SEASON 1 "PILOT" IS NOW AVAILABLE!

Greetings Bat-Fans,

I know this has been a long time coming. Some of you have been made aware as to why, some of you have not. But I thank ALL of you for your incredible patience and understanding!

So, are you confused by the title of this blog? "Pilot", you say? "What is this?" Well the answer is fairly simple, actually. While discussing things with my Project Consultant, forum name "matteber", we made a list of some pros and cons of creating Grant Morrison's epic as a full-length feature "production". However, after realizing just how INSANELY long it would be (my best guess put it between 4 - 6 hours), we came up with the idea of doing it like a television series. Each chapter of the story would be 1 "episode". As matteber pointed out, each comic ends on a natural cliffhanger (just like a lot of serialized television does). It was only a natural fit to create each "episode" on its own. Then, when it's all over and the DVD's are mailed out, it will be sort of like having your very own "season" on disc.

For the record, this project will be split into 2 seasons. Season 1 is "Batman and Son" through the end of Final Crisis (the natural break and ultimate cliffhanger). Season 2 will be "Batman Reborn" up through Bruce's return.

Now, on to the task at hand. Below, you will find 2 youtube videos. Youtube only allows uploads of up to 15 minutes in length; the "pilot episode" clocked in at around 18. So I had to split it up. In the future, all episodes will be much shorter, and will be available in only 1 video (with exception to "Season Finales" and "Season Premieres").

In addition to having to cut the video into two halves for length, the video also had to be under 2 GB in size. My original video files are quite large (and of course will be trimmed down for the dvd) and I rendered it in a size which would upload to youtube quite quickly. So, having said that, the render and youtube combined to nerf the aspect ratio. It won't look like this when you eventually get the dvd.

You may also notice that the images are a little dark in some places, or may appear a little grainy; this is due to 2 reasons:

     1. The rendering nerfed it a bit.
     2. The early chapters (Batman & Son, The Black Glove) were taken from my trade paperbacks that I had on-hand. The paper quality is pretty basic, and in some spots translated more darkly than I would like. From RIP onwards, the images will be taken from nice glossy paper and will look much better. But most of the issues are due to the rendering and youtube natural (crap) video resolution.

You may also notice that the dialogue at times seems a little strong for the microphone and at other times seems just fine. This is a natural progression of everyone recording with different equipment, and not being in the same room together. I've put things together just about as good as I can. Sometimes you will hear a "puh" sound on the mic when certain words are spoken (words starting with a 'p', or 'b', etc.). This is unavoidable.

In total, I have an additional 3 episodes ready to go...but I'm not uploading them all at once. These episodes take a little bit of time to put together, and if I put them all up at once then you'd be waiting for quite a while for more. This will allow me to release a video at the rate of about 1 per week. So, when I say this is like a serialized television show, now you know what I mean.

So, without further blabbering by me...here we go. Please leave comments in the comments section (I'd REALLY like to get the comments on this site going strong!), or shoot me an email if you don't want to take 2 minutes to sign up :-) I'd love to hear feedback, how awesome I am (hopefully), and criticisms (welcome).

Here we go...Grant Morrison's "BATMAN", Series Pilot.

EDIT: My blog is having difficulty embedding any videos tonight (gotta love free software).

Here are the links:

Pilot: Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U2RuwXD49w

Pilot: Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3b5DfIufVA


Hope to hear from all of you!

--James