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Topic: NWC5-NWN-S-Neverending Nights Machinima Team (Read 28 times) |
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karvon
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This is a transcript of my interview with Neverending Nights Machinimation team member Tawmis conducted this evening via google chat
me: So... how long have you been playing NWN first off?
Tawmis: I jumped onto Neverwinter Nights when the game first released. As an avid Dungeons & Dragons player, NWN was basically ever D&D gamer's dream come true - because it allowed for all kinds of customization! (And that goes without mentioning the awesome toolset!) But as a gamer - just the fact that I could make any race/combo I wanted - and basically walk in this huge world of Forgotten Realms... it was a dream come true!
me: Agreed  How long have you been playing PNP then?
Tawmis: I knew this question was going to come up - and now I am going to have to date myself! I originally got into Dungeons & Dragons when it was still on 1st Edition - where like being a Dwarf was a race AND a class kind of thing. (Or so we had played it when I was back in the 5th or 6th grade!) Granted I am sure we didn't have the complete concept of the rules in the 5th/6th grade of D&D... but that's when it started. My close friend back then, Sean, had introduced me to D&D and even given me a Players Handbook to have! We used to play D&D in the school library every chance we got back then. But my real love for D&D came with 2nd Edition D&D. That's when I got really into it.
me: Sounds very similar to me, started back in original Do you still play PNP at all?
Tawmis: Unfortunately, these days I do not. Without going into a very long story - real life pretty much got in the way - and the tight circle of friends whom I always used to spend my time with gaming... Well, time took us apart. Whether it was through divorces, or moving away, or just moving onto other things... eventually our group dwindled down to but a few players. I suppose I could go to local gaming shops and finding other groups, but it loses something when you're not gaming with your closest friends. D&D was always so fun to play - but sometimes, talking about it after the fact about some of the things we had done was such a kicker.
me: Yeah, I hear ya. Living in Japan sorta put the damper on my own PNP opportunities
Have you played any other RGPs?
Tawmis: Ouch! I can see how that would happen - but then you'd have a great chance to really develop oriental adventures and get ideas from that enviroment!
me: Indeed
Tawmis: I have played so many RPGs! There's a laundry list: Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Star Wars, Star Frontiers, Boot Hill, Ravenloft, the list goes on and on. I have always been a fan of expanding and testing my imagination! Admittedly fantasy is more often than not my choice of RPG games.
me: Yep, a lot of good ones have come and gone. So, what gave you the idea of using NWN as a drama machine?
Tawmis: Well we were introduced to Machinima in general from a friend (Serge) at work when he showed us RedvsBlue. RvB was still young at the time, on around Episode 5 of their own series. Adam and I worked together and thought, "Dude, this is something we can totally do!" We have always been into doing very stupid movies on the camcorder (like really bad Ninja movies, spoofs of the Blair Witch, the Real World, etc) - but the truth of the matter is - we're really bad actors in front of the camera. If we could use a game to hide behind and not worry about our ugly mugs on the camera - surly this would be a vast improvement!
So while the rest of the world became obsessed with Machinima and using HALO like RedvsBlue - we knew we wanted to stick out and do something different. At the time we were actually PLAYING Neverwinter Nights - when I thought about it! I was in the middle of designing my own persistent world (and not all that great at coding) - when I realized, we should take that and make OUR own Machinima series out of that - using NWN! I mean it was perfect! You could design cities, landscape, you could even control day and night, you could control the weather! You could customize characters to have a very wide variety of looks, armor, weapons! And this game even had EMOTES to make the characters move!
It was, in short, the perfect game to use Machinima for. And being Pen & Paper D&D nerds - we knew we had plenty of material to pull from - just from our own gaming sessions!
me: Have you any past experience in drama or acting?
Tawmis: I have always wanted to pursue a career in voice acting - (as a matter of fact I just completed a class here in San Diego with Dru Scott, for voice acting) - however it's a very tough field to break into. So my interest in voice acting has always been there - probably since I was like 12 years old. I wanted to one day (back then) do a voice in Scooby Doo. So it's always been there - but the chance never came up since I had to chase down "real" 9 to 5 jobs. This is why, as of late, I am taking classes, and hope to be cutting a demo together soon to get out there and try to get some voice acting jobs. (Feel free to cross your fingers and wish me the best!) But all the acting and drama we have ever done has always been just for ourselves - nothing ever in front of a big crowd, and certainly nothing we ever got paid for - unfortunately!
me: What do your family and friends think your project?
