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Isaak Fernandez Rodriguez has created a monster. This talented animator made a quirky little film, just a labor of love, that has set the internet on fire. Everyone wants to know more about him, and about his film.

And what of the film? An exercise in limited color, it gives every impression of an old black and white film. But there are subtle, and not-so-subtle colors present that Rodriguez uses to great effect. And the visual style is so addictive and original, somewhere between a Marc Craste dream mixed with some Russian Constructivist nightmare.

Rodriguez has a whole series of shorts planned, though currently he’s not saying how many. Meanwhile, his public impatiently awaits the next installment of his Batman series, though it seems we’ll all be waiting a bit longer than we might have preferred. His full time job at Ilion Animation Studios keeps him busy happily animating on their first film, Planet One. And he would like to take a breather before launching into production just now.

I love the stark simplicity of this film. The environments are probably too simple, if anything, but the character design really makes me smile. A tiny Batman, more of the Lego Batman flavor than anything, who moves stealthily, silently, like a cat leaping from unexpected perch to unexpected perch. Rodriguez puts this little hero through his paces, builds up the suspense and then releases it in an explosion of action, the film’s only color. As much as I love overdone CG detail, I think I love this minimal approach even more.

CLICK HERE to SEE THE FILM

IN THE DIRECTOR’S WORDS:

“I’m Isaak Fernandez Rodriguez, a character animator from Barcelona, Spain. This is my first film. I was thrilled to make a film about my hero, Batman, with my own style and vision. Ever since I was a kid, I have always wanted to do something with this character, something different, because I think he has such a deep personality to explore. This short was a perfect vehicle to do it. It was such a great experience right from the first sketch.

I really wanted to do something personal and a little bit different with the character, trying to mantain a singular vision, like Tim Burton, Bruce Timm’s comic and, most recently, Chris Nolan, and try to adapt it for animation. It was one of the hardest parts, deciding the final look of the film. I like the old detective and secret agent films, and I liked putting a bit into the story too.

The lighting and postproduction was an integral part, to give the film that final look. Javier Esteban Rozalen helped me greatly in this regard. It took us many hours of testing with different lighting and postproduction tricks to get it just right. Episode One took 3 years of part-time work to complete the film; I could only work on this film after my full time job, at night and on weekends.

The music is my original composition, with many samples mixed in a simple program called Fruity Loops. It was fun to do, but very hard to get what I was after for some moments of the film. Currently, professional musician Oscar Araujo is doing a much better orignal soundtrack version for the short.

I paid special attention to the animation, and it was a suprise for me when I finished the first shots and saw that this cubic Batman had the same strong silhouette and 2D graphic aspects as my first concepts for the film. I think the simple treatment was fantastic for knocking the character around in some of the action scenes, and it responded so well in squash and stretch, turning his neck, and putting his cape in various forms. I didn’t use any automatic system for the character or the cloth. I did use dynamics in the final two shots when the window breaks, and on the rain in the first shots. But other than that, I can say that it was all animated by hand.”