Watchmen Cast Interviews and Set Visit

[I Am The Knight]

Jackie Earle Haley:

CS/SHH!: When we spotted you in the jail cell you were lifting weights, those things were incredibly heavy. You've been training for a while for this film.
Jackie Earle Haley: Once Zack chose me and I can't tell you how thrilled I am about that. I realized I needed to start gaining some weights and start lifting. I started on my own with my crew and my buddy Jason Clay, I was training with him. We were doing some isolated stuff and then my karate crew, we worked out together on that. When I got here, I started working with Clay who was also our still photographer. I actually started to learn a lot of great stuff about working out and eating. And a lot of it has to do with zone dietish type stuff. I discovered I was eating wrong. Way too many carbs and not enough protein. The concept of low fat doesn't work well. And this program we're working on is incredible because these guys know how to get a full workout in less than 30 minutes. I really discovered it's high impact, you're getting cardio and everything and you're getting core training which amazed me. When I got here, I thought these guys would be all about getting the arms big. They were not worried about it, that would take care of itself. I love talking about it, I'm obsessed right now.

CS/SHH!: How are you dividing the character between Rorschach when he was on the kidnapping case and the '85 Rorschach?
Haley: How he was in the book. Not sure how to answer that. Except I think it's only Rorschach and there is not Walter Kovacs. I think that everything conspired to make it that way. This guy never had a chance. He's just one messed up individual. Every bit of vigilante work that he does is the inner child striking out. Smacking his mom in the face every time. I think some kids can grow up in an environment like that and survive it and be a normal, adjusted person to a degree. Function in society. And some people get a bit more twisted by it. Little Walter Kovacs didn't stand much of a chance. I think as he started to grow older, there are those examples of gray, complexity, justification, started to amount to a point where it's all just a bunch of bull*****. There's right and there's wrong. Mom needed to raise her kid. She needed to do certain things so she could make money. So she could feed this child and bring him up. But in so doing she's resentful of him forcing him to have this responsibility. Mom's justification is "Life is complex, Walter. Sure, I did some things but they justify what I was like." This justification f**ked his life totally. And he recognizes that. The reason to justify the behavior is the gray.

CS/SHH!: Can you talk about emoting beneath the mask?
Haley: We're doing a little bit of everything. It depends on what's going on with the camera, how far away it is. Sometimes I'm wearing the mask with tracking dots and my eyes are exposed. Sometimes I'm wearing a full Rorschach that's fixed. Sometimes it's dark, I can see all of you but it's like throwing a neutral density filter up. This is an interesting aspect of the character. As an actor... a vast majority of my role is wearing a sock over my head. That's different. When you look at it externally, there's Jackie looking back at this character in the movie, I've got a sock on my head. But when I look at it from the character's standpoint, it's this cool empowering character-discovering process. I do find when I'm with the makeup and hair people and wardrobe design, when you're going through that process, it's incredible way of finding out about the character. It was neat watching Rorschach get built. At one point I had this whole helmet on my head and that wasn't working out. But when all was said and done, we kept tweaking and dialing it in, one night I was doing the cemetery scenes, it's cold. We're here and it's raining in Vancouver, but they've got these rain machines making big drops. There's a shot where I'm walking up to the grave and there's this huge light behind me. I was casting this perfect shadow on the ground and I just went, "Wow, jeez..." It was like I was in the cartoon, I was in the comic book and the lines were just so perfect. That was pretty empowering when that starts to come together. My mind is able to get deeper into the guy. It's like walking onto a set like this, the world starts to come around you. This whole red head thing... it's a transformation too.

CS/SHH!: How familiar were you with the source material?
Haley: I've never been a huge comic book fan. Growing up, a lot of my friends were just really into comics and for some reason, I just discovered reading a lot later, when I was 15. I just started reading novels, I do recall seeing the characters, so I had heard about it. I recall three or four years ago I read people were suggesting me for this role. I think I flipped through a comic book, not the graphic novel. As this became a reality, I really dove into it. And I now want to read more graphic novels. Because you read this on a first pass and you're like, "Wow this is really good." Then you get into the depth on the second pass. At a certain point, I had to let it go so I could just focus on the Rorschach stuff. Because the book is so full of amazing depth and symbolism. All of that stuff you read just ties together.

