Hello Gotham, Andrew here. I’m still in LA at the moment because I might have another big exclusive thing in the works (Batman related of course) and I’m also having a pretty good time in this town!
If you kept up with my live Tweets on Monday night’s big event, you only got half the story. Monday’s big premiere of The Dark Knight Returns was a hectic, exciting, and ultimately rewarding experience. It was a nerve racking for a first-timer like me (I’ve looked at my work here as more of a hobby than anything and it’s grown out of control) but luckily I was too clueless about what was going on to be scared away from taking the task on. I didn’t know what to wear, I didn’t know what kind of filming/recording equipment I needed, I didn’t know how much time I would get to talk to everyone. Nothing. In all the red carpet footage you see online and on TV they never show you how things work behind the scenes for the folks asking the questions.
The media is herded like cattle and corralled inside of a velvet rope in the middle of a small room. Everybody is given a specific spot according to a place holder on the floor, given a cheat sheet of names and faces, and told that they’ll have about one minute with each of the seven members of the cast and crew. It’s basically the perfect environment for the most artificial conversations imaginable. So you toss a guy as green as I was into a stressful situation like this and you get interviews that might not be… typical. However, in the downtime (of which there was plenty) I was given a lot of great advice by the good people at Reelzchannel (I think it was Reelz. The man’s name was Brent and he was great company), Buzznet, and The Nerdist so I’ll have less nerves and be better prepared if the day comes when I do this again. But I might not want to, honestly. I met some amazing people but the impersonal, assembly-line-like nature of the red carpet interview doesn’t do these folks or the fine work they do justice.
When it came time to talk to Bruce Timm, who gave us Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Justice League, and so much more, I said “The heck with it” and decided not to even ask him a question. I have too many questions for this man! If I’m only going to have one opportunity to ever talk to the guy and I only have 1 minute to do it then why ask another question he’s already been asked by someone further down the velvet rope? So I thanked him instead. It looks corny and a bit unprofessional and Bruce Timm has an expression on his face like “What the heck was that?” but oh well.
I should also make sense of something else kind of awkward that happens in the video: Peter Weller thought I was working for Newsarama (whose placeholder card was close to ours, but they didn’t show) and so I stomped on their sign and ripped it out of the floor! When you see him act surprised at the start of that video, that’s why. Nothing against Newsarama, they have great advanced comic reviews, it’s just that they weren’t there and I guess a part of me wanted to show off in front of Robocop. Not a lot of guys can say they surprised Robocop. I had so much nervous energy during that interview that I even said St. Joseph, Missouri is close to where I live–it isn’t.
That’s probably enough about what happened behind the velvet rope. Without further delay, here’s what you really came here for: the fine people who crafted one of the best Batman animated features I’ve seen…
If you’re wondering why I didn’t interview Ariel Winter, it’s because she arrived late and I don’t think anybody got the chance to talk to her. It was 7 o’clock and I didn’t want to miss the movie!
A big thanks goes out to Alex Nagorski at DC comics and Gary Miereanu of Warner Bros. Animation for making this possible. And I want to thank the Paley Center for hosting the event, and Josh Jacobson for shooting the video as well. It’s an experience that I won’t soon forget. The Dark Knight Returns is available now and you should definitely go buy it. It was fantastic and immensely rewatchable. I’ll write a full review soon.
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