Mike Pallotta
Appearances
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
I'm doing well, Coy.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
Oh, wow. Yeah. With Batman, I love the aspect of the character that's so malleable. He's a character over 80 years now you can do so much with. I mean, it speaks volumes that you can put him in absolute Batman.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
with what scott snyder is doing and he still works you can make you know like the 60s tv show with adam west and and it's a more comedic satirical take and it still works and he's still iconic the iconography is so malleable my own personal draw for the character i i just love that
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
There's a sense that I can always go back to Batman stories and find something new, whether it's the stories we're adapting here, like year one, every time I read it, there's something new there. And in adapting it, I found so much that I did not see before. It's like a lot of great texts where you go back and you revisit it at different points in your life and you find something new.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
Like so many other people, I think the earliest, earliest days is the Adam West Batman. I remember my sister babysitting me and I wanting to watch Batman, the 1960s TV show, and she wanted to watch 90210, and we fought it out. And then, you know, being a six year old and seeing commercials for the Batman animated series and programming my VCR.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
And then from there, you know, getting into the comics, my entry point into the comics, in comics in general, was from movies like Terminator and Aliens and Predator. I was such a Terminator, Aliens and Predator kid. So I was reading, you know, Terminator, The Burning Earth by Alex Ross. It was like his first comic book ever. Go read it, it's amazing. It blew my mind as a nine-year-old.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
From there, I remember picking up the Batman alien crossover that Bernie Wrightson had drawn. Bernie Wrightson's art is- Staggering. Amazing, and I just fell in love with Batman comics starting with that book and it just fully dove in from there and just consumed all Batman comics I possibly could from there.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
I think the first time I read year one and Long Halloween would have been probably about 14 years old. I think it was about the same. Yeah, which is I think about the best age to first read it. Now it's weird to revisit those stories being older than Batman. Yeah.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
Yeah. I'm like, oh yeah, he's such a man. Yeah. When he's 26 and I'm how old?
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
Oh, I definitely feel, I feel that for sure. Having a son of my own and my own ward. Yeah. My own Robin family. Yeah, it's a strange feeling, but like I said before, it adds new layers to these stories when you revisit them.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
I would say about – this would have been 10, 12 years ago. This was before I worked at DC. I worked at this job that I was working in like a warehouse at a computer desk all day long, and there was no windows whatsoever. So at the end of the day –
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
at night i would want to go for these long walks and i always wanted something to listen to so i found myself listening to audiobooks and consuming so many audiobooks and just being drawn towards stephen king audiobooks listening to salem's lot and carrie and again anything i could um just to just to give my mind something to listen to.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
I am always like drawn to narrative and I loved it, but I found myself wanting to marry comic books and graphic storytelling with This audio, and it's not an original idea to me. I think it's an idea so many fans have had, which is why not develop these stories for audio? And the idea of doing them word for word, the way that an audio book is word for word.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
So that's really where it's stemmed from. And then, you know, working at DC, I'm a creative director at DC, and I've worked at DC for about nine years now.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
And when I got the opportunity to start working on the podcast business and the audio business, I got to dive into the world of Batman and all of these characters with projects like Batman The Audio Adventures and Batman Unburied and other series related to that. And I found working on those shows was incredibly fulfilling and incredibly valuable, but those were original stories.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
And with something like this, I wanted to work with the teams at Realm and with my co-pilot on all these projects, Victor Diaz, to take what we've learned from those projects and use it to adapt the stories that people know and love from the comics.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
Yeah, there's a lot involved with being an EP on this show. Yeah, Victor, who I mentioned before, he and I will weigh in on everything from the scripts, making sure that we're
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
adapting it as closely as possible to audio but not missing anything we're trying to keep verbatim as word perfect as possible with the original text in the in the original artwork but there are moments where even reading the script you're like how is this going to work in audio and are we hitting those points so it's really it's part of our job to think with that specific lens when we're reading through the scripts and then we'll weigh in on the cast you know finding
