Billion Dollar Batman

by Bruce Scivally

  Born in London, Ringwood had set out to be a painter, but was disillusioned by the abstract art that was popular at the time. Instead, he studied theater design and costume design at Central Saint Martin’s School of Art and Design in London.188 From there, Ringwood spent ten years as a set designer and costumer in the theater before he was asked to join the crew of the film The Corn is Green (1979), starring Katharine Hepburn. His work on that film led to his hiring on director John Boorman’s King Arthur film Excalibur (1981). “From there,” said Ringwood, “my theater career stopped abruptly and almost overnight, I became a costume designer in movies.”189

  In an interview for Deborah Nadoolman Landis’s superb book Costume Design, Ringwood said, “The Batman films were an extraordinary experience...I have to confess I’d never seen a Batman comic. I read about six of the early comics before I designed the movie. For me, the goal was to get the essence in my head and go for it. I expected a big, superhero-type of actor to play Batman, but they cast Michael Keaton. Michael is not overly muscular, so we had to turn him into a superhero, hence the rubber muscle suit. I was aiming to make his costume a ‘super-costume’ so that it was almost unbelievable. I wanted Batman to be bigger than reality on the screen.”190

  Ringwood began by dispatching an aide to Canada while Keaton was wrapping The Dream Team. The assistant returned with head and body casts of the actor, from which a full-size fiberglass model of Keaton’s body was made. “It was like having Michael here in the studio,” said Ringwood, “only in fiberglass. I spent a week with Lynne Burman, who is a wonderful sculptress, building up this fiberglass body with clay, trying to get a dynamic shape out of the body. We rejected several of them—some got far too big and looked almost like The Incredible Hulk—but finally we came down to a streamlined, aerodynamic version of the muscular body.”191

  Burton had instructed Ringwood to make the costume all black, rather than blue and gray. Ringwood complied, redesigning the Batsuit so that it expressed Bruce Wayne’s psychology. “One of the things I tried to do is that when he was in the costume, he and it were one,” said Ringwood. “I wanted it to be Batman, not to be a man dressed up in a costume—although, of course, you know full well that it’s Bruce Wayne in a costume. It’s as though the costume’s surface was him and that was his body and that was his head, and if you don’t make that believable, it doesn’t work. In the Adam West show, he was definitely in a costume. This, in a way, is meant to be him. When Bruce Wayne’s dressed up, it’s as though he becomes another animal.”192

  The Batsuit was made of tight-fitting Lycra, with specially cast foam rubber muscle pieces glued on top.193 “So even though it looked like it was one piece,” said Ringwood, “it was actually made up of many separate parts—a chest piece, upper arm, lower arm, a crotch and side piece, kneecaps and the lower leg. It had a zipper in the back so that Michael could just step into it. All I really did with the costume was streamline Michael’s body—instead of having him go to a gym for two years. And I think we ended up with a more interesting costume than we would have had if there had been a muscular guy underneath. We were able to exaggerate muscles and stylize them, whereas on a muscular body we would have had just real muscles.”194

  “It was at first difficult for Michael Keaton to move convincingly,” said Ringwood. “For example, the muscles on the suit moved in a different direction from

  Michael’s own muscles. We actually made four prototypes before we got it right. The result is a very light outfit, though you might find Michael disagreeing!”195

  The headpiece proved a challenge for Ringwood. “We had to fit the seams in such a way that they didn’t show on camera,” said the costume designer. “Since the outfit has to look as though it’s part of his body, the magical impact would be lost forever if you could see the seams.”196 Ringwood used the headpiece the same way he used the muscle suit—to pad Michael Keaton out to heroic proportions. “Michael has a rather round face, yet the image of Batman is this very sculptured, chiseled creature,” said Ringwood. “So we had to ‘chisel’ Michael’s features with the shape of the headpiece. We did that by putting aluminum cheek plates inside his mask every time he put it on.” The next challenge for the costumer was getting the ears correct. “Making them look sexy was extremely hard,” said Ringwood. “We had to make ten prototypes just to get them the perfect shape and size. The ears really have no function at all, when you think about it. He doesn’t hear through them and he doesn’t fly with them—they are purely visual. So I figured they were a bit like the ‘go-faster’ fins on 1950s American cars—just nonsense, really, to make him look mean and fast... They had to look tall and elegant, as if they were aerodynamic. Otherwise, they were just ludicrous things with no function—like in the TV program, where Batman wore those silly little mouse ears.”197 As a final touch, the actor’s eyes were ringed with black make-up to make the cowl blend more seamlessly with Keaton’s face.

