Production designer Barbara Ling created nearly 60 sets for BATMAN FOREVER, assisted by a talented staff of set designers, illustrators, model makers and computer graphics artists. While there are respectful nods in the design of the new Gotham City to the marvelous work done by Anton Furst for BATMAN and Bo Welch for BATMAN RETURNS, Ling and Joel Schumacher decided from day one to avoid any deliberate sense of deja-vu in their version of the legend. Everything - from the Batcave to the Batmobile - would be different.

"I'm a very big fan of Anton's and Bo's work," says Ling, "but I think it's exciting to use new people and ideas on everything you do. The Batman comics do not reflect any one thing. What's kept them alive, I think, is that with each illustrator and each new art director, it all changes. It's always exciting and different."
''I thought that part of the fun of doing Gotham would be to create our own city," adds Schumacher. "Bob Kane more or less based Gotham on New York, so we used parts of Manhattan and parts of Los Angeles and made up the rest."

"When I first approached the design of Gotham," says Ling, "my mind always went to the World's Fair idea of buildings and statues being so overscaled that man is stunted. Gotham City is designed to be three times the height of New York, with everything on a monumental level. We examined lots of photos and films of the great World's Fairs of the '20s, '30s and '40s, which were filled with tiny people staring in awe at tremendous buildings."

Ling and Schumacher wanted a Gotham that transcended all times and places, melding elements of Art Deco, Russian Constructivism, European and American futurism, modernism and post-modernism. In BATMAN FOREVER, Gotham rises to the heavens it's massive edifices traversed by sky-high roadways and bridges.

Lighting would become one of the most important elements of the film, as Schumacher, cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt and Ling developed a rich, lustrous and utterly unique look for the film that called upon the most recent technical developments to capture a heightened comic-book spirit.

"Joel and I agreed that we wanted to make everything we could seem comic-book, without exception," says Goldblatt. "So there's almost nothing that I can think of in this film that's of a really ordinary nature."

BATMAN FOREVER is photographed in bold, outstanding hues that reflect similarly adventurous coloration in the original Batman comic books. "Also, we set color theme for characters," continues Goldblatt. "Batman's are blues and purples and whites. Two-Face is red and magenta. The Riddler is green. Chase is pink. We're not trying to be subtle. I really liked it when Joel said from the beginning that he wanted the film to be operatic."

Adds Barbara Ling, "We were very influenced by the comics, which beginning in the 1940s always had these wonderful color washes in the frames. In one panel, the wash would be red, and in the next scene, blue. That was very striking to us, and we felt that it was an important element to capture. After all, the comics weren't black and white. Instead, they always reflected thee strange washes of lights."

Schumacher's order of the day - every day - was to push the boundaries of what had been seen before, striving for visuals and storytelling that would dazzle and delight. His willingness to try just about anything promoted a good-natured repartee throughout production with camera operator RAY DE LA MOTTE. Following one of Schumacher's suggestions for a typically unorthodox shot, de la Motte asked (tongue firmly in cheek), "Isn't that a bit over-the-top?"