American artist, animator, creator, writer and producer, Bruce Timm is known majorly for his collaboration with the DCAU. He went on to create shows like Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League, Batman Beyond, Justice League Unlimited, etc. But before he was working on such superhit animations, Timm started his career with Filmnation.
The animator dropped out of college early, before he started working on K-Mart. He then got into Filmnation in his second attempt in the late 1980s, and finally started working on animation.
Bruce Timm Started His Career With a Knock-off
Bruce Timm‘s career took a turn when he finally passed a layout test for Filmnation. It was his second attempt, but he could finally work on things he loved, even though the animation industry at the time was not the best place to be in. He revealed (via Comicology):
“It was just a way of drawing for a living. It was kinda cool and it was hell at the same time. Back in the ’80s, working in the animation industry was just god-awful; the level of quality was [very] poor.”
He started his career on a show called Blackstar, an American science fantasy series. It was a 13 episode long show, that became the first stepping stone for Timm to become the successful writer/producer he is today.
“The first show that I worked on was a third-rate Conan knockoff called Blackstar, a sword-&-sorcery thing that they did. It was a kick, because it was drawing for a living, and I did learn a lot of the rudiments of what goes into a cartoon from being there. The downside of it was that it was really disillusioning, because everything was such a factory back then. They actually didn’t encourage you to do good drawings; they wanted you to do passable drawings — ‘Don’t bother making it good. Just get it done.””
But Timm had a hunger, an appetite to learn. And in Filmnation he was working with Russ Heath, who was working on The Lone Ranger at the time. So he had his hands in the rights jars from the very beginning.
Bruce Timm’s Current Project
After the WB Discovery merger, many projects were canceled or shelved, including various animation projects. He was working Batman: Caped Crusader when Max decided they were not willing to spend on it. Thankfully, the project was not completely taken off the list, and has been taken up by Amazon. The show will be kind of like a sequel to Batman: The Animated Series, with Bruce Timm returning at the helm.
Back when HBO Max had announced the show, it had JJ Abrams and Matt Reeves as its exevutive producer, who are still attached to the show. They called the show a “thrilling, cinematic and evocative of Batman’s noir roots, while diving deeper into the psychology of these iconic characters.” Now that it has found a new home with Amazon, thankfully we will get a release date soon.
