Readers of my blog - or, more likely, friends of mine on Facebook - got a surprise earlier this month. Out of nowhere on a Friday appeared this video, in which I star in a reenactment of the interrogation scene from the The Dark Knight:
Many of you may have wondered how - or why - this came about. Is this just what I do in my spare time? Well, only on certain weekends. But this reenactment - created with the help of Jared Van Dyke, my college friend (and noted Batman expert) as Batman, Jule Van Dyke, his wife, as the camerawoman, Tony Van Dyke, his brother, as Commissioner Gordon, and with other members of the Van Dyke family (though not Dick) in production roles - has been a long time in the making.
The story begins whenever it was that I first realized I could do a more-than-passable Joker impression, which I believe was sometime in high school. In college, when I met Jared, and we bonded over our mutual love of Batman (and argued over our different philosophical approaches to societal decline), we eventually started characterizing our relationship - in jest, of course - as Batman vs. The Joker.
With this goal in mind, we made a few preparations. Over Christmas Break, we watched the original scene and memorized our lines. When we returned to campus, we rehearsed a few times and did some blocking. Jared procured a pair of boxing gloves, and I told him to hit me convincingly hard (and, if he ever forgot his lines, just to hit me again and shout "WHERE ARE THEY!"). A few hours before our performance, we went out to the local Wal-Mart and bought flour and green food coloring; not wanting to buy lipstick, I borrowed a tube from a girl on the track team who didn't mind the use. I then borrowed a vest from a friend, but already had a good shirt and green pants; Jared had already assembled his costume. We were ready.
When we finally went on stage, we were a hit. Jared and I (and Elliott Murphy, our teammate whom Tony succeeded in the role of Gordon) thought it went well when we did it. We thoroughly terrified our audience, won the talent show, and received many compliments for a long time thereafter. There was only one problem: It wasn't filmed. Unlike every other talent show act I performed in college, this one, arguably my best, was not. I was crestfallen. The only evidence that the performance ever happened at all is the memories and reactions of those who witnessed, the sternum I briefly bruised from Jared's punches to it, and this photo:
Pictured: BFFs
But this was hardly enough. I tried to satisfy my acting bug in other ways. One of those ways was by, well, actually acting. I auditioned for and won a part in a one-act play on campus that year called Degas C'est Moi, playing an unemployed New York man who wakes up one day and decides that he is the deceased French Impressionist painter Edgar Degas, and goes throughout his day to see if anybody "notices."
My actor's portrait for Degas C'est Moi. The caption references my role "in a reenactment of the interrogation scene from The Dark Knight." (Better view here.)
The first scene of Degas C'est Moi. Photo credit: Caroline Kennedy Green.
Assessing the aesthetics of a toothbrush in Degas C'est Moi. Photo credit: Caroline Kennedy Green.
Marveling at the beauty of a homeless man in Degas C'est Moi. Photo credit: Caroline Kennedy Green.
Even this, however, was not enough. I wanted to reenact the interrogation scene from The Dark Knight, ideally with Jared, Elliot, and myself all reprising our roles. And this time, I wanted it filmed. As time went on, however, the dream became ever more impractical. Elliot and Jared both graduated, married, and moved away. Soon, I graduated, and moved far away from both of them. The three of us did reunite for our college's homecoming in 2015, but we were not prepared to take advantage of the opportunity as we perhaps should have. It seemed my dream was lost, and I would just have to keep telling people how great it was in lieu of having some proof to show them. Not having some live video proof had become one of my greatest college regrets.
But I am the sort of person who does not let a dream die. I may take a while to get around to realizing it, but I can be Ahab-like in my determination and persistence (see, e.g., my first foray into competitive eating). And so it was with this. Around February of this past year, I learned that my family would be vacationing in July in South Haven, Michigan, a town right on the coast of Lake Michigan, and about an hour away from Grand Rapids. Grand Rapids just so happens to be where Jared lives now. Realizing the opportunity, I mentioned it to Jared, who wholeheartedly agreed to it. I then blocked out vacations days, and Jared made sure he would be in town during that period. At last, the dream wold come true! All we had to do was practice our lines, gather our costumes, and wait.
As the appointed time drew closer, our preparations became more serious. Two weeks out, I began to read my lines every night to ensure memorization. When I finally escaped the wilderness of the Cleveland Republic National Convention, I returned to Cincinnati and began to assemble a costume and make-up: green pants and a purple shirt from Good-Will; a green vest (ordered online); green food-coloring (Wal-Mart). Jared, for his part, procured a Batman mask and shirt, and found some pretty convincing pants and boots. He also managed to conscript Tony, his brother, Julie, his wife, and other family members of his to be involved in various capacities, and found a good restaging location: his parents' garage. We were ready.
