Items tagged with 'Interview'

We were on the Telly last night, on Dom Joly’s Made in Britain, and I’m sure each and every one of you were glued to the sofa too see it. For those who missed it because of an important reason – such as being in the pub for instance – here’s the bit about us, handily uploaded to YouTube and embedded here, oh isn’t the internet marvelous?

We’re going to be on TV this week, yay! We’re featured as part of this week’s episode of Made in Britain, a series in which mister Dom Joly tries to find out what is actually made in Britain.

In this episode, the 5th in the series, Dom will try to replace his Japanese gadgetry with British products, and pays a visit to our office to find out about the British Videogames industry. Here, watch this preview clip, in which he calls us all stoned hippies, thanks Dom!

The episode will be aired on UKTV at 20:00 on Friday 12th June, which we’re told is channel 534 on Sky and 206 on Virgin.

[UPDATE]

Huzzah! The episode is now in the land of the internets and available to view on YouTube.

To celebrate the release of the 2000AD Costume pack, and because we happened to run into him at a recent event, we are proud to publish a short interview with 2000AD creator Pat Mills.

The questions were put together by all of the molecules, and in the future we will hopefully be interviewing more people who we collaborate with to create DLC for LittleBigPlanet.

Without Further ado, we present, Pat Mills the ‘godfather of British comics’.

Mm:I’m completely new to the 2000AD world, where shall I start?

I guess with Judge Dredd. Maybe with some of the graphic novels -  I would suggest Slaine The Horned God, and Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth

Mm:Who are your biggest inspirations from inside and outside the comic industry?

None I can think of inside. Outside… John Pilger and Robert Graves.

Mm:In the last 20 years we have seen comics being a huge influence on movies, games, music videos, etc. How did that impact back on comics?

Hmm… not as much as the hype suggests, film interest yes.

Mm:Are there any obscure 2000AD characters you would like to see resurrected?

My Visible Man character - we see inside his body.

Mm:Are there any character mash-ups you would like to see? Star Trek versus Rogue Trooper, for instance.

Only my own which are happening… e.G. Savage(invasion) and ABC Warriors’ world crosses over via a common enemy.

Mm:Are there any characters or stories you think would be particularly suited to video games that haven’t been explored yet?

Just about all 2000AD characters. Plus some of my stories outside 2000AD. See my note about requiem below… it has a big goth following!

Mm:Which 2000AD character do you most resemble?

In temperament (tho not physical appearance) Titus Defoe, the 17th century zombie hunter. Because he’s the last Leveller – they were the first socialists… because he has to hide his beliefs in order to make a buck.

Mm:Which do you wish you most resembled?

I assume you mean physically? Damned jones from Defoe… he’s a 17th century assassin.

Mm:Games, like comics, struggle to deal with politics and morals in a satisfactory fashion, and when they try are often sidelined or ridiculed. As somebody who regularly writes explicitly polemic tales do you ever feel like it is a losing battle?

Yes. Yes. Hence my comment about Defoe above. We live in spiritually, emotionally and politically barren Orwellian times.

Mm:The internet has arguably led to the fragmentation of paper publications like 2000AD’s readership.  How do you see this affecting smaller publications in the future, do you think printed comics will exist in ten years time?

I’m not sure I agree. This is a commonly advertised view but has no real basis where 2000AD is concerned. For example, French sales of comic paper products are booming. In Britain we look for reasons to excuse poor sales other than the real reason… Quality, and the lack thereof.

Mm:Our producer Luci says, “I can honestly attribute my love of comics and sci-fi in general to my granddad getting me 2000AD every week as a kid (and i carried on way into my late twenties). Did you have any inkling of the kind of influence 2000AD would end up having on ordinary people?”

Yes, I always knew it had something special. My personal aim was to be subversive and I would like to have been more so!

Mm:She also says

“I wanted to be Halo Jones, Judge Hershey and Venus Blue Genes. The women in 2000AD were always totally kick-ass in a way that seems ahead of its time to me now. They were definitely a big part of the reason I loved it. Was it a conscious decision to have so many awesome female characters?”

I think it went with our generally subversive nature, I wanted 2000AD to challenge stereotypes in every way.

Mm:What’s next for the comics medium, What are you working on now?

For me? Film graphic novel tie ins, and also a ten volume series for France which is coming out soon in Britain too - Requiem, Vampire Knight editions, Nickel (on web), Great Art: Oliver Ledroit. Games rights available!

Mm:Do you have any none-comic related projects coming up?

Yes. I’ve Just written a science fiction screenplay for Xingu films called American Reaper. It’s about a cop who goes after identity thieves. In the future old people transfer their identities to young people whose consciousness is then erased.

