On giving back to your community

You got your start as a recording artist, as a member of the industrial rock band Contagion. What’s your relationship with music like now and how does it influence your work currently?

Music has always been part of my life and it was something that I started at a very young age and I came out to California to follow my career in music, as well as writing and film. I signed with Capital coming right out of college and started touring and we were opening up with Nine Inch Nails and Frontline Assembly and all these big industrial bands, and Skinny Puppy remixed one of our songs. It was amazing because we went on tour and we’re doing North American tours with all these great musicians. And from city to city, we were playing video games at the back of the tour bus, mainly Street Fighter and these other games. Now, come full circle, 30 years later, I’m directing Street Fighter.

Music was the inroads for me to not only learn about the industry coming out of school, but also as a creator and as a storyteller. And tragically, about 12, 13 years ago, we had a fire here and it wiped out my whole music studio. It wiped out my equipment, all my synthesizers and samplers. We lost about a thousand music masters. Some of my albums were being re-released with Sony, who picked up our music catalog.

So I had to restart my career. And in the middle of that, I had started writing Frost Road, and Frost Road was actually going to be a story that I was going to develop as a motion picture. And I had been boarding out the movie with Trevor Goring and then started to paint some of the images with Christopher Shy because we had worked on some graphic novels together.

My career in music really forced me to evolve as a storyteller to then move into these other mediums. And that’s why I’m here today is that I’m still going back to my music and hoping to release a new album. And a lot of my music is still in heavy rotation around the world, but I’m hoping that I can use my love of music to better inform myself as a storyteller in film and television and obviously for my books that are coming up.

It’s almost like a Phoenix allegory: a bit of your previous creative life having to die, outside of your control, and then helping to fuel the fire, so to speak, of the next stages of your career. I have to ask about Street Fighter. Who did you main on Street Fighter? Who do you like to play?

I mean, for me, it was always Honda just because of the 100-hand slap—that was an age-old joke with us. When we were on tour, we had an incident where we were going across the Canadian border. They don’t really like musicians going back and forth over to Canada. They came on the bus at four in the morning and Michael, one of the guys in my band, was sleeping below us and they were asking us for our name and our country of origin and we were having to have our tour manager hand over our passports. Michael had no idea that this was a very upset customs agent that was boarding our bus and had already evicted the other band, Frontline Assembly. So the guy asked me my name and country of origin and I responded, and then he asked Michael, and Michael was sound asleep and had no idea what was going on.

So our tour manager, Lane, kicked him because he was on the bottom bunk. We were in these bunks of these tour buses, and he kicked him and Michael’s two arms suddenly came out. We’d been playing Street Fighter, like non-stop, and Honda was always the most insane because of his 100-hand slap. And suddenly these two arms came out from the curtains in the bunk on the bottom and he just starts letting loose 100-hand slap on the customs agent thinking it was one of us on the band. The agent, he was this older African American guy, and he looks down and crosses his arms and shakes his head… Lane knew we were about to be completely hauled off the jail because they really didn’t want us there, and he just shakes his head and walks off the bus.

You’ve worked across a large number of mediums and disciplines from video games to movies and now graphic novels. How do you handle the context switching between those mediums? What are some skills or learnings that you’ve had to grow over time and what are things that you’re still working on?

It’s been a journey to move between these different disciplines and integrate them into all the stories that we love. I think as a storyteller, you have to tell the right story for the right medium. Sometimes that’s a linear medium, like a movie or a television show where it’s a passive experience where the audience is watching and has a suspension of disbelief as they’re watching you. Whereas in a video game, it’s an interactive experience and the story and the context doesn’t progress unless the audience engages with it, which is very similar to a book. A graphic novel or a comic book is the same way. The story really doesn’t progress unless you turn the page and you follow the dialogue and the characters at your own pace.

I feel, as a storyteller, you really need to look at the characters and the world that you’re telling and what aspect works for the medium that you’re working on. So if you’re working in virtual reality, it’s a much different experience because you’re having to guide the audience through an experience and knowing where to look and where to experience. In a book, obviously, your focus is on your characters and the progression of the story and what part of the story works that way.

