The Corporation Accosts Ken Capelli
posted at 10:00 PM on Thursday, Febuary 2st, 2001
Introduction
Continuing Corp's fine tradition of kidnapping people with real jobs and subjecting them to stupid questions, we chloroformed Ken Capelli, lead artist of Planet Moon Studios' recent masterpiece Giants and forced him to talk to us. Little did we know that he's far, far scarier than we could ever hope to be.
Parti Le Deusieme
Rankinfile After the long dev cycle and zillions of awards, do ya get some time off for Mrs. Capelli or free twinkies?
PMS_Ken Free twinkies: no. But I do have time with the Mrs. and the little one. :D
Rankinfile Readers: By "little one" he means a baby
Mr_Poppinfresh Thanks for the save, rank
Rankinfile my pleasure ;)
PMS_Ken Yes, we have a little girl, Eva. She was born about 2 weeks after I started here at PMS.
Rankinfile nice timing, so she's 11?
Mr_Poppinfresh "My daddy draws aliens for a living!"
PMS_Ken Feh! She's 9 months old.
Subversive I bet you'll have some interesting artwork to give her when she's older.
PMS_Ken Oh yeah
Rankinfile I'd be scared to have to come meet dad when asking her out
PMS_Ken The thing is, coming in on the last leg of the project had its advantages too: I was able to just focus on getting the work done instead of having to manage a team AND get some art done, which I'd been doing for years, so on a certain level it was cut-and-dried. "Here's what we need to do, here's when we need to get it done, let's go!” Great for getting some production discipline back in line.
Mr_Poppinfresh Do you have a bull-whip?
PMS_Ken No bullwhip, but i have a riding crop.
Mr_Poppinfresh What was your favorite thing about Giants that you didn't do?
PMS_Ken I think the reaper fleet.
PMS_Ken Really fluid, sharp, nouveau-esque shapes.
Tweety What would your dream job be?
PMS_Ken My dream job? I'd love to have the time and space to just *paint*.
Tweety Oil or acrylic =)
PMS_Ken Acrylic. But I've done some oil work, and I'd like to do more. My training was in classical illustration. Figures, backgrounds, composing scenes, etc. commercial art. Either that or I'd love to pencil spider-man.
Mr_Poppinfresh Computer games are SO OBVIOUSLY a natural progression then =)
PMS_Ken it's funny: fine arts people always said I was too "illustrative," and illustrators say I'm too "painterly". Ah well.
Mr_Poppinfresh Yeah, the police always say I'm too "combative" and the judge always says I'm too "irredeemable." I know just what you mean
PMS_Ken Hah
Rankinfile Every day I gain understanding into this damned place… Do you have any desire to do non-gaming commercial art?
PMS_Ken Yeah, I have the desire, but not really the time to do non-gaming commercial art. So much to do, so little time etc. I'd love to make more time to do personal work outside of PMS.
Mr_Poppinfresh Giants was so much more bright and colorful than the usual computer game. Why'd you choose to go with the brighter colors?
PMS_Ken Well, MDK was a pretty dark game so I think Giants was a way of doing the opposite. Slave Zero was pretty dark too. It's really refreshing to be able to use color, you know? And after a while all the dark stuff gets boring. I mean, it's everywhere.
Mr_Poppinfresh But you got lots of kudos for it. People really liked it
PMS_Ken The first time i saw giants i was like "holy-! what the-! all the color, mine eyes... hey, wait, that's pretty."
Rankinfile The red-headed stepchild that's actually kinda cute Mr_Poppinfresh Rank, sometimes you frighten me. Yeah, loading up Giants for the first time is quite an experience, even more so when you get the jetpack and you can fly around
Rankinfile Amen
Subversive Ken...
PMS_Ken Yesh
Subversive If you had to be a tree, what sort of tree would you be?
PMS_Ken A peach tree, or, even better, lumber!
