The Extras - Masterpiece: Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns with Filmmaker Alex Gray

Episode Date: August 26, 2021

Part two of a two-part series with filmmaker Alex Gray reviewing the creation of the documentary “Masterpiece: Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.”  In this episode, we hear the compelling story of meeting the legendary Frank Miller in his New York home for the filming of his interview.  And then Alex recounts his interviews with DC stalwarts Janette Kahn, Denny O’Neil, Bruce Timm, Mike Carlin,  Grant Morrison, and others.  This is followed by a discussion of the narrator choice of Malcolm McDowell.  We also take a detailed look at the production design, editorial, and reenactments within the documentary.The Sitcom StudyWelcome to the Sitcom Study, where we contemplate the TV shows we grew up with and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupOtaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. www.otakumedia.tv

Hi, I'm film historian and author John Fricke. I've written books about Judy Garland and the Wizard of Oz movie, and you're listening to The Extras. Hello and welcome to The Extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies, and animation, and their release on digital, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K, or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Millard, your host. This episode is part two of a two-part series with filmmaker Alex Gray.

In part one, we discuss Alex's early career, his introduction to Batman, and the impact of reading Frank Miller's graphic novel, Batman The Dark Knight Returns. If you haven't listened to that episode, I highly recommend you listen to it first, as it sets the stage for what is to come. In this episode, we discuss the documentary masterpiece, Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns in more detail. We pick up our discussion as Alex meets the legendary Frank Miller at his New York City home. Once he realized the potential, he was on board.

And that's when he said, come out to New York City and I want you to be here. Let's do this interview here at my loft. And as I was saying earlier, it's like it's one of those kinds of experience. I've got to set this up for you, too, because do you want to hear that? Sure. Yeah. So we've been so we get to the loft, which is in the heart of New York City. And I can't obviously disclose where, but it is one of those moments that you take the elevator up and you get to the top.

And I think it may have been the penthouse, definitely way up there in some sort of place. But what you're met with when you walk out of that elevator is everything that you would hope it to be. And then some, it was a room that was filled with books, paper, iconography in terms of art statuary things like this all kinds of interesting unique items that wherever you look it was a frame it was a frame that is a backdrop to something there's a backstory to it there is an education there it was awesome and guess what there's just the right amount of dust everywhere and it was like yes I remember turning to some of the folks that were with me, the camera team with me saying, this would be like what I would make it akin to meeting Tolkien. And I had a chance to meet J.R.R. Tolkien, creator of Hobbit, Lord of the Rings,

and others. I would think I would have all of this, but this is perfect. This is what I wanted it to be. And then out comes Frank Miller and it couldn't have been more sublime. And at the time, unfortunately he had undergone some sort of a visit to the doctor or some sort of a surgery he had to go through. I don't recall what it was for, but I remember him rolling out in a wheelchair, like as if he's professor X and the X man. And he's got like this, And the X-Men, right? And he's got like this, just that great gregarious smile immediately. So welcoming.

Mind you, I was totally nervous. I'm meeting this guy. They got me into this stuff some 25 years earlier. And here he is. He's in front of me and I'm staring right at him and I'm listening to his words. And I'm sort of not really listening because I'm just soaking it in because I'm just thinking to myself, this is really so cool. And I remind myself, pay attention. I'm working here. Yes, exactly.

And he was so sweet and just kind and very welcoming. He said, you know, Alex, let's go take a look at my art room and everything. Okay, cool. Let's go, Frank. And we roll over there into the art room and it's an awesome space that he had with two desks set up. One was where he would write and the other is where he would draw. And so for those of you who don't know, Frank is that twofold threat as they say, or there's a couple of other ways to put it, but he's one of those kinds of guys that does it all. Super talented. He is your best version of what you would call the auteur in a comic book sense, not just the cinematic sense, but very, very akin to that. Can do all the jobs,

has done all the jobs. He's got that level of experience. It was so neat to be able to see what his workspace looked like. And he had a number of different pieces of art he was working on and all kinds of various medium that he was drawing it upon. And the tools that he had available to him were just an extraordinary bunch of colors and pencils and pens. And as he told me on camera to liquid frisket, he would use or, or glues and things like this, everything that he would do because he does everything, he does everything by hand. He does not believe in using the computer to do the art, at least at that point when I had met with him, I'm not sure about now, but back then certainly had, he had still had decided everything is in the analog world. And I liked that because it really felt busy. It felt experienced. It felt like there is this man who's working here,

really felt busy. It felt experienced. It felt like there is this man who's working here, conjuring up genius. And it was neat. It was a great little space, but it was a cool moment to be able to meet this master. That's a terrific story. I suppose then once you had that interview done, did you already have the other participants lined up that you wanted to go interview? And then you did some of those in New York on that same trip? We did. So part of this whole process was, as you know, with all these documentary films, we want to tell them in the most nuanced way we can. So we need a lot of voices. I'm very particular about the voices that we like to include. And I know you know this part is that like on the studio side, sometimes they like to suggest certain, you know, talent to be involved and what have you. So it always takes that really special team to go.

We need to put the filter at some point where we figure out who do we really need. And much to the credit of really Bonnie Spence at that point, understanding that if we're going to do this right, we've got to follow what is a solid roadmap about getting the right talent involved. And so we did. We cast the net to those that that had worked with Frank, those that understood Frank. Part of that journey on that trip was, yes, we scored Frank Miller's interview, but then the next day we also went out to DC and we had a really solid series of interviews there as well. You know, Denny O'Neill is in this piece as well. And may he rest in peace. What a great man, truly, and able to give us such a deep level of information. And so true. The man was always so honest about the way the business was

and the expectation of things. And so was Frank, very honest, very transparent about this kind of stuff. A lot of the other interviews, interestingly, though, were conducted in Los Angeles. So we did actually have the filmmakers from the movie as well. I did involve Bruce Timm as well. And he gave us his perspective on Frank. Mike Carlin, whom is a brilliant and awesome and wonderful colleague for many years for us prior and then many years thereafter. Still to this day, absolutely just adore Mike. And Mike Carlin was able to provide to us a perspective that is, Hey, this is what was happening on the inside. And by the way, Alex, you need to get Jeanette Kahn. Oh, of course,

