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| Designing Gotham: how the look and feel of Batman's home came to be | |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| Television’s newest comic-book drama tells a familiar story in a city that’s at once familiar and foreign. In Fox’s Gotham, we watch a young pre-Batman Bruce Wayne and a slew of his villains (Catwoman, Penguin, Joker and more) coexist and form their identities in the web of crime and corruption that is Gotham City. Each scene is set in an old and new New York-ish world, a dramatic, timeless, gloomy city drained of its goodness and – quite literally – its sun. | Television’s newest comic-book drama tells a familiar story in a city that’s at once familiar and foreign. In Fox’s Gotham, we watch a young pre-Batman Bruce Wayne and a slew of his villains (Catwoman, Penguin, Joker and more) coexist and form their identities in the web of crime and corruption that is Gotham City. Each scene is set in an old and new New York-ish world, a dramatic, timeless, gloomy city drained of its goodness and – quite literally – its sun. |
| “We are generally running from bright, beautiful, sunny days,” said the show’s production designer, Doug Kraner. “And if we have to shoot on a sunny day with a blue sky, that sky always gets removed and replaced with clouds in post-production.” | “We are generally running from bright, beautiful, sunny days,” said the show’s production designer, Doug Kraner. “And if we have to shoot on a sunny day with a blue sky, that sky always gets removed and replaced with clouds in post-production.” |
| Kraner took some time to speak with the Guardian about the vision he created with the director Danny Cannon for Gotham, and how week after week they logistically expand their version of the city, one he hopes “fits comfortably in everybody’s mental image of this legend, which has existed for decades”. | Kraner took some time to speak with the Guardian about the vision he created with the director Danny Cannon for Gotham, and how week after week they logistically expand their version of the city, one he hopes “fits comfortably in everybody’s mental image of this legend, which has existed for decades”. |
| Where did the process start when you came on to Gotham? How did you create the initial vision? | Where did the process start when you came on to Gotham? How did you create the initial vision? |
| This territory has been explored in many ways over the years by a lot of talented people. There’s a public perception out there of what Gotham City and its characters look like based on years of exposure to the comic books, feature films, even TV shows. So when Danny Cannon and I sat down to begin, we looked at a lot of films and books and at the comics over the years. Whenever we found an image that was particularly exciting and looked like a world that we wanted to embrace, we pasted that image up on a board – we surrounded ourselves in a room with a lot of big image boards. | This territory has been explored in many ways over the years by a lot of talented people. There’s a public perception out there of what Gotham City and its characters look like based on years of exposure to the comic books, feature films, even TV shows. So when Danny Cannon and I sat down to begin, we looked at a lot of films and books and at the comics over the years. Whenever we found an image that was particularly exciting and looked like a world that we wanted to embrace, we pasted that image up on a board – we surrounded ourselves in a room with a lot of big image boards. |
| It’s funny, after literally pasting up hundreds of photos, and going through them and shifting them around, a vision of a new city that we hoped nobody had ever seen before began to emerge. Obviously we were planning to shoot in New York City, which is the right place to be for this, but Gotham is not New York. It’s its own place. So then we had to think about what parts of New York fit that vision that we now had in front of us on the boards, and how we could augment the city to make it look as much like Gotham as we could. | It’s funny, after literally pasting up hundreds of photos, and going through them and shifting them around, a vision of a new city that we hoped nobody had ever seen before began to emerge. Obviously we were planning to shoot in New York City, which is the right place to be for this, but Gotham is not New York. It’s its own place. So then we had to think about what parts of New York fit that vision that we now had in front of us on the boards, and how we could augment the city to make it look as much like Gotham as we could. |
| This is what the commute home from work looks like in #gotham. http://t.co/3xhDtENoH0 | This is what the commute home from work looks like in #gotham. http://t.co/3xhDtENoH0 |
| What are ways in which you’ve augmented the city? | What are ways in which you’ve augmented the city? |
| We believe that Gotham is kind of like New York was in the late 1970s and very early 80s, when the city was really at its roughest in recent history: before the subways were cleaned up, when crime was high, when the city just felt pretty brutal. We see Gotham as existing in that world. | We believe that Gotham is kind of like New York was in the late 1970s and very early 80s, when the city was really at its roughest in recent history: before the subways were cleaned up, when crime was high, when the city just felt pretty brutal. We see Gotham as existing in that world. |