I think I’ve had the privilege to get to work in so many different mediums because I love telling stories from music to comics to film, and it’s a different experience. If I’m doing a viral campaign for a movie and I’m doing hidden footage with a scavenger hunt and an alternate reality game, that’s a much different experience than trying to do a combat battle chatter on Call of Duty. It’s a very collaborative industry and you’re working with other creators. So not only do you have to respect your own creative goals, but also how that integrates with what the other creators you’re working with and collaborating with have in mind, and also what the audience likes because a lot of these projects take years to develop. The technology and the platforms are changing so fast that you have to look ahead to what storytelling is going to be like in two years from now and how you do that.

With the advent of AI integrating as tools and other things that are challenging creators, both in a good and a bad way, it puts the onus on us to up our game to be better at our craft and understand how we can use these tools so they don’t overpower and take over our industry.

I want to touch on the idea of continuing to collaborate, because especially in graphic novels, you’re working with illustrators and letterers and colorists and movie people. There’s a whole production line of folks and things change rapidly. I’m sure, at some point, you’ve come in with an idea or been passionate about something and have had to change that or relinquish the idea altogether. Can you talk about any challenges liks this, or how you’ve adopted some of those changes in format or technology?

When I started, I didn’t rknow how to evolve from music and video games into film. Even though the game industry, from a financial standpoint, is more successful and more engaging in the sense of larger format and other things, I was really fascinated by not only working in motion pictures, but I had also grown up with comics and graphic novels. Arkham Asylum had been one of my favorite books—you had this hand-painted book, where every panel was painted. That and Heavy Metal and a lot of these things were early influences for me and so I envisioned that if I was going to work on my own projects, that everything had to be painted.

When I first started trying to write, I didn’t know what the first step was as a creator. I had a great story. I knew I was on the right path with the story, but I didn’t know how to tell it.

I had gone to San Diego Comic-Con after meeting with dozens of artists around and online, and I would start walking down Artist Alley and not only finding artwork that inspired me and was based on the images that I had in my head, but also meeting these artists and collaborating to see what it’s like to working with other people. It’s funny because the first artists I met are now some of the largest in the industry, and it was amazing because they were all in their early days of their career.

My first book was in three acts, and so I figured Meavy Metal style, I would work with three different artists and collaborate. I had three different styles in mind. One of the artists I met with was Christopher Shy. He had been doing stuff for White Wolf. He’d been doing some of their comics in the video games, but he had never done a graphic novel. His artwork was just stunning, though, and it looked exactly like what I had in my head. It was painted. It was dreamy. It had this painterly kind of feel. It had a lot of depth. The funny thing was that Christopher and I became instant friends and I realized that this is someone I could collaborate with. We were both, in a sense, generalists. Instead of just focusing on only one craft, we all loved storytelling on a variety of different mediums.

That was really the first experience for me collaborating with an artist who could do so many different things and explore how to tell a story this way. The lettering, the painting, the composition of the shots, the writing… collaborating on that became an interesting journey. I still worked and brought in other writers to help me, and other artists to help do finishing and other things, but it really came down to this core collaboration. It’s a challenge because you’re trying to tell a sequential story in either a comic or a graphic novel where you’re not only trying to explain the dialogue and the mood and the tone, but the composition has to really further that narrative.

The thing Christopher and both learned, I think, was that it was intriguing to be able to bring people in with the visuals, but then how do we hook people on the story and the world and the characters that we’re doing? One of the most beneficial and rewarding parts of this collaboration I’ve had with Christopher now for 20 years is that we’ve been able to tell these impactful stories and use his artwork as the medium to do that, but also to create characters in these worlds that will hopefully translate into games and film.

I want to talk more about the education you do. I know it’s a big part of the campaign that’s running and it’s also part of your overall approach to giving back to the creative community. You help others develop skills for technical acting and performance capture. What has teaching others taught you about yourself?

Looking back on my career, I think I’ve had the benefit, the privilege, and the honor to work with so many amazing, talented performers and other writers and creators. I feel that all of us are learning constantly. I’m learning.

I mean, this is my first real Kickstarter on my own after what I did with Wesley Snipes and Adam Lawson on Exiled. And this is a whole new learning process for me. I feel that all of us are at different stages of bettering ourselves and our careers.

Part of my personal belief is that it’s important to share the knowledge we gain and the networking and the mentorship and to give it back to other creators. I’m not saying that I have the only way or the best way to do things. In fact, I’ve probably made more mistakes than I can imagine. But I feel that you need to make mistakes to learn. And, I mean, just because someone tells you something, it doesn’t always apply to your life in a way that you might be able to find usable or relatable, but I do like to experience things for myself with the guidance of someone who’s been through it.

