Feature Category: Interviews

James Wallis is an award winning games designer who has been described by his contemporaries as the godfather of indie-game design. His credits include Once Upon a Time, Puppetland and Nobilis and his influence can be seen across the breadth of the tabletop gaming industry. His new game, Alas Vegas, is currently being sponsored through crowd-funding.

Starburst: Where do you think the games industry is headed? What does the future hold for gaming geeks?

James Wallis: Tabletop games have been on the rise for the last few years, but Kickstarter and the eBook market has given the RPG end of things a massive boost. Anyone can release their own RPG now: you don’t have to pay printers and warehouses, you just have to have read a book about marketing. One thing a lot of people don’t realise about Kickstarter is that it’s not just about money, it’s also about publicity and market research. Putting a game or a book on Kickstarter is free marketing. And if you don’t reach your funding goal then there probably isn’t a market for your idea in the wider world either. Either that or you were too greedy.

Where are games going? Two words: Minecraft and Proteus. There’s the future, right there. You may not like it, but there’s the future.

Tell us about your Kickstarter project Alas Vegas.

Alas Vegas is a new RPG about bad memories, bad luck and bad blood. It begins with the player-characters dragging themselves out of a shallow grave on the edge of the desert. They have no memory of how they got there, or who they are. It’s midnight and they’re naked. The rest of the game, which plays out over four sessions, is about them exploring a nightmarish alter-Vegas, slowly piecing together their histories using an innovative flashback mechanic, and learning how to find a way out and not get horribly murdered.

It’s Ocean’s Eleven directed by David Lynch.

The mechanics are simple and easy to learn. It doesn’t use dice, instead—because it’s a game set in a casino-city heavy on the occult—it uses a stripped-down version of Blackjack played with Tarot cards. John Coulthart, the artist who won the World Fantasy Award last year, is creating the Tarot cards for it.

We put Alas Vegas on Kickstarter at the end of January, and it hit its funding goal in less than eight hours. We’re going for the stretch now. Lots of very cool things planned.

What inspired Alas Vegas?

I had the idea for the setting about fifteen years ago, while I was managing editor of Bizarre magazine. I was jamming ideas for fiction with the chief sub Cathi Unsworth—now an acclaimed crime novelist—and had the vision of waking up naked, seeing Vegas in the distance and having no idea what was going on. Then life got busy and I didn’t do anything with it until two years ago, until the Game Chef design-competition brought it back, and I suddenly realised that it’d be a better RPG than novel.

You brought the Warhammer Fantasy RolePlay game back from the depths of obscurity. Why did you do that and what do you make of the new edition?

Although I’m very fond of the Warhammer world—I’ve written two novels and several short stories for it—deciding to licence the rights to Warhammer FRP was based mostly on business. It was 1995 and nobody had made a UK-based RPG publishing business work since Games Workshop had shifted over to miniatures-games in the 1980s. I realised that a British company would need to make a big splash in the American market to get enough attention to survive. Hogshead Publishing was the company, Warhammer FRP was that splash, and it worked. Almost every other UK RPG company these days uses the business model I created which is, you know, flattering.

What single work of yours are you the most proud of?

It has to be The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen. I think it’s a terrific game that anyone can learn and play in a couple of minutes, it’s a game-book that’s almost more fun to read than it is to play, and it single-handedly blazed the trail for the entire Story Games movement. Plus it’s an RPG that replaces dice and character sheets with money and fine wine. Your health!

So Baron, tell us a story.

I tell you, since the Baron entered my life I’ve had a few stories to tell. For example I was out at the Spiel convention in Germany last year, the biggest games convention in the world, and this familiar-looking man came up to me. I’m thinking “I know you…”, and he introduced himself as Alexsandr Munchausen, descendent of the Baron via a dalliance with a Russian lady who shall be nameless, and an adventurer in his own right. The family resemblance was extraordinary. Then he asked me for about two hundred years of unpaid royalties on the Baron’s game. Happily we were able to come to an arrangement, we’ve collaborated on an assortment of new settings and rules for The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and we’ll be including them in the third edition of the game later this year.

Is there a particular tie-in franchise that you haven’t been involved in yet that you’d love to write for?

I’ve always wanted to do a Princess Bride RPG, but I noticed that someone’s picked up the rights to that earlier this year so my chance has probably gone.

What is the weirdest thing that has ever happened to you?

An ex-girlfriend bumped into me in JFK Airport in New York and chatted to me for fifteen minutes about my job, my relationship, London, mutual friends, all of that. It wasn’t me. I was in France at the time. That’s not the weirdest thing, but it’s the easiest to tell you about.

If you were stranded on a desert island and could only have one book for company, what would that book be?

A blank one, and a pen.

What other fictional worlds inspire you? What else inspires you (Music, TV, People)?

My favourite tabletop RPG of all time is Empire of the Petal Throne, an incredibly deep and rich fantasy world—it’s the sort of time-consuming game that you have to be young and childless to have the headspace to play, which I’m not any more. Favourite video game is probably Rez, just for the immersion and the perfect blending of gameplay, visuals and audio. That feeds into my love of breakbeat, techno, minimalist composers and weird noise bands—Sir Thomas Beecham said “The English may not like music but they love the sound it makes”, and that’s me. I find it really hard to work without music: I have over 100,000 plays logged on last.fm. Game designers: Sid Sackson, Sid Meier, Peter Molyneux on his good days.

Simpsons or Futurama?

I interviewed Matt Groening in 1989, on the Fox lot in Los Angeles, six weeks before the first episode of The Simpsons was due to air. They’d just received it from the Korean animators and it was apparently so awful they sent it back to be re-done from scratch. He was very depressed about it and didn’t really want to talk about The Simpsons at all because he knew that as soon as it aired he was going to lose his nice office and his secretary and he’d have to go back to being a struggling cartoonist and rock journalist. So mostly we talked about his comic strip Life in Hell, music and Thomas Pynchon. Then I got back to the UK to discover the magazine I was working for had gone bust. I’ve never been able to sell that interview. It’s never been printed. But it was one of the most enjoyable interviews I’ve ever done.

Early Simpsons, obviously.

Sonic or Mario?

In the early ‘90s I wrote four books about Sonic the Hedgehog: two solo gamebooks for Puffin, and then two novels under a pseudonym for Virgin. Virgin wanted four books in four months, so three of us got together—me, Marc Gascoigne who runs Angry Robot these days, and Carl Sargent who has literally disappeared—and Carl and I wrote two each while Marc did the editing. ‘Martin Adams’ was the name we used. Which meant I got to buy a Megadrive as a business expense and play the holy crap out of the first two Sonic games while pretending it was research. Good times.

Sonic paid my rent. So Sonic, obviously.

Truth or Beauty?

Truth is beauty if you’re doing it right.

Vegas or Blackpool?

Vegas freaks me out. The GAMA Trade Show, the annual gathering of the tabletop industry is held there—in fact the top level of the Kickstarter is me flying you to Vegas in mid-March, playing through the whole of Alas Vegas and escorting you around the trade show. But it’s a weird city and almost everything about it unnerves me. Nothing’s real there, it’s all artifice. Even the people. If you want to know the real inspiration for Alas Vegas, there you go. It’s Vegas.

Blackpool, on the other hand, I spent an amazing week at a writers’ retreat there twenty years ago. Charlie Stross was there, Nicola Griffith, Alex Stewart, Andy Lane and many others. We ripped each others’ works to shreds and played a lot of laser tag. It was fantastic—no, wait, that was Margate. So probably Vegas, then.

Alas Vegas can currently be found on Kickstarter, and the campaign ends on the 28th of February, 2013.

With American Mary hitting DVD and Blu-ray, we recently got the chance to sit down and chat with the directors and star, Jen & Sylvia Soska and Katharine Isabelle. In between talking about being wolf-whistled and Brighton nightlife, we also found time to chat about the film (of which you can read our review here)…

Starburst: Where did the idea for American Mary come from?

Sylvia Soska: Years ago, I was on the internet looking for stuff that was strange and unusual and found, although at the time I didn’t realise it was an April Fool’s prank but it was, these two identical twin brothers that did a limb swap – which is kind of akin to the twins cameo in the film – but one of them had his arm removed and grafted onto his brother’s chest plate. He then had his ring finger removed and put onto the other brother’s solo remaining arm so he had one elongated finger and the other one had three arms and there was photos and everything.

That didn’t creep me out as much as the love letter that was associated with it that said “you have to be an identical twin to understand this closeness and need with your other” and I got really scared.