| But New York City has changed since then. It is really in many ways a much more optimistic and brighter place than it was in 1980. And we don’t want that! [Laughs.] So we look for the old New York as we scout, and sometimes we have to remove the new New York. Like, we’ll shoot on a street in Tribeca that 15 years ago would have been dark and scary, or in SoHo that 15 years ago would have been a little dangerous-looking. And we find ourselves putting the dangerous back in the street. We have to remove the nice topiaries in front of the lovely day spa. And we have to cover up the beautiful new bakery and coffee shop and replace it with the front end of an abandoned warehouse. So as we look, we try to get as close as we can. And if we can’t get there, we either fix it ourselves, or we fix it in post, digitally. | But New York City has changed since then. It is really in many ways a much more optimistic and brighter place than it was in 1980. And we don’t want that! [Laughs.] So we look for the old New York as we scout, and sometimes we have to remove the new New York. Like, we’ll shoot on a street in Tribeca that 15 years ago would have been dark and scary, or in SoHo that 15 years ago would have been a little dangerous-looking. And we find ourselves putting the dangerous back in the street. We have to remove the nice topiaries in front of the lovely day spa. And we have to cover up the beautiful new bakery and coffee shop and replace it with the front end of an abandoned warehouse. So as we look, we try to get as close as we can. And if we can’t get there, we either fix it ourselves, or we fix it in post, digitally. |
| From the beginning, what did you definitely want – and definitely not want – in your Gotham? | From the beginning, what did you definitely want – and definitely not want – in your Gotham? |
| What we did not want was a contemporary ultra-realistic vision of this world – so we decided to definitely not embrace everything that is current. And those choices extend from everything to architecture, automobiles and cell phones. You’ll never see a smartphone in Gotham. Yes, the world exists somewhere between the late 70s and the mid-80s, but we try to let it float, because we want people to invest themselves and their own ideas of Gotham into our vision. | What we did not want was a contemporary ultra-realistic vision of this world – so we decided to definitely not embrace everything that is current. And those choices extend from everything to architecture, automobiles and cell phones. You’ll never see a smartphone in Gotham. Yes, the world exists somewhere between the late 70s and the mid-80s, but we try to let it float, because we want people to invest themselves and their own ideas of Gotham into our vision. |
| After conceptualising, what was the next step? | After conceptualising, what was the next step? |
| Next, I assembled a team of set designers, draftsmen, set decorators, art directors, model builders, and we assembled in New York and went to work very quickly. We built most of what you saw for the pilot in about six and a half weeks. And then we had a serious pickup. | Next, I assembled a team of set designers, draftsmen, set decorators, art directors, model builders, and we assembled in New York and went to work very quickly. We built most of what you saw for the pilot in about six and a half weeks. And then we had a serious pickup. |
| The process I described for designing continues constantly, because every nine days we’re working on a new script and a new story, and each episode brings new needs for sets and locations that we don’t have, and characters are doing things in places we’ve never been. | The process I described for designing continues constantly, because every nine days we’re working on a new script and a new story, and each episode brings new needs for sets and locations that we don’t have, and characters are doing things in places we’ve never been. |
| How do you maintain consistency when scouting for new locations throughout the city? | How do you maintain consistency when scouting for new locations throughout the city? |
| The question that we ask ourselves and each other every single day as we pick new locations and look at new places to shoot is, “Is it Gotham?” Each of us on the creative team is constantly asking that question. | The question that we ask ourselves and each other every single day as we pick new locations and look at new places to shoot is, “Is it Gotham?” Each of us on the creative team is constantly asking that question. |
| But because there is no Gotham, it’s always subjective! Sometimes we’ll have disagreements about whether a location is Gotham or not. And that’s true of every choice we make. Soon, the Penguin will be driving a car. But what is Penguin’s car going to look like? Is it Gotham? Is it Penguin? We think very carefully about these choices all the time. | But because there is no Gotham, it’s always subjective! Sometimes we’ll have disagreements about whether a location is Gotham or not. And that’s true of every choice we make. Soon, the Penguin will be driving a car. But what is Penguin’s car going to look like? Is it Gotham? Is it Penguin? We think very carefully about these choices all the time. |
| What are some areas in New York City where you’ve filmed that feel unanimously Gotham? | What are some areas in New York City where you’ve filmed that feel unanimously Gotham? |
| The alley in the first scene of the pilot, where Bruce Wayne’s parents get killed, that’s a great alley. It’s perfect. It’s downtown, near Chinatown, and it needed very little to make it look like Gotham. | The alley in the first scene of the pilot, where Bruce Wayne’s parents get killed, that’s a great alley. It’s perfect. It’s downtown, near Chinatown, and it needed very little to make it look like Gotham. |