of course we need to get Jeanette Kahn. Jeanette Kahn, who was the president at the time, the president who ran DC Comics when it was known as DC Comics. And she said, yes, I absolutely want to be a part of that. So I, I, I did, I got her interviewed during that trip to New York as well. And she was incredibly special. What energy, so awesome. And to be able to hear her point of view on things, it also stuck with me. One of those moments where you do get an interview about not only just someone who witnessed Frank and Frank's work, but also someone who understands the business so incredibly well that it's almost like a master's class in and of itself, listening to Jeanette on how to work in this industry. I was going to ask you specifically about Jeanette, because as I watched the documentary, having worked on the studio side, I can so appreciate

her genius and her importance to The Dark Knight Returns. I mean, she had the vision to see a change in the industry. She also had an eye for talent, obviously, not that Frank was a secret or anything, but then the willpower to go after that talent, to find a way to make it happen. And I think the people who do the best working in the studio system have that mentality. They don't just do what's been done. They're looking ahead. They find a way to make a change. They find the talent.

So her perspective in the piece, I think, is hugely important. I love her interview and the way he got her interview on camera and used her to tell the story. But all of the interviews are terrific. And she just did a masterful job of blending those together. One other very big name you get in the piece is Grant Morrison. Talk about that a little. Grant Morrison is, he is just this incredible heart. He's all heart, that guy. And when he walks in the room, he's one of those types of people that

their reputation, because they are so well known in, in the comic book world, they're so of high, they're such a high intellect and their ability to command story and to understand the scope of story and to understand the pedigree of story and all the history behind it and everything is all there. So you do get a little nervous about meeting these Titans again, you know, and I go, okay, all right, we can do this. But the guy is all heart. Oh my God, he is just incredible. And what a voice. I love interviewing Grant and any opportunity to put Grant in a project, which I believe that was probably the first instance of having him involved in one of our projects. His perspective on it gave us an opinion of what it

was to be an outsider. And when I say the outside, I mean outside of the United States at the time. He was someone who understood globally what does Frank Miller mean? You know, he comes from Scotland. And so to be able to like understand the point of view from what was being thought about in Europe, in UK, and in terms of what Frank brought to the world in terms of his creativity, Grant saw him, I believe, as one of these great motivators, one of these great, how would you call it? These people that come forward and they percolate to the surface and they punch forward in terms of comics and the medium and bringing it to another deeper level. And that in many respects inspired Grant's work as well. And I know that he was,

this is the genuine side of it to Grant and why I love him so much is that he's so genuine. He tells you these kinds of things. There's no ego about this, even though he is very deservant of his own high brow ego in and of itself, but no, it's not there. It's just such a genuine soul who's able to bring so much to this property in terms of our piece itself. He said it like that. He said it straight for us. And like what we're comics were at at the time. And that's very important. I wanted to capture a lot of that in our story as well. It was so important to us to know that comic books at the time of like when this particular book was coming out was in this shaky stage where they were wondering, will this thrive? Will it continue? Grant was part of that discovery at that point and looking at it from that outsider's perspective. And I think in many respects, he ultimately sees Frank as a hero on that level for a guy

to stick with it and say, you know, I'm going to do it anyway. I don't care. I'm going to give it my all. And there's something that's very rewarding about that. So in many respects, to be able to hear Grant talk about that added a lot of that humanity I was referring to earlier to our subject matter. Because one thing is to talk about Batman is to talk about the Dark Knight Returns and to talk about the machinations of how we were able to capture what, how they put the piece together, how they put the book together. That's one thing.

And that's interesting. What's also very interesting is, like I was saying earlier too, is about the humanity side of it, is being able to figure out like, well, how do they get to there and put heart on the page? How do you do that? And they were able to intellectualize it. Guys like Grant coming in and being able to give that to us. Yeah.

Huge. Huge. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Hi, this is Tim Millard, host of the Extras podcast. And I wanted to let you know that we have a new private Facebook group for fans of the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers catalog physical media releases. So if that interests you, you can find the link on our Facebook page or look for the link in the podcast show notes. I want to talk a little bit about the documentary itself. You go in chronological order in the documentary. A very interesting graphic that you created there.

Was part of that because you wanted to educate the fans on the historical context or importance? Maybe you can explain that a little. Sure. Yeah. Well, as you were saying earlier, is that Frank had this career before The Dark Knight Returns. And I think it's important to understand that all of us come from somewhere. I mean, Frank looks like the overnight success, of course, but nobody learns anything by jumping in on the story, especially if they're interested in that person's biography and saying, oh, they were a success. Good luck. Well, I don't learn anything from that.

What I learned from, and I hope to teach fans and to others about, and this is where that film school in the box kind of thing comes from. I liked, and I wanted to upfront, and I was very clear with the studio side as well. I want to make the exhaustive approach, as I was saying earlier about that's, that's really the point of view here. It was capturing that. How do you do that? Well, you've got to start from the beginning. You got to really look at who was this guy that was coming into the fold, you know, and what was Frank all about? And he was super open to answering those questions. And it was a good chance also for guys like Denny O'Neill and also for Michael Uslan to talk about it as well, about the nature of the industry at the time, about Jeanette Kahn to mention it as well. And they were all very relevant

comments about the fact that here comes this new guy who's talented and they're recognizing it. But you're sort of coming in at the wrong time. Comic books are on the way out. And that's really the way that they had set it up for me. And I knew that I had done my research and I knew a little bit about that. But also to understand context is so super important so that we're able to go, OK, how did he develop his style? And why does this book look so different and unique? I like setting things up in context and getting to explore some of Frank's earlier works on Daredevil through the Marvel side, and then getting to discover Frank's work through

Ronan on the DC side. It was an opportunity to take a look at these books and say, okay, wow, DC side, it was an opportunity to take a look at these books and say, okay, wow, this is the basis of your creativity. I see where you're coming from, where you can combine these disparate elements of story and have them make sense. So Ronin is this wild science fiction meets samurai Japanese culture all combined together, futuristic, bizarre, and interesting. And yet it all makes sense for us on some level. And it is colored in this way. And I'll tell you, when you flip through the book, at least initially, if it's on the store shelf, you're not like necessarily visually arrested by anything.

