The Los Angeles County Museum of Art will present Tim Burton, a major retrospective exploring the full range of Tim Burton's creative work, both as a director of live-action and animated films, and as an artist, illustrator, photographer, and writer. Showcased here are just a few of the "Batman Items" that will be present. We got an original Batman Cowl from a Batman Movie, plus some Costume Design Drawings of both the Penguin & Catwoman from "Batman Returns" and one of The Joker ( Jack Nicholson ) from 1989's BATMAN. Plus, you know there will be much much more! Wow! It looks like a great show!
It will be on view at LACMA from May 29th ( This Sunday! ) through October 31st, 2011, the exhibition brings together over 700 drawings, paintings, photographs, moving-image works, storyboards, puppets, concept artworks, maquettes, costumes, and cinematic ephemera, including art from a number of unrealized and little-known personal projects. Many of these objects come from the artist's own archive, as well as from studio archives and private collections of Burton's collaborators.
Also, IMPORTANT BOOK SIGNING NOTICE:
Tim Burton will be available at the LAC Museum on SATURDAY, May 28th to personally sign the exhibition catalog book. He'll be there for only 2 hours, between 12:00 & 2:00. For more information, click HERE!
On March 21st, 2011, Michael Uslan will be a Special Guest Speaker at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. The event is FREE & if you're a film buff ( or Batman Fan ) you need to go! Of course Michael Uslan is the Executive Movie Producer responsible for bringing us the 1989 Tim Burton BATMAN movie & 2008's The Dark Knight. His speech will mainly be about his journey of creating his career to bringing Batman successfully to the big screen. He shares the principles that allowed him to persevere despite repeated rejection and encourages people to reach for their dreams and believe in themselves. It should be pretty interesting. Now, shown here is a Promo Video made by some College Students for the event.
Back in 1989, to capitalize on the popularity of the Tim Burton BATMAN Movie, the New York Blood Center ran a promotion called "You Don't Have To Be Batman To Save Lives". Basically it was a major blood drive where they used the Caped Crusader as a theme. It was pretty successful. Shown here are 2 pieces of memorabilia from that event. The first photo is a T-Shirt & the 2nd one is a small advertising poster. It's cool they didn't use the same exact graphic. Plus, it's the comic book-style artwork & not the movie ( but "movie images" would have been great too! ). Now, it's kinda hard for me to tell but I'm guessing that the art was drawn by either Jose Luis Garcia Lopez or Dick Giordano! If anyone knows exactly please let me know. Either way, it's a very cool part of Bat-History!
Oh yeah, if you're a serious Batman Fan then you're gonna totally love this new statue coming out! It's inspired by the 1989 Tim Burton BATMAN movie. I know I really loved that film, it's a Classic. DC Direct will be coming out with this special art statue as a part of their "DC Comics 75th Anniversary" event. It shows Michael Keaton, as the Caped Crusader, in a full-body pose. I say that because they're also releasing a small BUST figure too. That piece was featured here at the Bat-Blog awhile back, to see it just click HERE! Anyways, this newer statue is AWESOME!! It was sculpted by Joseph Menna & measures about 13 1/2" tall, a pretty good size! It comes with a special base that's in the shape of the Bat-Symbol. Basically it's hand-painted, cold-cast in porcelain, & will be a Limited Edition. I really love this thing. If you would like to pre-order it ( as a gift for me or yourself, ha ha ), & save 20% off, then I suggest the following link:
I just realized last night that I have not featured one of these wonderful Model kits in awhile so here we GO! Shown here, for your viewing pleasure, is this extremely beautiful Vinyl Model Kit of THE PENGUIN made by our good friend SKINNYBIRD. Of course it's the "Danny DeVito version" from Tim Burton's Classic 1992 Film BATMAN RETURNS. One photo is a full-body shot where you see the whole thing but the magic really happens in the other photo that is a close-up of the character's face. I think he did an amazing job on the painting of the face. Actually, the whole thing is painted extremely well, but with these kind of model kits of actual real-life people you really gotta do a good job on the face or they just don't work. This one does, looks just like the actor...NICE! If you're new to the Bat-Blog then I guess I need to explain that we have been posting a few of these Batman Models every now & then. A Good Friend to the Bat-Blog, nicknamed "Skinnybird", sent us some great pics awhile back of all the Batman Model kits he has built. To view all the ones posted so far just look down below this post for the LABEL word "Skinnybird" & click on that. It will open all the posts related to his artwork. Last, but not least, I wanna thank Skinnybird for sending these & invite all other creative readers to do the same! Your pics don't have to be models but can be any kind of Batman-related thing, thanks!