CS/SHH!: Rorschach is the most popular character in the book, why do people take to him so much? Is it his complexity?
Haley: I don't know. I think maybe it gets back to what I was saying before. We all know we live in this complex world, but it'd be neat if things were a lot more simple. A lot of times, too, the complexity is in the eye of the beholder. Other people who have a third party perspective, it's a lot more simple. I don't know.

CS/SHH!: What's it like working with Patrick again?
Haley: Awesome. As a matter of fact, we were doing our first scene together and it was in Veidt's place where we get there and are looking around. There I am in my sock and there he is in his goggles and I said, "Who would've guessed this ***** about two years ago?" He started laughing. Hey in two years time we're going to be standing here in these outfits!

Jeffrey Dean Morgan:

CS/SHH!: How do you play a character like The Comedian in a forty-year span?
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: My first week of filming is the opening of the movie, The Comedian's death scene. Although The Comedian doesn't die. We're re-writing the script, he doesn't die... just kidding. [laughs] In that makeup, though it was five or six hours every day. So my first day of work started at 2:30 in the morning to be on set at 9am. I'm more worried about being the 19-year-old. That'll be a tougher makeup. But it'll look great, it's phenomenal.

CS/SHH!: Can you talk about that fight sequence at the beginning? We heard it'll be extended for the film.
Morgan: We shot it for a week and it's extensive. I came up here to Vancouver two months before we started shooting just to do choreography for that fight. It's cool, I'll tell you that. It's a lot more than what's in the comic book, obviously. With no reveal of who is throwing The Comedian out the window but in the way Zack shot it, it's something to see. I just saw portions of it and it's good. It's a helluva way to open up a movie.

CS/SHH!: You knew of the graphic novel before the gig, then?
Morgan: I knew of it and read parts of it. I didn't read the whole thing. When I went in to meet Zack I read it and I've now read the thing 20 times. My dad is a huge fan and he's read the thing 300 times. When I had questions about anything, I'd call him up and he'd give me what's happening. You guys know it, every time you read it there's something new that catches your eye. It's an amazing piece of work. I go online - and I've never done this before when I'm involved in a project - the way people talk about this, it literally is the holy grail of graphic novels and people are so concerned about what Zack is doing with the movie. I will say this, the fans are not going to be disappointed. We're not going to make Alan Moore look bad, or his brilliant piece of work. It's going to be a helluva movie, the scope of it. It's just huge. The detail is insane and Zack is a mad scientist, it's going to be something to behold.

CS/SHH!: Talk about your approach to The Comedian - he's incredibly multi-layered.
Morgan: On first glance, he's just a really unlikable guy, but at the end you don't hate him. So the tricky part for me, and I'm finding this to be a work in progress, the nuances and how to make him not sympathetic...you don't hate The Comedian, even when he shoots the pregnant woman from Vietnam in the face, you might go [laughs], "That's a bit too much Mr. Comedian." But at the same time, you don't ever end up hating him. So it's a fine line and we have to find our way. At first glance, I thought this guy was horrible. No morals whatsoever. But at the same time, he's a superhero and he's out there trying to do good. So we're just trying to find another layer that I didn't think of the day before. When all is said and done you won't hate him. I find him to be the most interesting character.

CS/SHH!: Seeing yourself in the costume for the first time, how did that change your feeling about the role?
Morgan: You're ready to kick someone's ass. I've been doing costume fittings for about three months. Yesterday we did it all for real, we did a camera test and I'll tell you, when you see it, it's the comic book coming to life. Mind you, on top of the makeup I have to do, getting into costume takes three and a half hours. But it's something. The first time I saw myself in the mirror I got the giggles. There's no resemblance to me whatsoever, I'm Edward Blake. It's really exciting and it's going to be fun seeing everyone in their [costumes].

CS/SHH!: Is it a challenge to come in to work and bounce around different time periods of The Comedian's life?
Morgan: Of course it is, but what helps a lot is the makeup process. It helps in finding my way. When I can look in the mirror and see where my sideburns are and how many wrinkles I have. I'll put some music on my iPod from 1960 and start feeling that vibe. They're so good in each department that by the time I walk on set, I'm feeling whatever I need to be. I'm there. Believe me, when I do 69, I'm feeling like I'm 69. That was a long first week and I felt every ache in my body.