It's like, wow, this is very muted. This is very muted looking colors. But I bet you this is a good story and people read it and comment upon it. So this is a great story to pick up and take a look at. And it was, and talk about not judging something by its cover. It's something that you get to experience page after page

and realize that those muted colors are there for a reason. And those muted colors would be used later on for an even better reason when they got to the dark night. And Ronan stood out as being part of that. And for people to understand context of why Frank wanted to take on the Dark Knight, or at least why he was ready for his opportunity to take on the Dark Knight. Because samurais in many respects are sort of similar to the backdrop and background of the Batman character. Right. So we see tenants of that throughout. Samurais in many respects are sort of similar to the backdrop and background of the Batman character. Right.

So we see tenants of that throughout. So, yeah, early on, I just really, truly wanted to be able to see up front who was this person. He started off, as they say in our, you know, in our interviews, too, is that he is he says he was this lanky kid, this skinny kid. And Klaus Janssen, the anchor, mentions as well. He was this kid from Vermont and nobody came from Vermont that was going to get involved in this stuff kind of a thing. You know, basically they're saying he came from nowhere, which is so brilliant and powerful because that's part of the hero's journey. Right. Is that you come from nowhere and you cross that threshold and you make that choice and now you're on that hero's journey. And that's where it was for Frank.

That's journey. And that's where it was for Frank. That's terrific. I also thought you had a really interesting style that you developed of displaying the comic panels. Was that developed for this documentary or had you already developed that on previous projects? That is all part of this wonderful discovery that you have with an awesome collaborator. discovery that you have with an awesome collaborator. And that collaborator at that time for me, and I would have it no other way, was none other than John Fitzpatrick, who was my editor on this film. John and I spoke and still do the same visual language. We understood that. And we understood that from the moment that we met. We met on this project that we were working on, which was a film called Simplicity, the life and art of Alex Toth. of Milton Kniff and the world of these, these incredible minds that understood how art worked on a very simplistic level with limited amounts of lines and the opportunity to be able to work with John on this project at that time, when we did that, he started using some of these really

cool techniques about rotoscoping out the images, adding this, what we would call back then, at least the kid stays in the picture kind of this, what we would call back then, at least the kid stays in the picture kind of treatment, which was of course from that documentary called the kid stays in the picture about Robert Evans, the producer from Paramount. And we were, we would speak this language, this shorthand, use some of that here, add some of this here, add movement here. Can we work on a 3d plane? And he was just said, let's just go with these various moments, at least then on that project. And then we carried it over. And when we worked on this, this Frank Miller piece on the

Dark Knight Returns on Masterpiece, when we were able to put that together, we were speaking that language, but let's take it to another level. Let's add in a deeper sound design. Let's figure out ways to get these comic panels moving. So it adds a sense of this kinetic energy to it, where it's more palpable entertainment, entertainment. That's the important thing. So we added that to that because you have to keep your audience visually arrested at all times, various intervals. And I don't want to disclose too much about the magic of things here, but there's a certain part of it is about that is that we have to periodically give the audience something to invest themselves into.

And plus, it just makes it more exciting, honestly. And so we started to explore that. So all that, really that credit goes to John Fitzpatrick. And one thing I'll tell you this, and this is an aside here, is that John would often say to me that of all the producers that he worked with, he would really enjoy the opportunity to work together because the fact that I allowed him to try out things. Most producers are always aware intimately of that bottom line, the money, the money side of things. Cause in our world, we have to be the line producer and the producer of these things and line producing, of course, looking at these, these things from a budgetary standpoint, but we learn nothing if we do not allow people to go off and experience their own sense of

creativity and come back and bring us back that elixir. That's something that we go, wow, you did that. That's awesome. How did you do that? And why and how was because John would say it's because I would give him a chance. And I said, that's so cool. I guess you're right. I kind of did do that, didn't I? He said, yes, you're not afraid to go down that rabbit hole. You know, that comes from me. I'll tell you point blank where that comes from. It literally comes from me listening to people like Jeanette Kahn mentioning that in our film about writing off a certain percentage of your daily work or your weekly work or monthly work you're looking at from that point of view that you have to, in other words, take risk. It also comes from Paul Levitz. Paul Levitz and I would have these conversations because again, much of my personality about being that

guy that is always pushing. I found Paul in an audience one day. We were at the studio side. This is when I was still at the studio. We were watching a film, some sort of a screening. I found him in the audience. Nobody really knew among my peers who he was, but I immediately made a beeline down there and started to talk with him about comics, the work we were doing and what have you. And he imparted the sense of wisdom to me at that point, which was so poignant. And he said to me, we use a certain percentage from our operating budget to take risk on books that we would normally not print. The reason why we do that is because we would not grow if we didn't choose to go down that path.

And because we've done that, we do get opportunities where we see things like Ronan and we see things ultimately like the Dark Knight Returns and we see things like Watchmen come about. And that was so cool. And Paul was the publisher of DC at that time? Yes. Paul was publisher and president of DC Comics. Yeah. In addition to the comic panels, which I really was absorbed with, with the style that you created there. I also really enjoyed the effect that you had when you were talking about the inker Klaus Johnson and his panels, you would have the drawing come on and then you'd have the inking come on. Was that just an extension of, of what you did with John on the other panels,

or was that a different effect? That is actually a combination of a conversation, I should say. Early on, we came to the realization that if you do an exhaustive treatment of The Dark Knight Returns, the book, you've got to show all the various stages of development. How did this come about? How did this ultimately come to fruition that becomes a comic book, a graphic novel, or as I was saying earlier, a trade paperback? You know, that's how the people in the know, they like to call it the trade paperback. So it was a moment where we were racking our brains about, well, how do we show Klaus's work? We lucked out by the fact that we were able to find some early pencils. And when I say pencils, I mean, the early pencil drawings of Frank Miller's work itself, the ones that were eventually did become

the pages, the ones that were actually printed. But early on, um, the key is to try to find some of these things. It's challenging. There's some collectors out there that covet these things. They hold them secret. They don't even want to be revealed. You got to find these guys are under these. You gotta, you gotta go down a cave, a path, another side of the world, another dimension. And then here you go. You're rewarded here. Here's the thing that you want. So cool.

