and JL/U, the lighting actually makes it look less immerse because of how washed out and blurry things are all the time in GL and Beware. It's hard to explain without visuals, but my art energies are tied up in a comic project, so I can only describe the issue. :/

[Christopher]

USS Mariner wrote:

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While the character and set design are clearly from the same people who made B:TAS, S:TAS:, Beyond, Static Shock, and JL/U...

Well, that's technically right (since most animated shows these days have some veterans of those shows on staff), but it should be clarified that Green Lantern and Beware the Batman are not from the same veterans of those shows. GL:TAS is from Bruce Timm (with Avatar: The Last Airbender's Giancarlo Volpe), while Beware is from Glen Murakami (with Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated's Mitch Watson). Murakami is known for the refined "New Look" character designs from The New Batman Adventures, as well as his work on Teen Titans and Ben 10: Alien Force/Ultimate Alien.

So even though both shows are in 3D computer animation, they're not from the same design team, and it's not yet known whether they have any production staffers in common besides executive producer Sam Register.

[USS Mariner]

Christopher wrote:

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Well, that's technically right (since most animated shows these days have some veterans of those shows on staff), but it should be clarified that Green Lantern and Beware the Batman are not from the same veterans of those shows. GL:TAS is from Bruce Timm (with Avatar: The Last Airbender's Giancarlo Volpe), while Beware is from Glen Murakami (with Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated's Mitch Watson). Murakami is known for the refined "New Look" character designs from The New Batman Adventures, as well as his work on Teen Titans and Ben 10: Alien Force/Ultimate Alien.

So even though both shows are in 3D computer animation, they're not from the same design team, and it's not yet known whether they have any production staffers in common besides executive producer Sam Register.

That's right. My mistake.

[davejames]

USS Mariner wrote:

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Like GL, "Beware's" CG looks positively AWFUL for a modern TV series, and it has nothing to do with the art design (i.e. character environment design, color palette).

I think GL looks pretty damn good for a Saturday morning cartoon. Obviously the CG isn't quite as sophisticated as what we see on Clone Wars, but there are very few cartoons that have THAT kind of budget.

And the storytelling is strong enough that nothing more is really necessary. The characters are expressive enough, and the simpler cartoony style fits the lighter tone of the show really well, I think.

[JD]

davejames wrote:

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Batman already got a number of great series in BTAS, Batman Beyond, Brave and the Bold, and even The Batman. I don't really see a pressing need for another one right now.

I'd much rather see a new Superman series, considering the last one was the rather generic and simplistic STAS.

As much as I like Batman, I have to agree. I'm not that familiar with the characters yet, but from what I've seen of them, I'd rather get a Flash, Green Arrow, or Wonder Woman series.

[USS Mariner]

JD wrote:

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As much as I like Batman, I have to agree. I'm not that familiar with the characters yet, but from what I've seen of them, I'd rather get a Flash, Green Arrow, or Wonder Woman series.

The thing is, Brave and the Bold gave us exactly that. Batman's involvement in both the TV show and the original comic allowed the writers to give little-known or not-so-popular characters mass market exposure through the draw of the Batman name. Hell, Batman barely did anything in half of the episodes, not because we didn't want to see him, but there were so many previously-underused characters that turned out to be hits that we all knew would likely never get another look if they were to have their own show.

[USS Mariner]

davejames wrote:

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I think GL looks pretty damn good for a Saturday morning cartoon. Obviously the CG isn't quite as sophisticated as what we see on Clone Wars, but there are very few cartoons that have THAT kind of budget.

And the storytelling is strong enough that nothing more is really necessary. The characters are expressive enough, and the simpler cartoony style fits the lighter tone of the show really well, I think.

Shader algorithms don't require money (directly), they require time allocated in preproduction, which is the first to get cut by TPTB because they don't like having projects being worked on outside of a mandated schedule. This is done as a measure against fraud in many fields, but often an extra day in pre-pro can radically change parts of a project.

[davejames]

Well as they say, "time is money."

[Christopher]

New info from Comic-Con about Beware the Batman, courtesy of its producers Mitch Watson and Glen Murakami:

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/0...murakami-sdcc/

Some highlights:

• The show will have a procedural flavor, focusing on Batman as a detective (cool!).
• Although the designs are stylized, they're going for a fairly realistic feel to the protagonists and their world, in part to create a believable sense of danger for Batman. There will be episodes where Batman is pretty badly banged up.
• By the same token, the designs are a bit more detailed and grounded than in Green Lantern, since they deal more with recognizable things like Earth cities, cars, etc.
• The villains will be broader and more fanciful than the relatively grounded heroes. They're all comics characters that haven't been seen in animation before, including Anarky, Magpie, an obscure Golden Age villain named Cipher, and Grant Morrison's Pyg and Toad. Some of the characters are reworked/reinvented for the show, particularly a less gruesome version of Pyg and Toad. Toad is played by Udo Kier. Anarky will be the "Moriarty" to Batman's Holmes, a mastermind and manipulator (so he's probably rather altered from the comics' version of the character).

All in all, it sounds like they're going for a more serious approach to Batman again. I wonder if they're really going to avoid the classic villains entirely, or just save them for, like, the second or third season, once the show's established its own voice.

Still no artwork to see yet; apparently they're still "building" the CG Gotham and the characters and objects that will inhabit it. Murakami talks about how the process of creating 3D CG animation is more challenging than 2D, because you have to build everything and position and light and photograph it like live-action, rather than just drawing whatever you want to see.

[Brikar99]

Christopher wrote:

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[LIST][*]The show will have a procedural flavor, focusing on Batman as a detective (cool!).

Ooo very nice! Probably the most intriguing bit of information I've heard about this series.

[Captain Craig]

I like Anarchy as a Robin foe but *sigh* Tim Drake was never Robin now and not his foe so let's roll with it. Not like there would be a Robin show but I always thought he might show on Teen Titans.

[Christopher]

Captain Craig wrote:

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I like Anarchy as a Robin foe but *sigh* Tim Drake was never Robin now and not his foe so let's roll with it.

The show isn't in the same continuity as the New 52 comics, of course. They're reinventing the characters for the show's own continuity, just as previous shows have done, so they can draw on whatever past eras of the comics they want (much as the '90s Batman: The Animated Series drew on elements from comics ranging back to the '70s). Robin is not actually a main cast member in Beware the Batman; the main team consists of Batman, Katana (of the Outsiders), and Alfred. But if they did include Robin (and it's been suggested that they might do so in some capacity), there's no reason they couldn't make it Tim if they wanted.