Tawmis: Thankfully most of my friends are pulled into the project! When we started Neverending Nights - we wanted to set up the basis of Peter (played by me) and Grayson (played by Adam) before we started pulling friends into the series. We wanted to flesh out Peter and Grayson and the type of characters they are. We have since then got our other friends involved in doing voices for us Alan the Astounding (Chad Yantos), Poppy the Salt Vendor (Poppy Bush), Ronald the Reckless (Sean), Amiee the Armorer (Amiee Logue), Daniel the Destructive (Mario Garcia), Madame Rainbow (Bethany Garcia), Christi the Chambermaid (Jamie King), Andrea the Assassin (Christi Molina later played by Amanda Freese) as well as Peter and Grayson's main side kick, Pawl the Dorf (played by Paul Molina). So our friends are very much into it. Thankfully. Because having the chance to work with them closely on this and do this together has been such a great pleasure. We make ourselves laugh first and foremost, and then hope that the fans we have will also find us funny!
My family loves what I am doing as well. They're very supportive of everything I do. (Of course they keep thinking there's some way I can get rich off this - but I have to bring them back down to reality). They think I am some kind of genius. They're sadly mistaken! :-)
me: It's cool you can get a wide range of folks involved What's involved in doing one episode?
Tawmis: Drinking a lot of beer.... I kid! No... Usually we plan out the entire season. Write out all the notes for each episode. Then begin writing the episodes, once we have the rough outline of each episode. Once all the episodes are written - we get everyone to come over (who lives locally here in San Diego and has a part) to have a BBQ - so we BBQ, talk, and one at a time, drag the innocent victim into the Studio in my office - and they read off their lines, while I record everything. After we have all the audio done for the season, I begin editing the audio tracks together, one episode at a time. Then from there - listen to the episode (basically on repeat) as I film it - to try and get the camera to be where I want it, and have the characters emote the way I want - then film it all - take that - do one final edit of audio and video together. Save the finished project. Put it on our website. Then go to a number of NWN related places and publicize its release!
me: So you do a number of episodes in one sitting then as far as recording lines and such?
Tawmis: We try to get all of the audio for the entire season in one day. Which is why we make an entire day out of it. Like when we did Season 2, we had everyone over for a BBQ starting at like 10am. And just rotated people in and out of the Studio in the Office as they read their lines. Some people read it all in one sitting, sometimes they'd need to take a break (or go each some more food!) - and come back and finish after someone else. But basically everyone who was local - was in my place for the BBQ and by the time they left - had all their audio lines done.
The actual video editing I do on my own time, as I work on each episode, one at a time.
me: I see. How long does it typically take you to finish a single episode?
Tawmis: I usually hunker down once it's time to do an episode. I would say, once I have the audio done (and edited) for that episode - the filming and matching of audio to visual is about 5 hours. If we throw in the time it takes to edit the audio for the episode - it's about 2 to 5 hours more (depending on how many audio files I need to go through, depending on how many people are in it). The more people who are in it, the longer it takes. If it's just Adam and I - it usually don't take long because we have it down now... and don't mess up... usually. :-)
me: Wow, that's quite a bit.
Tawmis: It is a labor of love, without a doubt.
me: What sort of hardware and software are you using? Aside from NWN obviously
Tawmis: The main machine everything is filmed on is a Dell XPS system - made specifically for gaming. So a nice chunk of memory and CPU power behind it. For the video capture, we're using FRAPS (and anyone who is ever interested in capturing gaming footage - I highly recommend checking out http://www.fraps.com - trust me!) - and for the audio editing using a full version of GoldWave (I have been using GoldWave long before we started NeN since it's creation!) - and for saving the movie we usually use Vegas Movie Studio Premium 8. We also used Windows Movie Maker, which worked out surprisingly well for us - considering the cost - Free. Anyone starting with movie editing - I'd recommend Windows Movie Maker. It's very basic - but it's a great place to get started. So many people knock it. But if I am doing something real quick, for movie editing (like making a silly music video) I will still use Windows Movie Maker because it has less bells and whistles, and has the simple basics of what I usually need. And for the software - obviously, as you said NWN - and we also use the CEP set (2.2 I believe it is).
me: Have you contemplating using any other custom content, such as tile sets, or some customized extended emotes?
