Warner Bros is doing some smart marketing with their adaptation of Watchmen. Zack Snyder’s production blogs were great, and they debuted Rorschach in a very fun, low key way. The recent reveal of the costumes was handled very nicely – and with a year to still go before the movie comes out (compare that to Paramount’s work with Star Trek, where they’re keeping even the uniforms completely secret). Now they’ve begun releasing a series of video journals, which will come out once a month until the movie’s release.

And just to prove how smart they are, Warner Bros has started with a journal about building the physical locations for the film. So many fans still think that Snyder is going to do Watchmen 300 style that focusing on the tremendous amount of sets being built makes a ton of sense. Anyone looking at those New York City streets (which will obviously be augmented with CGI but which are practical) will get that this is a movie taking place in a real world, not a pixelated fantasy land.

And what a real world it is. A lot of hard work and serious care went into this movie, and I know I’ve said this again and again but this video journal only backs me up: if Watchmen ends up being bad it won’t be because of a lack of effort and respect.

Click here to watch the first video journal.