Jen Soska: That’s like when you fell asleep during Dead Ringers and I asked you what you thought about it at the end and you said “I wish we died like that” and I was like “What the fuck? Are you kidding me?”

SS: I meant died together! Anyways, I got obsessed with it because my mom told me that anything that scares you is just down to a lack of education and once you learn about it you won’t be scared anymore. I got really obsessed and I would go onto the sites and message boards and pretend I was six different guys doing different procedures and everyone would be very sweet and say “Oh, do this” and “Oh, that’s infected? Do that” and I didn’t get scared anymore, I was actually really fascinated.

JS: It was never intended for a film. It was a semi-morbid fascination that we had.

SS: Years later, we were working on Dead Hooker in a Trunk, trying to get it sold and a friend asked me “Since it’s such a stuggle, why don’t you focus on another script?” I didn’t have any so I lied to him and listed everything I knew Jennifer and I could write really quickly in two weeks and he picked the one about the medical student which I thought of because of the body-mod thing.

JS: He asked to read the next one.

SS: So we wrote it in two weeks and put a lot of ourselves to it without realising it…

JS: I realised it. She didn’t realise that Mary was exactly her when we were writing back and forth and I thought “Oh, we’re going with that angle? Ok, no problem!”

SS: And that’s how it happened!

Was the dark humour deliberate?

SS / JS: Yes, absolutely.

SS: We read a lot of Stephen King which was always horror mixed with humour, so I thought horror was supposed to be funny. It’s nice playing it here because you guys get the dark humour. Sometimes I go to screenings and nobody laughs and everyone’s really upset and they get up to walk out and I say “Oh, you want me to explain the joke to you?”

JS: Horror has moments of levity in it. With Sinister, the trailer does it no justice, because it is very fucking funny. The character that is most funny isn’t even in it. I think a big problem with a lot of screenings in North America is they’ve been fine tuned to be the laugh track generation. They’re told when to laugh and what severity they’re supposed to be laughing with, like a big guffaw here and a big guffaw there. Over here, you just think for yourself, you laugh when you feel like it and you don’t laugh when you don’t feel like it. So I think that’s a huge difference in the reaction towards humour.

How have the body-modding community reacted to the film?

SS: The gentleman who plays ‘Penis Guy’ in the film, Russ Foxx, is a body modifier and he was our flesh artist consultant on the film so he made sure we didn’t do anything too incredibly offensive. There’s two things that don’t actually happen, but artistically I liked having them in the movie which was the arm swap and the heart nipples which is actually a tattoo.

They really dig it. It was really cool because whenever people contact them for any wide release of media coverage, it’s a witch-hunt. They want to look at them like they’re freaks and I think the people in the mod community in the film are the least freakish. They’re very self-aware, normal, nice people which is what I’ve found people in that community to be like.

Are you looking forward to meeting a few body-modders at tonight’s viewing?

SS: Oh shut up, no! I didn’t know! Do you know Ronnie from Poland? Ronnie bought body modification to Poland when tattooing and piercing is taboo and she has piercings, a forked tongue, tattooed eyes, horns and everything. She’s a six foot Amazon and she came to the first screening at FrightFest and you can’t miss some of these mods in the audience and I saw so many people with piercings and stretched ears. After the screening she came over and, I care what everybody thinks obviously, but the mods are my favourite, and she said “I wanted to talk to you about the film.” I asked what she thought of it and she said “A bunch of us came out and we were sitting together and we were laughing and it was actually a really good film. I think people are going to like it.”

I’m really excited to see more people!

JS: We’ve had the stretched earlobes and the tattoos, and that’s a mod, and circumcisions that I’m not aware of, but mods get something different from it. With our prosthetics in the film, you can take that stuff off but these people have made their life choices and they’re usually quite harshly judged for it.

SS: We’ve been hollered at on the street since we’ve got here. Is that normal for Brighton?

Yes.

JS: We were wearing coats too! Just wait!

SS: Yeah, we’ll whore it up for tonight!

Just don’t go clubbing.

SS: Why not? You coming with us?

What’s changed for you since helming Dead Hooker in a Trunk?

SS: There was money. We never even intended to spend any money on Dead Hooker in a Trunk, $2,500 is what ended up being spent for prosthetics and food and random trucks, rentals and stuff like that. Having that experience was nice because we did every department job so we knew how a film was supposed to function. That’s said, I’m not an expert at set dec, production design, crafting or anything like that.

JS: I was pretty good at cleaning blood off of the toilet.

SS: You were a master at that!

JS: Have you seen the classic behind the scenes moment where I’m cleaning the toilet and I say “Give me the rest of the paper towels” and there’s one sheet left on the roll and there’s blood everywhere? I was like Jesus and the fish there! I just left it.

SS: You used the guys as towels. Anyways, it was weird to have the most talented people I’d ever had the pleasure of working with. One thing was that we overshot for the film that we wanted to do, we never had the time or the budget we wanted. We had a very modest budget and fifteen days to shoot it. We cut it in three weeks, we did sound in one.

JS: We were hoping for American Mary to be our opus, like ten years down the line.

SS: It was just really cool because they brought so much more, like our production designer, Tony Devenyi, with Mary’s apartment said “What if it’s red and bruised like her psyche and her personality is splattered everywhere? We could have a line of old photographs from the beginning of medicine to current times.” I was like “Yeah! Phttp! Of course, that’s exactly what we wanted it to look like.”

One of the notes we got about Dead Hooker in a Trunk was that they hated the characters, they hated the story and they hated the camerawork so we had to make that good in the next one. We got Brian Pearson to be our Director of Photography and he was just fantastic. She (Jen) storyboarded most of it and un-crumpled my storyboards because I hate everything I do and it was a big focus on making this a very beautiful movie, especially considering the subject matter because everyone thinks that body modification’s ugly.

Katharine, Mary is a very strong character. What did you enjoy most about playing the role?

Katharine Isabelle: I think it’s very rare these days to find a female character in film that is so multi-dimensional and not just the ‘bitchy girl’ or ‘the sweet girl next door’. You don’t often find young female characters that don’t have any redeeming qualities but are still somehow likeable, that are smart and determined and don’t toe the line that society expects a girl to toe. That’s a testament to the writing of these two (Jen and Sylvia). They are like that – Sylvia is Mary. They are smart, they are strong, they go a completely different path than anyone expects them to go. They don’t take shit from anybody and I think it’s rare to find a character like that in general.

I enjoyed trying to make her somewhat likeable. She had absolutely no redeeming qualities on paper and was completely unlikeable. She smiles only once during the whole movie genuinely, in the scene with Lance. I don’t know what it is. When I read it, the character struck me immediately as something I’d be blessed to have the opportunity to do and to work with these two was amazing.

Finally, if you could have one body modification done to yourself, what would it be?

JS: I’d have my penis circumcised! If I had one, who knows what I’d want to do to the little guy?

The flesh corset? I thought they were so beautiful. I think they’re usually temporary, but they’re developing permanent sub-derminal implants and my skin’s really sensitive so I’d need gold ones. So when I’m a slightly more successful filmmaker, I’ll look into getting that done. I just like the look of it, I think it’s sexy in a fucked up kind of way.

SS: For the Dr Grant scene, we had a guy come in called Harley and we tested a real suspension with him. At first we were going to do it Superman style.

JS: Like in Ichi The Killer.

SS: Yeah. Two hooks in his shoulders, two in his lower back, two hooks in his thighs and two in his lower calves. It was really cool to see because it’s a type of extreme meditation where you put yourself in a painful situation and you work through that and transcend your own body. When he did that it was really cool and it showed me that the other way wasn’t going to work for camera so I thanked him very much for doing that. They saw how much of a fan-girl I was and I carry a modification hook in my purse…

(Sylvia produces a hook from her bag)

SS: When my balls drop – not Superman style, because I’m too much of a pussy! – I want to do the shoulder suspension, not only because I want to know what that transcendence is like, but if I did it then a lot of people will be like “Well, if that little chick can do it…”

JS: Street cred!

SS: Stop pretending it’s a big freakish thing, it’s kind of cool.

KI: I don’t know. I’d get 3D implants. I don’t know enough about it to know where you could do it though. I would want some shoulder/arm ones.

SS: You could do that.

KI: I’d like some kind of fucking pattern. What do I know? I just think they’d be kind of cool. I could handle that. A little incision, a little implant. I could handle that.

JS: You could fondle them when you’re drunk or something. Like braille or a little message to yourself.

KI: Yeah.

SS: You could do scarification too.

KI: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Little implants. Scarification’s not my bag.