You have some of these elements that I need. DC also happened to have a few of them. Thankfully, thank God they had some of these things also. So how do you now, how do you show inking? What's the inking process like? What does inking mean? Because how do you intellectual show inking? What's the inking process like? What does inking mean? Because how do you intellectualize inking? And even when I met with Klaus to do this, and he is such an awesome interview, he was even telling us too, it's like, well, I want to talk about it, but guide me as you

will, you know, and find those moments and what have you. But part of it was John and I were sitting down talking about, well, how do we show this? Well, let's use these penciled pages. And then because by way of now where visual effects had sort of become at that point when we produced this film, which is back now at 2012, I think, and it released in 2013, was that we were talking about, okay, what's available to us? Do we have these plugins to use? Do we have to hand draw this, animate it, what have you? So that's what we did. We ended up using a combination thereof and we're able to put this together so we can finally intellectualize for an

audience. What does inking mean? Especially when you're hearing from Klaus Janssen discussing this stuff. I wanted to be able to see that. I wanted to be able to see the process because Frank, Frank Miller is brilliant in terms of his drawings and they are very lucid drawings by the way, but I say they're brilliant because they're not like the Neil Adams drawings that were kind of come on out from that time that Denny O'Neill, Neil Adams, Neil Adams, of course, being the artist who was working upon the Batman title back in the 70s into the 80s. It wasn't like that. It wasn't well formed and, you know, very like acute and perfect. It was loose. It was lucid. It was analog. It's part of the way that Frank does things. You

know, people have accused him then, well, maybe you're more of an avant-garde type artist versus like a comic book artist, but no, he's, he is that right guy for that right place, that right time that we needed the book to look gritty, analog, unique, different. It captured what New York City, AKA Gotham was supposed to be like. Part of that was like, how do you show that? Because when you see Frank's pencils, they're so loose that this is where the unsung hero comes through. Klaus Janssen is brilliant. He brought about this deep sense of like, okay, if I do things in a certain way with just the color of black contrasting with white, because the ink is black that is often used for inking and if you're using this to your effective advantage you can create what's called shadow

and light and things start to emerge that were not previously there so klaus brought a lot of that to the material and so we it was john and i felt we were beholden to like how do we show that and hopefully we did and we hopefully it stands still to the test of time. I thought it really added to the storytelling from my perspective as a viewer of the documentary and a fan of it. Thank you. I also wanted to talk to you about the choice of Malcolm McDowell as a narrator. How did that come about?

It came a point when I was, um, we were in the middle of the documentary. We were working through our, our, you brought this up, uh, the three acts, the three act structure. And really it's so important to filmmakers to be able to, you know, you gotta be beholden to something, right? I mean, I know that of course, Tarantino likes to throw the three act structure on its head and he did successfully with Pulp Fiction, but you know what? Uh, I'm not Tarantino and I needed to stick with what I learned in film school. And my background was screenwriting when I went through film school. And I said, well, I'm going to stick with what I know. As I was going through the three acts of this, I came to this realization that I have a lot of

material that I need, but I needed what I would call these bridging moments. And I kind of chuckle at that because now it's funny because my colleagues that work with me and John in particular, he loves to poke fun at me at calling them. I'm bridging the divide, Alex. I'm bridging the divide, you know, because I used to always say that this was my classic, you know, line that I would tell everybody got to bridge the divide because I need to get from point A to point B. Otherwise it's illogical or you need enough time to progress so that you can understand that, oh, there's a progression of time.

And here we are now at this place because it's very important in filmmaking. You can't just like spring it on an audience necessarily. Right. So I realized, you know, we need some of these bridging moments. We've got to figure out how do we put this thing together so it makes more sense cohesively in terms of some of these things. And so what we finally did was I took pen to paper. I sat there with John. I remember it to this day very clearly. We sat there side by side. He's at the editing station. He's manning the program that we were

using at the time, which I think this was cut on Final Cut Pro at the time. It was on the earlier versions of Final Cut Pro. And he and I were working through some of these beats and I was just sitting there. I was like, let's pause every so often. I think we need to put a bit of dialogue in here, a narrative bit of dialogue, something that would help the uninitiated understand clearly what are we trying to tell here? I don't rely on narration often, and it's not because I don't like it. It's something that is very cool and interesting, but it adds another dimension and you've got to be willing to commit to that dimension because it's also a lot of work on the back end as well about getting it all, you know, mixed, obviously finding a talent and what have

you. Long story short, I had to search the world for somebody that is going to fit the voice of this definitive approach. Who is it that I feel emboldens the power of the Batman voice or the Joker voice or all of these various voices combined, but yet is inviting? Invitation in terms of documentary is so important. I need to know that I'm being invited into this very special fold right now. It has to be soothing. It has to be interesting. It has to be entertaining. I don't want to fall asleep.

I also don't want to be berated. I want to feel like it's the right person. Oddly enough, I had recently had watched A Clockwork Orange and I was a big fan of A Clockwork Orange always. I studied Kubrick a lot when I was in school and part of like his process and everything. Always very captivated by him and Orson Welles, of course, who had his claim to fame. Big one, of course, Citizen Kane. Love those, love those films. Loved the work of Stanley Kubrick.

And Clockwork Orange always stood out for me as one of these seminal pieces. And of course, Malcolm McDowell plays the main character whom perpetrated the pawn. And he is also the perpetrator thereof. I mean, he is the main guy that is subjected to, of course, I won't get too far into this, but just all the torture of everything that goes on to help change him. But it's such a brilliant performance this guy gave. And that voice was always just so cool. Later on, I'd seen him in some pieces here and there, and his voice became a little bit more gravelly, a little more interesting. And there's always something, and that was the part about it,

is that there's that something interesting that I can't intellectualize and I don't want to intellectualize it because what is it in sound that I can pick up on that makes it feel right? You don't ever want to intellectualize it in fear of figuring out something that's almost too mysterious. He fit that for me, that gravelly nature. I loved it. I was able to get a hold of him by way of the studio. They had helped me and we presented the idea to his agent and his agent said, hang on, let me ask him if he's interested. And Malcolm replied back within like, I think a few hours and said, yes, I'll do the project. I am a fan of this material. And he said, send me the script. I sent him the script and he said, this is great. I like it. I'm in for sure. But here's the catch.

