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        <h1><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b><i><a href="../../index.html">loonygames</a><br>
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              <p>
               
                 
                   
                    
                      <p><b>So you are 
                        trying to recapture some of that element.</b> </p>
                    
                     
                      <p> </p>
                    
                     
                      <p><b>Mills: </b>Yeah 
                        we're doing our best to build up a lot of suspense, but 
                        on the same token, we have to have a payoff because it 
                        is a game. The idea is to actually lead to something so 
                        you will encounter creatures in the woods. Ghosts, etc. 
                        </p>
                    
                     
                      <p> </p>
                    
                     
                      
                         
                           
                            
                          
                        
                         
                           
                             <i> 
                              </i></p>

                          
                        
                      
                      <p><b>Yeah I don't 
                        think you could do a whole game like that and not show 
                        any monsters. Can you tell me about some of the enhancements 
                        you're making to the Nocturne Engine for the Blair Witch?</b> 
                        </p>
                    
                     
                      <p> </p>
                    
                     
                      <p><b>Mills:</b> 
                        Yeah we've taken all the feedback we've gotten from the 
                        hundreds of people, a lot of Nocturne fans on the fan 
                        sites have given us good feedback about what they liked 
                        and didn't like about the game. Controls are going to 
                        be a lot friendlier than they were, you'll have those 
                        180-degree turns so you can spin around real quick and 
                        easily. Opening doors, picking up items, climbing ladders, 
                        all the action things that we had a problem with before, 
                        are being fixed now, so that in addition to them working 
                        better, just by default we'll also highlight the item 
                        to show you what you're targeting. So if you walk up to 
                        a door and there's a light switch beside it, if you turn 
                        a little bit to the right, the light switch will light 
                        up. If you turn to the left, the door will light up. So 
                        there's never a question as to what's going to happen 
                        when you complete the action. There are no jumping puzzles 
                        at all. We left the ability to jump in even though you're 
                        not required to jump at all. I hate jumping puzzles. </p>
                    
                     
                      <p> </p>
                    
                     
                      <p><b>&#8220;You 
                        must find the red key.&#8221;</b> </p>
                    
                     
                      <p> </p>
                    
                     
                      <p><b>Mills:</b> 
                        There are no keys. There's not a key anywhere in the game. 
                        We've got an Automap feature that draws out a map. You'll 
                        be able to enter various field notes. [Doc Holliday] keeps 
                        very detailed field notes that shows every conversation 
                        she's had with people in it, so that if the player forgets 
                        something, they can always go back and review the conversations 
                        that they've had previously. There were some issues in 
                        Nocturne where, if people hit the cinematic at a bad time 
                        or if they just forgot, there was no way to tell what 
                        their goal was at that point in the game if they loaded 
                        a saved game. We've taken care of that. </p>
                    
                     
                      <p> </p>
                    
                     
                      <p><b>Good. Can 
                        you tell me about the new monsters that we're going to 
                        face and the weapons we'll get to use?</b> </p>
                    
                     
                      <p> </p>
                    
                     
                      <p><b>Mills:</b> 
                        The hero of the game is Doc Holliday. She'll have her 
                        Enhanced Charged Radiance Emitter, which is based on the 
                        original one that was used in Nocturne, but it's a bit 
                        modified, and enhanced to affect more than just the undead 
                        or night-dwelling creatures. The creatures you will encounter 
                        are mostly taken from references made in the movie and 
                        documentaries. There are a lot of ghosts and spectral-type 
                        creatures. Consequently there's a lot less blood in this 
                        game than there was in Nocturne. So hopefully Wal-Mart 
                        will be at peace with our content. </p>
                    
                     
                      <p> </p>
                    
                     
                      <p><b>Smith:</b> 
                        Yeah and the ESRB. The ESRB has really fucked up ratings. 
                        It basically comes down to whatever the one person there 
                        that looked at your game gets a gut feeling for it. They 
                        can brand you as an adult rating, or a mature rating, 
                        or a teen, or a kid. And all of which do affect your selling 
                        in retail. It's kind of weird, I mean it's a good rating 
                        and I'm all for it, I just wish it was more clearly understood 
                        to the general public, the buyers, and also to the developers 
                        exactly what the hell they're trying to say an M rating 
                        is. They're still not very clear about that. </p>
                    
