Jedi Knight, Video Game Redux
A year later in 1996, LucasArts and, thank God, Steve Dauterman called again. Did I have any interest in producing Jedi Knight? A more complex game requiring a lot more actors and ones that would actually have to be able to act and not just ensconce themselves in a rib-crushing costume or rocket seat the size of basic coach.
I arrived just as Dauterman hung up the phone.
He handed me the cut-scene storyboards. The game needed aliens (original prosthetics), set pieces (original construction), and wardrobe not currently in the Lucasfilm Museum.
For those of you playing Try Not to Annoy the Kangaroo from your iPad or Kindle all those tasks in the previous paragraph translate to a real job. At Lucas this meant I’d have to be blessed by George since a lot of the art direction, costumes, and other visuals would be original and not stock. This would entail me meeting George . . . at Skywalker Ranch . . . in his office.
And more than the time I’d spent in the business being embarrassed in public by the topflight commercial directors of the 80’s, or my own personal Nightmare Before Christmas with Tim Burton and the coffee maker, or even having to ‘handle’ the likes of Carol Channing, Sammy Davis Jr., and Bill Cosby (Jell-O pudding. Mmm. Mmm. Good.) nothing could have prepared me for sitting down to get vetted by George Lucas.
The closest experience to professional fear I could remember was being cut right away, more than once, by Michael Bennett during auditions for Chorus Line. Or, having to sing ‘Blue Skies’ acapella for Bob Fosse. Or, maybe it was the time one of the ensemble dancers in an off-Broadway production of Hello Dolly, in which I was a chorus boy, picked up a napkin as opposed to a tablecloth during the waiter’s ballet.
Will save that anecdote for another book.
But the knee-knocking anxiety of my illustrious dance career did come close to sitting down with George Lucas.
And like most things in life, the anticipation exceeded the actual event. Not the part about meeting the man who changed filmmaking forever, but the fear factor. George Lucas could not have been nicer. I don’t recall a lot of the conversation. He did ask me about my work on Nightmare and, of course, Rebel Assault II.
George impressed upon me the same things he probably imparted to everyone who worked on Star Wars franchise projects. Consistency with the mythology (For lack of a better term) was most important. The archetypes of bad guys. Wardrobe choices for good guys, particularly those of the Rebellion. Color palettes for certain planets depending on their ‘role’ in the video.
Found him to be soft-spoken and genuine.
And though I don’t remember much, I will never, ever forget that meeting.
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Jedi Knight, however, inflicted one of the most dreaded departments in the history of filmmaking on me.
Wardrobe.
I’d much rather deal with Directors of Photography and their overloading of lens orders than have to discuss fabric textures with recent escapees from the Lord & Taylor women’s couture department.
Coco: “I think it should have a soft drape. Perhaps tulle?
Me: “Something used for ballerinas ain’t a great idea for the evil female Sith Lord.”
Coco: “Really? And what did you have in mind, Mister Producer?”
Me: “Given her figure and her role, how about Vampire chic?”
At this time the use of the bloodsuckers for reference in films and TV shows was not an over-microwaved concept. True Blood hadn’t arrived to tantalize us with its brilliant dialogue and ridiculous concept of benign predators purchasing a house in a quiet neighborhood.
Dimbulb Neighbor Wife: “Honey, look there’s a new family of vampires moving in next door. I should take something over.”
Dimbulb Neighbor Husband: “That’s nice. There’s still some type O in the freezer from the last vampire family. Where did they move to by the way?”
Dimbulb Neighbor Wife: “The Arteri clan? I think they went back to Italy.”
Dimbulb Neighbor Husband: “Okay. If you never come back, I’ll wait for your metamorphosis and then you can come home and feed off me for an eternity.”
Dimbulb Neighbor Wife: “Oh that would be lovely.”
When my good friend, Dan Ogawa, got hitched we attended the wedding. He put me at a table of production professionals, but since they all worked for public television, it put me in a difficult position to carry on a conversation, especially after the wife of one of the guests postulated diversity as the overarching concept of True Blood.
Me: “Is that right? From what I can tell, the cast had just finished a series of L’Oreal commercials. So does the diversity of True Blood lay in the difference between a nine and a ten?”
If not for the presence of a justice of the peace and Dan’s elderly parents, a wedding cake food fight might have ensued. After Lee kicked me under the table several hundred times, I relegated my comments to oohing and aahing over the diversity of True Blood.
However, had I known that Dan would be divorced within two years I’d have stood on my chair and castigated the politically correct twit for daring to virtue signal at my table.
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