Zombie Orpheus Entertainment Wiki:WikiProject Gamers

The purpose of this page (as of right now) is to collect notes from the audio commentaries of the various DG disc releases that can then be incorporated into the corresponding wiki pages.

The Gamers

• Legend:
  • P: Production (Matt Vancil, Ben Dobyns)
  • C: Cast
  • G: Gamer's Perspective
• Chapters:
  • 01: Opening Credits
  • 02: The Game Room (Paula chewing on pen)
  • 03: The Westhaven Inn (heroes looking at note)
  • 04: A Ghostly Vision (heroes venturing forth from Westhaven, post inn)
  • 05: An Accidental Death (heroes venturing through wood, post camp fire)
  • 06: The Bandit King (heroes venturing through field, post river)
  • 07: Berserker Rage (Mark arrives)
  • 08: A New Friend (heroes walk over tree trunk)
  • 09: Into the Dungeons (GM reads narration, post detect evil)
  • 10: The Shadow (players relax, post trap)
  • 11: The Game Room II (Rogar pulls open metal door)
  • 12: End Credits (end credits)

Misc

• wanted to make game in the film like D&D without being D&D [P1]
  • mainly for copyright issues [P1]
• at one point, DG considered to make ~ "like episode 15" in a continuing series [P1]
  • hence, the viewer would be dropped right in the middle with ~ [P1]
  • during that, one floor above an entire room was taken up by several computers, networked together, on which the editors of DH2 were in the final crunch to create the first edit of that picture [P2]
    • first premiere DH2: February 8th, 2001 [P2]
      • after that, the film was recut [P2]
• Phil M Price was the main sound engineer for DH2 [P2]
  • got very little sleep [P2]
• most of the people who worked on the movie are gamers of some sort [P2]
• Matt mostly likes to run campaigns [P2]
  • had a lot of fun with the argument scenes (in which players are trying to one-up the GM and try to take control of the story) [P2]

Scripting

• writer: Matt Vancil

Pre-Production

• director: Matt Vancil

Costume / Make-Up

02 The Game Room

• for copyright reasons the books were wrapped in paper [P2]
  • a friend of Matt Vancil (Steve) had done that with his books in order to protect the cover [P2]
• folders contained actual notes [P2]
  • from a roleplaying game that Matt made for his gaming group [P2]

Filming

• filmed from January to October 2001 [P2]
• only 8-10 days of actual shooting [P2]
• all were in school and working, so it was hard to get people organized [P2]
  • creating costumes, location scouting, getting permits also delayed production [P2]
• some shooting days were two to three months apart [P2]
• all the stuff at the University (except for the final scene) was shot in January 2001 [P2]
  • Hinderlie Hall, Pacific Lutheran University [P2]
    • many of DG (although not Matt Vancil) at one time were residents there [P2]

02 The Game Room

• beginning scene one of the first shot scenes [P2]
• death of Rogar's blood brother:
  • scene was shot in far western Washington between Aberdeen and Ocean Shores [P2]
  • to get to the location they had to park off a highway, off a clear cut (?) [P2]
  • only a couple hundred yarts to get to the location [P2]
  • figured, they could walk there [P2]
  • but the forest was rotten [P2]
    • they would push on a tree 4-5 inches in diameter and it would crack and fall over [P2]
    • called it the Gram Cracker Woods [P2]
    • you'd put your foot down and crunch through two or three logs [P2]
    • and they also had to carry their equipment [P2]
• death of Nimble's sister:
  • downtown Tacoma by the old town hall [P2]
  • didn't have a permit [P2]
  • pulled up in about five or six cars [P2]
  • ran down the steps in costume [P2]
  • after shot was completed ran back to the cars and drove away before police showed up [P2]
  • whole operation took less than 4 minutes [P2]
  • set up angle so it didn't show anachronisms (e.g. street lamps) [P2]

Post-Production

opening credits

• opening graphics done by Shawn Mullan [P1]
  • created character potraits from still shots of the film [P1]
• GLE: Guile (common sense, ingenuity) [P1]
• music was timed for the opening credits [P1]
  • main themes are introduced here [P1]

Score

• credited composers: Ben Dobyns, Michael Bottorff
• some of the music written by Steve Wolbrecht [P1]
  • then started working of DH2 and was too busy to continue his duty on ~ [P1]
  • hence, Ben and Michael took over [P1]

Visual Effects

Chapter 3

Cast

• Commentors: Nathan Rice, Emily Olson, Matt Shimkus, Phil M Price, Evan Shimono

A Gamer's Perspective

• Commentors: Monte Cook, Nathan Rice