You have to come to me. I said, okay, where are you at? Right. Exactly. Where are you? Totally. So I didn't realize I was going to be a bit of a road trip. A fun one, though. He was actually out in the Ojai area. I'm not sure if it was for a film or if he lives out there or whatnot, but he was out in the Ojai, California area. Which is, for those who don't know, it's what, an hour and a half from L.A.? Yeah. It's a nice country drive. If you have the chance to do it, do it.

It's just hitting the open road, freeing your mind kind of thing. It's all there for sure. do it. It's just, it's hitting the open road, freeing your mind kind of thing. It's all there for sure. We get to Ojai and we find this small studio that he apparently has used in the past. And he said, he'll, he'll do the record from there. So it was really very cool, very generous guy. Again, one of those really gregarious type of people that he was deferring to me. And I thought that was just so cool. And, you know, I'm enamored of course, by the fact that I'm here, I'm getting, you know, none other than Malcolm McDowell, who was Alex enamored of course by the fact that i'm here i'm getting you know none other than malcolm mcdowell who was alex and of course that's his name in the film overclocked orange

happens to be my name and it's like okay this is like so cool this is an interesting moment here for me but he was super into it he wanted some direction up front i gave him some of that direction and then he hit the booth and it was just so beautiful and brilliant. Almost just about every one of those first takes could have just been the take only. But he was more insistent. Let's do a couple of different versions of this. And OK, cool. That was just so brilliant already.

I'm really enjoying this. And, you know, the consummate professional, of course. But he was so deep about it, too. He wanted to know more. So he'd ask me these questions like, what about this aspect? What about this angle? How would you pronounce that here versus how we would pronounce that in England? Because he is of belief born and raised in England, but we'll have to fact check that. But he was just explaining this to me. He said, you know what? I really want to make sure I get it right. Whoa. Are you serious? That is just so cool. And this here is Malcolm McDowell. You worked with Stanley Kubrick and he's telling me that he wants to get our project. Wow. Totally genuine soul. Awesome guy. He got everything for us. And that's, and it fit beautifully because at the end of it, Tim, he tells me, he says, I hope that works for your piece. I have a good feeling about this. He was telling us and I said, so do I. And we

tried out some of the tracks there in the room and he said like, well, I hope I gave you what you want. I said, you did. And then some it's phenomenal. And I would make that same choice again today and stick by it. It was one of those very cool moments. It was a perfect choice. And my, my thought is gravitas just really helps the piece. And you do hear a little of that, I don't want to say Batman, but you know, it's the right tone, I think. Another thing I wanted to ask you about is in the piece, you have some reenactments with our good friend, Jeff Maynard, portraying Frank Miller at work. Can you talk about how you crafted those and what they add to the storytelling? Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things with

diving into this wealth of material that is The Dark Knight Returns, the book, is that entertainment value. How do you get this thing entertaining? How do you tell the story to really show, again, the various steps that this young kid, I believe Frank would have been about 26 years old or so actually at the time when he had jumped into the work. Relatively young, really, truly shows you the brilliance of that mind. Guys like the greats often are young around that at that period where they're able to come up with some sort of seminal work, which is, I've always found that fascinating. That's for another subject at some point, but the nature of this was how can we recreate some of these things? Recreations have not been done by us previously. And really, I was trying to think about this

recently too, about have I done more recreations since then? I really have not, but I enjoyed them tremendously in that experience. So what it was, was how do we showcase some of these various moments that become a recreation, but at the same time, hyper-stylized. And that was the flavor I wanted to give to this piece. And every so often we'd cut back to seeing a young Frank Miller, Frank Miller creating this work. Because we can always talk about work and then pontificate about it in this intellectualized fashion post-mortem. The book's already been released. It's out there in the world decades now, really, right? But what is it like at that moment to create a work? How does it happen? Is it normal? Like for us, we just take pen to

paper or a typewriter in his case. How does it happen? Does he draw just like normal, like us, we just take pen to paper or typewriter in his case. How does it happen? Does he draw just like normal, like us and normal lighting, or does he have like some sort of darkened room and things like this? So I wanted to be stylized. And what I mean by that, I want to be able to show something that lends a sense of emotion to it. Um, but at the same token does capture key bits of what Frank would have used. So when I met with Frank, I had asked him, like, you know, what did you work upon? And he had explained the typewriter. He got to the point of even giving me the exact model name of the typewriter, the exact

typewriter itself. It is one of those things where I believe we got the exact typewriter model accurately and everything we found when I was at a thrift store, had it serviced, got it working again. I had that. I had the number two pencils that he brings up. I had plenty of those. Those are easily obtainable. Ticonderoga. I had the pages. I had the blank pages. I also had the pages that were partially drawn. And so we took a lot of these materials and then started erasing some of the lines that were on there because we knew at some point we wanted an actor to portray this. And that's where the interesting part came about, which is how do I find that young Frank Miller?

I had one picture to work from. The one that's pretty popularized right now. It's the one where he's wearing a yellow shirt. He's at Comic-Con. He's sitting there signing something or drawing something for probably one of the fans. It's a cool picture of him. He's got this scowl on his face, this intensity that is so Frank Miller. And Frank Miller, people think he's intense now. He was far more intense, I'm sure, back when he was at that early age. And it was a neat photo that, forgive me, I forgot who the, who the photographer was, but it's actually a famous set of photographs that are available online of that very first comic-con or one of the early comic-cons when he would have appeared. And so I looked at that and I said like, okay, I got to find this right actor to portray this part. And I started looking around

online for that actor and I was coming up with nothing. And I, I think I went as far as interviewing a couple of them just briefly to see if they'd fit the part and everything. And you see somebody's photo, like in a headshot versus what they look like in real life. There's always that difference. I think most filmmakers go through that. I have made films before that are narrative, that are fictionalized narratives and where we do actually rely on actors, you know, to portray these parts and what have you. But this was different because this is documentary and it's going to be a silent role, really. He's just mostly just feigning who that person was. I could not find this person.

