Watchmen Video Journal #5: The Owlship

Watchmen Video Journal #5: The Owlship

Watchmen Video Journal #4: Gibbons

Watchmen Video Journal #4: Gibbons takes a peak behind the scenes of the Watchmen movie by talking with the artist of the fantastic graphic novel. Dave Gibbons teamed up with Alan Moore to create the original masterpiece and takes a trip to the movie set to talk about the sets and look of the movie with director Zack Snyder.

Watchmen Video Journal #3: Stunts

Watchmen Video Journal #3: Stunts takes a look behind the scenes of the Watchmen movie with the stunts of the movie. The Prison scene of the movie is highlighted as the crew sets a man on fire.

Watchmen Video Journal #2: Costume Design

Watchmen Video Journal #2: Costume Design takes a look behind the scenes of the costumes of the Watchmen Movie.

Watchmen Video Journal #1: Sets and Sensibility

The Watchmen Crash Comic-Con

Many disappointed Watchmen fans were turned away from a full crowd as the Watchmen panel further explored the alternative world of the 1980's at the 2008 Comic Con in San Diego. Last year the crew unveiled a poster for the movie. This year they showed more detailed clips and talked about the mature aspect of the movie.

One notable point is that Zack Snyder claims the Watchmen is hovering around the 3 hour mark right now. He mentions that the Warner Bros. Studio wants that trimmed down to 2.5 hours by release date which already has die-hard fans mentioning a director's cut.

Snyder's doing a fantastic job of P.R. with the movie by keeping interest for the fans who are aiming for the moon. Many consider the original graphic novel of the Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons to be the Citizen Kane of their world. A movie version has been in the works for years and many will not tolerate anything less than the best movie possible.

MPAA Edits Watchmen Trailer

Steven Spielberg edited out guns in his movie "E.T" to be more "P.C" with the times. Personally, I'm not a fan of that move but I guess that's Steven's choice. Zack Synder, the director of "Watchmen," was faced with a similar situation with the release of the first trailer for his movie. The MPAA thought it would be too risky to show a person aiming a gun at the audience and he had to replace said gun with a digital walkie-talkie.

*sigh* ...that's pretty sad. If you watch the trailer you'll never notice what the dude is holding. The scene lasts less than a second (about 12 frames) and goes by so fast you have to freeze frame it to even notice. It happens about 1:33 in the Watchmen trailer below.

"Still, the Motion Picture Association Of America doesn't want to take any chances, which is why they told the director of Watchmen, Zack Snyder, that he couldn't have a guy pointing a gun at the audience in the trailer.

Snyder replaced the gun with a walkie-talkie. This way, if anyone from 1903 watches the trailer, instead of ducking and/or running for their life, they'll just drop their bowler hat, curl up into a ball, rock back and forth, and mumble into their shirtwaist, "What world is this? What is happening to me? Where am I?" (source)

First Look Watchmen Action Figures

Toy News International has posted images from the DC Direct action figure line of Watchmen characters and they are looking pretty cool. This lineup is part of the New York City Comic Con. Series 1 has the action figures for the Silk Spectre, Nightowl, Ozymandias, and Rorschach.

Extras on the set of the Watchmen

(via Pop Photo) There has always been a thin line between film and still photography for Hollywood phenom Zack Snyder. Director of last year's hugely popular Greco-Persian war story 300, Snyder has been taking pictures for most of his life -- inspired by the example of his mother, an artist/photographer who also planted the film seed by giving her son an 8mm movie camera when he was ten. "When I got out of college I started working as a director-cameraman for commercials," says the photographer, a graduate of Pasadena's Art Center College of Design. "I was using a Polaroid 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 pack-film camera as a way of checking exposure and previewing lighting, so I carried it with me wherever I went."