AMERICAN MARY will be released on DVD and Blu-ray from Universal Pictures (UK) on 21st January 2013

Nick Sadler has worked for the iconic Sony Liverpool, developer of Wipeout the space based racing game. Now he is environmental artist for Dragon Age 3, the second sequel to the epic fantasy video game RPG franchise. Starburst had the pleasure of speaking to him about where he started, his work and what he thinks about gaming in this generation…

Starburst: In the spirit of the magazine, what are your favourite pieces of sci-fi, fantasy and horror?

Nick Sadler: A nice broad opener, then? Sci-fi first… So I’m a bit of a Trekkie – but of the TNG crew onwards, so I like TNG, DS9 and Voyager. TNG‘s probably my pick of the 3. I wasn’t around to catch the original series at the peak of its powers, and I didn’t really have any time for Enterprise whatsoever. But I suppose Star Trek sits on the limp side of ‘sci-fi’, and I got hooked more on the design side of things, and do like the whole positive/utopian outlook that Gene Roddenberry was aiming at; I like the ethic.

It is optimistic, which is a nice thing to see…

It absolutely is! The more hardcore sci-fi stuff, I guess I only really scraped the surface of. I love the original Terminator and Judgement Day. Like everyone else who had youth, eyes and ears in the ‘80s, I grew up with Star Wars, so I have a fair amount of love for that. I’m a huge Robocop fan… But for the Verhoeven/Filmmaking angle: he wields political and social satire in a subtle, allegorical way. Anyhow; can you call Knight Rider, sci-fi? I hope so. Loved that.

Yeah suppose you can, although we’re more of an Airwolf fan.

HA! Airwolf. Loved that, too. TV in the ‘80s was so ripe with some great sci-fi shows: Automan, Knight Rider… The Stephen Cannell/Glen A Larson ‘80s. Wonderful. I wasn’t terribly bookish. My mum’s theory is that I was bored out of reading when I started school at 4 or 5. I could apparently read pretty fluently before I started and reading exercises were tuned for the weakest readers, and I got disinterested. Fortunately TV and eventually videogames were there to stimulate my imagination/tame my boredom. I love Tron, too. I’m actually wearing my glow-in-the-dark Tron T-shirt as I type.

Yes! The sequel was amazing!

Legacy? Awesome. Great soundtrack, wonderful visuals…

It has an amazing soundtrack, and Jeff bridges going Jedi. What’s not to like?

Hah! I never made the connection between old Flynn and Obi Wan. Old Flynn to ‘The Dude’ was an easier link for me but still, he played it as old Flynn. If you haven’t already, you should check out the Nike adverts done by Tron Legacy‘s director, Jo Kosinski. They’re stunning. It’s little wonder why they went after him!

We’d better get onto horror. I’m not a big horror fan, so my tastes/experiences might be on the flaccid side for your readers. They’re also, probably a little on the sci-fi side, too. Alien/Aliens/Alien 3, The Terminator, The Thing… I guess they were sci-fi flicks with horror elements… And I loved them.

Not Resurrection?

“Resurrection”?

Ha! We take your point

I think Alien 4 was on one hand, fan-service, because people had been crying to get another Alien film out. Also, they didn’t enjoy the flawed masterpiece that was Alien 3.

Alien 3 is very underrated.

I think you’re right, but it maintains its lower profile for certain, very good reasons, and those that love it, have worked and wanted to love it. The Extended Cut which was release in the Quadrilogy is awesome, I think… Huge swathes of narrative (the trapping of the dragon), and some beautiful sets (the Art-Nouveau abattoir specifically) were left out of the theatrical cut completely. With Resurrection, I think Jean Pierre Jeunet perhaps saw an opportunity to expand into that area as a director and artist, and bring his chums with him. No bad thing for the man, and his expression.

Resurrection is written by Joss Whedon and there are moments that scream Firefly.

I never got into Firefly, or Serenity; must’ve been busy those years. The thing with Resurrection for me was that everything you need to look out for to make things enjoyable in a time-based media like film music or games, you need to have a lot of respect for. Things like exposition, scene-setting, character development, jeopardy, character growth, spin, twists, discordance and resolution, suspense, etc… You can be economical with explicit narrative, and let the audience’s imagination fill in any ambiguous gaps you leave – If a million people with an average age of 25 see a film, there’s 25 Million man-years of combined experience and imagination for the director to lean on. I think in Alien: Resurrection, far too much was revealed far too soon and far too obviously, in the name of “cool”. So what you’re left with is something that your average teenager could watch and understand, yet had the gore and violence elements that prevented teens from seeing it at the cinema…

Yeah there is a problem now with blood being splattered across the screens. Look at the original Halloween, he kills 5 people and it’s all build up. You watch wondering what he will do instead of just a slaughter fest.

There’s a saying right, “Satisfaction is the death of anticipation.” Regardless of the nature of the suspense the director’s trying to achieve, from horror to erotica: once you’ve come, that’s it – the need to concentrate after the climax is severely diminished.

I think that’s sci-fi and horror just about covered?

…and fantasy?

Fantasy, I didn’t get into the swords and dragons type of fantasy much when I was younger, ironic, given what I’m working on now. I enjoyed Conan the Barbarian, loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy. When I was a kid I thought Labyrinth was great, as was Willow. And Star Wars traverses the sci-fi/fantasy border I think.

Have you always been the artistic type? When did you know it’s what you liked doing?

I liked the idea of drawing when I was very young, but didn’t have faith in my ability. Plus, my parents were looking toward a musical outlet for any creativity. I’d guess I was about 13 or 14 before I could actually make a pencil make the marks I wanted it to make. But from then on, I de-prioritised pretty much every other subject so I could do well in art. I de-prioritised everything else down to a C-grade. So my GCSEs were like an A and 8 Cs or something.

Not bad at all.

The A-levels I took were Art/Design, Biology and Physics, but again, I didn’t have any other interests outside of art.

Did studying those sciences help with your art?

That’s a great question. Probably not at the time, they were just the distraction when all I wanted to do was paint, draw and sculpt. I actually dropped Physics after the first year. I had to work too hard to cruise through physics. Biology I could cruise through, while I focussed on the visual arts side of things. I suppose I treated the diagrams I had to draw in those subjects as practice…? It was the bit I looked forward to. But in terms of one subject informing the other, not really… Not at that point.

I would imagine, Biology being what it is, it would help with drawing nature and people.

There are techniques that make your drawings better, and they can be taught and learned. I mean, a Biology teacher generally can’t teach you the nuances of how to draw a human life-model, any better than an Art teacher can explain the nuances in the metabolic pathways of cell organelles. If I had the sensibilities I have now, regarding research and using contextual sources of influence, I would have used Biology to inform artwork much more. It certainly would have helped nurture the eye for visual detail, but would it have helped for the art? That has to depend on how you define art, I’d imagine.

How would you define it?

I’m wrestling with my definition of art right now. It’s an itch that I imagine I’ll always have to scratch. I’d like to crack it in a ‘unified theory’ kind of way. But right now – I define it as a way of achieving an emotional response through a fantasy that the audience imagines, while experiencing a demonstration or performance, based around their particular technical proficiency. Rather than responding emotionally to the work, directly, they respond to the fantasy or day-dream that the work inspires and it can be anything; painting, dancing, music, poetry, videogames, literature. I’m working on it as a definition, though. I’ll freely admit that such academic pondering is 90% bullshit and 99% useless: but the term ‘Art’ is so often used in casual conjunction with visual beauty, and I think that this common-sense understanding doesn’t do art forms’ progress any favours. As I say – it’s an itch that I feel I have to scratch.

That’s an interesting way to look at it and it sounds very liberating in terms of creativity.

Compared to the myriad ‘grey’ professions, solving problems with visual arts is a very liberating way of being ‘productive’, but I don’t think that any definition is going to make being creative any easier: you still have to solve problems in unique ways, and that’s tough.

When did you know you could be an artist as a career and what was your first job?

Well as part of my school’s syllabus, we had to do a work-experience placement, and I did mine at a graphic design studio. I still visit one of the main guys there when I’m in the UK. The career option was always in my mind, even though it wasn’t encouraged. I was actually told to pursue robotics and prosthetics in a career-advice interview. That’s where the A-level physics bit came from but I didn’t want to actually do robotics. If anything, I wanted to do special effects.

After your education and the work placement, what work did you do up to working with BioWare?

I went from A-levels to college to get a B-Tec Art Foundation, then onto Liverpool Art School. I got my BA in Digital Art in 2001, and my MA in Video Games Art and Design Theory, graduating from that course in August 2003. I started working for Sony Studio Liverpool / Psygnosis in October 2003. I did bits of freelance graphic design and illustration while I was in university, but Sony was my first real job. We invited the then AD from Sony Liverpool to our end-of-year exhibition, and he headhunted 3 of us.