Tawmis: There was a tileset that we were blown away by that Travis Richards (the man behind the Neverending Nights music! You can check out his site at http://www.travisarichards.com/ by the way!) had shown us for interior caves. It was beautiful. And I installed it and was going to use it for the Crimson Draco Legion cave seen in Episode 42 of our series - however - as it turned out the dragon's head clips into the ceiling so we couldn't use it. I think that's the only other tileset we have ever used, other than what comes with the NWN patches and the CEP. I would be interested in customized extended emotes... because that's what really makes the characters LOOK alive. If they're moving in a manner that matches their dialogue. But we never looked into it - to be honest, because I had no idea there was custom content out there that extended out to more emotes! (I should have known there would be something like that however... considering how diverse the game is!)
me: Yeah, there are a couple of emote haks out now, one called intimate emotes I think? Might check it out on the vault Have you played around with cutscenes options at all? Some mods make extensive use of these.
Tawmis: When we were originally developing Neverending Nights, we thought we were going to have to go with using cut scenes, because there is no first person perspective. So I had tinkered around with cut scenes myself at home when Adam and I first developed this idea - but then the idea of doing the entire series in cut scenes would have been a nightmare. It's one thing to develop a quick 30 second cut scene, it's another to try and develop a 5 minute cut scene.
The Cut Scenes in NWN is, without a doubt, incredible however. We just never used it for the series itself.
me: I've never dabbled with them so no idea of the time require, but can well imagine it could be time consuming.
Tawmis: Quite so! :-) I am pretty sure we would have never got past the 2nd episode if we relied strictly on cut scenes.
me: Have you considered compiling a season into a single feature length film?
Tawmis: We did! Season 1 we even put out on a DVD that you could order through our site. We sold out of the stock of DVDs we made, with special covers, and DVD covers and such. But I am always willing to make a burn DVD copy and mail it off. We were even making a Season 2 DVD with a ton of bonus content - but had a hard drive crash and lost a lot of the data. So we have just a basic DVD (the full length of Season 2 and an audio commentary of Season 2) without all the bonus stuff we were going to include. But that never went on our site, but it's available if someone emails me and asks me for a copy.
me: How much are you asking for the DVDs?
Tawmis: Basically just S&H. Before I think we had a sponsorship of 10 dollars, and you get to see the episodes one week before everyone else and got the DVD free at the end. But that was for Season 1. But if someone wants to paypal like 2 or 3 dollars to send off the DVD and send me their address - I am more than glad to launch it in the mail.
me: Sounds quite reasonable.
Tawmis: And to be clear - that's within the US. Naturally it'd cost more to launch it across the seas.
me: Roughly how many DVDs have you sold, if I may ask?
Tawmis: You know I am not even entirely certain. For the first season - there seemed to be quite a few. For the second season, since it never went live on the site - there's been no DVDs sold. And I have just been burning copies for friends and handing those out locally. At this point, I would love to make money off of doing Neverending Nights, considering how many hours go into it - but I think I would rather that people enjoy the series now and just have fun with it.
me: Is a digital download of the DVD over the Internet a viable option - to save on shipping charges? and get it faster
Tawmis: You know I would have to check how much space it would take to rip the DVD and just put the RIP of the DVD online. I actually hadn't thought of that. It would certainly depending on the amount of space remaining on our host.
me: Yeah, big files can take up a lot of space and bandwidth, depending on how your ISP does things.
Tawmis: I have jotted that down as a note to look into however!
me: Are you familiar with a unlocked camera hack of NWN? It allows for 360 degree swiveling in all axis and larger range of zooms in and out than the standard one. Might prove handy in your filming
Tawmis: ... you tell me this now. Where were you when we started this back in 2004? Heh. I was unaware of the hak that allowed that.
We usually use an invisible camera man.
me: It's not a hak, it's a hack of the main nwn.exe. It works really well though; been using if for a year or more now.
Tawmis: mumbles and grumbles :-)
me: I can email you a link for it, if you're interested.
Tawmis: Of course!
me: ok I'll post that to you later tonite. Have you a set goal of the number of seasons for your story, or is the plot more open ended?
Tawmis: When we originally planned Neverending Nights, we just wanted to get ONE season done! laughs However, we actually PLANNED for five seasons. Unfortunately, Season 3 will probably be the final season of Neverending Nights. We took a year and a half break between Season 2 and Season 3, just because life got in the way and a lot of things changed with a lot of people. So I decided to simply take the core elements of seasons 3, 4 and 5 - and combine them into season 3 and end Neverending Nights with a pretty red ribbon on it.
me: Ah I see. Do you have plans for another project in the future?
