Royce Essig has been pursuing a 25 year dream to produce a sci-fi drama. He and his team are close to completion and have used virtual reality technology to finish the product. I interviewed him at Far Point 2018.
1:07 – Royce Essig and his team are doing an independent sci-fi series called Dark Operations Terminus. It’s been a 25-year dream and ten years ago they released their first DVD. It’s a three part sci-fi drama.
2:32 – They hope to release it next fall. It has a virtual reality element to it. One is the Oculus Rift where you get into the world. They have also applied the Microsoft Hollow Lens technology. It projects a hologram you can see and record and import into the game.
4:49 – The game is done in memoriam to some developers who they’ve lost. One of the people who helped with Terminus was a Major who passed away in Iraq.
5:52 – He uses Magic Vegas to edit. Everyone on the team is self-taught. He uses music to inspire his work. Muppets music and tv for example. He also loves to edit.
7:37 – They all started doing this twenty-five years ago when they were all in a sci-fi club and wanted to do a fan film. The realized they needed a good camera guy, good equipment and so on. Now they can do it professionally.
10:03 – Royce likes The Greatest Showman because it breaks the typical mold of American television actors and actresses. Star Trek inspired the film they’re working on now. He also liked Space Battleship Yamato, Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica. The people into this nerdy stuff are the best people around. He loves John Williams and James Horner. Horner used his Battle Beyond the Stars music for Star Trek II.
13:07 – He wanted to be a pilot when he was young.
Hilton George is founder of Blerdcon. He spent a half hour talking with me at Super Magfest 2018 about setting up the convention and his motivations and goals for the con.
0:45 – Hilton George talks about Blerdcon. It’s a combination of black and nerd and the convention is designed to bring together communities that have been underrepresented in other conventions. This will be the second year. They had 1,800 people at the first one. They expect 3 and 5 thousand this year.
2:20 – Sometimes people wonder if the con is only for black people. Hilton explains that it’s a celebration of many cultures and it’s all inclusive.
3:45 – Blerdcon brings in more emphasis on Afro-futurism than perhaps other conventions do. Black Panther will likely increase interest in Afro-Futurism. 10-15% of their panels are on Afro-futurism. Blerdcon is hoping to bring in a guest connected to Black Panther.
5:35 – Blerdcon has used advisors from Magfest, Otakon, and other conventions to help develop their own convention. Hilton has shadowed con runners to help develop blerdcon. Community members are happy to assist.
7:10 – Hilton is inspired by people stepping out of the box and people who create something new. Geek culture is going mainstream. Disney may buy it all out but STEM outreach and creative inspiration will have been made part of the mainstream. Being weird is a positive thing.
8:45 – People have been the most important thing to make Blerdcon happen. Mutual inspiration makes things happen. The many volunteers and committees get the credit for making Blerdcon happen.
9:43 – Hilton loves working with people. He likes being on panels, representing the con and speaking with people. He loves to spread the message.
11:00 – Every nerd feels disconnected from others. Black nerds feel this disconnection but are also rejected by their own black community. They’ve had a double level of separation.
13:00 – The Stranger Things black character was Hilton. He was the one black kid in all his gaming crews. He was always Ernie Hudson in Ghostbusters Halloween groups. There is diversity in fandom but the discussions about these groups don’t happen in conventions unless they’re written into the programming. People may attend conventions and not want to create issues by talking about diversity issues unless there’s a forum for them at the convention.
16:00 – Black female nerds are the most marginalized but most participatory in a sense in nerd culture. Blerdcon tries to highlight black female nerds as much as possible. Blerdcon can also show other conventions the success of highlighting marginalized communities.
18:22 – At the first Blerdcon, they had no idea what would work. There’s no template for a black convention. They tried everything. Some things worked and they know what works now and what resonated with fans. There’s just as much effort in producing it but it’s more focused. They hope to have more of everything this second time around.
20:30 – Blerdcon didn’t have any major problems in the first year due to the guidance they got from others. This time around they’ll have more signage and support better interaction guidance. They know how to do better registration and badge-ing and take care of audio and visual stuff. Scheduling will be better.