                     
                      <p> </p>
                    
                     
                      <p><b>Mills:</b> 
                        We're trying to make Blair Witch not as a mature rated 
                        game. What is the next one? There's one between teen and 
                        mature? Because we don't want to be shunned by buyers 
                        like Wal-Mart. But still we're making a game based on 
                        a rated-R movie that the topic of which, is the man who 
                        murdered children. So it will be difficult to keep away 
                        from adult themes when discussing Rustin Parr. </p>
                    
                     
                      <p> </p>
                    
                     
                      <p><b>I can understand 
                        that. Another element in the movie that really affected 
                        me was the complete lack of musical score. Somehow it 
                        made the experience more real for me. Are you going to 
                        ignore that and take the same route that you did with 
                        Nocturne with the incredible musical score?</b> </p>
                    
                     
                      <p> </p>
                    
                     
                      <p><b>Mills: </b>More 
                        than likely we'll be using the Nocturne-style score which 
                        isn't background music, it's like contextual music. It 
                        shows up at the appropriate moment to build suspense or 
                        to reveal emotion. </p>
                    
                     
                      <p> </p>
                    
                     
                      <p><b>Thanks for 
                        your time, guys!</b> </p>
                    
                    <i>- 
                      Russell &quot;RadPipe&quot; Lauzon currently holds the world 
                      record for using the word &quot;exhumed&quot; 15 times in 
                      a single sentence.</i> 
                      </p>
                  
                  
                
                
              
            
            
<br>Vol. 

                2, Issue 13<br>
                February 22, 2000<br>
                </b>
              <b> 
                </b>
               
                <b><i>Not 
                  Just a Passing Wind</i></b></p>
                An 
                  interview by Russell 
                  &quot;RadPipe&quot; Lauzon.</p>
                <p></p>
              
              

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              <i>&quot;It's 
                not just like a wind that's passing through...&quot; - Night of 
                the Living Dead.</i></p>
              Recently, 
                Josh Vasquez, a regular contributor here at loonygames, called 
                <b>Nocturne</b>, &quot;a masterpiece.&quot; This is high praise 
                indeed from someone not easily impressed. Of course, for anyone 
                who knows Josh and has actually played <b>Nocturne </b>this isn't 
                much of a shock. The game mixes film noir with classic horror, 
                and in doing so creates an entire world within the game's four 
                chapters.</p>
              It was 
                recently announced that Terminal Reality, the development house 
                behind <b>Nocturne</b> would be making a game based on the film, 
                <i>The </i> <i>Blair Witch Project</i>, and furthermore, that 
                this would be the first of <i>three</i> such games, all made using 
                the <b>Nocturne </b>engine, and all tying into the same mythology. 
                </p>
              We dispatched 
                Russell &quot;RadPipe&quot; Lauzon (whose previous interviews 
                include last issue's interview with 
                Brandon &quot;GreenMarine&quot; Reinhart and issue 
                2.5's interview with Paul Steed) to talk to Terminal Reality's 
                Jeff Smith (PR monkey) and Jeff Mills (production lead) to get 
                the scoop on their upcoming Blair Witch games, and the influences 
                behind <b>Nocturne</b>.</p>
              <i>- 
                Jason &quot;loonyboi&quot; Bergman, editor-in-chief. </i></p>
              
                <p>
                <p><b>Let's start off 
                  with some general info about your upcoming titles. Explain the 
                  Blair Witch Projects for us.</b> </p>
              
               
                <p> </p>
              
               
                <p><b>Smith: </b>Blair 
                  Witch, Volume 1...is a game that we're working on with the Nocturne 
                  engine, of course. It is Part 1 of a 3 part series that is being 
                  done by the Gathering. Volume 1 that we're working on covers 
                  the Rustin Parr mythology from the Blair Witch legend, which 
                  was lightly touched on in the movie. As you may or may not know, 
                  the Haxan guys, who are the directors and producers, went to 
                  great great great lengths to supplying and manufacturing a very, 
                  long, deep, rich, broad time-spanning mythology. </p>
              
