The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Steve Ogden at AnimWatch reports on a very short but incredibly cool and stylish new animation from Isaak Fernandez Rodriguez of Barcelona featuring the Batman. I’ve just watched it myself (it is the first in a projected series) and I was highly impressed; the film, which has taken almost three years of part-time work in Isaak’s free time (he works as an animator at Ilion), has a wonderfully moody, almost monochromatic look to it, drawing heavily on the look and lighting (and shadows) of the films of the 40s, which suits the world of the Dark Knight perfectly. Isaak’s Batman is stylised as a very blocky character with a protruding jaw, reminiscent of both the recent (and very enjoyable) Batman animated cartoon series and the toy Kubrick figures.

(stylish scene from Isaak Fernandez Rodriguez’s Batman: Help Me!!!)

AnimWatch has links to the short animation (brief but as I said, very impressive) and also has some insight from Isaak himself into his animation: “I really wanted to do something personal and a little bit different with the character, trying to mantain a singular vision, like Tim Burton, Bruce Timm’s comic and, most recently, Chris Nolan, and try to adapt it for animation. It was one of the hardest parts, deciding the final look of the film. I like the old detective and secret agent films, and I liked putting a bit into the story too.“