Snyder went many places, spanning the globe to make music videos and Clio-winning commercials for clients such as Jeep, Budweiser, and Titleist, and shooting Polaroids as he traveled. Why Polaroids? "I look at a photograph as something like a sand castle," he explains. "I like that it's a one-off." Snyder shoots Polaroid Type 55 black-and-white Positive/Negative film, as do many fine-art and documentary photographers, but unlike those photographers bravely throws his negative away.

Watchmen Video Production Blog

Video Journal #1: Sets and Sensibility
The first of 12 video blogs that we will be releasing during the next year to give you an inside look at the making of Watchmen. We'll launch one every month on the 6th, so keep an eye out for them as they will be premiering on various sites throughout the year.

Superherohype have launched the first of 12 video journals from set of Zak Snyder's graphic novel adaptation of Watchmen, hitting theaters on March 6th, 2009.

Here it is, the first of 12 video blogs that we will be releasing during the next year to give you an inside look at the making of Watchmen. We'll launch one every month on the 6th, so keep an eye out for them as they will be premiering on various sites throughout the year. With that said...

- Zack

A complex, multi-layered mystery adventure, Watchmen is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the "Doomsday Clock" - which charts the USA's tension with the Soviet Union - is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed-up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes.

As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion - a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers - Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity...but who is watching the watchmen?

Comic legend Alan Moore keeps true to roots

The BBC News sat down with iconic Alan Moore to take a look at his past successes and future endevours. Currently, Alan Moore's Watchmen is due to hit theaters in Feb. 2009.

"Watchmen author Alan Moore is revered across the world as being one of the most creative forces in the industry.

Books such as Watchmen, From Hell, League of Extraordinary Gentleman and V for Vendetta show that some comic books must be placed on the high table of literature.

But despite his fame, Moore still lives in his home town of Northampton, in a three-bedroom mid-terrace home similar to the one he grew up in.

As a youngster he quickly became fascinated by stories and books, he explains as part of a Inside Out documentary for BBC One in the East of England.

"I had joined the library by the age of five and I naturally gravitated towards mythology, fairy stories, Arthurian romances and the legends of the Greeks and Romans," he says." (...continue)

First Views of Watchmen Character Pictures

Zack Synder has officially given us 5 of the characters in full costumes from the Watchmen movie. He updated the official Watchmen Blog with the images today and they are spectacular. We see for the first time a handful of the important characters from the Watchmen world. The Comedian, Nite Owl, Ozymandia, Rorschach, and the Silk Spectre.

Here we are, officially one year and counting until the release of Watchmen on 03.06.09. Being a fan that follows production blogs, I know that the time a film is in post can often seem like an eternity with interesting bits of information few and far between. So to help pass the time, here is your first look at some of the Watchmen characters.

-Zack

Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian

Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl

Matthew Goode as Ozymandias

Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach

Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre

Watchmen Wraps Production; New Image Released

New photo from the Watchmen movie

Zack Snyder has wrapped production on the movie adaptation of the Watchmen graphic novel. As a 'wrap' gift to the fans, Zack dropped us this little image from the Watchmen movie.

Watchmen Is A Wrap

The official Watchmen site is giving us word that production is nearing the end as Executive Producer Herb Gains gives some details on the shoot with his farewells to the great times had by all making the movie.

"As we approach the last days of shooting Watchmen -- yes, the end is nigh -- it's time to reflect on the whole Watchmen experience. I think back to January 2007 when I first met Zack and he walked me through his drawings for the title sequence. I remember my initial reaction was, How can we shoot all of it? Why do we have to shoot all that? And if we do, how do we shoot all of it? We spent the next two months scouting, researching and budgeting locations all over the world, including Australia, London, Prague, Spain -- at one point we even considered New York -- and, of course, Los Angeles.