               
                
              
                
                
                   
                     
                      
                    
                  
                   
                     
                       <i> 
                        </i></p>
                    
                  
                
                I think we've 
                kind of quelled some of the initial concerns about Blair Witch 
                the Game Volume 1 that we're working on being 3 kids running through 
                the forest. It really has very little to do with the movie at 
                all, other than the mythology and the realm of the Blair Witch 
                legend. Volume 2 that is being worked on by Human Head will cover 
                an additional story and then Ritual Entertainment is working on 
                the third one. All of these titles should be available to the 
                public by November. So they'll release quickly, one after the 
                other. And then, of course, there's always the potential for additional 
                games based on this type of storyline, using advanced iterations 
                of the Nocturne Engine into the distant future.
<p>Blair Witch Volume 
                  1: you've been introduced, in Nocturne, to an organization called 
                  Spookhouse, and Spookhouse is the badest of the bad of the 'never 
                  seen' people of the world, to combat supernatural forces. So 
                  there are a couple people you've met like the Stranger, who 
                  was the lead in Nocturne and he had a little badass named Doc 
                  Holliday. She was always the Mad Scientist of Nocturne and would 
                  come up with different weapons, melee weapons, radiance emitters, 
                  and things to help them in their battles, and it's because of 
                  the story and mythology that Spookhouse and Nocturne had created, 
                  you see Stranger is one of these guys that isn't an investigator, 
                  he goes in to pretty much combat adverse forces. Whereas some 
                  of the others that you met, like Hiram and Doc Holliday, were 
                  more methodical, more research oriented. So when you go into 
                  Blair Witch, you're looking at playing through the different 
                  characters, you'll actually take the role of Doc Holliday. With 
                  her more research-oriented background, it makes her the prime 
                  Spookhouse operative to be sent out to investigate Rustin Parr 
                  and what the hell really happened. </p>
              
              
               
                <p> </p>
              
              
             
            
               
                 
                  
                
              
               
                 
                   <i> 
                    </i></p>
                
              
            
            Because 
              it will be revealed to you that Spookhouse in its existance, and 
              operatives and contacts that it has throughout time, there has been 
              paths crossed where Spookhouse was involved with the Blair Witch 
              legend. At least at some points in the past and possibly in the 
              future there would and could be, similar investigations done by 
              the Spookhouse. And our game is focusing more on bringing forth 
              characters that we introduced in Nocturne, just because that's kind 
              of the way we approached it. Now it won't probably be the same for 
              Human Head and Ritual. They'll probably be introducing characters 
              of their own that are new. So they may not all fall into the 'Spookhouse 
              meets Blair Witch' realm. The common thread is the use of the Nocturne 
              engine, and not always being involved with Spookhouse directly, 
              they're mentioned on the fringe and they're all part of the same 
              story, the same world, and the same universe, but all the games 
              take place across different time periods, almost 100 years apart. 
              So what we're doing with Rustin Parr episode took place in 1941 
              and the early 40's. Where Human Head's story will probably revolve 
              more around 1880. </p>
              </p>
              </p>
            
            
            
              <br><br> 
                </p>
              <p>
               
                
                  <p><b>Mills:</b> 
                    But fortunately I can plan ahead for those and make sure that 
                    we don't waste anytime redoing work that doesn't need to get 
                    done in the first place or that was done incorrectly because 
                    we didn't realize what our end goal was. </p>
                
                 
                  <p> </p>
                
                 
                  
                     
                       
                        
                      
                    
                     
                       
                         <i> 
                          </i></p>
                      
                    
                  
                  <p><b>Smith:</b> And 
                    also, the way Randel writes his code, and the way his engines 
                    are developed, they are very easily portable from PC to Macintosh, 
                    to console, without naming specifically Dreamcast or Playstation 
                    2, and there's no reason at this point why it shouldn't be 
                    very easy. But once again, like Jeff said, there would have 
                    to be some compromises. Like it doesn't have as much memory 
                    and whatnot as a PC would. </p>
                