OK, Reading the title up above you might be thinking this post is all about the recent Batman: The Brave and The Bold episode starring the Music Meister, but NO, it's not! This is about a real-life Broadway-Type Musical that Warner Bros had planned for Batman way back in the late 90's when Tim Burton just got done directing his 2 Batman movies. In fact Tim Burton was set to direct this play & they even hired a famous song writer to come up with a few songs. Unfortunately for all of us it never really left the ground. But this video is a performance of one of the songs they designed for the show. It was called "Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?" & would have probably been sung by The Joker, ha ha! Now, this video here is a fan-made production using photos of Batman Toys along with the song. The funny thing is about 7 or 8 of the pics were taken from the Bat-Blog. But, it's kinda cool so I'll let it slide...enjoy!
Ya' know, a lot of younger Batman Fans today totally forget ( or don't even know about ) how people back in 1989 went totally bat-crazy over Tim Burton's 1st Batman movie! I mean, it was almost equal to the craziness stirred-up by the 1977 Star Wars movie. People dressed-up like the characters, there were lines of people that went around the block, people camped-out for tickets for days, some theaters even dropped another movie so they could show "Batman" on more than one screen...it was crazy! Well, here's a funny vintage newspaper story I found on a website called "Fantastic Flashbacks". It shows a few Batman Movie Fans wearing THE JOKER make-up & costumes ( Jack Nicholson version ) at an opening in California. Now I plan to feature some more of this kind of news coverage from the past so if any readers have something similar then please let me know. In the mean time, if you're interested in visiting the "Fantastic Flashbacks" blog then do so by clicking HERE!
During the making of the1989 Batman movie, directed by Tim Burton, the Production Designer for the film was Anton Furst. He designed Sets, Custom Vehicles, & even the Movie Poster! Here is a photo of his original blueprint to the now famous Bat-Jet, also known as The Bat-Wing! I thought I would post it in case anyone wanted to build one ( ha ha, OK, a dumb joke...but be sure to click on the pic up above for a larger photo ). Actually I thought it was a pretty cool drawing. In fact, Warner Bros should make a poster of it for sale...people would go nuts! Remember when this vehicle saved Gotham City from those evil "Joker Gas" Balloon Floats? Good times, good times.
OK, Fan-Made Tribute Music Videos usually get on my last nerve ( ha ha! ) but this one is actually kinda fun. The editing is good. Plus, the images & music go well with each other. It was done by a guy known as "Silver Lightsaber". It's his personal tribute to the Batman Movies made by Tim Burton. The music, a song called "This Is Halloween", is by Marilyn Manson. Please leave a comment & let me know if you like it or not. I just thought it was sort of clever.
Just a quick post to let all Tim Burton Fans know that his website to promote his new art book is finally open! The title of the book will be "The Art of Tim Burton" & will be made in both hardcover & deluxe edition. When you go there you can preview a few pictures. It's sort of at the "teaser stage" where they don't really show that much but it should be bursting out pretty soon. While there be sure to look for the picture of The Joker, it's crazy!
Tim Burton directed the 1989 Batman movie & a lot of that movie's style was his own unique vision. For that reason a lot of Batman Fans also like his other films: Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Mars Attacks, & Charlie and The Chocolate factory, among others. He's about to come out with a live-action film of Alice in Wonderland that looks pretty cool! Well, he's also known as a serious graphic artist & dabbles in the fine arts every now & then. So, for that reason, he's gonna publish a book that will be coming out later called THE ART OF TIM BURTON. It's gonna be a hardback with over 400 pages & 1000+ illustrations. There will also be a Special Limited-Edition Copy too. This project was just announced directly from him & the details are sort of vague, for now. But be sure to stay tuned to the Bat-Blog because when we get more information we'll be one of the 1st places to let you know! Personally, I love his artwork & this book will probably be a "must-have" item. My birthday is coming up in January ( hint, hint ).
Since today ( June 23rd, 2009 ) is the Official 20th Anniversary of the 1989 Batman Film by Tim Burton, starring Michael Keaton & Jack Nicholson, I thought I would post this excellent documentary about the making of the movie. There's a ton of really interesting "behind the scene" clips...please enjoy!