CS/SHH!: The Comedian is killed because he stumbles onto the plan, but who's side are you on in this story?
Morgan: Well, being The Comedian, I'm going to go with his side. In any character you do, especially something like this, if you're going to do this and you're going to do it right, I'm fighting for The Comedian every step of the way. There's not even a question, Adrian is a scumbag, not Blake. That's how I approach it. I can't see both sides. I have to be The Comedian. And I am at this point, I don't like Matthew Goode at all. [laughs]

CS/SHH!: What's your reaction like being a toy?
Morgan: Again, you have to go to the scope. It's so amazing. Who ever thinks they're going to be a toy? I don't know, I haven't seen one yet. But when I do I'll probably get the giggles and get excited and sleep with the damn thing. The possibilities with this, the toys, the video games... it's just huge. I've never been near anything this big. The passion people have for this thing, I've never seen anything like it. We're staying so true to this, I can hardly wait for people to see it.

CS/SHH!: Well, that said, knowing the following, it has to be intimidating for you to know a lot is being put on your shoulders.
Morgan: Yeah, coming in, when I originally got the role, I had no idea how big and important it is for so many people. When we get closer to the countdown... right now we're involved in the making of it so we're blocking out as much as we can. I'm ashamed of myself for even looking at the internet because it freaks me out a little bit. This is a year and a half before the movie even comes out. People are ripping us apart. So I don't know if I should got on the internet anymore. But it is a little intimidating because you want everyone to be happy. I know in my gut people are going to be exceedingly happy, so you shouldn't have any doubts. All I can say is no one will be disappointed. The Comedian is not intimidated, but Jeffrey Dean Morgan is.

CS/SHH!: Of the stuff you have not shot yet, what are you looking forward to doing the most.
Morgan: I'm really looking forward to Vietnam. And also the Watchmen headquarters stuff because everyone will be there too. There are very few scenes in this movie where we're all together and that's one of the few scenes where we can all bounce off each other. These are such great, generous actors with the exception of me. We're all on different schedules so we're like ships in the night, I'm looking forward to those days.

CS/SHH!: That ship in the night aspect must give you something great to play with as you are sort of the outsider.
Morgan: Yeah, I like it. And that's actually not bad for me to not hang around with everyone because, as much as I like everyone, as an actor there is a certain dynamic. If I'm not hanging around with these guys 24/7 it will bring something to the set. I don't want to be friendly with anybody over the course of these scenes. The Comedian is not very friendly to anybody except maybe Laurie. We haven't spent much time together except maybe at the beginning. We had dinner a lot when we were training. But I think we're all excited to see one another in costume. It's going to be cool though.

Matthew Goode:

CS/SHH!: In the comic book Ozymandias has one of the more interesting costumes...
Matthew Goode: I know, slightly worrying. I remember when they told me [I got the role] and remembering, "Excellent!" Then I read the book and went, "Oh my God, I'm in a pair of pants." Luckily, they're slightly cooler. When I first went to L.A., I was in after Patrick [Wilson] and felt pretty good because he was like, "Dude, it's f**kin' awesome." He looks sort of Batman-y. I'm in more of a suit than just pants. I wouldn't have the legs for it. It would ruin the whole effect, my skinny, pasty English legs.

CS/SHH!: Were you familiar with the comic book prior to getting the role?
Goode: I wasn't. I met someone who is involved in the cartoon "The Incredibles" and I knew that was loosely based upon the novel here. I wasn't really into that area of comics and graphic novels, so it was all new to me, but I know it's apparently the best graphic novel ever written according to Time magazine. So when I did finally get around to reading it, it was so much more complicated and adult and intelligent than I expected. So when it came time to make the decision to do this I was like, "F**k me, I'm in."

CS/SHH!: What was the most striking thing about the book for you?
Goode: What was interesting, me and my friends just discussed the politics and apathy, and if we were attacked by another planet or an outside force, then surely everything would have to come together, so I thought that was a really interesting concept. And, obviously, with energy issues we have now... it's incredibly relevant and I feel very proud it was written by a Brit. [laughs] So, I think all of those things jump out particularly quickly. The idea that you can have a lot of fun.

