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| Star Wars Interview - Part 1/2,
Jonathan Bresman, Lucasfilm |
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How did you first get in to writing?
Hmmm. Fiction? Non-fiction? The act of writing in general? I think I first got interested in writing from watching Sesame Street as a toddler, although I didn't write a truly decent, coherent story until I was about six or seven. It was always an intense sort of hobby, but still one that I didn't take all that seriously until college. That's when I realised that I probably wasn't good enough at chemistry to be a doctor and that I should try to find something else to do. Lucky for me, Spike Lee happened to be teaching a screenwriting seminar my sophomore year. So, I applied, and miraculously got in. That was around the time that it occurred to me that maybe I could earn a living doing something that I actually enjoyed and wouldn't have to become a nice Jewish radiologist. (I think my grandparents still harbour the illusion that I'm going to wake up one day and go to medical school. Sigh. You win some, you lose some, I guess.)
Was it fun to be involved with Marvel & Mad magazine?
Working for Mad magazine was the best job I ever had, despite the weird initiation stuff I had to go through - gluing things to odd body parts, diving into tiny trash cans from terrifying heights and angles, suffering through bizarre mind/mime games and so on. They really believed in teaching me the ropes - writing, editing, layout, et cetera. It was a fantastic experience. They were also really generous with their merchandise. At the end of each day I was more or less REQUIRED to leave with as many books, magazines, T-shirts and so on as I could physically carry. Nowhere else will you find such a kind, funny and humane bunch of people. Marvel wasn't bad either. They gave me hundreds of free comics. That's always pretty cool.
What was it like to work with David Letterman?
Really hectic and tense. Not so much working with Letterman himself, because, to be honest, the most contact I had with him was the occasional "hello" in the corridor (If I was lucky, and I happened to be sipping a Coke when he walked by, we might have a brief exchange about the joy of beverages), but because obviously they have to churn out a show EVERY night and in addition to all crazy logistics of doing so, there's always a slew of last minute crises that have to be dealt with. On the other hand, the constant adrenal rush felt pretty good, even if it was exhausting. The coolest thing about it was messing with the crowds of fans, gawkers and paparazzi who would stand outside the stage door waiting to get photos of celebrities. My favourite thing was to suddenly burst out of the stage door knowing that everyone would reflexively snap a photo. Then there would be this confusion, as the crowd would try to figure out who I was and why they just took a picture of me. The best was when Madonna was there and I flung open the door and I heard someone in the crowd ask if I was Sean Penn, and if so, what the hell had happened to me?
How did the involvement with Lucasfilm come about (particularly the Star Wars web site?)
Wow. Long story. While I was at Letterman for a semester, I applied for a summer internship at Lucasfilm (this was back in 1994). Lucasfilm kept confusing the phone number at my parents' house with the phone number of my apartment in New York. As a result, when Lucasfilm's then-Visual Effects Producer, Kristine Hanna, finally got around to deciding to conduct a phone interview with me, she kept on calling my mom instead of calling me. Pretty soon, she and my mom struck up a friendship, and by the time Kristine and I got in touch, Kristine had decided that anyone with such a cool mom would be a pretty good candidate for the job. Lucasfilm and I got along pretty well and I continued to work for them while I was back at school. That's when I converted my dorm room into the East Coast Outpost of the Lucasfilm Empire. As for the web site stuff, well, that all came together after a campaign of calculated begging. After I graduated college in 1996, I returned to beautiful, bucolic Skywalker Ranch and found myself spending much of my time in a windowless, basement research office. Pretty early on, me and my co-researcher, Koichi Kurisu, began a memo campaign to get us OUT of that office, with the ultimate goal of joining the production crew at Leavesden Studios in the U.K. The memos were designed to appeal to Producer Rick McCallum's sense of humour and were occasionally sent with little comedic sketches, action figure dioramas and so on. Finally, after we sent him this rather elaborate comic book of a memo, he had a meeting with Lucasfilm's Director of Communications, Lynne Hale, who decided that maybe my skills could best be put to use on her behalf, and that's how I ended up at Leavesden working on the web site.
What was it like to work on the art of Star Wars: Episode I?
Crazy. More artwork was generated for Episode I than for Episodes IV, V and VI COMBINED. There were thousands upon thousands upon thousands of works of art to consider, all of which were simply world class. Deciding which should go into the book and which shouldn't was pretty painful. On the other hand, after labouring on the movie for so long with the end goal of making a release date, it was great to have a chance to sort of sit back and actually review the pre-production work as a body of work unto itself. I also really enjoyed having the chance to tell the world the origins of all the artwork – where the artists got their inspiration from, what schools of design they were influenced by and so on. Having been a conceptual researcher on the film, that's the stuff that I'm really into.
Do you have any favourite character/vehicle designs?
That's tough. Hmmm..... I think I particularly like Sebulba's Podracer. I really love how Shuster, Chiang and Lucas took real world stuff like a jet fighter and a V8 engine and turned it into something so wild and alien yet so cool. I'm also a huge fan of Benton Jew's Jedi/Sith storyboards. We're both really into Hong Kong martial arts movies and I think he really manages to capture the feel of those films. What else.... boy, I could go on and on....Iain McCaig's original version of Darth Maul is simply beautiful - you can't help but find it attractive, and that lends it so much more dark power. Terryl Whitlatch's wildlife designs are simply beyond description. Finally, there are Doug Chiang's gorgeous production paintings, full of vigour and technical precision, mirroring ILM’s renowned attention to detail.
Will you be involved with Episode II? If so, - any juicy info on the next Star Wars?
What - are you trying to get me killed? I'll leave to your imagination what happens to those who leak information.... I'm not too involved with Episode II. I've done a little bit of research work here and there and have kind of been floating around on the periphery, but I've been spending most of my time focusing on an independent animation project that Terryl Whitlatch and I have created called Atomic Soda Pop. It's sort of space opera meets bedtime story kind of stuff - targeted at kids, but interesting and subtle enough for older kids and adults to get into. Our web site will be up in a few months with our first animated instalment. The site will also include design work by Star Wars artists Kurt Kaufman, Robert Barnes and Jay Shuster.
CLICK HERE for the second instalment of our exclusive interview with Jonathan Bresman where we find out exactly what a stormtrooper has to go through every day, and what is involved in standing in for Jar Jar Binks.
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