  Ringwood also made half a dozen different Batman capes in varying weights, lengths and textures. A stiff cape with a membrane appearance was used for Batman swooping down into the museum, shorter capes for easy access jumping into and out of the Batmobile, and heavier capes for standing ominously.198 They first tried making the capes out of rubber, but found that rubber capes tended to ripple rather than swing when Batman was in motion. Other fabrics were tested before the costumer decided on an expensive Venetian wool that was rubberized on one side. The wool was cut into segments and, instead of being sewn together, was bonded together with a thin sheet of wet rubber embedded with gauze. “Michael wore a body harness underneath the costume,” said Ringwood, “which had two bolts at the shoulders, and the cape was literally screwed into these bolts on each side. The hardware was covered by the bat symbol, which was bolted onto the chest. So there was a lot of understructure holding the cape in place. If there had not been, the weight of it when he swung around would have torn the entire costume right off his body.”199

  Once the latex Batsuit was perfected, Ringwood made twenty-eight of them for Keaton and his stunt doubles, along with twenty-five capes and six headpieces. The total cost was $250,000.200 “I just saw this thing, and I thought, Yes!” said Keaton about first seeing the Batsuit. However, once he tried on the outfit, he found that it was extremely hot and cumbersome. An assistant with special tools was needed to bolt it together at the shoulders, which meant, among other things, that the actor had limited bathroom breaks.201 At first, it took the actor two and a half hours to get into the suit. Eventually, the costume team was able to get Keaton suited up in twenty minutes.202 “I’m a little masochistic, I guess,” said Keaton. “The hardest part was learning how to move in the suit. I don’t necessarily mean run and jump and fight. I mean move to get the optimum effect. Turn your head so the light hits it right, because it’s very dramatic and operatic.”203

  Like any good costume designer’s creation, the Batsuit helped Keaton hone his characterization. “When you’re in the suit, you feel and act differently,” said Keaton. “Also, you’re very isolated in the Batman suit, which is great. On the first Batman, I really used that isolation to help create the character, who feels cut off from the mainstream.”204 “The point of the Batman costume and cape is to interpret the cartoon character and turn him into the Dark Knight of the movie,” said Ringwood. “Our process has been to take something which is easy in two dimensions on the page, and turn it into a three dimensional moving thing that actually has some sort of animal quality.”205

  The Batman outfit was revolutionary. Not only did it strike fear into the hearts of criminals, but it also struck fear into the heart of action hero Sylvester Stallone. “The action movies changed radically when it became possible to Velcro your muscles on,” said Stallone. “It was the beginning of a new era. The visual took over. The special effects became more important than the single person. That was the beginning of the end...I wish I had thought of Velcro muscles myself. I didn’t have to go to the gym for all those years.”206 />
  Besides Batman’s costume, Ringwood also clothed the other characters. For Carl Grissom and his gangsters, Ringwood went for “a soft sell retro Forties” or “timeless modern” look. The suit worn by Jack Palance was one of two hundred unused outfits from the 1940s that were found in a warehouse in New York.207

  The Joker’s outfits were custom-made with input from Savile Row couturier Tommy “the Tailor” Nutter, who had previously created flashy, colorful outfits for the Beatles and Mick Jagger.208 In the comics, the Joker was tall and thin and wore lots of coats with tails. “Jack is stocky and more bulldog-like, so we focused more on hats and neckwear,” said Ringwood. He put together a mix-and-match wardrobe of 25 shirts, six suits, six coats and 12 hats. “You have to be brave to wear orange, purple, green and turquoise together,” said Ringwood. The fabrics for the suits were woven in Scotland from yarns specially dyed because Ringwood couldn’t find enough purple fabric elsewhere, bringing the cost of making the Clown Prince’s wardrobe to $40,000. When filming was finished, Nicholson kept all of it.209