CS/SHH!: How do you walk that line between the serious moments in this film and the possible camp that could come through?
Goode: With difficulty. What's funny on this job, I came right from "Brideshead Revisited" which you can't really get any more different. It's the same as anything. You learn your lines, you have a chat with Zack and the movie is bigger than any one particular actor or character. I'm dealing with it as I go along. On the first day I'm standing there in a bright purple jacket and blonde hair. I've got women who work for me in my office that are wearing very little. There are 200 people standing around... it's work, really. God knows what it looks like, but this is Zack. I know when he was making "300" people were watching the rushes wondering, "What the f**k is this guy doing?" He's a bit of a visionary and he's got so much energy - in Zack we trust.

CS/SHH!: What's your take on Adrian's part in this story? Is he wrong? Right? What's his angle for you?
Goode: There is the big question of morality and you've seen it before in films like "Saving Private Ryan" where you are saving the one with the possibility of more dying. And here it's saving the world... as a ratio compared to the rest of the world, to put it in that perspective it does seem like a good equation, obviously it's a horrific thing to do. The thing is, it's a line of insanity. Is it crystal clear? I'm doing it this way and I couldn't give a ***** what you think. His eating a bowl of hash and being in love with Alexander the Great, is he metrosexual? All of that rubbish - at the end of the day, I don't want Adrian to be maniacal in the slightest. Then again, we've still got a ton to shoot, so Zack might come back to me and say, "He's crazy!" I think I want him to be as human as possible. As clear cut and a bit remorseful for what he's done, but we'll play it a few different ways and see.

CS/SHH!: Adrian is not in the book a whole lot, but he's always present so is there a bulking up of your character scene-wise in the film?
Goode: That's sort of my worry is that you'll get stuck with a lot of exposition and that's fine but in the book when he's talking to his Vietnamese work group, it's suddenly that four or five pages of [talk]. That's worrying to do because, how the f**k am I going to do that without boring myself to death and making it interesting? So that's been broken up, as you obviously have to do with any adaptation to make it interesting. There hasn't been a "bulking up" but there's been sequencing changes that have been done well.

CS/SHH!: Do you ever play Adrian at your own age?
Goode: That's one of the things, he's meant to be in his 40s. There's a bit with the Watchmen in the '70s - that's about my age. But he's meant to be a fine specimen of a man. [laughs] So you have to suspend your disbelief. It's meant to be he's a walking advert for Oil of Olay. There hasnt' been too much prosthetic work. Poor Jeffrey [Dean Morgan], he's gone through the gamut of sitting through the makeup for several hours. He goes from 20 to 67 and, I'll tell you, you're going to love the opening of the movie. ***** the bed, he gets the crap beaten out of him. Thrown across the room, busting through tables. The less I'm involved in swinging the punches the better.

CS/SHH!: All of the characters have a past with one another so have you been hanging out with your co-stars?
Goode: Certainly not before the project and often times, because of the long schedule and the sequence and filming, we're not all here at the same time. But when we are, beers have to be drunk so we do go out and have fun together. You want to be as friendly with the rest of the cast as you can be. We have a laugh.

CS/SHH!: Do you look forward to being an action figure?
Goode: It's slightly embarrassing. There's an action figure in one of the shots, I've been staring at myself. I have to say, it's incredibly life-like. It's enjoyable and something I'd probably put in the *****ter at home. [laughs] Something people can see when they come out to the house and say, "God, you're an *sshole."

 

[I Am The Knight]

Patrick Wilson:

CS/SHH!: When we find Dan Dreiberg, he's not in the best shape - so are you doing De Niro-style method acting? How are you translating it to the screen?
Patrick Wilson: I probably gained about 20 pounds since the summer. The first thing I said to Zack when we got together I asked him how much weight he wanted me to put on. What's interesting is in the first couple of chapters [of the book] when he's in his plain clothes, or even in the Owl suit, he's pretty big. But by the time he takes his shirt off and he's naked, he's not a fat guy. There's this perception that he's huge and overweight. One of the first things Zack said is that's obviously a metaphor for what's going on in his life. Being more schlumpy and lost and all of those adjectives. Plus when you're doing a movie like this, when you're doing the early stuff, which there isn't a lot, you want to be able to fit in the suit - basically what I'm saying is I didn't want to go overboard. Nobody told me to, but I wanted to anyway. I'm a pretty lean guy anyway and I wanted to get a bit fuller.

