You go back to the Baldur's Gate days, we literally had 32-pixel characters strutting across the screen, and we'd have a couple lines of voice and a lot of text. On one hand, it's a reflection of the evolution of the technology. On the other hand, though, I think it's a reflection of our aspirations. We've always felt that the medium can get more and more cinematic, and I think when it follows the convention of Mass Effect 2 film, it grows more and more compelling. There's a hundred years of knowledge and learning in that space that we can then apply.
When I got out of college I worked for DC comics. I worked on staff there and I also freelanced for them for about a decade. I spent two years on staff as an editor right out of college. I'm from Los Angeles and I came back here after a couple of years in New York, to go to Graduate School at USC. I wasn't thinking specifically about animation although while I'd worked at DC.
Again there are so many records which contain fond memories and music and songs of which I have to say I am quite proud. There are a couple of tracks which in retrospect on which I now wish I had pushed the red button, however I'm sure this is true of any artist career that has spanned the number of years that mine has. I do not believe however that I have ever made a bad record and I have certainly never made a record to which I didn't give my complete commitment.
As a single couple, we are no longer able to hang around with married couples 'cause they cannot be in our presence without getting very annoying. It's always like, 'So, when are you guys getting married? Huh? When are you getting married? When are you guys getting married?!' I dunno, you're married - when are you gonna die? You're already married, death will be next. When are you gonna die?
It's always interesting to see what the real enthusiasts think, but they're rarely representative of the tastes of the wider audience, so I tend to write for myself, for an imagined smart 14-year-old, and for a couple of friends who are still big comics fans.
I think about everything first. I think about the scenario: the story and the characters, what I'm trying to say and I'll think about that for a couple of days until it's all locked in and then when I get to an instrument it'll just fall out. But the song's kind of all ready there in my head.
When I was about twenty-one, I published a few poems. Maybe I wrote a couple of stories before, but I really began to write stories in my mid-thirties. My kids were still little, and they were in school and day care, and I had begun to think a lot about wanting to tell some stories and not being able to do it in poetry.
When you are brought up in a zoo, you know what's going on in the monkey house. You see a couple of monkeys loose and one is President and one is Vice President, you know it's trouble. Monkeys make trouble.
There's nothing new. I think that's the weird thing for me. Over the last couple of months, the keep-fit shows, and then at the end of it you get to lose weight and one of you is going to win a million dollars - that's not real. In many ways, even 10 years ago that wouldn't have worked.
I can't say, maybe it's something in the ingredients, but again, we have a couple of contestants from Long Island and a phenomenal array of chefs.
Jack, my 16 year old, was in knots a couple of months back, studying for Latin. I said, "Mate, you've got no interest in Latin. You don't want to go into it after, so drop it." He said, "No, I can't. I'm going to get bullied at school because all my mates are in there." There's a prime example of why no one cooks at school. You're studying Latin, you've got no interest.
The Voice of Heaven is a still small voice. The voice of peace in the home is a quiet voice. There is need for much discipline in marriage, not of one's companion, but of oneself... When couples cultivate the art of the soft answer, it blesses their home, their life together, and their companionship.
We met a couple months before the In the Land of Blood and Honey filming started. Angelina Jolie said, "Whatever you want, just ask for it." So we sat down and talked about it. She was great from the beginning, saying that this is essentially a story of my kind, my experience, my war, my country. In a way, she was giving us blank check to fill in the emotional landscape and do our best, really. She was really supportive and kind and open and creative.
Love must be free and must have protection for couples, whether they are same-sex or not, each one loves who they choose and must have protection for their family.
When you attempt something new, there's always fear. A couple of helpful slogans to me are "follow the fear" or "fear is a sign of growth."
We usually start by asking the collaborators to submit a couple of ideas. Then, Larry and I will sort through all the submissions and choose the ones based on what we think will add most to the collection. Once the scripts are written, the stages are: rehearse, record, edit, sound design, foley and finally, the mix.
As I look back at the last 15 years, one of the things that I'm most proud of is creating the cover. When I first did it, the first couple of years, people really criticized it and didn't think it would work at all. Now, you see it everywhere.
When you're making art, there's a lot of self-importance attached to that, but at the end of the day, you can always fall back on the fact that it's just a play. It's not like the Iraq War or something. We're not causing anybody any harm, other than a couple hours of a wasted evening.
If you are strong enough as a couple, reality shows can be a good thing for the relationship.
Me and my friends would drive for eight hours to play for twenty people. That was cool, and if a couple of people bought t-shirts, that would be the greatest thing. We could go eat some hamburgers that night.
I want to tell everybody that you won't hear me trying to pop bottles in the club and all that kind of stuff. It's just not me and I think as long as you stay within your element and your age bracket, sure you're going a couple of young folks and teens, but that's not who I'm focused on. I'm really not. I love whoever supports, but I'm just not going to try and go back there because times have changed. If you don't move with the times, you'll get left off. I'm trying to change with the times.
The amazing thing about working on new platforms is that there is a great deal of excitement. You know, these things - they're brand new. They're trying to figure it out. And so if you're a show that they're supporting, they're going to put a tremendous amount of energy behind you. They're open to new ideas, new ways of promoting a show, and I think that feels really exciting, because network TV sort of feels like a formula. They give you a couple of weeks, and if it works, it works, and if it doesn't, you're most likely going to get cancelled.
I've been making Vine videos for a couple of months. They're just six-second little videos, but I really have fun doing them. It's just fun to feel like you created something.
I went to university for a couple of years and I didn't enjoy university. The studying and the accountancy, economics, I just hated that stuff. Now the irony is here I am lawyer, accountant, I do it all day every day and sit at a desk. So I've never ended up where I wanted to be in many ways. I always wanted to be a farmer.
There are a lot of people who I look up to. I like what Ricky Gervais does, I also like Ron Howard. It's probably never going to happen, but if I had to pick a couple people, those are two.