I was getting nervous. We're coming down to the wire when we have to shoot. I booked my location. We shot that scene actually out in the in the West L.A. area. There was a small theater that's out there and we had shot it there in town. And the idea was like okay i've got the theater book i've got the camera crew books i've got everything going here but i still you know i knew the target date of when we're gonna shoot but i'm like i still

have not found this person to portray this part and i'm looking i'm looking looking and one day i'm out at lunch with jeff maynard and i am seated for some reason, side by side with him. I think we were at Denny's, which no longer exists in the West LA area. This particular one on Lincoln, they leveled it not too long ago, which I'll tell you a brief aside in a moment about that too. So we're there and we're seated next to each other because we were with a couple of other folks, I believe. And then we just happened to sit next to each other. And I look over and I noticed something and I think to myself, oh my God, that guy's profile is Frank Miller. Holy crap. I can't believe it. And I, and I keep it to myself, but at the same time, we're like having, I think we're having some sort of other meeting and I finally have to interrupt

a meeting and I go, you know what, dude? And I turned to Jeff, you look like Frank Miller from the side. You look like him. And he says, okay, you know, Jeff classic Jeff. He's just gives me a couple of moments and I'm like, no, no, no, you really do. And I think he, Jeff was starting to get nervous. Like, Oh, don't ask me to portray him. You know, one of those kinds of things you need to be in this thing. You need to be Frank Miller. My young Frank Miller is you. I just know it. Look at you, your face. It's perfect. And you've got that scowl thing going on because you're super concentrated. This is great. This is what I, this is what I need. Will you do this? And then we had a couple of different back and forth kind of things like

that. And then he finally said, yes, I will do this part. And he went the extra mile, which was awesome of him. And I really appreciate this by the way. Thank you, Jeff. He went out of his way to ask his father if he happened to have a yellow tab front type shirt, like one of those like IZOD type shirts or whatever, the polo type shirts. And his dad did, he had it. And so he shipped it off to him, I believe from Kansas, where Jeff's from and where his parents reside and sent it over to Los Angeles. And yeah, and it fit Jeff perfectly. And the day of Mike, this is fantastic. He looks just like him. One stipulation though Jeff had was he said, I will do this, but I will not shave. I won't shave for you. And I said, what do you, oh,

you mean your beard? Yeah. And I won't shave the beard off. Cause I know Frank just has that goatee in that photo, that famous photograph. I said, okay, I can work with that. And I can work with that like a true actor. Of course he has to tell me he's not going to shave for the part. That's like, you know, it's a, another level of actor. I said, okay, fine. We'll do that. Anyway, it worked out fine because you know what? Nobody's ever noticed. And, and he's got the, Jeff has got the full beard, you know, in the part, but that's okay. But he went to a great extent about, not only did he take on the role, the guy went in and actually learned how to type these various moments from the Dark Knight Returns accurately. Jeff is big about accuracy as, as, as you know, he's a very detailed guy.

Even that day, I said to him, look, you don't have to have this perfect as you're typing this stuff out because a lot of it will play well still to camera. And I had it all worked out in my mind. You know, I often edit in my head about how things are going to come together. And that also stems from my editorial days. But he said, no, no, I'm going to get this exactly right. So you can use some of the shots. And thank God he did, because I did use those shots where we had the camera positioned overhead behind his shoulder, tilting downward on the keyboard itself and him typing away literally at an old school typewriter, like we said, and the tape papers moving in the end and those hammers are coming down and shooting out all of the various letters on the page. And I'm like, really, really cool moment. And I said, okay, fine.

You can do that. That's great. Now, during the day of, when we were shooting, I said, I want you to also do this faster at these particular moments. And Jeff to his abilities and power, I don't know where he conjured that up and you'll have to ask him someday, but this guy was able to type like, like his hands were on fire. It was awesome. And he was able to like pump out these pages. We did of course, increase the speed slightly at a couple of moments. We ramped it up and everything, but there was a couple of moments, true moments where Jeff was accurately typing like a madman, because I wanted that moment of that urgency. That's where that stylization comes in, where we see that as creativity comes

through and flows from us for wherever it does in that ether into our minds, our hearts and onto the page. I wanted that moment. I wanted that moment. And Jeff nailed it. It was beautiful. And then from there, it was just about us and about like, you know, as I directed that sequence and with this great photographer, Brigham and Foster Owens, who is a wonderful, wonderful camera man and just a great cinematographer in general. He was able to really light the scene beautifully. He understood exactly what I wanted. It was such an honor to be able to put that together with him and even down to like laying out the track because there's a lot of these tracking shots that we use. We also use trucking shots and moving in as well, really to play up

the sense of motion and photography going on. And it was a nice, real amalgamation of all these various creative efforts coming together to put those sequences together that I am still to this day, incredibly proud of. So it was, it was a blast. It turned out great. And I was surprised, of course, to see Jeff in it, but I thought he did a terrific job and it works very well for the storytelling. One of the other things that, you know, having worked in the extras that I noticed about the piece is the runtime. I know that typically we've had our extras limited, whether it was 30 minutes or then it moved, I think, to 60 minutes. This is a 90 minute documentary. Two questions come out of that. One was, when did you kind of know this was going to be a longer piece?