CS/SHH!: Did you have to maintain a certain body mass for the suit makers?
Wilson: I talked to the guys who designed it, because by the time I did my first fitting in mid-July I was doing another movie where I was 185 which is what my weight is normally. So when we're making the suit, I told them I was going to be 15 to 20 pounds heavier. It wasn't anything that drastic. The weird thing has been trying to find this balance between the physical stuff that we do and the look of the character. What's right? What fits? I think we're doing a good job.

CS/SHH!: Can you talk about working with Jackie Earle Haley again since your days on "Little Children"?
Wilson: Well, we get along great. The first stuff we shot together was us breaking into Adrian's office. It was the first time I was in the suit, so nobody had ever really seen me in the suit. So we sat there before the first take and Jackie's putting his mask on and we're like, "What are we doing?" It's Brad Adamson and Ronald James McGorvey gone terribly wrong! [laughs] But it was great. Especially when you're playing guys who have known each other for a really long time, it helped. He's so great and such a warm person anyway. I found on this movie, not just between me and Jackie, everybody has this same focus. Everybody is in love with this material. The script, the graphic novel and so when that's you're common link, nothing else matters.

CS/SHH!: Dan is probably the most normal of the group, how do you fit yourself in with all of these eccentric characters?
Wilson: I can only read it from his perspective all along, so it's hard for me to even look at everybody else's arc. To me, he's such a complex guy, he is very real. I think the Batman similarities are on purpose. Dr. Manhattan is the only one with any real super power. I found him to have so much heart. When you see Dan with his glasses, he's a great guy. So all of the problems that are interesting as an actor: The sexual issues, the not knowing who you are, who am I? Now that I'm not fighting that battle? Who am I? So there's a lot to latch onto and we've really just begun. That's the stuff I'm looking forward to shooting. He goes through such a wide range of being introverted and lost. Trying to adjust to society. It's a great journey. I don't feel any loss of the flashiness.

CS/SHH!: Are you looking forward to piloting the Owl Ship?
Wilson: Oh yeah, have you seen it? It's pretty great. This whole thing, every new set you walk onto, you're just blown away.

CS/SHH!: How is the action going with the suit?
Wilson: It's high class problems, as I like to say. What am I going to do, complain about the suit? It's unbelievable. Mobility-wise, it's okay. Tension is hard, it's like a scuba suit gone haywire. You have the elasticity but it's just like anything. You just get used to it.

CS/SHH!: Did you and Jackie work out your history on your own?
Wilson: Zack did one on ones or two on ones to go through all of our relationships and how people started. What we see, what we may have missed. So, we definitely went through that. You have to establish how long they were together. And did they really fight together? That's the stuff you want to get to. And when they did, how much of it was at the same time? So going through that was fun, especially with me and Jackie because it's such a history with those two. It's a great relationship for these two complete opposite types of people to work together. To have an understanding of each other. So by the end it's tragic, I think.

SET VISIT

It's a bad day for Big Figure.

His twenty year grudge against Rorschach (aka Walter Kovacs) has led him to a poorly designed revenge scenario that will leave one of Big Figure's thugs soaked through with toilet water and thoroughly electrocuted on the floor of Rorschach's prison cell. And Figure, well, he'll be high-tailing it as fast as his little legs will carry him away from Rorschach.

Fans of Alan Moore's Watchmen - the '86 graphic novel often bandied around in passionate conversations affixed with praises like "milestone" and "seminal" and "masterpiece" - will no doubt recognize the above scene from the book's prison break sequence. And director Zack Snyder (300) is relishing the mayhem requested for this moment. "Big Thug goes into the toilet bowl, smashes it open, water spills out, Jackie jumps up and Big Figure runs away," reiterates Snyder. "[Jackie] then has his line about disposing the sewage in toilet bowl." That would be, "Never disposed of sewage with toilet before. Obvious, really."

It's October. 2007.

ComingSoon.net/Superhero Hype! has flown up to Vancouver to drop in on the long-gestating big screen adaptation of Watchmen, the project that has placed Snyder under much scrutiny. Nearly a month into shooting, Snyder reflects confidence and reverence for the film's source material as he sits with us in a section of an old paper mill that has been redressed to look like a prison. The crew around us is prepping for the scene. Nearby, actor Jackie Earle Haley - lean, scrappy, a flock of red hair on his head - does shoulder presses with two weights (60lbs. or so each) in his blood-splattered cell. Danny Woodburn, most recognized for his turn on "Seinfeld," is playing Big Figure.