Tawmis: There's nothing in the immediate future. There will probably short lived things here and there. For example, Amanda (probably known most for her series "Silver Stars, Purple Hearts" that combined Sims and Halo) and I have batted around an idea of a short series - about three room mates who live in a house - and there's a whole mystery between two of the three characters that unveils itself spoofing the show "Three's Company." So I am sure I will be doing something after Neverending Nights. It's been entirely too fun doing NeN to completely leave it behind. And of course the final episode of the final season will leave an opening for more in case we ever decide to return to it. (I mean what good movie doesn't leave an opening for more, right?) :-)
me: Indeed. Are there any other Machinimation projects you've enjoyed and recommend folks watch?
Tawmis: There's a lot of machinima out there! Of course, the first season of "Red vs Blue" was the best season (IMO)... then I would also check out the short lived "Silver Stars, Purple Hearts" by Amanda (I even have a VERY tiny role in one of the episodes!)... there's also the incredible epic movie like machinima called "Bloodspell" which I would highly recommend checking out from Hugh Hancock, who also has a strong hand over in http://www.machinima.com - which, I would recommend anyone to go and check out and see what machinima you might be interested in viewing! They have a huge collection on their site.
me: I've watched Bloodspell, quite good.
Tawmis: Indeed. Hugh is a master of machinima.
me: What are your thoughts on NWN2? Some like it's more powerful tool set. Did you ever consider using that?
Tawmis: I absolutely love how beautiful NWN2 is. And the toolset is beyond incredible. With Neverending Nights, we got noticed by PC GAMER UK, and actually got into the magazine and had our first 5 episodes (and a special we did for the DVD) included in the magazine. Which I used to get us noticed by Bioware, and got us interviewed on Bioware's site. Which eventually led us to being noticed by Atari. So Adam and I actually got to go to the offices of Obsidian Entertainment and mess with NWN2 in pre-beta stage, and meet all the guys for Atari and Obsidian (again) at E3 before NWN2 came out. We were asked by Atari to produce NWN2 machinima pieces to promote the game, which we did - five episodes - using the pre-beta version of the game!
I own NWN2 and Mask of the Betrayer both (regular versions) and love it. I did find the toolset to be amazing in NWN2 - but I also found it a lot more complicated - especially when it came to the DM mode and filming what we needed to be done. The main reason we never jumped Neverending Nights to NWN2 is there were no character models that even remotely resembled the characters we had for our series - so we thought it would be too jarring to make that jump. But we have used NWN2 for those NWN2 promo machinima pieces - and definitely love everything you can do with NWN2.
me: Are those clips still available for viewing somewhere?
Tawmis: They were on the Atari site, as exclusives. However, the ATARI site has changed a bit with the new expansions of NWN2 - that I asked if we were allowed to release them now on our site - and they were fine with that! So as a bonus feature to attract more facebook users to our official page - they were just recently (as in earlier today/last night) - uploaded to our official Facebook Page - which can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Neverending-Nights/45360726865
me: Cool Well I really must thank you for taking the time to share what you've been up to.
Tawmis: Thank you for taking the time to talk with me, as well! This has been quite fun! It's great connecting with other NWN fans out there! Though the game is a bit older, it's still an incredible game!
me: Indeed. I will post this interview on NWC and post links to it on Bioware forums for those who might be interested in reading it. Do you have any questions you'd like to ask me about NWC or NWCon 5, or whatever, before we wrap up tonite?
Tawmis: I only wish I knew about this sooner! This is really great that you guys are doing this! Oh - and definitely let me know when you post the link - I will be more than happy to mention it on our site, the facebook page, as well as the twitter page we have going that updates folks as we work on Season 3.
me: I'll do that, and will email you the links I mentioned earlier in the interview as well.
Tawmis: Because anyone who wants to follow us on Twitter for updates can do so here: http://twitter.com/nen_updates. That sounds great Mark! :-) Thanks again for this opportunity! And sorry about running late!
me: No problem. Have a good one!
Tawmis: You too!
For more info and all the episodes of Neverending Nights, visit their website at:
http://www.neverendingnights.com/
Karvon
NWCon 5 Coordinator
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