You must have been surprised to say the least!

My relief at being offered a job overwhelmed the surprise.

What was your work at that studio and what games did you work on?

So I started on a project called “Combat Games.” I was a concept artist on that project until it was canned 4 months later. Then I was moved onto Formula 1 ’04, where I worked on the promotional art and cover-art, still a trainee at that time. Then in July 2004, I was moved over to F1 ‘05 preproduction as an environment artist. In July 2005, I was moved onto F1: Championship Edition, and we got it out in time for the Japanese PS3 launch in November 2006. After that, I worked on Wipeout HD, and Fury. I also worked on Motorstorm Pacific Rift and Motorstorm RC, as an environment artist, and Motorstorm Apocalypse as a lead artist.

How did you find the move from PS2 to PS3?

My experience so far has been that such transitions are pretty transparent. You’re using all the same tools – Maya/Photoshop. The bit about getting it into the game is handled by coders; they have to write the exporters. We get offered a larger texture or geometry budget, and the work instantly looks better than PS2, so we’re happy. They were truly golden days at Studio Liverpool. We were so experienced with F1 games, that it felt like the project developed itself. Wonderful. Good project, great people… Golden days.

It must have been strange/disheartening to find out about its closure.

Absolutely. I’d been out here in Edmonton for about 5 months when they closed. It was a big shock. It was also right after the AD of Wipeout HD had passed away. It was a very horrible time for the people of the studio.

When did you start at BioWare?

My first day at BioWare was the 7th March this year. The AD I worked under on F1 at Liverpool became the art/animation director here at BioWare in March 2011 and he’d been trying to convince me to come since then. He’d wanted me to follow him since he left Sony and I’d always been able to say that I was still comfortable and enjoying the work. In July 2011, that changed, and I started putting my portfolio together. I applied at the end of November 2011, was on a plane for my interview 2 weeks after that, and then had the offer a few days after I returned to the UK.

That’s amazing! How was it at first knowing the pedigree of BioWare? Were you intimidated by the work BioWare had previously done or did you enjoy the challenge?

I wasn’t a big follower of their games, but I was fully aware of the pedigree, as you say. I’m pretty career-minded, and I like the problem-solving aspect of games development. As far as work goes, I’m not on a mission to produce a Gestalt assembly of pieces of other games; you don’t make progress that way. Granted, you have to keep things relevant to your audience – and familiarity with the establishment is the easiest way, but I think if you’re not at least attempting to give them something new, or push the medium forward, it’s a bit of a cheat. Self-reference is a big cheat, but (unfortunately for the blue-sky notion of progress) money can be made that way: hence sequels. I was given a great task on Dragon Age 3 – and it’s a good opportunity to separate the feature/backdrop that I’m responsible for not only from Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2, but also from other games in the same genre.

The art direction and style of Dragon Age: Origins (DAO) and Dragon Age 2 (DA2) were very different. Is there a similar contrast in style with Dragon Age 3 or can you not say?

There’s obviously very little I can say but I’ll say that the visuals of DAO and DA2 were somewhat hampered by the engine they had to run in; but as you’re probably aware, Dragon Age 3 will be based in the Frostbite 2 engine, and to the contrary, it’s opening up a lot of properly cool opportunities for the visuals.

It will be interesting to see that in a 3rd person fantasy setting instead of a FPS military shooter.

It’s looking beautiful. I can’t wait until we can release some material.

Going back to when you first joined BioWare, as you were relatively new to the studio what was your reaction to the negative feedback regarding Mass Effect 3?

Professional obligations aside, I couldn’t, in good conscience, say anything with a full appreciation of what went on: I’ve only been with BioWare for 8 months. I’ll say this much though: to get a security warning about a protest outside the studio is one thing, but for only one guy to then turn up was pretty hilarious.

Yep that pretty much sums up the situation as a whole…

Yeah, it reminds me a lot of some games I’ve worked on – the public outcry for some games are huge, then only 4 people turn up to actually buy. Not ideal.

So what games are you enjoying at the moment? What games stand out for you this year?

I’m pretty old-school in the games I like. I prefer quick-fix, technique-based arcadey stuff such as Street Fighter 2 / Street Fighter 4, Super Stardust HD, Dead Nation, Unreal Tournament. I also have a penchant for retro gaming; I collect old consoles and their games. I’m waiting patiently for Half Life 3 as everyone else is but nothing ‘big’ has really caught my eye this year. Borderlands 2 is reassuringly eccentric-looking. Stuff like Skyrim, Diablo 3, Dragon’s Dogma, might exist in the same market-space as DA3, and while their successes confirm that the market for this kind of game is strong and vibrant, they just don’t do much for me as an individual consumer/gamer. It seems that the creative risks are being taken in the PSN/XBLA space, and on the indie side of things – that’s where my interest as a gamer is. The benchmark for visual quality is so high now, that you almost expect a £40 game to have very high production quality, so that quality has to be equalled by uniqueness of visual style. And that’s the way it should be, I think!

Did you play Journey? That is one of highlights of the year.

Ah yes – Loved Journey, but I loved Flow and Flower, too.

What do you think of this generation overall, is it time for the next generation or do the Xbox 360/PS3 still have lots of potential?

Well I think that the current-gen machines of course have loads of potential. I mean, the next generation of consoles will come because it’s profitable for them. High quality visuals sell hardware – this is why the top consoles have just been HotRods: fast, stripped out graphics cards with token sound-processors – and more recently they have storage and operating systems. But with gameplay, and the bare bones of what makes a game a game, I doubt that there is a fun PS3 game that couldn’t be fun on the PS2 – and it makes the platform exclusivity thing really tough to achieve. Nintendo are wise to this, I think, and that’s why they’ve focussed on controllers and input-methods rather than visuals as a way to influence the game experiences. It allows you to keep the platform-holder’s mandate pretty easily: “make a game that you couldn’t make for the other consoles.” Something else we have that’s coming up over the last few years is the mobile games market. iPhones and Androids have a fraction of the power of current-gen consoles and cost more per unit I think. An iPhone is more expensive than a PS3, yet the app store is flourishing. So if simple compelling games are viable on the iPhone, why not on a home console? It’s a whole other conversation.

Haha! Indeed it is but for now we’ll leave it there.

Thanks man!

Pleasure!

 

Starburst: Mr Baker, congratulations on being honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame recently. Obviously this is an honour given to you personally, but can we also see this as a mark of recognition and respect given by the industry to the role of special make up and creature effects in films?

Rick Baker: Yes – I think it’s really nice that the chamber of commerce is honoring someone from behind the scenes and I hope there are more to come. One of the things that I find really strange is that guys like Jack Pierce or Dick Smith don’t have a star yet. Doesn’t seem right that I should have one, but I’ll take it!

When we spoke to you in 1982 you were just about to start pre-production on Greystoke. What made you keep going back to designing apes during your career? Was it because you had so many disappointing experiences with the studios getting it wrong, such as on the 1976 King King, that made you determined to create the ultimate gorilla? Is Harry and the Hendersons still your proudest achievement in this respect?

Yes – I think so – it’s a character that works, still holds up. It holds a special place for me because Kevin Peter Hall, who played Harry, was a really dear friend. He was one of those people that enjoyed the collaborateion.

Harry’s face was radio controlled and I puppeteered it so I was able to not only contribute to the look, but also the perfomance and that made it fun. You can show that movie to people today and they would totally accept it and not think it looked outdated or anything.

You have always used make up design and special effects to create wonderful characters, such as the barbershop guys in Coming to America. I wondered how you like to work with actors, like for example Eddie Murphy, and what you see the role of make up design being in terms of creating a character.

That’s one of the good things with what I do – with the film business you get to collaborate with other creative people. It is one of the things I love about film and one I hate – but when it works it’s great – makes you both “up” your game. Collaborating with Eddie was great. He brings so much to the character. He let me design the face, and once he put the makeup on only then did he figure out the right voice to go with the character. And that’s really fun for me. The first make up session is always fun when they sit and look in the mirror and start playing with it. On Eddie – it was great to see what he could bring to it – makes my work that much better. Unfortunately, it’s not always that way. If they have stuff glued to their face sometimes they can freak out.

What advice might you have for someone starting out in the field of special make up/creature effects?

My advice would be they might want to rethink it (laughs). I don’t want to be negative about it but CG stuff is really taking over a lot of our work. Having said that, I think if it’s something they truly want to do, the most important thing is to do it and do it as much as you can, and get as good as you can at it and don’t give up.

