The Art and Making of The Dark Knight Trilogy is good, but is less art and more making of the three films Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.

The book is published by Harry N. Abrams and written by Jody Duncan Jesser, and Cinefex magazine writer Janine Pourboy. It's a decent size at 9.2 inches x 1.1 inches x 11.9 inches and weighing a whopping 4.5 pounds. If Batman could keep it in his utility belt, he could knock out the Joker.

It's 304 pages of behind the scenes stories and quotes. The pages start out with the quote from Henri Ducard: "Your parent's death was not your fault...But if you make yourself more than a man... if you devote yourself to an ideal...then you become something else entirely. Which is? A legend, Mr. Wayne."

Here's the official description:
"In 2005, director Christopher Nolan redefined the Batman legend with Batman Begins, starring Christian Bale as the Caped Crusader. A fresh, dynamic reboot of the franchise, Batman Begins explored the comic book hero’s origins and his evolution from billionaire Bruce Wayne to dark avenger who fights crime and corruption in Gotham City. A 2008 sequel, The Dark Knight, took those compelling, character-driven foundations and raised the stakes, pitting Batman against a deranged master criminal, the Joker, in an all-out war for Gotham’s soul. Now, the final film of Nolan’s trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, is 2012’s most anticipated film release.

"The Art and Making of The Dark Knight Trilogy tells the complete behind-the-scenes story of these three monumental films. Based on in-depth interviews with Nolan and all of the films’ key cast and crew—including cowriters David S. Goyer and Jonathan Nolan, cinematographer Wally Pfister, and more—the book reveals the creative process behind the epic Dark Knight Trilogy, supported by lavish art and never-before-seen photography."

Here's the video preview of the book:

I was disappointed that it focuses very little on the artwork. We get many great photos of the filming though. My favorite is the shot of the life size Bat-Pod sitting on Nolan's patio while his wife and son look on.

Most of the book tells the story of the making of the film and the challenges they face. There are great stories and quotes, but very little you wouldn't find on the Internet, or in online interviews. It's nice that they put it all in one book though.

On the other hand, there is very little concept art and only one storyboard. Contrast this with book on Inception: The Shooting Script which was full of dozens of drawings and pages of storyboards.

There is no concept art for Catwoman (Anne Hathaway), which Gary Oldman (Commissioner Gordon) described as "fantastic." Only two images of Bane (Tom Hardy).

There's no list of the artists that worked on The Dark Knight Rises (like Tully Summers) but they do mention Jamie Rama in connection with The Dark Knight bat-suit design. Most of the time they focus on the work of Production Designer Nathan Crowley and Costume Designer of Lindy Hemmings. These guys are at the top of their game and did a lot of the designs, but they didn't work in a vacuum. The book gives vague terms like "artists" when acknowledging the contribution of other illustrators. The Avengers book had a complete list of all the illustrators who worked on the film. This book has none.

I can only assume they put everything in The Dark Knight Manual: Tools, Weapons, Vehicles and Documents from the Batcave because this book is empty.

The book is good if you're not familiar with the filming of the other movies and don't care about concept art and storyboards. Otherwise, it's a disappointment.
2.5 stars out of 5

Have you read the book? Would you read it?

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Here are some of the artists that worked on the superhero film The Dark Knight Rises (2012). There are many talented artists involved in the production of a film. These are only some of them according to IMDb and my own research.

One artist I spoke with suggested there's a gag order on them, so it might be only after the film opens that we get the full list. If you know of any other artists, please let me know in the comments or via my contact form.

Directed by Christopher Nolan

Production Design
Nathan Crowley  IMDb
Kevin Kavanaugh IMDb

Storyboard Artists
Gabriel Hardman gabrielhardman.com

Concept Artists/Illustrators
Callum Strachan callumbo.blogspot.com callumstrachan.com
Tully Summers tullysummers.com
Eddie Yang - eddieyang.com
Jamie Rama - jamierama.com
Bryn Court - http://moviesculptor.co.uk/
Philippe Gaulier http://philippegaulier.blogspot.com/

Official Synopsis:
Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ “The Dark Knight Rises” is the epic conclusion to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.

It has been eight years since Batman vanished into the night, turning, in that instant, from hero to fugitive. Assuming the blame for the death of D.A. Harvey Dent, the Dark Knight sacrificed everything for what he and Commissioner Gordon both hoped was the greater good. For a time the lie worked, as criminal activity in Gotham City was crushed under the weight of the anti-crime Dent Act.

But everything will change with the arrival of a cunning cat burglar with a mysterious agenda. Far more dangerous, however, is the emergence of Bane, a masked terrorist whose ruthless plans for Gotham drive Bruce out of his self-imposed exile. But even if he dons the cape and cowl again, Batman may be no match for Bane.

