Do not trust ION Storm, and especially do not trust Chad Warren. When he tells you that he is the MIS lead down at ION Storm's Austin office and innocently uses the nickname MISMonkey, don't be fooled... Chad is much, much more. Writer. Minister of Internet propaganda. Prime suspect in a global campaign of misinformation and deceit involving Deus Ex, UNATCO, and several lesser known but equally sinister organizations. And now apparently we can add video composer to this rap sheet. For you see, Chad is the one responsible for creating yesterday's Deus Ex video released on PC.IGN to extremely positive reception.
Recently Deus Ex Incarnate managed to get a small set of questions about the video downloaded to Chad's Data Vault. Somehow bypassing the UNATCO software that monitors communications traffic to it's operatives, Chad got us our answers immediately. Take a look, then burn this webpage.
[Deus Ex Incarnate] First of all, awesome music. Was that from Straylight Productions, or... someone else?
[Chad Warren] I am not at liberty to discuss this for the time being. When the time comes to reveal the master, all shall bow before him in fear and adulation.
[Deus Ex Incarnate] About how long did it take to put the video together?
[Chad Warren] I've haven't done any video work since high school (and back then it was a case of stacked VCR's and good timing) so it took me about three weeks of working after hours and on weekends to get it to a point where I was pleased with it. By the end, though, I could re-sample all the footage and re-sequence the file in about 6 hours.
I had some problems getting the audio track to lay in correctly and ended up having to ask for some help from a company here in Austin called Waterworks Productions. I gotta give my man Patrick Frei some props, if you'll pardon the vernacular.
[Deus Ex Incarnate] How did you and the team decide what game elements to show?
[Chad Warren] Here's where I start digging a hole for myself. The team as a whole didn't know anything about it until the first rough-cut was complete. A game-play video had been attempted a couple of times before and, while the results were more color-vibrant than my piece, some of the elements that Warren really likes to focus on weren't getting communicated as effectively as possible. I've been present for 3 or 4 of Warren's press demos, I play the game whenever I get a chance, and I'm here with the developers, so I had a fair idea of the things they wanted to get across. Some things were factored in based on sheer child-like delight. A few things were added or changed at the end of the process in response to feedback from the team.
[Deus Ex Incarnate] Was that some kind of self-propelled, guided probe in there?
[Chad Warren] Yes, as a matter of fact, it was. I'm actually not going to say much about that except that it's one of the augmentations available and that it roX0r. That was, in fact, the item I included based on sheer child-like delight.
[Deus Ex Incarnate] Is there an actual Statue of Liberty flyby in the game? Or was that for
the video?
[Chad Warren] There is no flyby in the game. That sequence is one of the things Warren always showed off to the press in earlier demos, so I included it. The destroyed Statue is one of the first things you see in the game and it's supposed to draw you into the concept that this is a world where things have gotten way out of hand.
[Deus Ex Incarnate] Is all of this actual gameply footage? Or is some of it from in-game
cutscenes?
[Chad Warren] I did the Statue flyby using a ghost-cheat and it's the only non-Jake sequence in the entire video. Everything is in-engine, in-game. No scripting, no flics, no time-tweaking. Just me mousing around in some of
the missions.
[Deus Ex Incarnate] I notice that as different scenes are shown, the HUD is different colors. Does the game do this automatically? Or were you just spicing the video up a bit by doing that?
[Chad Warren] HUD colors and screen setup are among the configurable options for the interface. When the team says that they want you to make the game your own, they mean in every sense. Any opportunity to give the player control inside the framework of our schedule has been exercised.
[Deus Ex Incarnate] Was a script or sequence prepared for this beforehand?
[Chad Warren] I did a shot list and a rough storyboard. I actually worked primarily from an article I wrote in November. I got to sit through the "Warren Spector Dog and Pony Show" about four times and, as a writing exercise, I created a syllabus for it afterwords. That .doc ended up as the intro document for our off-site QA teams.
[Deus Ex Incarnate] The video looks a little over-exposed. Was this on purpose?
[Chad Warren] The simple answer is "no," but there's more to it. The original conceptfor the video came from a theatrical trailer for a late 60's spy-thriller/action-spoof that I saw some months ago on cable ("Our Man, Flynt" - don't ask. It was late). The color was a little washed-out as a result of the capture process, but the more I looked at it (and after watching "Three Kings" for the third time), the more it grew on me. My background is in theatre design and I'm used to accepting happy accidents as part of the work. This was, after all, something I took on in my spare time, and I figured, if it's going to be my work, it might as well look the way I want it to. I didn't plan for it to end up as part of our ad-campaign. After all, we have highly paid professionals for that, and I'm just a network monkey. I can't express how honored I am that the Deus Ex team were willing to take the video as-is as a representation of all their hard work and that Eidos was willing to stand behind it.
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