20 Not Yet Asked Questions For “The Gamers: Dorkness Rising”
As promised, here is yet another helping of some real and some silly questions for The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. And remember, while you’re reading these, should a question pop into your mind, feel free to email it to us! We’ll continue do this once a month until the DVD is there to answer all questions, or we simply run out of answers. All right, here we go with the Third Twenty Questions . . .
Q) When will we see a trailer for this movie?
A) Sooner than you think. Keep checking our website . . .
Q) What was the budget for this movie?
A) Sorry, can’t say. But it’s substantially larger than the budget for The Gamers, and you’ll be able to see the money on the screen. In any event, expect a lot more, both technically and artistically, than you have seen in previous DG productions.
Q) Did anything go really wrong during filming?
A) On a movie set, everything that can go wrong usually does. It’s considered an anomaly when things go as planned. We had our fair share of suffering. For the 4 days filming at Lodge’s house, a closed, cramped area, pretty much everyone was sick. During the fantasy world with all the fighting (with live steel) we were blessed to have no injuries, but fate got us back when we got to the cemetery. One night that we were filming there, one of our two generators caught fire! It was a spectacular sight, a pyre in the woods, and what was left of the poor machine looked like something right out of Mad Max. Of course, that was the one day our behind-the-scenes videographer had to leave early, so we have no evidence of the fire other than a metallic, caramelized lump. And, on the last scheduled day of filming. the camera died. If it had died at any other time, the entire movie would have been in jeopardy. As it is, we managed to get enough video to make the scene work.
Q) Were there any accidents?
A) Well, there was that whole generator fire thing. That wasn’t intentional. And we scheduled ourselves to film on Friday the 13th … in a cemetery … at night. That had to be an oversight. Oh, and somebody cast Nathan Rice in another leading role. That had to be an accident.
Q) Did anybody get hurt?
A) Not physically, no.
Q) Did anybody get killed?
A) Not physically, no.
Q) What role-playing games do you guys play?
A) Well, there are a lot of us, so pretty much everything is played by one of us some time during the week. We’re mostly role-players though, Dungeons & Dragons especially, but we like to try many different games. Can you recommend us any good ones we should try?
Q) What kind of special effects will be in this movie?
A) Magic, for the most part. We have a wonderful effects artist in Los Angeles who is working on them right now. Aside of practical (i.e. on-set) effects, we have a Sorceress in the party who likes to throw lightning, and a variety of other brief but cool effects like camera distortion for the monk’s nerve-punch, lighting tricks when someone is possessed, etc. We don’t have anything really expensive like CG-monsters.
Q) IMDb has this listed as a 2005 release. How did I miss it?
A) Originally, this was set for a 2005 home video release, but we took longer in production to ensure a higher quality film.
Q) Will there be commentary tracks on the DVD?
A) That is up to the distributor, which hasn’t been determined yet, but it is a fairly standard feature on DVDs. If there are commentary tracks, there will likely be a cast commentary as well as a crew commentary, as per the original Gamers DVD.
Q) Will there by a ‘psychological analysis’ commentary like the first Gamers?
A) No. It was hard enough for Ben Dobyns and Chris Ode to keep the steady flow of B.S. up for 48 minutes. It would be too much of a strain to do a movie twice that length. If we have anything to say about it, however, there will be another joke commentary track on the disc. One idea is a villains’ commentary, with the bad guys from the movie sitting around and making fun of the heroes.
Q) Will there be any more from this movie on Dead Gentlemen Presents, like deleted scenes or bloopers?
A) We are still considering showing sneak-peeks on either Presents or our upcoming show Culture on a Stick, that’s probably all we’ll show, as things like deleted scenes and bloopers will be fodder for the DVD, which I’m sure the distributors will tell us (and rightfully so) that these shouldn’t be given away for free as it would devalue the DVD itself.
Q) Why are there so many ninjas in DG movies?
A) Ninjas work for cheap and provide their own costumes. Sure, they tend to strike from the shadows and kill crew members, but they mostly kill grips.
Q) And, pirates?
A) Everything’s better with pirates.
Q) Where’s Waldo?
A) Nowhere in this movie.
Q) Will the heroes actually succeed this time? I mean, after Dead Camper Lake and the original Gamers, your heroes have a Monty Python and the Holy Grail habit of just coming up short in the end. Do you hate heroes?
A) Dead Gentlemen have a revolutionary approach to film-making that we have until now not disclosed to anyone, and that is we have filmed things in real-time. What you see on screen is not scripted, not acted, it is not a recreation. We actually have our cameras along with the heroes when they meet their gruesome end.
Q) Really?
A) Well, you can believe that, or believe that we’re more ‘accurate’ to actual gaming when the heroes die in silly ways rather than being serious, epic champions.
Q) If the movie is going to be shown at GenCon (Indy), why won’t it be for sale?
A) We will screen the finished movie at GenCon Indy, 2006. Unfortunately, there’s not the time to author, produce, and package a DVD for sale. Besides, whoever ends up as our distributor will have control over when the DVD goes on sale, what content is on the DVD, how much it will cost, and so forth. We self-distributed all of our movies so far, which is why we have previously been able to sell a movie as soon as we finished it. But The Gamers: Dorkness Rising is going to be our transition from little guys into not-so-little guys, so we are getting a big distributor, and that takes time.
Q) What can we expect to see at GenCon Indy?
A) We will have a finished film, with a run time between 90 and 100 minutes. (we are in the final stages of editing right now). Time permitting, we will also do a Q&A with the audience, perhaps before, perhaps following the film. In addition, the principal cast will be there (probably not in costume, though) to meet and greet you—our fans!
Q) Where will the premiere be?
A) If we have a premiere (a big ‘if’), we would like to have one both in Tacoma (our hometown), and Seattle (our nearest big city). If we are able to hold such an event, we will be sure to broadcast it to the heavens (and our website), so you’ll see it here first. It would be a lot of fun to see a turn out of our local fans.