Author: Robert Greenberger

To vocally craft the characters within the DC Universe Animated Original Movies, the production brain trust of DC Entertainment, Warner Premiere, Warner Home Video and Warner Bros. Animation is smart enough to employ the best in the business – on both sides of the microphone.

While winners of Oscars, Emmys and Tonys alike provide the voices behind some of the world’s best known comic book characters, it is the super hero of voice directors that guides these unique talents – Andrea Romano.

Arguably the top animation voiceover director in the business today, Romano has been instrumental in orchestrating the vocal tones behind the first 10 DCU animated films, including the highly anticipated February 22 release of All-Star Superman.

The eight-time Emmy® Award winner (not to mention 30+ Emmy nominations) has a voiceover casting/direction resume that spans more than a quarter century, covering the genre gamut from action (Batman: The Animated Series) and humor (Animaniacs) to contemporary (The Boondocks) and timeless (Smurfs). She will appear at both the sold-out New York and Los Angeles premieres of All-Star Superman next week, and will undoubtedly be greeted with a wild, lengthy cheer – an ovation she regularly receives at Cons around the globe.

For All-Star Superman, Grant Morrison’s beloved, Eisner Award-winning vision of Superman’s heroic final days on Earth, Romano has rounded up an intriguing lineup of stars to fill the comic book character roles. James Denton (Desperate Housewives) has donned the cape as Superman, Christina Hendricks (Mad Men) is Lois Lane, and Anthony LaPaglia (Without A Trace) voices Lex Luthor to form the core cast. They are joined by seven-time Emmy® Award winner Ed Asner (Up) as Perry White, Golden Globe® winner Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under) as Ma Kent, Matthew Gray Gubler (Criminal Minds) as Jimmy Olsen and Linda Cardellini (ER) as Nasty.   Also amongst the voice cast is Arnold Vosloo (The Mummy), Catherine Cavadini (The Powerpuff Girls), Finola Hughes (General Hospital), Alexis Denisof (Angel), Obba Babatunde (That Thing You Do!), Michael Gough (Batman) and John DiMaggio (Futurama).

Romano paused between her many current projects – including a few upcoming DC Universe Animated Original Movies – to discuss the cast and recording of All-Star Superman. Listen up …

QUESTION: Are there certain writers’ scripts you find easier to direct or get an instant feel?

ANDREA ROMANO: There are several writers I’ve worked with over the years whose words I can recognize without even seeing a title page, like Stan Berkowitz, Alan Burnett, Bob Goodman and especially Dwayne McDuffie. And because I’ve worked with them for so long over so many different projects, and once they know I’m on a project, it’s almost as though they write for me – because they know exactly what information I need to know to give to the actors. So I love working with all those guys. Dwayne works so hard on being true to the source material, and yet translating it into something that can be acted. He’s really good at making that transition of honoring the material, but bringing the words off the page to make it actable and dramatically interesting.

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When I tweeted that I was watching [[[Doctor Who the Movie]]], it provoked a spirited debate over the film’s merits. Apparently, the Paul McGann incarnation of the Doctor is beloved by many but far from all. Truth be told, I am a latecomer to the cult of The Doctor, arriving during the new series of adventures. I certainly know the history and previous incarnations but had never developed a taste for it. So, coming to his American telefilm from 1996 after the current era, gives me an unqiue perspective.

When Fox ordered the pilot film for a hoped-for series, they received the official blessing of the BBC plus the cameo participation of Sylvester McCoy, who was the previous incarnation when the series was finally canceled in 1989.

As discovered on the very detailed documentary accompanying the movie, the film took years to finally get made. And here’s the problem. While everyone involved dearly loved Doctor Who, notably Producer Philip Segal, and all desperately wanted to make a new series, no one seemed to possess a clear idea or vision of what it should be. Without that spark of creativity, the resulting film felt like Doctor Who, even looked like Doctor Who, but lacked the crackling fun and off-kilter storytelling that had been the series’ hallmark dating back to the beginning.

Additionally, the film had to stop and explain everything given that Doctor Who was new to the vast majority of Americans. As a result, the pacing has to adapt not only for American commercial breaks but stop to explain everything from the concept of a Time Lord to what a TARDIS can do. In many ways, the movie is a primer to the Doctor as he gains a companion, regenerates, fights The Master, and saves Earth from utter destruction. While not quite a cookie-cutter approach, it feels that way in watching the movie. Fox seemed to cool on the concept, dumping it on May 14, 1996, too late for pilot season and the DOA ratings didn’t help.

