Initially developed by animation maestro Bruce Timm, it was frequent animated film director Jay Oliva who came in to serve as director, storyboard artist and producer of the Superman short.
Over at Toonado, he begins a series of discussions in which he takes a detailed look at the making of it, which beautifully captures a variety of styles as things unfold first to the iconic theme created by John Williams for Superman: The Movie, and then by Han Zimmer’s theme from Man of Steel.
“By the time I got involved, there had already been the initial pitch where all the landmarks they wanted to hit had been decided on,” says Oliva. “So I got all of this information, sat down in font of my computer and thought to myself, ‘How do I track all of this together?’ I realized early on it had to be the John Williams theme almost all the way through. They looked into it with legal and said, ‘Yeah, we can use the theme and it’s actually not very expensive for us to use it.’
So that was cool. As soon as I knew we got that in, I said we’re going to stick to the John Williams theme, because I told them I would be story boarding to the music. What this meant was that all of the transitions and all of the switches from one decade to another would be based on the music. That’s why I wanted to start with Action Comics No. 1 and then, as soon as the music hit, you would go with the animation.”
To watch the 75th anniversary short, and MUCH more, click HERE!