I now sit in my Vancouver hotel room one year later, and guess what? We did shoot all of it -- every frame of it, and not just the title sequence drawings but all of Zack's drawings are now committed to film. The combination of modern-day technology and the level of artistic ability of so many people has made the Watchmen experience second to none. The spirit behind the making of this film was nothing short of total pleasure and love. As I wandered from room to room at the wrap party, there was not only a sense of accomplishment from everyone involved but a feeling of sadness that it's coming to an end. The one thing that remains for me is the anticipation and excitement of seeing the finished product, knowing that we’ve all worked on something very special.

Thank you Zack, for allowing me to be a part of it."

-Herb Gains
Watchmen Executive Producer

Tales from a Fan from the Set of Watchmen

What fan of comic books doesn't hope to someday be cast (at least as an extra) in the film adaptation of their favorite comic book? Well, as Joel Studer told WatchmenComicMovie, he was lucky enough to get onto the set of Watchmen.

Studer writes about the experience in his own words. A snippet of his entry reads:

I read Watchmen a few years ago and ever since have been determined to get everyone I know to read it. I'm a motorcycle builder and mechanic living in Washington, and know very little about the movie industry, but when I heard they were filming a movie version of Watchmen in Vancouver, I knew I had to find a way in. (...continue)

Who Scores The Watchmen?

The music of the Watchmen is looking good. An announcement this week on who will compose the films music.

"Tyler Bates, a composer best known for his collaborations with Zack Snyder and Rob Zombie, has been chosen to provide the score for the upcoming adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen. Comingsoon reports that Snyder has recruited the man who scored 300, saying about that earlier project "It moves the film into mythology cauterizing the images as you view them, making them something they could never be alone." Bates has also written the music for Dawn of the Dead (2004), Halloween (2007), The Devil's Rejects, and Zombie's Werewolf Women of the SS trailer from Grindhouse." (source)

Watchmen Storyboards

New updates for the Watchmen's director Zack Snyder himself. This week Zack revealed some of the storyboards for the film adaptation of the Watchmen graphic novel. Storyboards are crucial for the filmmakers to visualize the shots they set up. Zack talks in detail about the vital part the storyboard process plays.

• Watchmen Storyboards

Alan Moore Doesn’t Care About The Watchmen

Alan Moore’s feelings about his comic books being turned into movies have never been much of a secret. On one hand, you can’t blame him – the adaptation of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was pretty horrid. But the news surrounding the writer’s attempt to have his name removed even from the good adaptations, like V For Vendetta, is the stuff of legends. With Moore’s most popular and groundbreaking creation, Watchmen currently filming, has the comic book legend changed his mind?

In a word: No. Not a bit.

In fact, Moore recently confirmed with Wizard Magazine that the studio has already sent over the paperwork Moore has to sign to have his name removed from Watchmen and the money he’s entitled to sent to artist Dave Gibbons – a similar agreement to what Moore had for Constantine. Moore told Wizard, ”I got a piece of paper—they must’ve learned something from the V for Vendetta debacle. I got a piece of paper a couple of months ago saying, “I, the undersigned, hereby give you permission to take my name off of the film and to send my money to Dave Gibbons.” So I sent that back to them all signed and sealed, which means that now I don’t have to rant and spew about the film.” (...more)

Watchmen Movie Stills Vs. the Comic Illustrations

Watchmen Movie Stills Vs. the Comic Illustrations

Take a look at how the set from Zack Snyder´s Watchmen matches up to the comic from Maxim Magazine.

DAVE GIBBONS VISITS THE SET OF "WATCHMEN"

The first outsider's report from the set of "Watchmen" is in, and it comes courtesy of non other than Dave Gibbons himself, artist and co-creator with Alan Moore of the venerable graphic novel upon which the Warner Bros. film is based.

In a post to the official "Watchmen" blog over the weekend, Gibbons described emotionally his visit to the set of Dan Dreiberg's (Nite Owl) apartment, listing various artifacts he saw including framed copies of The New York Gazette with stories of past Nite Owl exploits, trophies in glass display cases, and, said Gibbons, "over there, on its mannequin stand, the faded costume of the original Nite Owl keeps silent vigil. (source)