Leading an all-star international cast, Oscar(R) winner Christian Bale (“The Fighter”) again plays the dual role of Bruce Wayne/Batman. The film also stars Anne Hathaway, as Selina Kyle; Tom Hardy, as Bane; Oscar(R) winner Marion Cotillard (“La Vie en Rose”), as Miranda Tate; and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as John Blake. Returning to the main cast, Oscar(R) winner Michael Caine (“The Cider House Rules”) plays Alfred; Gary Oldman is Commissioner Gordon; and Oscar(R) winner Morgan Freeman (“Million Dollar Baby”) reprises the role of Lucius Fox. The screenplay is written by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan, story by Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer. The film is produced by Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan and Charles Roven, who previously teamed on “Batman Begins” and the record-breaking blockbuster “The Dark Knight.” The executive producers are Benjamin Melniker, Michael E. Uslan, Kevin De La Noy and Thomas Tull, with Jordan Goldberg serving as co-producer. The film is based upon characters appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. Batman was created by Bob Kane.

US Release Date: July 20, 2012
Official Site:

Updated list of artists

What do you think of the film? What do you think of the artists? Have you seen their other work?

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In The Dark Knight (2008), Batman's Bat-mobile broke apart to reveal a motorcycle known as the Bat Pod. It was designed by Nathan Crowley, who designed the Tumbler for Batman Begins (2005).

One of the artists on the film is Matthew Savage (Doctor Who, X-Men: First Class, Prometheus) and he shared his designs. His work is always meticulous.

The illustrations below give a good look at variations of his machine guns and missile launchers.

Here are some shots from the film.

You can see more of Matthew Savage's portfolio at http://www.mattsav.co.uk/

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B is For Batmobile
The Batmobile is one of the most treasured of designs. There have been hundreds of concepts used in the comics, so there's no right or wrong way to design one. But, for some reason when we see it we recognize it.  Here are five concept art drawings of the Batmobile in live-action film and television.

1.  Batman TV Series by George Barris
In a pinch, 20th Century Fox turned to George Barris to build the Batmobile. He was given a rough sketch (by BATMAN production artist Eddie Stakes) and only 3 weeks to design and build it!

"The art director brought in an idea of what they needed: flashing lights, turbine fire blower on the back, chain slicer, etc.," said Barris. "We gave them a twentieth-century Batmobile that was different from Bob Kane's."

To save time, he realized he could use the long-idle Futura as a basis.

2. Batman (1998) by Anton Furst
In his design, Furst managed to capture the essence of a Batmobile while providing all-new design elements. The bat-mask was gone entirely from his design. In its place, the nose featured a large jet turbine intake flanked by sweeping, mandible-like front fenders.

 

3. Batman Forever by H.R. Giger
H.R. Giger (Alien, Species)was contacted in 1994 to design a Batmobile for Batman Forever. "His unique 'X' shaped design was to include articulated front legs/mandibles, retractable fins, and Gatling gun emplacements on each of the four pods on the sides of the vehicle. The design also combined side and forward intake ports with organic spines and a central pod connecting the four legs"

4. Batman Forever by Tim Flattery
Most controversial and complicated Bat-mobile ever. "After thinking thru it farther, he decided he wanted something more organic so it was back to the drawing board. The reference I used was everything from bats, bugs and crustaceans to Giger." - Tim Flattery

 5. Batman Begins by Nathan Crowley
Nathan Crowley never did any concept designs I'm aware of. Instead, he used parts from different modeling kits to cobble together by model bashing.

"I worked on the entire film, starting with the Batmobile, because we needed lots of time to build the thing. Unlike the other movies, we decided we were going to build the car to go high speeds and maneuver. We decided we were going to build a racecar and we were going to redesign the entire car. We thought we needed to update it. I think it had been beaten up too much. In the previous films, except Tim Burton's first one, they relied too much on digital effects, for all this trickery, so we decided we weren't going to have any digital elements to the car whatsoever. Everything you see on the screen is a real car, or a miniature car."   

"The rudiments of it was we also had to explain the origins of the Batmobile. One of our problems in doing Batman Begins was we wanted to explain where everything came from, so Batman can't build a super-car in secret by himself. We figured that was implausible. We couldn't convince anyone that one hiding his identity could create a car. So Chris came up with the concept of a military vehicle that was mothballed by his father's company. Which was fantastic for me, because it informed the design of it. Suddenly, this was a military vehicle, sort of an urban assault vehicle. I call it a sport tank. Also, the great thing about the Batmobile is, if you go down the road of making it an armored vehicle, a sort of high-speed sport tank, then that informs Gotham because why do you need that car unless the city's in decay? One helped the other. The root of it, through scripts and design, was to come up with a modern version of the car, with a modern look that people would identify with. And it was tricky. We showed it to Paul Levitz, who runs DC Comics, and he liked the shape; and we got it around to the fan base, and there was a big discussion for the last six months. It was such a departure from the old Batmobile. I think it works. When you first see it in camouflage, I'm still in awe of it."