23:30 – Conventions and geeks life allow people to get to know each other before they realize that society has told them to avoid each other for some prejudicial reason. Hilton wants more dialogue between people. Geek culture might be the new way of life for people. Geek conventions might be the way for people to learn how to stop mistreating each other.
26:19 – Hilton was born and raised on Star Wars and comic books. He was a black kid growing up in the country in North Carolina. Then Dungeons and Dragons was his most interactive geek activity. He didn’t have this community available to him when he was a geek but kids now will have access. New fans have to be welcomed.
29:00 – Hilton loves Star Trek 2 and quotes it whenever it’s on. His long term plan is for Blerdcon to be Dragoncon of the North in ten years. He wants to grow Blerdcon into multiple hotels. Tourism in the area can be taken advantage of to grow the con.
31:30 – Cons are like a family reunion for Hilton. www.Blerdcon.com is the site for more information. They are on all the big social media sites. The con is on July 27-29, 2018, 24/7 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City.
Jed Henry is a prolific artist who focuses on Japanese print style art. I was able to interview him at Super Magfest 2018. He’s worked on movie animation, video games, comic books and traditional and computer art.
0:37 – Artist Jed Henry talks about the work he is most proud of and he finds it to be the one that was most difficult. He points out his Final Fantasy 6 triptych.
1:42 – He says that he’ll work on something for 2 to 4 hours and then stay away for a half hour and then look at it again. He checks at each phase of production if it’s done. Sometimes he just throws a piece away.
2:40 – He sketches in photoshop and does inkwork in traditional Japanese paper. He scans this in and adds color digitally.
3:10 – He’s inspired by people who show talent and he likes tattoo artists who do Japanese style tattooing. He gets inspirations from dance music, cinema and he reads a lot of comics, novels, poetry and so on.
4:19 – He talks about his inspiration to do Japanese style Star Wars artwork. He likes the Buddhist and eastern mysticism elements of Star Wars.
5:24 – He says he’s addicted to working on his computer. He also needs real brushes and inks for his work. A digital brush won’t work for him.
6:00 – He most likes doing line work. It’s the foundation of his Japanese style work.
6:36 – He feels a compulsion to do art and he loves doing it. It’s like a sweet torture and he would be unhappy doing anything else.
7:33 – He’s been doing art since he was a little kid and just kept doing it. He was a serious student and didn’t do as much art while in school. He tried to get good grades and create art but around age 22 he focused on drawing while in college. He barely slept but wanted to create art.
9:10 – He got free copies of Adobe and he began using that to work on his scanned in work. He picked up digital media pretty quickly in college.
10:00 – He studied animation in college and since the 90s animation was done on computer software. He never questioned using computers for his art. It was the tool of choice for his goals.
11:23 – He balances skill and effort to achieve success. It’s almost a numbers game and has had to reinvent himself half a dozen times to have success. He had a movie internship in LA and didn’t like it. He went into children’s books, then Japanese printmaking, a video game, and is working on a comic book. An artist must explore and also think like a businessperson. His process always changes to match his career goals. He wants to channel his creativity in a way that people will want to support him. You can’t do too much of any one thing.
14:46 – He says that many talented artists didn’t have complete freedom.
15:20 – He says that many people approach being an artist in a different way. He doesn’t know if an artist should focus on survival or making it a better place.
16:13 – He loves the Shattered Sea series by Joe Abercrombie. The first book is Half a King and are great YA fantasy. He gets impatient with lots of YA fantasy. Many lack character and emotional connection. He loves character first and concept second.
17:50 – He loves David Mitchell. He writes great literature but also writes great crazy science fiction. He also recommends the sci-fi novel Stories of Your Life and Others. He says it’s great people science fiction. He loves Mitchell’s latest book titled Bone Clocks. It’s an insane vampire novel.
21:25 – There are many pieces he’d like to create. He likes doing the fan art and enjoys going to conventions. He also wants to make more video games and continues with the comic book.
22:35 – People can find him on google under “Jed Henry.” He’s not the male model or the Jed who brings service member remains back from overseas.