I've been promising this on
Twitter for several days now, so let's get to it - a behind the scenes look at the making of each episode of
Re\Visioned: Activision. But first, a little history:
Re\Visioned was created by my former boss at GameTap, Ricardo Sanchez, who thought it would be cool create some original animation based on existing videogame IP from the GameTap library. But rather than doing a straight adaptation of these games, Rick wanted to present new takes on the games, or as he put it, "revisioned." And when he added a backslash between "re" and "visioned," a title was born.
Initially, Rick wanted to hire great animators to spearhead the project, but given the budget and time restraints, he was willing to entertain other ideas - which is when I floated the notion of hiring comic book writers and artists to handle story and art, with the idea that those things could be handed off to an animation studio for production. He liked the idea, and then we all went back to what we were doing.
A few months later, Rick struck a deal with
The Hero Initiative, a non-profit comic book industry group that raises money to help industry veterans who gave years to the business, often without a safety net or retirement plan. The Hero Initiative would provide scripts and art from a mix of popular current creators and respected veterans in need of work. Included in the group were writers
Mark Waid, Paul Jenkins, John Ostrander, William Messner-Loebs, the late Steve Gerber, and Hero Initiative president Jim McLauchlin; and artists Dave Simons, Armando Gil, Joe Rubenstein, Flint Henry, Bob Hall, and Claude St. Aubin. A really talented bunch.
Scripts were written, designs were drawn. And then a decision was made at GameTap to move
Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider, a more high-profile, super ambitious project intended to be season two of the series to the head of the line. The
Activision project was put on the back-burner, and approved scripts and designs languished for close to a year.
When we finally did get back to
Re\Visioned: Activision, the bar had been raised significantly by the quality and complexity of
Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider, and while we had less money to throw at
Activision, my executive producer, Chris Peeler, and I knew that we needed to find a way to live up to
R:TR. With that thought in mind, we went back in to the
Activision materials we had commissioned, and found that while we had a good project, some of the scripts were too modest in scope. After consulting with the boss, it was agreed that we would use the materials created by the Hero Initiative as a starting point...
More tomorrow.
-EB
Nicole Sullivan voicing the campfire in Pitfall.
Me directing. Next to me is casting director Dawn Hershey.
Ed Begley Jr. and I discussing a character.
Ed Begley Jr., a consummate professional.
Dave Foley, after I told him he couldn't have any more coffee. Okay, not really - he was voicing the confused chicken Ralph for the Freeway episode of Re:Visioned: Activision.
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