Was that in the script stage or elsewhere? And then did you get any pushback from the studio? Initially, when we started this project, I think really I knew early on that this has to be long play to do this book justice. You got to pull out all the stops, man. You really just do. And I knew what I was going to be in store for, which was the, the proverbial filmmaker fight, you know, way I wanted it to be a feature film. I knew that at least upfront and how do you define a feature film? You know, and the Academy has their way to define that. I wanted it to be a feature film. I knew that at least upfront. And how do you define a feature film? And the Academy has their way to define that. I think it was like 72 minutes or 76 minutes. We of course went beyond that, but I had to do what's right for the piece. And that's

always truly though been the governing force behind anything that I produce. At the end of the day, although the runtime is supposed to be a particular duration or at least what's budgeted to be the duration, still always just do what's right for the piece. I don't go to the extent of like necessarily taking like a 10 minute piece and then making it into like a 50 minute piece or five zero or six or 60 minute piece or what have you. But I will take something that is in that realm and then increase it and improve it. So you're right at the time, it was probably only like 30 minutes we were supposed to make this thing. But because they believed in the power of the pitch and what had happened and Frank Miller signing on board again to the testament and to the to the testament of Bonnie and Jeff Brown and Amit and the others that were involved around that time to say, yeah, we believe in this project. Let's improve this, you know, budget slightly so we can actually make something that's a little

bit bigger than this. Let's try it out. So which was a cool moment because that kind of makes it full circle for me as well about the studio saying we're willing to take a risk that does not happen often with them. It was an easy sell, you know, I think on some level because they believed in the creative and they knew and what they were what this was going to be about and to do it right and to do it justice to get Frank Miller. You can't just make it some short thing. Frank took us, like I was saying earlier, two, two years, three years to be able to get him to say, yes, I'll do this. So let's let's do what we can. And there I would say that the fights really start to emerge when things like

this are out of the ordinary, like you're saying, to be able to create a piece like that. We encounter a lot of the side of the business that we normally don't speak of. And that's a lot of the stuff that deals with the, the, the business commerce and the legal side of things too. And to be able to navigate those particular waters that make sense for all parties that are involved, you know, and legal clearance, of course, is a very big thing. And we are beholden to that. Those of us that do work, you know, in this field or want to work in this field, professionally speaking, and I would say that doesn't matter what level you're at. You could be the most famous with the largest budget.

You still have to, you're beholden to certain rules. It's also the rules of how do you market something like this and understanding from marketing's point of view. And that was very crucial as well. And you're reminding me about a moment about having that dialogue with them and so that they understood what they were about to receive. Because much to your point, they were so used to these short form pieces that suddenly they get this feature film. Well, what do we do with that exactly? Part of it included how to market it with like on the outside of the package. Actually, they went out of their way to print up these beautiful like decals that would go on the outside of the package to advertise to the audience at large what's contained in here. And this is an era when you would still go to the store quite often and buy the physical product. It wasn't digital at that point.

So imagine what that's like to see a huge shelf filled with this Dark Knight Returns Deluxe Edition. And on there on the package is this is this decal in the shape of a disc and says like, hey, you're not featuring this particular documentary. And part of that was important to be able to have that early on so that they understood and comprehended what they were about to market out there into the world. So a lot of it is encompassing that and then understanding in the way that ultimately, how do you make a return on your investment? I think that's also very crucial as well. That often is an aspect of our business that's not talked about. How do you recoup that?

And part of that was that this still made sense to them, financially speaking, and they were willing to still take the risk. So although it was 90 minutes, I still had to play ball on some level, you know, but we did at times what we do on our side of the aisle. And this is the unspoken thing is that we do make these deals or we do put in that extra time. And I don't ask people to do that. They just it seems like they just want to when they're working on something that's special

to them. And I think that that is one of the most crucial aspects about all of this is that if you can make a job like this, a creative endeavor like this, that surfaces, that percolates to the top with that same sense of that speciality, that angle to it that people go, I want to be a part of that. They do give it their all. And it's not cliche. It's true. They do. They give you way beyond what your expectations are. And I'm so thankful to each and every one of them that were on that crew that did do that for us because we could not have made this had it not been for them. I was there in the trenches with them and I am, and I have no problem rolling up my sleeves and being in there spending long nights. Sometimes we don't sleep. We continue on for that 48 hours,

72 hour stint because it's important to us. And we want to bring our A game to it because we believe that there is something here. And that's the way that each of us approached it. That's the way, particularly John and I, when we were sitting there together in those late nights and working through that into the wee hours of the morning, it was there. It was that purposeful nature behind that. And it made us feel right. And you, what the best part is too, is at the end of the day, the fruit of that labor, you get to watch it, get to see it over and over again. And God willing, it's actually pretty cool. And I believe this one still stands the test of time, thankfully.

I have one line that I want to repeat to you from your script that Malcolm says that kind of hit me. And I just wanted to ask you about this quote, Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns is the cornerstone to modern Batman stories. In there, deep in the mind of Frank Miller is the proof of legend. Tell me what that means. Well, I'm guilty. I wrote the line. I'm a little verbose and I like alliteration. I love the English language. I love being able to discover things. And when I finally came to the conclusion about the humanity angle to all of this and to understanding what and who Frank Miller is and what he represents, it was a breakthrough for me because I came to the conclusion that ultimately all of us, whether we are involved in the filmmaking side of content creation or we are a comic book writer, and

whether we write on Batman or we write on Green Lantern, Superman, Wonder Woman, any characters, any grouping of characters, Justice League, whatever you decide to put through that filter, we have all since 1986 been exposed to this awesome work. Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. It shattered and changed everything for us. It took our comic books that were beloved, that we grew up with, that people would start to accuse us and say, well, that's just child's fare like we're talking about at one point earlier. And that's just something that kids read. No, this is a gentleman who said, I'm taking the deepest aspects of the human condition and putting them out there in this form. After this, Tim, the reality was that anybody entering,

and I don't care what field you're in, you read Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, you're going to be a better writer because of it. I go back to the work consistently at least once a year to reread it because it makes me a better writer. To understand plotting, characterization, dialogue, how to weave in and out of scenes, things like that. When to edit, when to cut out, when to get in on the scene. Moments like that, when to edit, when to cut out, when to get in on the scene. Moments like that are powerful. And that is the main thing. It really was that cornerstone that affected all of us.

It affected, as Bruce Timm even says, in the context of our documentary film, that when he made Batman the animated series in 1993, he was, and he flat out says it on camera. We've seen it in our film Bruce Tim himself says thank you to Frank Miller thank you Frank because he did set up the way for then Bruce Tim to be able to create Batman the animated series which was all about this gritty dark character and also of course about Bruce, Bruce Wayne's pangs of conscience, Bruce Wayne, how he grew up, Bruce Wayne, and what it means to be orphaned by way of seeing your parents murdered in front of you, but also understanding Batman storytelling on a

deep level where you don't need music as a crutch necessarily. You can rely on brilliant dialogue. You can rely on great storytelling beats. So if it influenced a guy like that, whom we all deeply respect, Bruce Timm, therefore Frank Miller is somebody that affected all of us and affected every one of us, from those that are famous to the rank and file, to those that are even becoming new writers and those whom have not read the book yet. I would say read this immediately after you finish this podcast, of course, read this book. It's there. And that is why I say that he is the cornerstone of that.