Finally, you started out doing low budget horror like Squirm and The Incredible Melting Man. When you look back on your career do you miss those times of running by the seat of your pants relying on your ingenuity in place of money or time, or are the problems still basically the same?

Part of the advantage of those days was there wasn’t time or money to have so many people involved in the decision making and you kind of just made something and went with it. The first design you made is what you went with. But today on big budget pictures – there are many people involved in the decision making process which amounts to no one making a decision (laughs). I do miss the hit the ground running way of doing things, but it still is nice to have time and money to make things better – it’s a trade off.

Rick Baker’s work can most recently be seen in MEN IN BLACK III, out now on DVD/Blu-ray.

Paul Cornell is a celebrated author and creator of screenplays. His credits include Robin Hood, Primeval, Casualty, Doctor Who as well as DC and Marvel comics. His new book, London Falling, came recently.

Starburst: What would the elevator pitch for the autobiography of your life be?

Paul Cornell: I’m Terribly Sorry, the story of an author who fell awkwardly.

Tell us about London Falling.

It’s the story of a team of modern undercover London police who accidentally become able to see the magic and the monsters and decide they have to use real police tactics against them.

Why London? What is it about the city that inspires urban fantasy?

It’s got a tremendous occult history and it deals with space in a way few other cities do, layering versions on top of each other.

What is the weirdest that has ever happened to you?

Phil Dick style deity contact experience. But enough about me.

You’ve written a lot of Doctor Who as well as original fiction. Is there a particular franchise that you would you love to write about?

The Avengers, as in John Steed. James Bond. I’d like to get a crack at one of those.

Tell me about the differences between writing for TV, comics, novels or audio plays?

They all handle time, budget and space differently. It’s a question of changing mental gears.  Prose, of course, can do anything.

Any plans to write more Captain Britain or UK Marvel characters?

No.

Which of your works would you like to see on the silver screen?

London Falling. Hugely.

Any new Doctor Who related work planned?

No.

If you were stranded on a desert island and could only have one book for company, what would that book be?

A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin. It’s the best version of the history of the Apollo moon landings. It makes me cry in a manly way.

Which Authors are your influences?

Christopher Priest, Brian Aldiss, Stephen Baxter, Seanan McGuire, Ursula LeGuin, Pat Barker, Terrance Dicks… that’s just today’s list, off the top of my head.

What else inspires you?

Kate Bush, Bowie, Fortean Times, the game of cricket…

Who would win between Captain America and Captain Midlands? 

Captain America, almost certainly. 

What about Bernice Summerfield versus River Song?

Bernice, of course, although those two would never fight.

Simpsons or Futurama?

Futurama.

Fox Mulder or Charles Fort?

Well, I think Mulder would acknowledge Fort as having got there first.

Truth or Beauty?

Truth. Every time.

Tom Baker or Matt Smith?

Matt. Or Peter. Or Sylvester.

London Calling is out now.

Jonathan Green started writing Fighting Fantasy novels when he was still a teenager, and has an impressive range of novels to his name. He is currently running Kickstarter to produce YOU ARE THE HERO, a book celebrating 30 years of Fighting Fantasy.

You’ve been writing Fighting Fantasy novels your entire adult live. What has been your favourite project so far?

I can’t single out just one so I’ll have to say Howl of the Werewolf and Night of the Necromancer. Howl because I went at it all guns blazing, fearing I might never get the chance to write another Fighting Fantasy gamebook ever again, and Night because of the conceit, the hero dies at the beginning and comes back as a ghost in order to solve his own murder, which I can’t believe hadn’t been used before.

Tell us about YOU ARE THE HERO.

It’s a ‘coffee table’ book celebrating 30 years of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, the publishing phenomenon created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. YOU ARE THE HERO will tell the story of Fighting Fantasy, from the early days of Games Workshop right up to the present day, and beyond. I have already interviewed Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone – who are both keen to have their story told – as well as all manner of other individuals involved in the creation of the series, or people who have been inspired by it.

Are adventure gamebooks still relevant today, or are they fuelled by nostalgia?

I believe that gamebooks are still relevant today, but then I would wouldn’t I?

Children still love to read, as do adults, and they aren’t permitted iPads in school yet, at least not in the ones I’ve visited. And of course apps may well be the way gamebooks are going, but the success of companies such as Tin Man Games shows there’s still a market for interactive fiction out there. Besides, people love video games, and many of them have less interaction, in terms of choices available to players, than a traditional gamebook.

But I would have to agree and say that the current gamebook renaissance has also been fuelled by nostalgia. People who were ten years old when The Warlock of Firetop Mountain was first published now have ten years olds of their own, and inevitably start to relive their own childhood memories and experiences through their children.

The important thing is what we do with gamebooks now that the genre has been revitalised with the release of many classic titles in new formats, and with more professionally produced new content than has been seen in decades.

What are the differences between writing a conventional gamebook, an interactive app and a regular novel?

The app and the gamebook are actually very similar. The main difference is that you can introduce achievements and unlockable content in the app version, such as you might see in a video game. Also, depending on the software, writing an app can make the process of writing a gamebook easier in some respects.

The differences between writing a gamebook and a novel are manifold. Everything’s written in the second person present tense for a start. Character development has to be handled differently, and yes, there can still be character development. You have to write more concisely. You can’t easily include flashbacks or scenes from another character’s point of view.

Of course the great thing about writing a gamebook over a novel is that you can explore every narrative path you like, whereas in a novel you have to stick with just one and follow it through to its ultimate conclusion.

You’ve written tie-in adventure gamebooks for the likes of Doctor Who and Warhammer 40K. How different are these from regular gamebooks?

The combat systems vary – or don’t exist at all – but other than that the process was just like writing any other gamebook except that I had to stay true to the respective universes during the writing of them. But that’s just the same with writing non-gamebook tie-in fiction.

Is there a particular 40K project you’d love to do?

I’d love to write a Space Marine Battles Book but I’ve also got a cool idea for a new Path to Victory gamebook I’d like to work on if I get the opportunity.

Is there a particular tie-in franchise that you haven’t written that you’d love to write for?

Well I’ve recently written a Judge Dredd short story, so that’s ticked another franchise box for me. To be honest, right now I’d rather develop a new franchise of my own as I’m writing for so many different existing franchises already, including Moshi Monsters.

What inspired you to write the Pax Britannia series?

I’m not sure to be honest. I remember reading on the 2000AD website that a new imprint called Abaddon Books was looking for authors. I followed the link, read the guidelines, then emailed editor Jon Oliver outlining a two paragraph pitch for the world of Pax Britannia. I made up the name Ulysses Quicksilver on the spot, thinking I could change it later. Only I never did.

However, a few years ago I stumbled across some notes I had made for a 2000AD Future Shock which I never submitted, which was pretty much the outline of the Professor Galapagos plot line from Unnatural History. Only the name of the main character was different. 

I would imagine a host of influences had all worked on the old grey matter and percolated through to produce the Pax Britannia pitch, including Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula, Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Tim Power’s The Anubis Gates.

What is the appeal of Steam Punk for you? Do you prefer the steam or the punk?

There’s something very appealing about the artistry of the workmanship of the Victorian industrial age and Steampunk as a genre (or flavour, as I like to describe it) fulfils the ‘What if?’ criteria of speculative fiction so well.

The Victorian era was a time of great confidence, scientific advancements and optimism, whilst also being one of the darkest periods of British history. That dichotomy is very appealing to a writer too.

But Steam or Punk? Steam, definitely.

Who would win; Gereth Yaztromo, Malcador the Sigilite or Gandalf the Grey?

Gandalf, seeing as how he’s pretty much a superhero-wizard-angel-thing.

Truth or Beauty

Truth, which in itself can often be beautiful. 

Simpsons or Futurama?

Futurama. 

Tom Baker or Matt Smith?

Hmm… Matt Smith. No! Tom Baker. No, hang on, Matt Smith… Ummm…

Video Games or Traditional Games?

Video Games. I’m going to be crucified for that one!

YOU ARE THE HERO can be found on Kickstarter by clicking on this link.

Starburst caught up with the prolific movie producer Neal H. Moritz to talk about his latest movie, Total Recall, out on DVD/Blu-ray December 26th…

Starburst: Who was the first person to say, “Let’s do a remake of Total Recall?”