                 
                  <p> </p>
                
                 
                  <p><b>Mills:</b> Yeah 
                    it's no secret that Mark Randel doesn't like Microsoft that 
                    much. So when he builds an engine, he doesn't rely on Microsoft 
                    for anything. He makes his code do everything that needs to 
                    be done as much as possible. So when it comes to porting all 
                    you have to do is figure out, ok, what did Mark do that takes 
                    the place of this aspect of DirectX, but we don't have to 
                    worry about that because we're working on the Mac. All you 
                    have to do is take his engine, which is all high-level code, 
                    and make a small builder that will allow the code to compile 
                    on that platform. It's not that important actually. We just 
                    like bragging about Mark. </p>
                
                 
                  <p> </p>
                
                 
                  <p><b>Nothing wrong 
                    with that. So there's a chance we'll see Nocturne ported to 
                    a console system?</b> </p>
                
                 
                  <p> </p>
                
                 
                  <p><b>Smith:</b> I 
                    doubt it! </p>
                
                 
                  <p> </p>
                
                 
                  <p><b>Mills:</b> At 
                    least not the original Nocturne. Probably not Blair Witch, 
                    unless we can get somebody to &#8211; </p>
                
                 
                  <p> </p>
                
                 
                  <p><b>Smith:</b> We're 
                    not working on the console Blair Witch. But it's always a 
                    consideration for future games. </p>
                
                 
                  <p> </p>
                
                 
                  <p><b>Mills:</b> Yeah 
                    we like the future console market not the present PC market. 
                    Even with a successful game, you might not be successful in 
                    your career if you make a computer game, regardless of how 
                    good the computer game is, it's only one or two that actually 
                    ends up paying for themselves. </p>
                
                 
                  <p> </p>
                
                 
                  
                     
                       
                        
                      
                    
                     
                       
                         <i> 
                          </i></p>
                      
                    
                  
                  <p><b>Smith:</b> Yeah 
                    you will see console games become a part of Terminal Reality 
                    strategy in the future, I mean, that's in our plans. </p>
                
                 
                  <p> </p>
                
                 
                  <p><b>I have a couple 
                    questions that were submitted to me by Joshua Vasquez, our 
                    resident film critic, who recently 
                    reviewed Nocturne's cinematics on loonygames: </b> </p>
                
                 
                  <p> </p>
                
                 
                  <p><b>How conciously 
                    were you trying to reference or draw on elements or trends 
                    of the horror genre?</b> </p>
                
                 
                  <p> </p>
                
                 
                  <p><b>Mills:</b> Pretty 
                    evenly between the film noir and pulp fiction of the 1930's 
                    and modern horror. </p>
                
                 
                  <p> </p>
                
                 
                  <p><b>Smith:</b> John 
                    Romero of course. </p>
                
                 
                  <p> </p>
                
                 
                  <p><b>Mills:</b> George 
                    Romero. </p>
                
                 
                  <p> </p>
                
                 
                  <p><b>Smith:</b> George, 
                    not John! </p>
                
                 
                  <p> </p>
                
                 
                  <p><b>Ha. John Romero!</b> 
                    </p>
                  <p><b>Mills: </b>John 
                    Romero... that's a whole new kind of horror!</p>
                
                
              
            
            
<br> 
                </p>
              <p>
              
                <b>Let's 
                  move on to a couple of things I came across on the web. Jeff, 
                  you took a screenwriting course?</b></p>
              
               </p>
              <b>Mills: 
                </b> I studied film at Texas Christian University. </p>
               </p>
              <b>Were 
                you planning to get into screenwriting eventually?</b> </p>
               </p>
              <b>Mills:</b> 
                Film. Somehow into film. That was my intention. </p>
               </p>
              <b>Obviously 
                it helps when you're writing the script for your games, like Nocturne 
                or Blair Witch, but what are some of the other ways it helps you 
                during the design process?</b> </p>
               </p>
              
                 
                   
                    
                  
                
                 
                   
                     <i> 
                      </i></p>
                  
                
              