When the day and the hour had come, I drove out to Jared's residence. Upon arrival, he and I ran through the script a few times without doing any physicality or blocking. Confident that we had the script down, we then went onto blocking. Again, with the original as our guide, we divided the scene into five distinct sections. We would film each of these separately, since each one had a roughly internally consistent yet unique set of attendant angles and positions that would make transitioning from one to the next relatively seamless. We then had a nice dinner together. Since I had heard that Heath Ledger achieved his Joker's excessive tongue movement by dehydrating himself, I, too refused to drink water for most of the day leading up to the shoot (despite running 11 miles that morning), including at dinner. Satisfied with our meal, we then suited up (Jared fully, I declining to put on my makeup), and drove over to our shooting location. At the time, I looked something like this:
"Hello, ladies."
And Jared looked something like this:
#Batmanselfie
At the Van Dyke residence, we prepared for our shoot. We had to block of
all sources of natural light in the Van Dyke garage, and remove all
unnecessary debris that could get in shots. We also had to set up our
camera, figure out lighting, and other such technicalities. Before we
began, I realized we didn't have any flour; the Van Dykes graciously
supplied corn starch, which worked just as well. I applied all of this to my face (much as Heath Ledger applied much of the Joker's makeup himself). You have already seen
the final result, but here is a different picture.
"Hello, ladies. Hey, why are you running?"
With everything up and ready, we now only had to film. We confronted technical problems and filming issues as we met them, adjusting positions and angles based on how things looked on the camera. We improvised frequently along the way, often to wonderful results. Instead of starting in mostly darkness, we used a single lightbulb, cut to black when Gordon left the scene, used this a transition for the next scene, and had Batman appear behind the Joker when all the lights turned on. Lacking handcuffs, we decided to use a zip-tie instead.
Filming of the first scene about to begin, with the Joker (me) and Gordon (Tony Van Dyke)
The fun result of this was that Gordon (played by Tony Van Dyke) released the Joker from his bonds by brandishing a knife, giving the scene a momentary edge there that the original did not have. I did something smaller and subtler when I decided to give the Joker an "oh crap!" look upon Batman's angrily grabbing him, something also lacking in the original (this is a face probably more suiting Cesar Romer's Joker than Heath Ledger's):
"Oh crap, I made him mad!"
To create the noise of the Joker hitting his head on the table, a member of the Van Dyke family banged his hands off camera on a similarly-textured object in timing with when my head appeared to hit the table. Many such adjustments and improvisations marked our filming process; while it was a challenge, all were met successfully. That's not to say filming went perfectly, mind you; we had many, many bloopers, some of which you can see in this video:
Probably the trickiest scenes to film came at the end, when the physicality of the scene and the angles required to capture it vastly increased. But these we captured to our satisfaction as well.
"For the last time, Batman, I don't have your lunch money."
"Sorry, it's naptime."
"Could you hold on a second? I have to take this call."
"Say, what are you doing after this? You wanna hang out?"
One of the most unexpectedly difficult parts of the shoot was punching me in the face. We wanted to recapture as much of the physicality of the original as we could (though I did not ask Jared to hit me as hard as Batman actually would hit the Joker, as Heath Ledger reportedly asked Christian Bale during the filming of that scene). To do that, we did some trial-and-error punching-me-in-the-face to determine how hard and real-looking a blow I could sustain and not mind; the bloopers video above contained footage of these tests. This obstacle we also overcame.
Wham!
Sock!
Though I did say above I was not prepared for Ledger's purported level of physicality, I did achieve one result close to it. At the end of the shoot, after multiple punches in the face, I did, in fact, end up bleeding from the mouth; one of Jared's punches forced one of my teeth up against my gums. It didn't hurt. But it was so, so cool.
The bright red spot on the floor, directly below my hand, is my blood-infused saliva.
After filming roughly an hour of footage - a process that took far more than an hour - we completed principal photography. By this point, I was bloodied, sweaty, and most of the corn starch had come off my face anyway (which I think is appropriate, since the Joker's makeup in the original had to be applied and could easily smear or come off.).
But this was only the beginning of our little video. As Jared - and, to a much lesser extent, I - learned over the next month or so of editing, principal photography is only one stage of production. Editing is just as important, requires just as much effort, and has just as much impact on the final product. Jared had to look through the hour or so of footage (compare to the shot-to-used footage ratio of other major Hollywood productions) to see what went best with what. We had some discussions about which angles for things looked best, and how things should be cut, but, on the whole, I yielded to his judgment. Unlike most movies these days, we didn't add to much in post: Just the Joker voiceovers that bookend the video, the punch noises (if you thought those were real, I apologize), and the audio from the actual scene (which we don't own, Warner Bros., so please, don't sue us!). And with that, the final product was born. Here it is again, if you want to watch it again with renewed appreciation after learning its history:
So, there it is: the production history of our little video. Perhaps it is too insignificant to deserve such a history, but I've given it one now thanks to this blog, so there's no turning back. I am happy we finally managed to realize this dream of mine, and to erase one of my biggest regrets from my college (now if I only I could do something about that trip to Tijuana...). My only regret now is that I forgot to say "to them, you're just a freak...like me" in the final footage we used, but oh well. The important thing is that I now have this video to point to people should the need ever arise. I hope this is the last Joker impression I have to do; I'll be happy to have this character out of me. Although he may never really go away. Maybe Jared and I are destined to do this forever. Because madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little...push...
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