Neal H. Moritz: One of the guys who works for me, a producer on the movie, Toby Jaffe, came to me and said, “You know what? I was in this bookstore the other day and I picked up the short story We Can Remember it For Your Wholesale” and he said he read it and it’s a great story. Maybe we should talk about remaking Total Recall. We went back and watched Total Recall, which was one of my favorite movies growing up, and I remembered why I liked it so much but also remembered, God, it was really campy and kitschy. Maybe there’s a great idea here to do it. What I always look at in the beginning of a movie are two things: who is my main character and am I going to love that character? And number two: what’s the idea that is ultimately going to bring people to the movie theaters? The idea of being able to get in a chair and be whoever you want to be or go wherever you want to go or do whatever you want to do is just an incredibly great idea to me. My feeling is that if there was an actual business that could actually do that it would probably be the biggest business in the world. Maybe even bigger than Apple. Conceptually I loved, loved, loved that idea so I said, let’s try and do it. It took a while to get the rights, which was very complex, but we did that and then we hired a writer that we love and had great hopes and the first draft of the script came in. I read that script and was like, I’ve got to make this movie. I loved the script. Then it happened pretty quickly in the great scheme of things in Hollywood. From the time we first started talking to the day we’re sitting here, it was maybe three years, which is not that long when I look at 21 Jump Street, which was at least six years and that was still kind of shortened in the scheme of Hollywood. The studio read it right after we did it and they loved it about as much as we did and said, “Okay, let’s try and get this thing together.” Then we tried to figure out how we were going to make it and who was going to direct it and who’s going to star in it.

Was there any discussion about doing it in 3D?

There was a discussion about it but when you see the whole movie you’ll see that there’s so much stuff on screen, we felt that it could be very overwhelming to watch the movie in 3D. Len really wanted to make a reality-based sci-fi movie and we felt that the 3D might take us a little bit farther into a futuristic vein and we just decided that, on this particular movie, we wouldn’t want to do that, even though there were many people who would have liked us to have done 3D. We just felt that, with this movie, this was the best way to go.

Colin is Irish and Kate is English. Why do American producers cast Irish and British actors more often than American actors?

It seems like there are more of them that have been trained at an early age. I don’t know if that’s exactly Colin’s situation or not. I don’t discriminate in any way about who will be the leads in our movies. I only look at actors and the characters they play and say, “Are these people that hold my eyes to the screen?” When I watch Colin on screen, he’s one of those guys that I want to watch. That’s all I’m looking for: somebody I want to spend two hours with in a dark room.

When the original came out, there was a lot of discussion about the violence level. What’s the violence level like in this film? What rating are you expecting?

The movie will have a PG-13 rating. In all the movies I’ve done, whether it’s the cars people drive or whether it’s the violence or whether it’s the language, in terms of cursing, if it’s organic to the movie, it’s fine for me. When I watch movies with product placement that doesn’t fit, or when I hear language that doesn’t really need to be there, it’s just there to prove a point, I don’t like that. I like whatever is organic to the world that we’ve created in this movie. I think this movie has an incredible amount of action and some violent action but it wasn’t about body count or, let’s see how many people we can kill.

Why did you choose to keep the title Total Recall and not the Philip K. Dick title?

It doesn’t fit on a marquee.

But this title links it with the old film and not the short story…

This movie is a combination of the two. It’s very similar to the original movie at its core concept but the mission of the movie is very different. What Colin is trying to do and stop is very different from what Arnold is trying to do and stop. The tone of the movie is probably closer to the Philip K. Dick story than it is to the tone of the last Recall.

Do you have a philosophy about remakes?

Everybody’s trying to remake everything and I think certain things are warranted and certain things aren’t. I guess you never know until you show it to an audience and they’ll be the first ones to tell you. In this particular case, people are very, very eager to see what we’ve done. God, I think in the first seventy-two hours when we released the first trailer there were like eighteen million views. I don’t think in all the movies I’ve done – and I’ve done close to five billion dollars – that we’ve had eighteen million views total on the trailer. There’s an incredible amount of anticipation for the movie. I hope we live up to that. I can tell you we’ve worked our butts off to make a great movie. This has been one of those experiences that has been good from the very beginning right up until now and I hope it finishes strong.

Do you read the blogs and comments online?

Anybody who says they don’t is lying. But I also realize that there is the mainstream people who are on the internet and then there’s the very small groups that we in Hollywood pay a lot of attention to but don’t really have that big of a voice. I’m more interested in what the mainstream is seeing and thinking about whatever we’re working on. The good news about the internet is that word spreads quickly and the bad news is that word spreads quickly. When we made the last Fast & Furious, there was a lot of cynicism until people saw the first footage. Once they saw the first footage, that cynicism changed like that and spread like wildfire. So there’s good and bad.

Are there any nods to the original in the film?

There are a few touchstones that we wanted to do. I think it’s fun. I think people are looking for that. They want to have fun with it. There’s a nostalgia to it. We discussed whether or not we should have a cameo from Arnold or Sharon Stone and we felt that was going too far. That could take you out of the movie and take us out of the reality we were trying to create.

How have you remained so successful in a business where so many producers come and go?

I love making movies and I love watching movies. I look at each one of these movies as a complete life experience. I get to immerse myself in whatever we’re doing. And I don’t like to fail so I work extremely hard at trying to make movies that I think are movies that will play worldwide and that I want to see. Any time I’ve tried to second-guess myself or any time I’ve done a movie because it was a good financial deal, those are the movies that have not worked for me. The movies that have worked for me are the movies that, at a gut level, when I first heard the idea or first read the script or first saw an actor or a director, those have always been the things with the best results for me. I just go with my gut. I don’t want to hear research. I want to go with what I think works for me.

Do you approach producing TV differently than film?

The Big C I did because I really love Laura Linney and I love the idea of something that had never been seen before on television. That was interesting to me. I think it was a clutter-buster and could get attention because of that. I only do things I really want to see myself, even though I go see every movie. If I could only make one kind of movie, those would be action movies because I like action movies. What I really like is that action movies are not boring to make. Every day there’s something exciting that keeps my attention. From Sweet Home Alabama to Cruel Intentions, we’ve made movies in a variety of different genres. Comedy isn’t necessarily my thing but 21 Jump Street turned out to be a big hit for us and I love the movie.

Can you foresee if a film is going to be a hit during production?

No. If I have a great experience it doesn’t mean the movie’s going to be great. If I have a terrible experience, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be bad. The only time I really know how a movie is going to do is when I put it in front of an audience for the first time.

Do you worry more about making a remake than a regular movie?

Can you do good or can you do better? That was the challenge. But I was confident enough in the people that we had working on this movie that we had something that we could make that was going to be special. I can tell you from the footage that we showed and the reaction that we’ve had to the trailer to this date, people are really, really interested in the movie.

***

Total Recall is released on DVD/Blu-ray December 26th.

The Orphan Killer is an independent film taking the horror scene by storm. With the eponymous character’s distinctive look gracing many a magazine and website. The film is unlikely to be released commercially in the UK and has been banned in Germany, but is available to buy from the film’s website or from iTunes. We caught up with the film’s director, Matt Farnsworth to find out more…

Starburst: First off, how did you get into film making? Was it always an interest?

Matt Farnsworth: It started a long, long time ago in a land far, far away… We moved a lot when I was a kid. When the first VHS recording devices were released we had one. It was my job to document all the shit we had in the house on video each time we moved. I think my parents were probably just giving me something to do to get me out of their hair. I was young and had a video camera. Needless to say… I documented everything in meticulous detail. Later in my first years of college I found acting. It became a passion. So much so, that I moved to Hollywood and ended up screen testing for major roles in Star Wars, Terminator, and other big films. I was always writing so the progression to directing and making films came naturally. I am also a film fanatic. I used to watch every movie I could get my hands on. I still watch a lot of films.

What were your influences coming in to make the film?

I’ve always been a blood and guts slasher fan. When I was a kid we spent some time living in Kansas and there was nothing bigger than Metallica and Freddy Krueger. They were big all over the U.S. but the slasher boom was happening during my awkward years and during that time period it really gave me an outlet. My main influence in making The Orphan Killer was myself. I have to keep my creativity going or I get edgy. Kubrick was probably the most influential director to me. In the horror genre, the list of my favourite killers goes like this: TOK, Freddy, Hannibal Lector, Michael, Jack Torrance, Jason, Pinhead, Jaws, That little Fuck (Chucky), and Leatherface.
I enjoy the classic Monster movies too. A TV movie that really gave me a major fright as a kid was Salem’s Lot. That had me looking over my shoulder all the time and staring at the window all night. Every little noise was a vampire scratching at the window… sleeping with a blanket wrapped around my head sweating.