| We do find other areas that need no help to look like Gotham, and we go far and wide to do it. There are warehouses and old buildings and docks along the waterfront in Brooklyn that still have that feeling. We shoot a lot, funnily enough, in Staten Island, because Staten Island in some areas hasn’t experienced the architectural resurgence that Manhattan has. We also tend to find perfect Gotham that doesn’t need to be messed with under bridges and overpasses. Those areas really feel like the city has you in its hold. | We do find other areas that need no help to look like Gotham, and we go far and wide to do it. There are warehouses and old buildings and docks along the waterfront in Brooklyn that still have that feeling. We shoot a lot, funnily enough, in Staten Island, because Staten Island in some areas hasn’t experienced the architectural resurgence that Manhattan has. We also tend to find perfect Gotham that doesn’t need to be messed with under bridges and overpasses. Those areas really feel like the city has you in its hold. |
| Can you speak more about the different time periods that inspired your sets? For instance, Barbara Kean’s apartment is this ultra-modern penthouse, while the GCHQ Bullpen feels like it’s out of an old murder mystery. | Can you speak more about the different time periods that inspired your sets? For instance, Barbara Kean’s apartment is this ultra-modern penthouse, while the GCHQ Bullpen feels like it’s out of an old murder mystery. |
| It’s interesting that you say this, because really, Barbara’s apartment and the Bullpen stand in contrast to each other for a very specific reason. Jim Gordon lives between those two places. And Jim Gordon’s life, where he fights crime and stands for good, is in the middle of a dark, chaotic, corrupt old world that is very hard for him to fight. It’s established. It’s been there forever. How is this one man going to change it all? | It’s interesting that you say this, because really, Barbara’s apartment and the Bullpen stand in contrast to each other for a very specific reason. Jim Gordon lives between those two places. And Jim Gordon’s life, where he fights crime and stands for good, is in the middle of a dark, chaotic, corrupt old world that is very hard for him to fight. It’s established. It’s been there forever. How is this one man going to change it all? |
| Barbara’s apartment, on the other hand, here’s a place where Jim Gordon goes that’s high above the city, and beautiful. It’s where he can, for a little while, escape from the fight that he’s carrying on deep in the city below with the woman he loves. So we wanted on Barbara’s apartment to make a place that looked modern, fresh and airy, but was clearly above the city – a woman’s space that just felt good for a man to be in. | Barbara’s apartment, on the other hand, here’s a place where Jim Gordon goes that’s high above the city, and beautiful. It’s where he can, for a little while, escape from the fight that he’s carrying on deep in the city below with the woman he loves. So we wanted on Barbara’s apartment to make a place that looked modern, fresh and airy, but was clearly above the city – a woman’s space that just felt good for a man to be in. |
| For the police station, Danny wanted me to look back at epic stations and cathedrals – we looked at grand old railroad stations like the old Penn station in New York and St Pancras in London. | For the police station, Danny wanted me to look back at epic stations and cathedrals – we looked at grand old railroad stations like the old Penn station in New York and St Pancras in London. |
| How do you create the cityscape? | How do you create the cityscape? |
| There’s an enormous day and night translucent backing that surrounds Barbara Kean’s apartment – a gigantic background photograph, really. It’s a composite of photographs of buildings from various cities that were carefully chosen for their Gotham-like feeling, and then manipulated digitally to bring the Gotham look to it that we wanted. | There’s an enormous day and night translucent backing that surrounds Barbara Kean’s apartment – a gigantic background photograph, really. It’s a composite of photographs of buildings from various cities that were carefully chosen for their Gotham-like feeling, and then manipulated digitally to bring the Gotham look to it that we wanted. |
| Most of the photographs are from New York, although we eliminate specific landmarks that are associated with New York. You may see Chrysler-like buildings, but you won’t see the Chrysler building. We even do that on a day-to-day basis as we’re shooting in the city. We try not to feature the Empire State building. | Most of the photographs are from New York, although we eliminate specific landmarks that are associated with New York. You may see Chrysler-like buildings, but you won’t see the Chrysler building. We even do that on a day-to-day basis as we’re shooting in the city. We try not to feature the Empire State building. |
| The whole show is filmed with what feels like a gloomy filter. How do you get that effect? | The whole show is filmed with what feels like a gloomy filter. How do you get that effect? |
| The cinematographers are very important as keepers of this concept of what the city looks like. And they shoot it that way: they lens the show with Gotham in mind, and they light it with Gotham in mind. The costume designer does the same thing. It’s a constant process. | The cinematographers are very important as keepers of this concept of what the city looks like. And they shoot it that way: they lens the show with Gotham in mind, and they light it with Gotham in mind. The costume designer does the same thing. It’s a constant process. |