Even on this campaign, Jimmy Palmiotti, who’s an amazing writer and a creator who’s had many successful campaigns, mentored me on the Kickstarter community and how to do things in a way that we’re giving back to other creators. And Chris Yates who’s now part of our team here, we’ve collaborated on a lot of ideas of saying, “How do we share all the knowledge that we’ve been accumulating to pull together these successful projects and campaigns and share that back with the community?” For this one in particular, we felt that since it’s a new intellectual property and many people might not be familiar with it, just making a poster or a t-shirt or a statue or something else is nice, but that we have other things we can give back to the community in a bigger way.

Some of the things that we haven’t announced yet as part of the campaign are going to happen as we hit certain stretch goals. We’re actually going to be funding other creators on Kickstarter. We’re going to be working very closely with the community to identify campaigns we believe in and help not just mentor them, but also to contribute towards those campaigns.

One of the other things that we really want to do as industry professionals is share knowledge. Some of the reward tiers you’re going to see as part of this campaign might not be for fans, but more for creators who are looking to grow their careers. We’re going to have master classes and private panels and mentoring sessions and portfolio reviews and recorded panels and meet-and-greets and other opportunities, even at things like San Diego Comic Con where creators and fans get a chance to meet with us and talk with us and ask us questions. They might not normally have that opportunity, other than on social media or public events and that kind of thing.

We felt Kickstarter was an amazing platform to not only launch an IP like Frost Road, but then to also share behind the scenes about how we’re going to continue to do it. As Frost Road is successful, we’re hoping to do many more campaigns—I feel that Kickstarter, in particular as a platform, empowers creators to explore their own creative ideas and not have the pressure of funding. It’s really getting the feedback and the interaction with the audience.

There are examples of what we’ve done already with performance capture and teaching actors in the video game industry how to move into the game industry. We teach them about the business and the performance side and the technical side. I think a lot of creators are looking at things like: How do I get my own graphic novel or comic book off the ground? How do I take an idea that I want to make into a movie and where do I start? I think a lot of that is something we really see as an opportunity through Kickstarter to give back to that community in a variety of ways.

**It’s admirable to be able to use your own time and platform to be to create opportunities for other people. You don’t know who you’re going to meet or how you’ll influence somebody else’s work or life. **

You’ve worked on a large number of properties. Are there any white whales out there that you haven’t touched yet that you’re looking to your teeth into?

As a creator, you’re always inspired by other creators and other people. This campaign is going to be the start of some special things, not just in publishing and film and games. I really see that creators across the world are disenfranchised right now—distribution is fairly broken. I don’t mean just the gatekeepers of people that fund and allow people to do their work, but the way distribution itself works is getting archaic in a sense that the way we buy books, the way we get our television shows, the way we see films, the way we interact with content is through very few gatekeepers. The way that distribution works is not very favorable or equitable to creators.

I feel that it’s stacked against the creators to not only create the content, but then to understand the business and understand how to get their work see. And, even if they do do that, then to still participate and be sustainable. My white whale, as a creator, is to really start working on the platforms and the distribution that not only help give a voice to creators, but allow them to participate in the success of what they’re putting in, all the work and sweat equity and time that we put in that we’d love. It would be unfortunate for other people to profit off of that and not see the benefits of that.

I really feel that through my journey as a creator and experiencing things firsthand, that I’ve been able to identify the pain points that many creators like myself go through—the frustrations that we see, the other people that take credit and profit from our work. I feel that my work in the game industry and technology platforms and the projects that I’ve been working on over the past several years are putting me in a position where I can give back not just on the knowledge and the education, but also the technology and the ability to help develop platforms that would be more equitable for creators and allow them to participate both creatively and financially. That’s my big hope behind all of this.

I know that all sounds lofty and big and utopian, but it really is the truth. I think that’s why I keep coming back to Kickstarter. Kickstarter’s an amazing platform in itself, one that’s empowering creators to participate and put out their work and find their community. On a larger scale, ongoing distribution for whatever the medium might be is going to be the next evolution of that. I feel that Kickstarter is going to be a foundational part of what we’re going to do to help people launch their IP and then hopefully continue to find a way to participate in the fruits of their labor.