You can decide for yourself now that BBC Video has this week released Doctor Who the Movie in a two-disc Special Edition DVD. Disc one is the film, uncut, and with special features while the second disc is filled with features for the true Whovian. (more…)

February 7, 2010

Atlanta, GA – Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Top Shelf Productions have signed a publishing agreement. Top Shelf Productions has agreed to publish the graphic novel March, coauthored by Rep. John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, tentatively scheduled for release in 2012.

“I am very pleased to be participating in this effort,” said Congressman John Lewis. “This is something I really wanted to do some years ago and there is no better time to do it than now. It is not just a story of struggle; it is a story of involvement. It shows the ups, the downs, the ins and the outs of a movement.

“It is my hope,” said Congressman Lewis, “that this work will be meaningful and helpful to future generations to give many people here in America and around the world the urge, the desire, to seek, to build, their own world, their own future.”

A meditation in the modern age on the distance traveled, both as a nation and as a people, since the days of Jim Crow and segregation, March tells the first hand account of John Lewis’ lifelong struggle for civil and human rights.

The publishing agreement is an historic first, both for the U.S. Congress and graphic novel publishing as a whole, marking the first time a sitting Member of Congress has authored a graphic novel. Top Shelf Productions is the first and only graphic novel publisher to be certified by the House Committee on Standards.

“As a proud resident of Georgia, and a long-time fan of the honorable Congressman,” adds publisher Chris Staros, “this is truly a deep honor. To bring, not only his life’s story, but that of the Civil Rights Movement to the comics medium is truly exciting. This will make this historical and timeless message accessible to an entirely new generation of readers.”

An artist has yet to be named for the project though candidates are being actively considered. (more…)

There are few topics more interesting to explore through fiction than the human soul. Does everyone have one? Where do they come from and if you believe in reincarnation, how do you explain where souls for the growing world population come from? Do clones have souls?

The latter is the driving thread in Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel [[[Never Let me Go]]], faithfully reproduced on the screen in the 2010 film. The science fiction tale diverges from reality by the supposition that cloning was achieved in the early 1950s and by the 1970s, clone farms disguised as orphanages existed to raise donors. After three or four such donations, the clones’ lives “conclude” and that’s that.

Directed by Mark Romanek from Alex Garland’s somber screenplay, the film looks unlike the expected science fiction tale. Instead, in a color-drained palette, we focus on the lives of three such clones: Kathy (Carey Mulligan), Ruth (Keira Knightley) and Tommy (Andrew Garfield). The entire first act shows them as children (Isobel Meikle-Small, Ella Purnell, and Charlie Rowe) at the cusp of adolescence, living and learning at Hailsham, a slightly rundown, sober establishment where the truth is obscured from those living there. When they reach 18, the three friends and rivals leave the school for the Cottages where they engage with similar folk from other homes. By now, Ruth has edged out Kathy for Tommy’s affections even though it remains clear she is not the one for him.

In subtle ways, Garland shows how sheltered and unprepared for a “normal” life these clones are. When they engage with people from the real world, they’re shy and awkward, but he fails to give us any sense of what these people do until they are summoned for their donations. Instead, the story focuses on the notion of a “deferral” for those truly in love. It’s a myth to the Hailsham residents but it becomes something they can’t forget.

The story skips through the years so the final act picks up with the leads in their mid-20s as Ruth rapidly deteriorates after just two donations while Tommy seems stronger than ever. Kathy has become a carer, someone to look after those who donate and is content with her solitary life until she reconnects with Ruth.

The film is coming out Tuesday from 20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment and is worth a look. Romanek gets terrific performances from his young and adult cast members. During the 30-minute making of featurette, we learn that he wisely had his adult and kid casts work together so the audience felt these were the same characters. The younger performers do a marvelous job getting us interested while the adults give haunting performances.

The entire notion of the soul is understated throughout the film until one of the final scenes and one wishes it was explored more deeply. Similarly, the film neglects to give us a sense of what the world is like now that people live longer thanks to the ready supply of vital organs. Is there a prejudice or even comprehension of who and what these clones are? It’s a bleak story, slowly told, that makes you want to learn more which can be a good sign for a book, less so for a film.

The DVD comes with a gallery of stills Romanek shot during production along with a detailed look at the artwork Tommy produced during his life, which furthers the story. Overall, the movie explores some new territory with mixed results but on screen it has a captivating look and feel worth sampling.