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
I think we found the perfect Batman. Incredible. Yeah. Jason Spisak as Bruce Wayne in Batman is phenomenally good. He gets that it isn't just one voice for Bruce and it's one voice for Batman. There is a spectrum. There's the Batman who he is with Jim Gordon and then there's the Batman who he is with Alfred. Yeah.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
And then there's clearly the very vulnerable Bruce when he's talking to his parents at their gravesite. There's the Batman with Catwoman and the Bruce with Selina. And yeah, Jason truly understands all of that. And then weighing in on Jay Paulson as Gordon and then talking with Jay about this is a younger Gordon. But I also think he hasn't been destroyed by Gotham yet.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
Exactly. So as EPs, you know, we're working with our director and producer, Fred Greenhalgh, and we're working with Roshan Singh Sambi to talk to the actor and kind of walk him through, like, you can sound younger here. Once we go into some of those later stories, maybe feel free to start kind of aging up the character's voice.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
There's a great sadness you hear in Gordon's voice even early on in year one. And I think you're going to hear more weariness as it goes on and more this man just being beaten down by by gotham city but still persevering empowering through it um so we'll talk to the actors about uh all of that and that's the benefit of also having the same actors playing these characters throughout so
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
Really, Victor and I are there every step of the way that we could possibly be weighing in on everything, kind of being a guiding voice for DC and hopefully representing the fans and what we think the fans will want to hear in this project and what's going to help new listeners want to continue to listen, essentially.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
Yeah. I, I worked in a comic book store 20 years ago when I was a senior in high school and I worked, um, Yeah, and it was a great experience, and I would hand people year one. If they came in and they wanted an intro to Batman or they were interested in something, I would give them year one. I'd give them the stories we're adapting here. They're perfect entry points for the character.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
I find this era of Batman specifically in the late 80s and into the 90s is such a good sort of – They're hitting the refresh button on the character post-crisis, obviously. And it started from the ground up, and it had a nice grit to the character and a darkness that I think has been... adapted loosely and kind of taken into movies and TV.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
And a lot of what people think of when they think of Batman now is because of these comics. Pre-Year One, pre-80s, it was Adam West and it was bright and colorful. And Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's vision with Year One, along with all the other writers and artists of the 80s into the 90s, they really added to that dark night that we know and love.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
And Year One is an interesting story, too, because it's kind of perfect for audio because it really is the story of Jim Gordon just as much, if not more so, than Batman. Yeah. And with the captions or the journals... That you're reading, you're getting into their headspace and you're hearing them. So there is a natural narrator throughout.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
You get this dual POV that we, when we were working on the show, we're like, how do we do this shift accurately and where the listener can clearly follow it without it being like, okay, who's talking now? Are they speaking aloud? Is it here, here? Is Bruce talking to someone else on the plane right now? What's happening?
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
So we worked it all through and I think we came up with a way to present the story and really do it justice.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
Yeah, I mean, that's really a testament to the sound design work by our team, Jonathan Roberts and the Dans, as we call them, Daniel Ramirez and Daniel Brunel. And that's also a testament to Sam Ewing's work as our composer, working with Marcus Begala. They're building out this world and fleshing it out in an audio space that... that's really making it so immersive and lived in.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
I think Batman presents a unique opportunity in that it feels just left of reality. It feels real, but it's gothic and it's just above reality enough for you to be able to engage with it without feeling like you're going into the realm of fantasy or you're going so far outside of the norm where you have to completely
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
learn a new language in audio there's so many fun moments where we can we get to sit down as a team and talk about like what should the batmobile sound like what should it sound like when batman disappears on gordon should there be a sound should it be you know like How do we convey this moment in audio only, essentially? And that's not to say, oh, don't have the book open when you're listening.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
By all means, if you want to crack the book open and sit there and page through it and follow along with us, you're more than welcome to. That's not what we're making.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
You know, we're making something that you can experience if you're grocery shopping, if you're commuting, if you're on the subway, if you're if you're just or if you're like me and just someone who needs to get some fresh air at your job. You know, the windowless job, you got to imagine your windowless job.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