  While Ringwood was busy crafting the Batsuit and other costumes, production designer Anton Furst, art director Terry Ackland-Snow and special effects supervisor John Evans were working to produce two fully functional Batmobiles. “Three of us worked on it and looked at every car ever made, I think,” said Furst. “We ended up with something that has brute force and forbidding power coupled with form, shape and sculpture. Something that is, frankly, quite rude.”210 The idea, said Furst, was “to get menace, violence and all the intimidation that comes out of (Batman’s) character into the car.”211 Furst said the Batmobile was partly influenced by Bonneville Salt Flats racers and partly by Corvette Stingrays of the 1950s, but added “we just went into pure expressionism in the end.”212

  To fabricate the car, John Evans and his crew spent less than $11,000 for a couple of aged Chevy Impalas, whose chassis were lengthened by 30 inches, and drive shafts extended by 18 inches. Spacers were used to increase the rear track to 97 inches, and the engine was dropped a foot to allow for a low hoodline. Largeintakes in front of the rear wheels supplied cool air to enlarged radiators.213 The final vehicle was 20 feet long with an 8-foot wheelbase, weighed 1-1/2 tons and featured a front, back and intake taken from jet aircraft and incorporated into a fiberglass shell. The car was fitted out with Browning machine guns hidden in the wheel housings, afterburners and an explosive grappling hook.214 The car was supported by twenty-four inch drag racing wheels imported from the U.S.215 It took a team of twelve technicians racing against the clock twelve weeks to build the Batmobile, though they were very enthusiastic about their work. Special effects supervisor John Evans said, “This was the only time I can remember my boys coming in early!”216

  BATMAN BEGINS

  In October of 1988, cameras finally began rolling on Batman.217 The first day got off to a rocky start. Burton was on the set of crime boss Carl Grissom’s office, filming a shot of Jack Palance as Grissom entering from a bathroom. The director called action, but Palance didn’t come out. Burton went to ask Palance why he didn’t enter on cue, and there was an immediate disconnect between the Young Turk director and the old pro Method actor. Palance’s temper flared, and he hissed at Burton, “I’ve made over a hundred movies. How many have you made?” On the audio commentary to the DVD of the film, Burton says that he had an “out of body” experience at that moment, intimidated by the physically imposing actor.218 This was just a small taste of the nerve-wracking pressures Burton would face. It was only his third film, and at a projected cost of $30 million, it had a budget five times that of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and twice that of Beetlejuice.219 As filming progressed, the budget climbed even higher, eventually ballooning to a reported $48 million. It was a huge sum for the studio to gamble on a director who hadn’t had any experience directing an epic-sized action film. To keep Burton from being completely overwhelmed, the studio packed the crew with experienced technicians, such as first assistant director Derek Cracknell, who had served in the same capacity on 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Battle of Britain (1969), A Clockwork Orange (1971), the James Bond films Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Live and Let Die (1973) and The Man With the Golden Gun (1974), and Aliens (1986). Second unit director Peter MacDonald had worked on the Star Wars film The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Excalibur (1981), Dragonslayer (1981) and Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and had just directed his first feature, Rambo III (1988). Handling model effects was Derek Meddings, who began as a model maker with Gerry Anderson’s TV series such as Thunderbirds and UFO before graduating to films like the 007 adventures Live and Let Die, The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), and For Your Eyes Only (1981), as well as the first three Superman movies. Special effects supervisor John Evans had worked with Meddings on The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, Superman II (1980) and For Your Eyes Only. Batman kept him busy not only with big explosions but also designing an array of bat gadgets.

  Shooting the film was cinematographer Roger Pratt, who had photographed Terry Gilliam’s ambitious fantasy Brazil (1985). Pratt decided to give the film a vibrant look through his use of lighting. “We’re going with tonal separation, lighting it as if it were black and white but shooting in color,” he said. “And we’re using a Kodak film stock that enables us to shoot in very low light while retaining bright effects. But the key is using sets of a single tone against which the Joker just pops out.”’