              <b>Mills: 
                </b> Nocturne and consequently Blair Witch, are such cinematic 
                games that having a background in film helped a lot. To establish 
                scenes, with not only the story itself but also how the cameras 
                are set up, which is another aspect that I took initial control 
                over, and we actually brought in a professional cinematographer, 
                from here in Dallas, and he helped put our final cameras in. He's 
                like our director of photography. </p>
               </p>
              <b>So 
                it also helps you with the direction &#8211;</b></p>
               </p>
              <b>Smith:</b> 
                With the visual presentation. You have a better idea ahead of 
                time going in &#8211; </p>
               </p>
              <b>Mills: 
                </b> For what it should look like at the end. It helps us get 
                started. </p>
               </p>
              <b>Smith:</b> 
                It's so much better where you want to be at Step X, when you're 
                on Step A, then being right in the middle of it all and saying, 
                &#8220;Oh so this is how it's going to look! </p>
               </p>
              <b>Mills:</b> 
                Yeah we've been very fortunate to be able to build Blair Witch 
                from the beginning. That's the best spot to come in at, at the 
                very beginning. Usually I come in at the middle of the project 
                and have to save it from destruction. </p>
               </p>
              <b>Can 
                you talk about that for a second? I read somewhere that for the 
                Blair Witch, you designed the whole thing from start to finish 
                before you actually started development on the game. Can you talk 
                about that and how it's helped in the process?</b> </p>
               </p>
              <b>Mills: 
                </b> Normally game development, at least the games I've worked 
                on: somebody comes up with the idea for a game and they say, &#8220;Cool&#8221; 
                and they give him some artists and some programmers but they have 
                no idea what the final project will be or even how they're going 
                to achieve their goals. For Blair Witch I went in and I wrote 
                the schedule, figured out how much time it should take to create 
                the assets, came up with a list of assets, and I came up with 
                a story, and all of that tied together during the design process 
                where we have to figure out, ok, how much of a story can I tell? 
                How many sets do I need to tell the story? How much time do I 
                have to build those sets. It rolls around on itself for a month 
                or two until we have the total layout from start to finish. So 
                we know what everything in the game is going to be, and we know 
                what the art assets we will need and what engineering has to give 
                you to achieve it. </p>
               </p>
              <b>So 
                you're all working from the same point right from the beginning.</b> 
                </p>
               </p>
              <b>Mills: 
                </b>Yeah so we don't have to redo anything. We don't suddenly 
                realize, &#8220;Oh wait a second, we can't have that many polygons 
                on the Dreamcast&#8221; so we have to start over from scratch. 
                </p>
               </p>
              <b>Right.</b></p>
               </p>
              
                 
                   
                    
                  
                
                 
                   
                     <i> 
                      </i></p>
                  
                
              
              <b>Mills:</b> 
                We're not building Blair Witch for Dreamcast. </p>
               </p>
              <b>I was 
                going to say!</b></p>
               </p>
              <b>Mills:</b> 
                We're hoping to get more into consoles. </p>
               </p>
              <b>Smith:</b> 
                And Jeff was talking about it, we develop technology here. Like 
                Mark Randel made the Nocturne engine, he made the Photex engine, 
                and with Dreamcast and Playstation 2 and Dolphin coming out, trying 
                to figure out how our code would port over to that platform. We're 
                always working on trying to find what's best, because Mark is 
                such a hardcore console gamer, I think that he would love to see 
                Nocturne or one of our stories like that taken to a console. </p>
              <p>
              </p>
            
            
            
            
              <br><br> 
                </p>
              <p>&nbsp; </p>
              
                <p><b>Which may not 
                  involve the Spookhouse at all, is what you're saying.</b> 
                </p>
              
               
                <p> </p>
              
               
                <p><b>Smith: </b>Maybe 
                  not in a direct method, but more on the fringe. Like we're going 
                  to use Doc Holliday, a main Spookhouse character for us, to 
                  be the hero of the game. Well you should see other Spookhouse 
                  operatives, but I'll leave that to the game and not reveal the 
                  whole thing to you. Because there's some gameplay elements 
                  there. You take lead of Doc, you've got a whole different 
                  set of things to worry about because in Nocturne, the Stranger 
                  was a pretty pimp, buff, badass character who was known for 
                  giving very little time to anybody. He was like, shut up, get 
                  out of my way, or I'm gonna kill you. </p>
              