In episode one, there was a scene that when I got the first mix of episode one, the scene of Bruce in the Porsche applying the scar to his face when he's just about to, it's the proto Batman when he's realizing he needs a disguise. He can't just go out as Bruce Wayne and try and stop crime or whatever he's going to do.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
And there's such a beautiful moment of the sound design and the swelling music that the team composed mixed with Jason's performance of realizing he needs to apply the scar. And it gave me chills the first time I heard it because when you look at it, you know, Mazza Kelly's done this incredible job of drawing Bruce in this very shadowy scene where
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
under the elevated train tracks and just sitting in a car that's humming. But when you actually hear the engine rumbling and you hear him in his thought process, it gave me goosebumps. And it still does every time I hear it. It's like the perfect mix. And there's a lot of scenes
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
like that where you know we would be in a session and uh you know we would just talk about like what is Bruce's voice here and what is what is his voice when he's just talking to himself in his head yeah and we would say like you know Bruce is the mask Bruce Bruce is you know when he's at the gala and he's wearing the suit and tie that's him putting on a mask the version of Batman's
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
voice in his head is more like Batman than it is like Bruce there is a version of it that's probably again if you were to look at the spectrum of Bruce and Batman it's probably a little bit closer to Batman so I think yeah listeners are going to find a lot of those moments throughout and I hope that they agree with our decisions speaking of I love that the themes are so specific as you have like these swelling moments of character cues and introductions and
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
Yeah. I mean, well, back to the scar in the car scene, I was like, that is that that is Batman music. Yeah. And I remember talking with, with Sam and Marcus about like, we need Batman music. And they were like, we got it. And I was like, that is Batman. Yes. You found it. That's it. You found the tone. You found the, whatever the rhythm is, the mix of Gothic opera. Yeah. you nailed it.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
And in the finale on the bridge, there's music that matches tonally what's happening in that scene. And like, I almost like cry listening to when spoiler, when the baby is like so intense. Oh, my God.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
And they really like with with Jay's performance with it's his baby, you know, Jim Gordon's baby and mixed with the music and being again like it's so. hacky but being a dad myself and it being and I my kids only two and this being like I was it felt very fresh yeah man felt very fresh for me listening to a crying baby falling off of a bridge
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
Long Halloween is such a fun one because it really – it maps the progression or digression from the mafia and the crime lords and the organized crime within Gotham and their being kind of – replaced by these costume criminals. And so you're going to see a lot of the familiar villains that you know and love from Joker, Poison Ivy. There's so many fun characters on the way.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
And we got incredible performances from Michelle Lukes as Poison Ivy, Dan Kill as the Joker. We even have Kevin Smith.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
Kevin Smith, getting him to – you know, Kevin's a director, obviously. He's a writer-director. He even told us in the recording session at the very top, like, listen, man, I'm not – what you see is what you get. I'm Silent Bob. I'm Kevin. I'm Kevin. You get Kevin. So we're like, that's fine. You know, we're like, okay. And Fred Greenhalgh is our director. Like, to his credit –
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
got the penguin out of Kevin. And he did it through... There's a scene that we'll get to eventually where the penguin is being choked out by Batman. And when he was delivering his lines, literally choking himself, he nailed the voice of the penguin. In that moment. And Fred and we were all like... Do all the lines again, choking yourself.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
Do that, and he did it, and he was game for it, and it was the best. I love that, man. So, yeah. Long Halloween, I think what... Okay, so back to your question about what to look forward to.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
And many other things. Um... The Long Halloween has some incredible action scenes. And what the story is so well known for is delving into what makes Batman the world's greatest detective. It is a murder mystery at its core. It's got an extremely robust cast of characters, like you said. But at its heart, it is this...
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
this murder mystery that affects all of these people and how they all react to these murders. The serial killer who's striking on holidays. Yeah. It's a really fun story to track throughout Gotham and having Batman at the center of it and seeing him do his detective work and run himself ragged, trying to solve this near seemingly near impossible. Um, mystery is really, really fun.
DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Batman Actor Jason Spisak & DC's Mike Pallotta
Just trust the writing.