In my career, I have worked personally with the editor of the original Amityville Horror, Lost Boys, Flatliners, Police Academy and other big ones. He taught me the editing craft. I am sure that had some influence on me and my choice to make a horror film. I was taught the editing craft by a master of horror.

The film has been around for a while now, and you have been doing the US convention circuit, how has that been?

TOK hasn’t really been around long at all. The original Texas Chain Saw has been around a while. What has happened with TOK in this short time is astonishing. It’s become a horror icon. Fans love it, it’s banned in Germany, has over 2.5 million illegal downloads verified and that number is still growing. Studios films don’t get that kind of attention and they have huge marketing budgets. If you take that into consideration you see how powerful TOK is. Fans drive The Orphan Killer. The Orphan Killer has become the new horror icon by social media election. It’s a hit. If the right studio came along and didn’t want to fuck me over completely, I would consider putting it out with one of them. They seem very daft though. Kind of like dinosaurs. Not that I have met an actual dinosaur. That would be a trick. This film is so popular Facebook called me to ask how our click through rates are higher than celebrity driven films. That means we are a bigger deal than Brad Pitt movies in advertising to our market. I love social media and all it has done for indie filmmaking. The U.S. Convention circuit has been very beneficial in creating awareness about the movie. Fans are always shocked to pick this film up at a Con. They just don’t get that calibre of movie usually at conventions, so it’s a nice surprise. They always take off and watch it immediately. Then they come back speechless. They always say “I love this movie. It is my new favourite slasher”, or “The Orphan Killer is an instant classic”, or “This should be in every theatre”, and “Marcus Miller is the New Horror Icon”. We hear this on Facebook as well. It never gets old. It’s refreshing each time and I appreciate hearing it. There will be many Orphan brothers and sisters reading this. I owe this films icon status to all of them. TOK will never not be, being discovered. It’s viral and as other TOK projects are made, it will expand farther and continue to be watched by new generations of horror fans worldwide.

How did you get John Savage on board?

John was in my movie, “IOWA“. John and I go way back. He’s a good friend and has enjoyed being in my films. He’s an incredible actor and I love getting him into different kinds of roles.

One of the strongest points of the film is the gore and all the practical effects, was there ever a temptation to go down the CGI route?

No. I wanted grit and grime on the lenses. I could not get that type of feeling with CGI. CGI is not visceral. Horrorhound magazine in the U.S. said “The acting is so good and the effects so well executed that you cannot look away”.

The whole point of a slasher is that the violent elements make the show exciting. The acting and production value however, are the strongest points of the film. Without Diane Foster being able to pull off all of the torture acting and fear we would have been sunk. Slasher films must be visual to be impacting. There must be something sickening about what you make but at the same time it has to remain sexy. Otherwise how do you market it? Real blood is sexy.

Diane Foster

The film has been banned in Germany, what was your reaction to that? Other than how great it is for marketing! 

At first I thought it was odd. The film has not even been officially released and I am getting letters from the German government. It’s a badge of honour in the horror market. There is no denying it. The film is an instant classic now. Thanks Germany.

One of the items you sell on your website is a replica of Marcus’ mask, which has a very iconic look to it. Was merchandising important from the beginning or is it just a case of supply and demand?

The evolution of The Orphan Killer as a character has created a large demand for Orphan Killer products. I always felt it could take off from the very beginning. I thought in the beginning about it and that became a reality through demand.

What was your reasoning behind distributing the film yourself? Was it a conscious decision to avoid “selling out”? It’s great that it’s a region free release so us Brits can buy it. Has this way of distribution caused any problems?

It was a very conscious decision not to give it to a studio straight away. If you give your film to them it is a huge gamble and the odds are not in your favour unless there are performance guarantees, which there never are. The studios in Hollywood have become abusive to independent filmmakers. I believe the karmic reaction to the abuse suffered by truly creative people is the pirate world that now exists. Pirates are taking billions from the studios and the studios do not like it. I cannot say that piracy has helped me make a bunch of money on The Orphan Killer. In fact there is none. There are over 2.5 million illegal downloads of The Orphan Killer movie worldwide and counting. It is subtitled and dubbed in 70 languages. People all over the world have proliferated my film. It is sold on discs all over the world. I have never signed one single deal on the film. There has never been an agreement between me and anyone else to distribute my film. There were negotiations with two major studios in Hollywood, but nothing I found agreeable. I believe the power of the film has taken it to the masses and the easiest way for people to get it so far has been through piracy. People do not pirate your film and ban it if it is not a hit. Indie filmmakers all over the world would be lucky if people even cared to download their film. The fact that there is so much available for free makes millions of downloads (illegal or not) that much more of an accomplishment. We have been on the cover of numerous magazines, selling them out in pre-sell. Even Rob Zombie played The Orphan Killer at his concert in New Jersey. None of this could have been accomplished if people didn’t know TOK existed. Now, fans worldwide hail TOK as the new horror icon. The character continues to be discovered every day.

The region free idea was a purposeful choice. I wanted to start a TOK fire worldwide and now 70 countries are blazing in TOK murder. I have not even had a chance to mention in the interview all of the awards and festivals the film has been to worldwide. It’s a great place I am in.

So, what have you planned for the future?

Big plans. I have a major TOK web series slated for 2013. It is going to be bloody brutal. I am not allowed to talk too much about it yet but fans will be so bloody happy with it. I have also written the sequel to TOK and the third instalment. Just last week, I cut a mega deal with Trick or Treat Studios to distribute the official cinema replica mask into stores worldwide. Oh yeah, go buy the movie on DVD from our website; comes with a free soundtrack. You will bloody love it and can add it to your cruel collection. Brutal thanks.

Treasure Trapped is a documentary movie about the European Live Action Role Play scene. The film production company Cosmic Joke are currently running a Kickstarter campaign to put the finishing touches to their feature. We caught up with the director, Alex Taylor, to ask him what inspired him to start such a project.

Starburst: So what is Treasure Trapped about?

Alex Taylor: Treasure Trapped is what happens when a bunch of filmmakers hear about LARP and head out to learn more. Half of it is a documentary about LARP and the other half is a road movie following a bunch of friends going from knowing nothing of a hobby to becoming fully involved in this completely alien world. So you get to see our real time exploration of this whole other counter culture and learn about it through our wide eyes. For those unfamiliar with LARP it stands for Live Action Role Play. I always describe LARP as like Dungeons and Dragons but you get up from the table, put down the dice and head to the woods with some weapons.

A popular view of the hobby is ‘cross country pantomime’ but I’ll stop there, go see the film. We’ve been in touch with the LARP community for a few years now, filming, researching and building relationships. We’re nearly at the end of our adventure. We’re hoping to get to Denmark to film the finale of the film at a school that teaches through LARP. All we need is a tiny bit more funding so we’re running a campaign until January 5th on Kickstarter to try and crowd fund the film.

Why LARP?

When I was first told that people engaged in LARP my mind was genuinely blown. I just couldn’t believe people did it to be honest, I was so unfamiliar with the concept I just had to know more. I pretty much immediately ran out to try and meet some players and just discuss every facet of the hobby with them. It fascinated me and I knew it would fascinate others too. Everyone I speak to about the film, who hasn’t heard about LARP before, reacts in exactly the same way – they can’t believe it and have a million questions to ask me. Anyone we speak to who is in the hobby usually wants to see a documentary about the past time made correctly. So from most angles we seem to be on to a winner, exploring a community that people want to learn about.

Given how advanced video games are, do we really need things like LARP?

I’m not sure we ‘need’ LARP, but then I’m not sure we ‘need’ video games. I think there’s a definite place in the world for LARP. There are loads of classic arguments like how much better it is to get off your arse at the weekend and go engage in a genuine activity in the big wide world. I think even avid video gamers who sit playing FIFA for 4 hours a night still want to go for a kickabout at the weekend. It’s the same with LARP – it’s another facet of an interest. There are many reasons people play computer games and many reasons people LARP. One thing you always get with LARP though, and struggle to see with video games, is engaging face to face with real people and a genuine sense of community. It’s the community aspect that’s really touched us beyond what we expected to find in Treasure Trapped. We’ve tried to apply similar ideals to making this film – getting out and engaging with people, helping each other out. We stepped out from behind our emails and went and met people, not just players though, people to do with filming and marketing and it’s helped us infinitely. We formed a great relationship with

Wicked Campers who gave us our colourful and ‘noble steed’ which we drive to all the different LARP systems in. We just went down there and spoke to them about what we were doing and made a connection. Now we’re trying to bring everyone together in our Kickstarter campaign and we’re planning a pretty special premiere for everyone who we’ve met on the way.

