Batman: Revenge
Seeing Batman and legos together is a childhood dream. -Aaron Schoenke, Bat in the Sun Productions
Slick recreation of the batmobile, and the lighting is pretty reminiscent of the Burton films. -Spite Your Face Productions

Behind the Scenes
Though the film uses the closing sequences of Batman Forever as a springboard for its story, the look resembles the Gotham City seen in Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns. From the neo-gothic architecture, lighting, and the batsuit itself, the film pays homage to those on-screen environments. The formal wear used for most of the citizens, for instance, was to create a connection to the wardrobes and costumes in those films, including The Animated Series which took similar influence.

That was excellent! -Clark Bartram, Batman: Dead End

The Riddler's costume was inspired by depictions from comics, film, and television; similarly, his technical expertise within Batman Forever influenced his lab in
Batman: Revenge, including the chair, a deadly followup to his previous inventions. 		Filming began on October 17th, 2003, with pre-production beginning earlier that year. Similar to live-action films with storyboards and animatics, two stop-motion animations (pictured below) were made first to help pave the way for principal photography.

The first showing was on December 12th, 2003, which was the 14-minute film along with several minutes of batmobile animations, raw footage, and deleted scenes. Three cuts of the film have been released, each having the same narrative. The original 14-minute film, made without sound effects, was followed by the 12-minute "Director's Cut" which trimmed parts of the film, color-corrected scenes, and added sound effects to accompany the score. Then edited to meet specific short-film guidelines, the 6-minute "Special Edition" followed, serving as an abbreviated version alongside the longer releases.
Creating the Batsignal

The batsignal seen in Batman: Revenge when illuminating the night sky was accomplished by first creating a custom image composite using picture editing software, printing it on glossy photo paper (pictured left), lighting it by three flashlights at particular angles and each with different intensities, and then placing the paper with enough distance between it and the elements in the foreground to create the illusion.

This, along with natural lighting also used, produced the effect for the scene as Bruce looks out before suiting up as Batman.

Remastered
Filmed using the LEGO Studios camera in 2003, while the equipment offered a positive experience, the lower resolution required other programs be used to achieve higher quality playback. Though picture quality would improve, software available at the time had many limitations. A documentary on LEGO Studios can be viewed here, which includes footage of Batman: Revenge in the video's Standout LEGO Studios Showcase.

(Pictured Right) A side-by-side screencap comparison before-and-after the remastering
For the 20th anniversary of the 2003 premiere, an extensive remastering was completed on the Director's Cut, Special Edition, teaser, and film clips. To achieve the desired results, various film and image editing programs were used with a scene-by-scene approach rather than a one-application-fits-all process. Including rendering, hundreds of hours were spent to bring the footage to full HD.

Pre-Production Gallery







This non-commercial fan film is not associated with LEGO, DC Comics, Warner Bros. Studios or the Batman franchise in any official capacity and cannot be bought or sold.