"You get Danny being Big Figure, saying 'Just open the door so I can smell this son of a ***** cookin'!' - it's got a quality to it you don't imagine reading, but when you see it in a movie..." Snyder doesn't complete the thought, he just laughs. We understand what he's getting at. Although Snyder is remaining very faithful to Moore's material, right down to lifting dialogue, Watchmen is taking on a life of its own as evident in this scene. "It follows the structure of the comic very closely. When we flip through and try to find where we are, it's easy to do. There are some changes we had to make to make this a movie. It's not fat that needed to be trimmed, I mean, if we filmed every scene, this would be a five hour movie - not that there's anything wrong with that but it's not practical. I always say, the movie's job is not to replace the book. I would hope people see the movie then go buy the book."

Snyder whips out his iPhone eager to share an image. It's actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian. This is our first look at the former "Supernatural" actor in his full get-up... and it's dead-on. The Comedian's machismo fully realized. "Okay, no more," he says slyly pocketing the phone. Cameras are minutes away from rolling so Snyder fields questions quickly...

What does Jackie sound like as Rorschach? With another smile, Snyder evasively says, "We worked on a [Rorschach] voice, he's doing an amazing job."

Are you shooting film or digital? "We're shooting on film, with a lot of high-speed, there's still me [stylistically]. It's the way to go anyway, we're still doing the digital intermediate. We like shooting on film, posting in digital and projecting digital."

Does this film act like superhero comics do not exist? "Comic books don't exist because there are real superheroes. In the comic book store there are all pirate comics. We couldn't get the use of Superman issue #1 to use in the movie," he says incredulously. A shocking bit of trivia considering the powers-that-be behind this adaptation. "I wanted to make a comment in the film about that Golden Age. You'll have to look for it in the movie, because there's a quick flash of Hollis [Mason, the first Nite Owl] on his first day on the street and I wanted to do a shot of a Superman #1 [poster] in an alley and, as he comments in [the tell-all book in the film] 'Under the Hood,' I want to do that. I feel that's important to reference Golden Age heroes, they've influenced so much. And based on the images we're working on, there's a lot to comment on in the Golden Age that gets you to this point. Not a lot of young movie goers know this wasn't just an invention of the '80s. Batman didn't just show up with Tim Burton making a film."

Is it challenging to pull off a film set in the '80s? "It makes it more difficult because we always have to be conscious of it. We're now deep into the '85 of it. We've embraced it. There's going to be some [music like] Boy George, songs suggested in the book. We did a lot of research."

For all of his devotion to the book, Snyder hopes to create a film that's a talk piece. One that will have audiences questioning the rights and wrongs of the protagonists. As he tells us this, without missing a beat, he yells "Action!" The actors are going through the paces. This writer isn't able to make out what is being said in the scene, but I can imagine the exchange occurring between Haley and Woodburn isn't all that different from the book. Behind them, through the yellow, rusted cell bars there are all the makings of a prison riot: Fire. Toilet paper torpedoes the air. Shredded magazines and comic books fall to the ground from the floors above. (Later, upon closer inspection, we'll find that all the magazines and comic books are of the early '80s.)

Upon the call of "Cut!" producer Deborah Snyder and production designer Alex McDowell guide us on a tour of the other sets.

Stop number one takes us deeper into the paper mill where we come to discover the lab of Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), an awe-inspiring, mammoth set big enough to house the CG-assisted character when he chooses to grow in size. There are some very '50s sci-fi touches here and this is where we'll spend much of our day conducting cast interviews. After a break - during which this writer inadvertently hits on actress Malin Akerman at the catering table (I swear, I didn't recognize her at first!) - we board a van and take a drive out to the "War Room" and production office.

The former is a visual timeline of the film, from opening credits to close, that wraps around a large conference room. Concept art, photographs, blueprints, comic book panels, images acquired during location scouting... anything and everything that will inform the look of Watchmen.