How different is LARP from other forms of media?

I think LARP is far more relatable than anyone really thinks. The general opinion seems to be that it’s this alien hobby that only extremely odd people would engage in. In reality it’s so similar to video gaming, table top gaming, acting, general make believe, people would be surprised. Whenever I’ve been filming at a big weekend festival LARP it’s just like being at a music festival. I mean you’ve got more dragons than your average music festival but it’s still the same. Loads of friends hanging out, camping, sharing their passion (and more than a beer or two), it’s great. We’ve worked up a little comparison between LARP and other forms of media for the film, we’re gonna give people a sneak peak at some of it if before Christmas.

How important is immersion?

Personally, I think immersion has to be really important. We tried to respect the immersion of players whenever we could, not just shoving a camera in everyone’s face when they’re playing. For me I think the better the setting of a LARP, the exclusion of external factors, all other players pulling their weight, it all increases immersion and makes for a better experience. Then again we’ve spoken with people who can go in and out of the experience no problem or people who largely ‘play’ themselves at events and enjoy it in a more casual way. Similarly I know

people who can become fully immersed in table top gaming which I would find impossible, so each to their own I guess? I still think immersion is a key factor and very important.

What future projects do you have planned?

Well we’ve just wrapped on a big music video for a band called The Ghost Tours, that’ll be out before you know it. It’s the first of three that tell a continuing story, sort of a crime caper in three parts. So we’re hoping to tie that together as a bit of a short. Then depending on the success of Treasure Trapped we’re starting to look into a feature film. There’s been mention of maybe a horror or good indie drama. We’re slowly looking at scripts and talking over dreaded issues like financing so we’ll see. If you’re reading this and think you’re sat on a great script now is the time to get it over to me.

What would your dream project be?

I’ve got a few stories I really want to tell so I think my dream project would be being given the chance (and budget) to make the film I want to make without huge amounts of compromise. The ability to meet with the actors I want to work with would be great too. I’ve always had a bizarre fascination with Tom Cruise and it’d be a dream to direct him in some career changing performance. A bit like Travolta in Pulp Fiction, only on a much bigger scale!

What made you become a filmmaker?

An overactive imagination and love of telling stories. Just like authors love writing to entertain and move people, to share their ideas and reflect on their experiences, I long to do the same visually. I used to run around as a child and my imagination would head off in all sorts of wonderful directions with all these far-fetched things happening, it was only later I realised I wasn’t so much imagining myself as a cowboy but imagining the next great Western. I was thinking how cool certain things would look if they happened, not what it would be like. I just see things as films!

If you were stranded on a desert island and could only have one book for company, what would that book be?

It’s a bit of a flowery answer but I’ve got an old battered copy of the complete work of Keats that I’ve taken just about everywhere. I don’t think there’s ever a time I haven’t been able to turn to one of his poems for some form of inspiration or peace of mind.

What fictional worlds inspire you? Which authors are your influences?

For me a fictional world is at its most effective when it’s relatable to our own reality. I love identifiable worlds with a few key differences from our own. An author who excels at this is Stephen King, I can’t get enough of his work. Another thing I love about King is the way he merges his fictional universe with the world of the reader, he’s constantly reminding you you’re reading a story and yet making you forget there’s a book in your hands all at the same time.

David Lynch, probably my biggest filmmaking influence, does the same thing. His realities are warped versions of our own and he too openly announces his worlds as fiction that really works for me. Huge Tolkien-like alternate worlds aren’t really my thing, although that being said you can’t look at George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and not be inspired by the scope and detail of the world he’s created.

What else inspires you (Music, TV, People)?

I draw inspiration from just about everything around me. In the early stages of creative development I try to draw as little from other film sources as possible so turn to lots of music, books, graphic novels (I’m a big fan of graphic novels) and the world around us. Music is probably my biggest influence; I just find myself thinking very visually when listening to music in my car or in the office and ideas form very naturally. I find inspiration creeps in from the everyday world and people watching. I can be inspired by watching someone rushing past me to catch a bus, you start imagining their story, why are they late, where are they going, and you’re off.

Simpsons or Futurama?

Has to be The Simpsons doesn’t it? I love Futurama but The Simpsons is the one.

Dora the Explorer or Tomb Raider?

Tomb Raider. I’m pretty sure Lara Croft was responsible for me entering puberty, Croft or Jet from Gladiators.

Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings?

Game of Thrones. I’m completely smitten with all things GOT at the moment.

Truth or Beauty?

Beauty. Filmmaking is crafting beautiful images and telling a lot of lies. Not that I’ve lied in this interview of course.

Tom Baker or Matt Smith?

Secret option C – Christopher Ecclestone! I’m not the biggest fan of the Doctor but I’ll go with Matt Smith, the current series is great for the BBC and British production.

TableTop Games or Video Games?

Video games every time for me, when I finally get to my Christmas break I plan to spend it surgically attached to the Xbox.

Anne Rice, born in 1941, is the author of more than thirty novels, spanning subjects as diverse as gothic horror, Christian mythology and erotica. Her Vampire Chronicles have probably directly influenced more living authors than Bram Stoker, Edgar Allen Poe and H P Lovecraft combined, with a film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire that was so universally loved that nobody blamed her for the travesty that was Queen of the Damned. Almost 35 years after the publication of Interview with the Vampire Anne has taken time out of her prolific schedule to speak to Starburst Magazine about the new graphic novel adaptation, Interview with the Vampire: Claudia’s Story, and how she feels about the proliferation of Paranormal Romance.

Starburst: When it comes to adaptations of your stories, do you like to maintain control over the material or do you feel happy for other artists to develop their own interpretations?

Anne Rice: On adaptations, I don’t try to maintain tight control. I seek to approve of the entity before I grant the right to adapt. But with Yen (Yen Press, the American publishers of Claudia’s Story and also the far-inferior Twilight manga!) and Claudia’s Story, I did see the artwork and found it beautiful and found the adaptation faithful. I am happy for the adaptors to develop their own approach, but do very much want fidelity to the underlying work. Yen was very respectful of Interview with the Vampire in doing this.

Did it feel strange to return to Interview with the Vampire after all this time, or would you say that the Vampire Chronicles have kept you close to those characters?

I’m always close to the Vampire Chronicles, to the characters, and to the reader’s responses. We talk about them all the time on my Facebook page, and we are always seeking to develop film rights. Interview with the Vampire is ever present in my mind. And lately, I’ve been re-reading the entire series.

How did you feel about Ashley Marie Witter’s style of art in Claudia’s Story?

I thought Ashley’s style of art was breath-taking. She caught the sensuality of the book, the 19th century decor and costuming, the whole “style” and ambience of Interview with the Vampire. Her work is some of the best I’ve ever seen in the graphic novel field.

If this graphic novel is successful what other stories would you look to for similar adaptations? I adored Claudia’s Story, but having read Interview with the Vampire so many times I’m now longing to read adaptations of tales in the Vampire Chronicles that I haven’t got to yet.

I would love to see all the Vampire Chronicles adapted for graphic novels, and all my books, really. I particularly love the graphic novel form, and always have. I loved the old Sherlock Holmes stories in the Strand magazine with their famous ink drawings of Holmes in his deer stalker hat. I love the whole Dickensian idea of reaching the masses with new adaptations. I wish modern novels used lavish illustrations. I would love it if every single book of mine were illustrated.

Where do you stand on the proliferation of the Paranormal Romance genre and the many descendants of your early prose?

I’m not surprised that we’ve had a resurgence of paranormal romance. I think the audience was always underestimated and underserved. The hunger for good supernatural stories has always been there. And now the audience is being heard and respected. Also the concept of the vampire is so rich and deep that it is not surprising people are developing new vampire characters and new cosmologies. I think this is all good. I’ve always loved imaginative fiction and written highly speculative and imaginative fiction. I remember when pedestrian realism dominated the “serious” fiction market, and there was no room for people like me. I’m glad now that it is a whole new world. 

Looking back on your career with hindsight, is there an area of writing that you wish you had devoted more time to? Or is it the case that you remedy feelings like that with the novels that you’re currently writing?

Well, I usually write what obsesses me. So I’ve had many twists and turns, and I am always revisiting my old work, and looking for ways to add to what I’ve done. I might be writing more of the Christ the Lord series in the future; and certainly I will write more of the Songs of the Seraphim with Toby O’Dare. And I’ve just started with the Wolf Gift and the werewolves. I am an enthusiast and an excessive person, and I am always experimenting.

***

Interview with the Vampire: Claudia’s Story is out now.