               
                <p> </p>
              
               
                <p><b>Yeah, follow me 
                  or die.</b> </p>
              
               
                <p> </p>
              
               
                
                   
                     
                      
                    
                  
                   
                     
                       <i> 
                        </i></p>
                    
                  
                
                <p><b>Smith: </b>Yeah 
                  he had a lot of stamina, and he could wield different weapons 
                  and things like that. Where, Doc is of course, she's not going 
                  to be treated like Lara Croft on steroids. The world that has 
                  been revealed to the players of the Nocturne trilogy, and you 
                  don't have to own Nocturne to enjoy any one of these Blair Witch 
                  stories. These are stories themselves. At least ours is not 
                  going to be as large as our full release. They're not like mini-episodes 
                  or add-on packs, they're stand-alone games. Nocturne, when we 
                  first had the engine, before we even started working on Nocturne 
                  the game, this was back when the engine itself was called Demon. 
                  And there was a trademark conflict there so nocturne the engine 
                  became the name. This is like making a movie! That's where the 
                  heavy cinematic camera angles in Nocturne was used on purpose. 
                  It's because that's what we really wanted to create a dual-reality, 
                  a dual-experience for the palyer to be able to participate in 
                  a visually rich, cinematic feeling, type game. The kind that 
                  kept you on the edge of your seat. And also, never kept you 
                  bored, visually or even with surround sound which you could 
                  take audio clues and get chills and spills. So we didn't make 
                  Nocturne to be like Brrr Scary! But it was eerie. &lt;LAUGHS&gt; 
                  </p>
              
               
                <p> </p>
              
               
                <p><b>It was pretty 
                  scary too.</b> </p>
              
               
                <p> </p>
              
               
                <p><b>Smith: </b>It 
                  had some scary stuff but for the most part while you played 
                  through it, it was always kind of a itchy nature that anybody 
                  would consider happy or fun like Ha ha ha. So I'm trying to 
                  give yo uthe really broad overview while leaving some of the 
                  specifics to question, as far as what the gameplay is going 
                  to be, but I'm going to let Mills really get you more into that. 
                  </p>
                <p>And as far as any 
                  questions goes about the support of Haxan, or even Artisan, 
                  or anybody like that, it's been very very positive. I'll kind 
                  of start from the beginning: they have some key individuals 
                  outside of Haxan who are the keepers of the mythology and they're 
                  the authors of various documents that involve Blair Witch and 
                  the Blair Witch universe. As far back as it goes and it far 
                  as it might go in the future and yadda yadda. And we've got 
                  a scriptwriter at Gathering named Billy Haskins. Now Jeff Mills 
                  for our story had already written and implemented the majority 
                  of the script but Billy will be way more actively involved with 
                  Human Head and Ritual with going back and cleaning things up, 
                  making sure continuity is there with our script and everything 
                  that will follow. All the stories will have very close ties 
                  and we want people to play through. </p>
                
                   
                     
                      
                    
                  
                   
                     
                       <i> 
                        </i></p>
                    
                  
                
                <p>We want people to 
                  get all 3 of them. Because things in Human Head's Blair Witch 
                  will maybe answer some questions, or cover some ground that 
                  wasn't covered in our Blair Witch. So there are advantages to 
                  playing through all 3 of the different titles. You don't have 
                  to, each one of them is going to be cool, fun, exciting, and 
                  captivating. It's going to make for 10's of hours of gameplay, 
                  no doubt about it just to even finish it. Haxan, they've been 
                  looking over our shoulder, we send them all sorts of design 
                  documents, our script, everything, so that we can get the actual 
                  creator's eyes on it even though they are not trying to micromanage 
                  the deal, they love everything we give them, but they also give 
                  us 100% freedom to take their intellectual property in Blair 
                  Witch, this amazing thing they've created, and run with it and 
                  make a game. They acknowledged right from the beginning: we 
                  make games, they make movies. And the two don't necessarily 
                  have a very sweet marriage if you try to do 50/50. </p>
              
              
              
</p>
              </p>
            
            
            
            
              <br><br> 
                </p>
              <p>
               
                 
                  