Rankinfile Speaking of, were you artists upset about covering Delphi up, like, your artistic expression was being stifled?
PMS_Ken I think Delphi's nudity was handled in a natural, non-gratuitous way. I mean, she's a mermaid, and that's how it was decided to depict her, in all her natural beauty. However, retailers have a different opinion. So, we opted to err on the side of prudence, but also give our customers the ability to see Delphi as she was originally intended.
Subversive I heard there was a patch out there to return her to her prior state.
PMS_Ken Oh, there's no patch... you just delete a file out of the install.
Subversive oh?
PMS_Ken arpfix.gzp I believe. Lemme check...
Rankinfile heh. wow. Being covered though, i liked the back of her bikini top...
PMS_Ken Yep. Move it to another directory and restart.
Mr_Poppinfresh Heh. Heathens. Why don't you just chant "b00bies b00bies b00bies!"
PMS_Ken All that file contains is the bikini-top version of Delphi as an override.
Mr_Poppinfresh Ah
PMS_Ken If it's missing, the game uses the version built into the main .gzp's, which is the original version.
Rankinfile Good move
PMS_Ken So, we make itchy retailers happy, we make our publisher happy, we piss some gamers off until they figure it out, but in the end, PLANET MOON DELIVERS!
Mr_Poppinfresh Well played, ken
PMS_Ken Danke.
Rankinfile All hail Planet Moon
Rankinfile By the way, why "Planet Moon Studios"? Do you get a barrage of PMS jokes forwarded to you?
PMS_Ken I get funny responses in email and IRC when I use the acronym. (* pms_ken sighs) I think the planet moon comes from the idea of a spinoff that has a full life of its own.
PMS_Ken I just made that up.
Rankinfile i told you he was in marketing
Mr_Poppinfresh That was some spectacular BS'ing
PMS_Ken Like sinistar said: "run, RUN!"
Mr_Poppinfresh hehehe
PMS_Ken Like I said, you pick it up. Especially after 6 years of working for a large publisher. Which was a great way to start in the industry. I mean, having access to other teams, marketing, sales, being close(r) to executive decisions, etc. Being surrounded by all that was very educational.
Mr_Poppinfresh Especially so when you're all in the same room ;-)
Subversive Yeah, but it must be good working with the guys at Interplay.
PMS_Ken Well, I was talking about Accolade/ Infogrames, but the same could be said for any large publisher. All that access can be educational. In the end though, i enjoy working with a small team of veterans more. More focus on the work, less time spent fielding bullshit.
Mr_Poppinfresh So no map-makers are getting boob jobs? How quaint and boring.
PMS_Ken No boob jobs here, except for the "good god cover them up save the children" type.
Rankinfile I'm curious: were mind-altering substances influential in the design work?
Mr_Poppinfresh lol
PMS_Ken Gin & tonics and much much wine were crucial to the development of Giants.
Rankinfile Hence the bright colors. Don't know why it didn't hit me earlier. Just call me Subversive.
(Editor’s note: Here, for some reason, a massive groin kicking emoting party kicked off. The only reason I mention this is because you need to know why essential body parts were considered non-essential in the next sentence)
PMS_Ken Ah well. i've spawned/ am obsolete anyway.
Mr_Poppinfresh You're not obsolete until I get Giants 2
PMS_Ken Yessir!
Rankinfile I'm sure eva is your finest working ever. *sniff*
PMS_Ken She really is. She looks just like me. Except better. Um, not as big. Less hair.
Mr_Poppinfresh And small and pink
Rankinfile did you say you were the figure model for kabuto?
PMS_Ken I am actually a rather svelte specimen.
Rankinfile ya heard it here first, folks
Rankinfile is Mrs. Capelli handy? we'd like verification on "svelte"
PMS_Ken Link to Ken’s picture
Mr_Poppinfresh Good god, that's scary
(*** pms_ken is now known as mrs_capelli)
Rankinfile BOY GEORGE! nice pic
mrs_capelli yep, he's a svelte one awright.