"I think we talked a little bit about the title sequence, just kind of setting up the world that we’re in in '85," Deborah says. "These are just some of the elements of what we were doing in the title sequence: the JFK assassination - it kind of sets up our alternate history. And here's the Nite Owl…" She motions to a portrait of the hero done up Andy Warhol-style. "It was really important for Zack to reference pop culture as much as possible. But all the layers, the multi-layering, that's so rich in the graphic novel, to get at that was really important."

McDowell continues, "The title sequence sets up the whole power universe, 'cause it's completely woven with real events. So you've got all the characters interacting, like Andy Warhol doing portraits of the superheroes, with the Comedian and JFK, it was all of this stuff that you get to apply. By the time you come through to a title sequence, you're no longer going to know what is real history and what's Watchmen history."

The sheer prep work on display here is astonishing. "As we're walking around, you can kind of see Zack's process is he draws every frame of the movie," Deborah points out. "Like on '300,' he drew every frame and then we had storyboard artists redraw it so it was prettier, and more tight. And then we ended up realizing that Zack was always referring back to his boards because angles changed slightly and there wasn't as much detail or it was different detail. So on this one, he actually did all the storyboards himself. And the way he works is he creates these books where he will pull, whenever possible, the frame from the graphic novel. And his feeling is, if it works, why redraw it? Like why should I change it slightly for the sake of changing it and he really tries to use it and kind of moves throughout the frames. A lot of times he'll go and pull references from the Internet and he kind of creates these montage-y books which all the departments get copies of and it would be the springboard for discussion for laying out everything from the production design to the visual effects."

We're handed over to James Chow, prop master on the picture. He welcomes us into his "little action headquarters" where, right from the get-go, Chow introduces us to the most recognizable emblem of the Watchmen saga: The bloodied happy face. And believe it or not, the production had to get permission to use it before they could begin prepping this symbol for the screen.

"[We had to] determine what size it should be and then do the actual texturing," Chow explains. "So for example, we chose a size and there's different natural texturings. And then what happens is there's a blood spot that's created. So my dilemma was how do we create a blood spot which my boss Alex would be happy with and Zack, the director, would be happy with and we'd be able to replicate it every time?" Chow adds that a series of artists will hand-paint and recreate a number of buttons once a design is selected. It will then get scanned for the visual effects team to use as well.

He displays a myriad of props for us: Newspaper clippings, jacket art for Hollis Mason's "Under the Hood" (which looks as if it was designed by Saul Bass), the Nite Owl's flashlight and Rorschach's grappling gun.

With the prop presentation coming to a close, we head to our second stop; another hop in the van to a backlot where another production team is building New York City circa 1985. "At one point, we talked about going to New York City, but '85 New York City doesn't really exist anymore," Deborah tells us as we pick our jaws off of a faux city street staring at the storefronts in various stages of construction. "What a nightmare it would be to shoot on the streets. Then we went 'Well okay, how can we build something that's usable, that's gritty, but also, that's contained? And, Alex did a fantastic job. Every square inch was planned out and will be shot I think."

Up ahead and to the right, we spot the famous Gunga Diner. We're allowed inside, but there is not much to see save for exposed beams, a structure that will serve as the dining counter and booths. McDowell takes us further down through the backlot. "The story takes place in a fairly small area of New York anyway," he says, "which helps us, but we’ve got a kind of Porno Street which has a lot to do with Rorschach and then Blake Street which is a little more upscale and then Brownstone Street which is to do with Dan [Nite Owl]. And those represent the kind of three sort of social strata of the city and then a lot of it obviously is going to come to life in set extension." He indicates the massive metal containers stacked all around the location. These will hold green screens so the visual team can add in the city backdrop. "At street level, it's good. Compared to having to shoot in L.A. say on a Warner's lot or something, we’ve had a lot more control over what we’ve been able to do and make it specific to the story."

Our tour ends with the presentation of the full-scale Owl Ship. This will be rolled out for the film's street riot sequence and, with lifts, be given the impression that it is hovering over the crowd. Right now the ship is just a rough shell, however, we're allowed inside. Controls are being worked in, the glass dome eyes are in place and a crew is bustling to make it screen ready. And so, we return to Manhattan's lab for a series of interviews which you can each read by clicking on the links below.

http://www.superherohype.com/news/watchmennews.php?id=8092

 

[Doctor Jones]

Those were all great! Read them all!

 

[iDannyR]

Woah, nice.

Can't wait.