Mm:What might Tharg the Mighty have to say about Sackboy and LittleBigPlanet?

You know, I’m not a great fan of Tharg. I was one of his creators and I’ve been trying to kill him ever since.

... and on that bombshell, we end this interview! The 2000AD Costume update will be live soon enough, and we’ll be back with a recap of the pack, its contents and price. Splundig Vur Thrigg!

Our loveable Egyptian Art Director Kareem has been interviewed by Edge Online, where he talks about things with three letter acronyms –  LBP, DLC and ART. Wait that last one is just a word…

LBP to the general public was a hot game at Christmas and now it’s old news, and yet it’s now a far better game than it was when it came out. Do you in some ways regret LBP being so early on in this evolution from games being something you buy in a box to being an online, extensible platform?

Well no – we are so humbled and excited by that, and wait until you see what’s coming as well. As long as you inspire people hopefully they’ll keep on enjoying it. But what I really want to say about that is that the game industry for a long time was so powerful as a technology-driven kind of platform, and in the last 10, 15 years you start seeing cinema taking over games – huge cutscenes and lip-synching and trying to make immersive stories and believability of the world. But what we’re trying to do in LBP is to focus on expression, not impressiveness. We’ve given the bits to the people and people have – for example, the guy who made a wedding proposal. That is never going to be topped for that particular person because of the personal aspect. If we get the best studio in the world to do that level, it’s not going to mean to that person’s partner as much as his one because of the personal element. This is what LBP is all about. It’s the power of the personal and the indispensability of the individual.

Read the full interview over at Edge Online.

“What’s it like to work on a great software development team facing an impossible problem? How do you build an effective team? Can a group of people who don’t get along still build good software? How does a team leader keep everyone on track when the stakes are high and the schedule is tight?

These are the questions posed by a new book called Beautiful Teams: Inspiring and Cautionary Tales from Veteran Team Leaders, a book which takes a a look behind the scenes of “the most interesting teams in software engineering history,”

One of those interesting teams is us, in fact there’s a whole chapter dedicated to us entitled ‘Building Games’, in which our very own Mark Healey gives a detailed insight into the founding of Media Molecule. The giant interview, spread over 11 pages, covers things like the Making Rag Doll Kung Fu, building and growing a team, pitching to Sony, and getting Stephen Fry on board.

We really needed some tutorials, so I prototyped these as videos, and I kind of had in mind, “If I’m going to have someone teaching me about things, they need to sound interesting, and funny.” The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy immediately sprung to mind. I don’t know if you’ve seen that film or read the books, but Stephen Fry did the voice of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book in the film. And I was just like, “It would be so perfect if we could get him,” not really thinking that it’s a possibility. But someone in Sony heard me say that, and the next thing I know, it’s like, “OK. We’ve got Stephen Fry. He’s into it.”

The next thing I know, I’m in a studio, watching this huge character of a man read through the scripts to the game! I got to meet a hero! So that’s definitely one of the cool things about working with a big publisher. They can make things like that happen. And we were lucky he was really excited and into the whole game. That was a dream come true, really. I do think his voice is perfect for it.

Alongside the Mm chapter, there many more stories from other veteran software development folk, who by way of interviews, discuss their various successes and failures.

In addition, if you were to buy this book, you’d also gain Massive Karma Points, as some proceeds from the book will be going to PlayPumps International, a company set up to provide easy access to clean drinking water and play equipment to children and their families in Africa. They do this using an innovative device which doubles as a water pump and a merry-go-round for children – the water pump is powered by the children at play. Neat!

Beautiful teams is available from Amazon US, Amazon UK, and O’Reiley, and the RRP is $39.99 / £30.99.

Authors: Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene Copyright 2009 O’Reilly Media, Inc.  All rights reserved.  Used with Permission ISBN no. 9780596518028

Two weeks ago,  a little gang of Molecules attended the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco. Here they would give various talks, hang out with Tim Schafer, eat some giant burgers, and win several shiny prestigious awards (yay!).

Straight after one of their talks, Aleks Krotoski of the Guardian Games Blog managed to grab 20 odd minutes with Mark and Alex, to discuss the lessons they feel they’ve learned from creating LittleBigPlanet, and what they hope to achieve in the future.

This might be slightly old news, but the view count on the Youtube page tells me not many of you have seen it! :)  You should give it a shot, it contains some good nuggets, such as Mark revealing he comes from Ipswich, and how unhappy he is with wobble bolts. Ok, Ok there’s more than that, see for yourself!

Part two is available over here on Google Video.