"Yeah. What happened was, we were trying to find shapes that felt good, in the way I designed it with model making-I'd cut up bits of other vehicles and planes and stick them all together to try to find shapes. I'm fed up with curvy cars. I love angular cars anyway. I'm a big fan of the Maserati and all of that. Once we found those shapes it kind of took on an organic look. The fascinating thing about Stealth fighters is if you put enough angles on them, it becomes organic. It's very strange. So suddenly we found some bats in it. If you look at the back and see how the flaps are, you'll actually see the Bat symbol. If you look flat on the back of the car, with the flaps you'll see the bat-wings. I think subconsciously those shapes appeared. We wanted to maintain the jet--we figured we could not do the Batmobile without the jet. It's important. We could lose anything else, but we couldn't lose the jet. It's like the big old Land Speeder cars that always had jet engines. I liked that. The first Batmobile is reminiscent of the Land Speeders."

"I was a fan of [production designer] Anton Furst's [1989] Batmobile. I felt the Batmobile from the TV series was too similar to a car that I knew, whereas Tim Burton and Anton Furst's car was like 'Wow, that's pretty cool.' I can't say that I was a huge comic book fan. I just love design. To get a chance to design the Batmobile was brilliant, and I love cars."

What do you think of the designs? Do you have a favorite?

This post is part of the month long "A-Z Challenge." For the next 27 days, we'll be choosing a letter from the alphabet and crafting a post around it. To read more of the posts in the series click here here. To find out more about the challenge go here.

Hosts: Arlee Bird at Tossing it Out, Alex J. Cavanaugh, Stephen Tremp at Breakthrough Blogs, Jenny Pearson at Pearson Report, Matthew McNish at The QQQE, Tina Downey atLife is Good, Jeremy Hawkins at Retro-Zombie, DL Hammons at Cruising Altitude, Shannon Lawrence at The Warrior Muse, Elizabeth Mueller, Damyanti Biswas at Amlokiblogs, Karen Gowen at Coming Down the Mountain, and Konstanz Silverbow at No Thought 2 Small. Check the Facebook page and the Twitter hashtag is #AtoZChallenge.

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Here are some of the artists that worked on the science-fiction film John Carter (2011). As always, there are many talented artists involved in the production of a film. These are only some of them according to IMDb.

Synopsis: From Academy Award-winning filmmaker Andrew Stanton comes "John Carter"--a sweeping action-adventure set on the mysterious and exotic planet of Barsoom (Mars).

"John Carter" is based on a classic novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose highly imaginative adventures served as inspiration for many filmmakers, both past and present. The film tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins).

In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands

Directed by Andrew Stanton
Production Design by Nathan Crowley

Concept Design Supervisor Iain McCaig http://iainmccaig.blogspot.com/
Scott Patton - character designer http://www.scottpattondesign.com/store.html
Simon Webber - character designer

Wayne D. Barlowe - concept artist http://waynebarlowe.wordpress.com/
Tim Browning - concept artist
Seth Engstrom - concept artist
David Krentz - concept artist http://www.davidkrentz.com
Mishi McCaig - concept artist
Ryan Meinerding - concept artist http://boyrobot.com
Maury Ruiz - concept artist
Phil Saunders - concept artist
Mark Wagner - concept artist
Dan Walker - concept artist http://www.danwalkerconcept.co.uk/
Ross Dearsley - concept artist: Cinesite
Christian Huband - concept illustrator http://www.christianhuband.com/index.php
Vance Kovacs - concept illustrator http://www.vancekovacs.com/
Justin Sweet - concept illustrator http://www.justinsweet.com/
Ryan Church - concept illustrator http://www.ryanchurch.com/
Michael Kutsche - concept illustrator http://michaelkutsche.blogspot.com/
David Krentz - storyboard artist http://www.davidkrentz.com

I'll update this list as I find out more. If you know of any artists that worked on this that are not listed please let me know.

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The most shocking part of The Dark Knight (2008) was the Joker's bizarre facial scarring, but it could have been even creepier.

 Synopsis: The Dark Knight reunites director Christopher Nolan with star Christian Bale, who returns to continue Batman’s war on crime. With the help of Lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), Batman sets out to destroy organized crime in Gotham for good. The triumvirate proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a rising criminal mastermind known as the Joker (Heath Ledger), who thrusts Gotham into anarchy and forces the Dark Knight ever closer to crossing the fine line between hero and vigilante. - Warner Bros

In the book The Dark Knight: Featuring Production Art and Full Shooting Script they have some of the other ideas behind his slashed face. The scars are a lot more extreme with flapping skin and deep gashes.

First, a look at what Heath Ledger looked like in the film.



Now a look at some early designs

Joker by Rob Bliss

Production design by Nathan Crowley. Concept artists were Jamie Rama, Dan Walker, Matthew Savage and Mark Taylor.

Rob Bliss's portfolio is at robbliss.com

Do you wanna know how he got those scars?

Via SlashFilm

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