LMGI COMPASS
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Fall 2018
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49
All photos courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment
Nearly every interpretation of the comic series presented Gotham
as a city on the verge of collapse. Its principle visual motif can be
summed up in a single word: dark. With the fictional city having al-
ready been so richly explored on screen, one of the most important
tasks for the new show's crew, starting with its Location Depart-
ment, was finding ways to enhance the audience's perception of Go-
tham City. This conceptualization began with the late Doug Kraner,
production designer on the pilot and eight additional episodes in
Season 1. Kraner joked that the crew's mission was "generally run-
ning from bright, beautiful, sunny days."
Kraner and his team researched hundreds of comics, films and
books. Pilot director Danny Cannon and Kraner created a mood
board with hundreds of images, from which a new Gotham began to
emerge—one that simultaneously paid homage to those that came
before, while revealing new dark, ominous locations to be explored.
New York was chosen as the series' base, and the search was on
to find a location team who knew the city well; people who could
find a meaner, grittier version of New York. "Gotham is kind of like
New York was in the late '70s and early '80s, when the city was at
its roughest in recent history. Before the subways were cleaned up,
when crime was high, the city felt brutal. We see Gotham as existing
in that world. But New York City has changed since then. It is really
a much more optimistic and brighter place. And we don't want that!
So we look for the old New York as we scout, and sometimes we
have to remove the new New York," said Kraner in a 2014 Comic-Con
interview.
The scale and ambition of the series was off the charts from the
The 12th Avenue Viaduct, Manhattan
Brooklyn Dime Savings Bank
Alder Manor, Yonkers