(*** mrs_capelli is now known as pms_ken)
Mr_Poppinfresh hehe. So Ken, are you one of our three fans?
PMS_Ken I am now.
(* rank high fives the room)
Rankinfile you like us! you really like us!
Subversive Cool. Tweety stalking hours are from 3-7pm, Mondays and Fridays. Just FYI
Mr_Poppinfresh Now all we have to do is interview a couple million more people and we can be like Voodooextreme. Minus the stupid.
Rankinfile By the way, Ken, your daughter looks great dressed as the Prince of Darkness
Rankinfile (Editor’s note, mean old Tweety refuses to publish the picture of the beautiful little baby girl in the devil costume, you’ll have to imagine the link Rank put up at this point)
PMS_Ken She's a little monster. I go "RAAAR" to her and she goes "raaa" back. You know, I cannot imagine how you're going to get this wrangled into a coherent form.
Rankinfile What's coherent?
Mr_Poppinfresh We usually don't. We interviewed Lum the Mad the other day, and 95% of the chat was about Mongbats from Ultima Online
PMS_Ken I like lum. Haven't played UO in forever, though.
PMS_Ken Maybe you'll have some success (Ed note - he means getting more than three fans) if you approach this as a cult.
Rankinfile See Pop? We told you so.
PMS_Ken Offer free love, loose white clothing, a compound, etc.
Mr_Poppinfresh Our slogan will be "Corpnews.com- Drink The Kool-Aid" So, are you going to be at E3?
PMS_Ken I suspect so, yes! I hadn't been since the first one.
Rankinfile Ken...about this Astor guy... are "Data & Geordi Astor" people?
PMS_Ken Data and Geordi are doggies! Real cuties.
Rankinfile any PMS love triangles the public needs to know about?
(*** Lum_ has joined #corp)
Lum_ maybe?
PMS_Ken Jim is really jealous of the feelings that Dave has for me, but I spurn Dave for the attentions of Timmeh!
Rankinfile Timmeh!
Mr_Poppinfresh That scene is a classic.
Mr_Poppinfresh I had to watch it again because I laughed so hard I missed the rest of the dialogue.
PMS_Ken Bob and Nick are actually French, Shawn is a woman. Scott is really a drum machine.
Lum_ Pretty much every cut scene had me rolling
PMS_Ken Hello Lum.
Lum_ Especially the very first one
Lum_ when he whipped out the union jack I was under my desk laughing so hard, I did NOT expect that
PMS_Ken :) Glad you all liked it.
Mr_Poppinfresh you're my hero
PMS_Ken aw, shucks.
Mr_Poppinfresh If you weren't married I'd want you to give me babies
PMS_Ken !
Rankinfile Sadly, Pop's capable of such a thing
Lum_ Yeah, he's going through his nesting phase
Mr_Poppinfresh I'm also capable of firing you =)
Lum_ Not me - YOU CANNOT FIRE ME
Lum_ Doooooont forgeeeeet meeee when I'm goooooone
PMS_Ken don't you forget about me, don't don't don't don't
Lum_ It's Bad 80's Night on #corp!
Rankinfile Did Tweety see that? She flips on 80s music like Subby on comics
Mr_Poppinfresh This is wrong on so many levels.
Subversive Worse, she dances
PMS_Ken and on that note, i must retire to Castle Capelli.
Mr_Poppinfresh Great to meet ya.
Subversive yeah, absolutely
Mr_Poppinfresh Hope to see you at E3
Rankinfile Definitely. This has been fun ken
PMS_Ken I will be tracking your scents at E3.
Subversive yes. Make sure to stand menacingly when you see us there.
PMS_Ken Thanks for having me by! Ta, everyone! Thanks again!
Rankinfile 'night Ken!
Part One of the interview can be found here.
Do you like to dress babies up like the Prince of Lies?
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