Why I say that in there is that proof, because that's what we always look for. Because it's so easy to say that guy's a legend. That guy's a genius. No, Frank Miller is that. And he didn't need to write another book after that. He could have just stuck with Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns, 1986 and been done. That's probably why it's still reprinted to this day. He talks, Frank does, in the documentary about how he wanted to elevate what was a dying medium. He wanted to create that novel that could sit on the bookshelf and endure. And he did that. What you just said is proof of it. You pulled down on a yearly basis and I'm sure, you know, many, many others do as well. Well, I really liked that line. I appreciate you kind of expanding on

it. It stuck out to me and Malcolm's delivery of that line is terrific. Let's wrap up our time for today, Alex. But before we do, I just wanted to ask you, what did Frank think about the piece when you showed it to him? That's a great question. We work in an industry where at times we don't get a lot of feedback and you know this Tim, because having been a studio executive, you know what that's like. And I remember experiencing that when I was on the studio side. I remember experiencing that, of course, obviously, even to this day is that we don't always find out what people think about our pieces. All we know is we can just provide the best that we can. We give it as much heart as we can. We take it seriously and go that in every sense, that extra mile intentionally.

So of course I was interested. What does Frank think? We knew we were going to send him the documentary. So at that point when we had finished the piece, Bonnie and I had said, let's send Frank this copy of it. That's because it was in a deluxe edition. And I don't want to forget about this one important part too, which is that this piece was possible because of the fact that we created this skew, parts one and part two combined into this deluxe edition of the Dark Knight Returns animated feature film movie. This was possible because of all of that being put together early on and combining these obvious parts that should be together because we want a long play movie,

even if it's three hours, who cares? That's great. Us as fans are like, this is incredible. This is what we've wanted. And so part of this was like, let's get Frank his copy and see what happens. But prior to that, I said, yeah, I'm going to write a letter. I have to write a letter to thank Frank and what this means to me. And I wrote this heartfelt letter of, I don't remember all the various beats of the letter and what have you, but it was definitely something where I wanted to say thank you for this opportunity and for closing that circle on a lot of levels for me, because some 25 years earlier, I was that young kid, that 14 year old kid on that quad, having my lunch, listening to my buddies talk about this book and then going and picking that up. I wanted

to thank him for inspiring my career. So it was the least that I could do, which was, I'm going to make this film about all of this. I'm going to make this film that tells your journey, but also talks about this book in exhaustive detail. It's the least that I could do. And I hope I did it right. His response back was very short, but it was sublime because it was, it was complete for me. And it was something that I really took to heart, which was that I was well pleased. It was the way that I had hoped it to be. It was everything that he, I guess, was looking for and to be able to tell and that we had given a lot of

heart. So knowing that he was happy actually made me just like completely thrilled. And at the same time, it's, it's sort of this bittersweet kind of a moment because you kind of feel like, okay, we've done that now. And there's some sense of closure, but like the way that he gave me that closure and that conclusion was brilliant because he didn't go too far and go in this whole verbose reason and tell me about every single scene and things like this. And I was like, gave me what I needed. And what I needed was just to know that he was well-pleased and that we got it right. That was important because sometimes when you're left with that soft ending like that, it doesn't hit you over the head. You just go, yeah, you know what? I can use that for the rest

of my life. Thank you. Thank you. That's terrific. I agree so much with you that you do all this work and you put so much into it and you do hope that the personality in this case, who you're profiling or the story or the show, that the show runners, that the writers, that they're going to be pleased with the project. Cause you really, we do it in service of them, their show, their comic, their animated series, whatever it might be. And, uh, that's, that's a terrific story and a wonderful conclusion to everything you put into that and that journey from high school to producer of this terrific 90 minute documentary, which I think is one of the best extras I have ever watched. And specifically on the animation as well. It just does a terrific job of doing that. So thank you so much, Alex, for coming on today. It's been a real pleasure. I want to ask you just how can fans learn a little bit more about Studio West Pictures and you? Thank you, Tim. Your words,

that was incredible. I really appreciate that deeply. And that's the thing we hope for. Even if just one person comes up and says like, hey, you know what? I loved what you did. That means the world to a filmmaker. So thank you. I do. I humbly appreciate that. To find me, go to the website, StudioWestPictures.com. StudioWestPictures.com. Reach out. Don't be afraid. You know what? So it's it's always that collaborative thing. You know, it is about finding those right moments in life. So for all you Batman fans out there, I'm hoping that Alex can be on the show in the near future to discuss his documentaries released on Batman 66 and Batman, the animated series. We've touched on both of those. So look forward to those episodes in the near future. Alex has terrific stories and the pieces of course are terrific as well. Well, Alex, it's been a real pleasure talking with you today. Thanks for coming on the show and taking us on a deep dive into Masterpiece, Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns. Tim, thank you so much for having me on. I just want to say how much I appreciate the fact that you are giving voice to us. You know,

often, as we have mentioned, that we don't have those opportunities to be able to speak about the work unless invited. And I really do feel like you're doing a great service to all of us. And it's an opportunity to talk about the things that we love and enjoy because there is so much story to this. So thank you very much for having me on. I deeply appreciate it. You're extremely welcome. I think this is one of the best extras I've seen

and a terrific example of how extras can both illuminate and entertain fans. For those of you interested in learning more about Masterpiece Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, there will be detailed information on the website at www.theextras.tv, including the DC animated titles that included as an extra. And if you're enjoying the guests we have on the show, please subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast provider. So until next time, you've been listening to The Extras with Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed.

The Extras is a production of Otaku Media, producers of podcasts, behind the scenes extras, and media that connects creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals at www.otakumedia.tv or look for the link in the show notes.