                    <p><b>Mills:</b> 
                      George Romero. I'd say we're pretty much evenly half classic 
                      horror, being the horror that started in the 60's and 70's, 
                      and half pulp fiction and film noir of the 1930's. I couldn't 
                      say which of the two had more input than the other. They're 
                      pretty equal. </p>
                  
                   
                    <p> </p>
                  
                   
                    <p><b>The work in 
                      the opening cinematic: how did you chose that style?</b> 
                      </p>
                  
                   
                    <p> </p>
                  
                   
                    
                       
                         
                          
                        
                      
                       
                         
                           <i> 
                            </i></p>
                        
                      
                    
                    <p><b>Mills:</b> 
                      That's actually the cinematographer who we brought in to 
                      do our cameras. It was mostly him. We just decided we wanted 
                      him to do it. </p>
                  
                   
                    <p> </p>
                  
                   
                    <p><b>Smith:</b> 
                      Yeah how that came out, his name is Peter Besson, and he's 
                      a German bastard! He's really good. He's the director of 
                      short, great cinema. He's an up and coming filmmaker. We 
                      had contracted him to do the promotional AVI's, we had like 
                      a 4-part movie that we released about 1 month apart leading 
                      up to the release of Nocturne. And it kind of introduced 
                      the characters &#8211; I don't know if you saw those... 
                      </p>
                  
                   
                    <p> </p>
                  
                   
                    <p><b>Yes I did.</b> 
                      </p>
                  
                   
                    <p> </p>
                  
                   
                    <p><b>Smith:</b> 
                      The fourth one, well we were just like, wahh! The fourth 
                      AVI came out around launch time, we had loved all the pure 
                      cinema shots that he had done, and it kind of tied everything 
                      together, because we had a completely different type of 
                      intro for Nocturne at one point and we just decided that 
                      that kind of relayed some of the horror and the drama and 
                      the suspense and whatnot that you get playing Nocturne, 
                      without just loading you off with a bunch of pretty cinematics 
                      and crap at the beginning. We really don't see the benefit 
                      in spending 6 months and using 2 or 3 art guys to make these 
                      great cinematics if we can convey the same kind of message 
                      with using some really innovative and cool cinematography. 
                      And that's what Peter was able to provide to us. He was 
                      kind of a blessing in disguise. That was one of the few 
                      things that really fell into our laps at the end. It was 
                      like, &#8220;Oh there it is!&#8221; Unlike any of the design 
                      or anything like that. </p>
                  
                   
                    <p> </p>
                  
                   
                    <p><b>So you kind 
                      of sent him off and he came back with what you wanted before 
                      you knew what you wanted?</b> </p>
                  
                   
                    <p> </p>
                  
                   
                    
                       
                         
                          
                        
                      
                       
                         
                           <i> 
                            </i></p>
                        
                      
                    
                    <p><b>Smith:</b> 
                      Yeah. Well he came back with a completely different view 
                      than anyone &#8211; even if we had made a cinematic that 
                      was exactly the same type of thing in-game, it would have 
                      looked different and it would have taken us a long time 
                      to put together. I don't know if we would have approached 
                      it the way that he did because he's the director. He's a 
                      filmmaker. And none of us claim to be a filmmaker less than 
                      others, though other than in our own inactive style, we 
                      are making cinema. Cinematic experience. </p>
                  
                   
                    <p> </p>
                  
                   
                    <p><b>Mills:</b> 
                      They're calling it Machinima. </p>
                  
                   
                    <p> </p>
                  
                   
                    <p><b>Let's get 
                      back to talking about the Blair Witch. One of the things 
                      that really affected me in the Blair Witch movie was that 
                      I never saw anything. I know that was done on purpose, but 
                      are you going to try and recapture that element in the game? 
                      Obviously you're going to have new monsters.</b> </p>
                  
                   
                    <p> </p>
                  
                   
                    <p><b>Mills:</b> 
                      There are things that you won't see. A lot of the stuff, 
                      especially early on, you don't see the actual creatures 
                      that are occupying the woods. You will see a lot of artifacts. 
                      </p>
                  
                  <p> </p>
                
                
                
              
            
            
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