Back in October I made these drawings for a comedy short film by Mike Olson titled, “Superpowers!”The film is about a caped crusader called Darko The Night Watchman, and his archenemies, Smiley, set in a 60’s style Adam West (Batman) world. These characters get stuck in an elevator together at a point when their careers are on the way down. The drawings I made are the comic book versions of the characters during their prime years. I designed these characters with Mike before the script and casting was completed.When Katie and I visited the set during the shoot we had a very surreal experience. While my eyes were still adjusting to the darkness of the studio a tall figure in a cap walked up to greet me, I don’t believe I returned the greeting very well because I was in shock. It was Darko in full garb! Now, just to clear things I have done a little costume design work in the past mainly for stage productions, but this was very different. Not only was this guy dressed in a fantastic Darko costume, but it was exactly like my drawing! I thought that the costume designer was just going to use my drawings as a base to work from but never did I expect the costumes to turn out just like them! Matt Biedel, the actor who played Darko, was a very nice guy and he did a great job with his performance.
The man who built these wonderful costumes was Randal Sumabat, another nice guy. He comes from San Diego and worked on these outfits during his own free time within a very limited schedule! Randal, in a very giddy way, showed me his work on the Smiley costume, and again I was floored!
Matt Gaydos, also a nice guy, played Smiley and pulled off an equally great performance!I am credited as the Concept Designer for this film and I still have more work to do. Currently Mike and I are designing the opening credits of the film which will feature more comic book drawings of the characters. I’ll be sure to tell you guys more about that later!- Josh