  “You have to rely on your people,” said Burton. “Luckily, I had Anton [Furst, production designer], Bob Ringwood [costume designer], Roger Pratt [lighting cameraman] and Peter [MacDonald] to rely on—basically everybody. But I found myself relying on people a little bit more than I usually do, which scared me and made me more anxious, and that had a lot to do with my mental state during the picture. I’ve never had a second unit—I’ve usually done it all—so it’s just hard to let go. But again, I couldn’t have had better help.”220

  Warren Skaaren continued rewriting the script even as shooting began. With continuing input from Jack Nicholson as well as from producer Jon Peters, he kept expanding the Joker’s role. “I think I had the most effect on that character,” said Skaaren. “Jack, as an actor, was the most available to me, as opposed to Michael, during shooting. Jack and I spent a fair amount of time on it.”221 It was Nicholson who came up with Jack Napier’s line, “Ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?” As Patrick McGilligan points out in his Nicholson biography Jack’s Life, the line is reminiscent of one Nicholson spoke as George Hanson in Easy Rider, “Did ya ever talk to bullfrogs in the middle of the night?”222 The more involved Nicholson became, the more the Joker’s role grew. What was originally supposed to have been a three- week filming commitment eventually became more than three months.223

  The veteran actor supported the young director’s vision, which gave the rest of the crew assurance in Burton’s abilities. “Jack gave the entire cast the confidence and courage—that’s not an overstatement—to make this film,” said Burton. “He was terrific. I had heard people talk about him before, but to watch him work was a pure education in the true art of filmmaking. In an instant, he could amend his performance at a particular time to give more menace, or less, as directed. He could alter his facial expression at a stroke, without having to reconstitute himself.”224 Nicholson had chosen to play the Joker “short-wired,” as he put it, saying, “I’d do anything that came into my mind.”225 And he did it while sometimes wearing make-up that took two hours to apply and one hour to remove.226

  To differentiate between the flamboyance of the Joker and the somberness of Batman, Michael Keaton gave a much more controlled performance. “With the way (Nicholson) played the role so high dramatically,” said Skaaren, “we decided that Michael Keaton should take the quiet, more thoughtful road, because you can’t have two people that big shouting and chasing each other around.”227 Said Keaton, “I discussed the role with Tim as well as Jack. The character was clearly more powerful if he was more internal. As Jac
k said to me in makeup one day, ‘Just let the wardrobe act, kid.’ There was great wisdom in that statement. The real power came from within. My natural tendency is to do more because you sometimes fear you’re not doing enough. The longer I’m an actor, the more I discover that less is more.”228

  Batman (Michael Keaton) has the Joker (Jack Nicholson) in his clutches (Warner Bros./Photofest, © Warner Bros.).

  Keaton enjoyed a good working relationship with his on-screen nemesis. “Working with Nicholson was a definite incentive for me as an actor,” Keaton told Comics Scene magazine’s Marc Shapiro. “With Nicholson, you get much more than his talent. You get his knowledge and his point-of-view about movies. You get an actor who comes to life right in front of your eyes.” The on-set camaraderie evolved into an off-set friendship as well. “Jack and I are basically the same kind of people, which is why we got along so great,” said Keaton. “We would sit around between shots and talk about all sorts of things. We would eat dinner together, hit the art museum. It was a great experience.”229

  Even though Tim Burton had directed Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice, the working relationship between the two was different on Batman. “It was more difficult,” said Burton. “This was a tough one for Michael because much of what he had to do, especially at the beginning, was, he would come in at the day’s end, put on his Batsuit, which was a very uncomfortable suit, and do two shots. For Michael, the kind of actor he is, that’s very difficult.”230 It was especially difficult for an actor who had to sometimes work through physical pain. “Occasionally, I have back problems,” said Keaton. “I hurt my back a little bit on Batman, but I hurt my back much worse on Mr. Mom. That’s the great irony.”231 According to second unit director Peter MacDonald, Keaton had wanted to do all of his own stunts, “but it’s harder than normal to do that when you’ve got this almost immovable suit on. You have to be a kind of superman to be able to move. So we had the normal stunt guy and we had a martial arts guy, and we had a ballet dancer. The ballet dancer was the one that did the walk in, because this guy could swish his cape and look great, you know—and then two quite tough guys to do the fighting.”232 Keaton spent a lot of time exploring how to move in ways that would make the angular cowl and cape catch the light dramatically, but the Batsuit reacted differently with each lighting set-up. “It’s a can of worms,” said Burton. “We truly were learning things as we went on this. Mike and I would try to figure out how he should move. We’d come up with a movement that was great. Then we’d try it again, and it would look ridiculous in another shot.”233