Since today ( June 23rd, 2009 ) is the Official 20th Anniversary of Tim Burton's 1989 Batman movie I thought I would do a quick post featuring a few toys vehicles made around the time the film came out. Now, it's totally imposable for this to be a definitive list. Mainly because the marketing people during that time went totally crazy trying to create every single kind of toy variation & merchandise that you can think of, ha ha! But here's a few nice examples to help take you down memory lane.The 1st one is a diecast toy car made by Ertl. This is the Joker Van, which was weird because it wasn't in the movie! They also made the Bat-Wing & the Batmobile which were pretty accurate to the film props. The 2nd & 3rd photos are 2 Model Kits of vehicles we saw in the movie. Joker's Goon Car &, of course, the Batmobile Car! The last photo is another Batmobile but this one was made by Toy Biz. At the time Toy Biz was the company that made the Action Figures, a Batcave Play Set, Vehicles ( for the figures ), & a few other misc items.
Today, June 23rd, 2009 is the 20th Anniversary of Tim Burton's 1989 BATMAN Movie starring Michael Keaton ( Bruce Wayne / Batman ) & Jack Nicholson ( The Joker )! WOW! 20 YEARS! You know, that actually makes me feel kinda old, ha ha! I totally remember when this film came out. It was sort of on the same level as Star Wars in the way it was such a HUGE cultural event. It seemed like the whole world went totally batty! The Bat-Symbol logo was literally everywhere! I mean, there was this giant flood of Bat-Merchandise, Memorabilia, T-Shirts, Action Figures, Toys, etc... For a Batman Toy Collector it was a great time to be alive! OK, I guess I need to explain the 2 graphics shown here. Well, they are both Batman 1989 Movie Desktop Wallpapers. They are some graphics I found that each have amazing images from the movie. I thought Bat-Blog Readers would enjoy them & maybe use them to honor the event. So, Please put these up on your desktop so you can remember that TODAY is the 20th Anniversary!!
OK, The new Batman video news right now is that Warner Bros is gonna release the 1989 BATMAN MOVIE on Blu-Ray for the 20th Anniversary Edition! It's hard to believe this movie has been out that long! Thinking about it kinda makes me feel old, ha ha. Of course we're talking about the classic '89 Tim Burton film with Michael Keaton, Kim Basinger, & Jack Nicholson. Here's the deal: The official release date for retail stores is on May 5th, 2009 but you can pre-order it on March 31st, the end of this month. It's gonna come with a 50 page book that has script pages, excerpts from the movie, color photos, & a comic book adaptation by DC Comics. It will also have a Digital Copy you can download to your PC.
Here's a really neat mini-documentary on designing the Bat-Suit for Michael Keaton in the 1989 Batman movie. It features interviews with Peter Guber ( Producer ), Graham Churchyard ( Asst. Costume Designer ), Vin Burnham ( Costume Effects Supervisor ), Day Murch ( Batsuit Wrangler ), Peter MacDonald ( 2nd Unit Director ), & Tim Burton ( Director ).
This is really freaky!! Somebody noticed how close to the same thing the new DARK KNIGHT Batman Movie Trailer ( Christopher Nolan, Christian Bale ) is to the 1989 BATMAN Movie Trailer ( Tim Burton, Michael Keaton ) one. The thing you should do is listen to the new one but just watch the old '89 version...FREAKY!
Here's a random photo I found the other night showing artwork by none other than Tim Burton. It shows Batman, Catwoman, & The Penguin like they appeared in his 1992 BATMAN RETURNS movie. I guess besides being a great director, Tim Burton is also a pretty decent artist. The style kinda looks like his Nightmare Before Christmas graphics...cool!
Here's a really funny fan-made movie trailer for The Dark Knight using the audio from TDK & visuals from the classic 1989 Batman Movie by Tim Burton. The scenes match up pretty good & it's very clever, enjoy!
For my 850th post here at the Bat-Blog I thought I would celebrate with this amazing YouTube Video of an extremely talented artist using Adobe Photoshop to paint a digital portrait of Tim Burton, the director for the 1989 Batman film. His other incredible movies include The Nightmare Before Christmas, Beetle Juice, Mars Attacks, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, Edward Scissorhands, & The Corpse Bride.
