Another Day, Another Fifteen Megabytes

So, today was another interview, again about Infocom days. Last time, I was interviewed by Rick Thornquist, a journalist/writer. Today I was interviewed by a documentary film-maker, Jason Scott. Jason's film (titled Get Lamp) is about Interactive Fiction (aka Text Adventures), in general, so Infocom was not intended to be the primary focus of the movie -- but he admitted that Infocom-related stuff will make up about 70% of the content.

Jason has a different interviewing style from Rick, probably (aside from personality differences) due to their training: Rick is a journalist with lots of tech experience, whereas Jason is a former video-game writer who has become a film-maker. While Rick had pages of questions, which he was going to ask each of us and then show on his live DVD all our answers (when interesting), Jason had no notes at all. He has a general idea of the sorts of things he wants to cover (e.g., the experience of working at Infocom) and aims his questions to spark memories that will get people talking, and then follows up on the interesting bits.

The interview today was shorter than the one with Rick, although I have been similarly exhausted after it. I wrote then about the self-spin afterwards, of regrets about things I did, and didn't, say in the interview. I don't think I'll have that spin here -- while Rick wanted to know about me and my personal experiences, Jason was looking for an objective view of the time and experience. Jason is building a story about Interactive Fiction as a whole, its genesis and its current state (which is very healthy, if completely amateur), so he is looking for descriptions of the common experience. He is actively disinterested in anything personal, which was refreshing. Rick, in contrast, is building a companion video to go with a book about Infocom games, so he wanted the cool and inside stories that you'd hear over drinks -- the outtakes and backstage gossip. Rick was not at all pushy, and I could have set any boundaries about what gossip I wanted to talk about. But I know as a psychologist that it's hard to set those boundaries when someone is asking politely, and holding a clipboard.

I don't think I said anything brilliant (Jason mentioned jokingly before we started that he "edited for brilliance" so that had been my one goal). I was the last of the Infocom interviews, so most of what I covered had been said already by others, and he was merely looking for confirmation or dis-confirmation. He did say that I was the most requested interview left, because I was one of the few women able to talk about the work, and because I was the only person to have written a commercial romance text adventure (there are many non-commercial ones out now, apparently).

The interview -- and these photos -- was conducted in the studio, by the way. It was very warm and comforting, I was really grateful we were able to be there (thanks, HomoDomi).

Some interesting links:

• A trailer for the film, Get Lamp, based on a few early interviews (that is Steve, with the beard). Jason said the trailer is a little misleading about the tone of the film. (link takes you to YouTube)
  
• Jason's on-going catalog of interviews already conducted (about 60 so far, mine will be added in a week or two). He showed me a page with the complete audio of all the interviews, but I can't find it now.
• A catchy music video (It is Pitch Dark) by the geek rapper MC Frontalot singing about text adventures, featuring Steve Meretzky (directed by Jason). (link takes you to YouTube)
  
• Jason's previous documentary, BBS: The Documentary, about Bulletin Board Systems in the early 1990s, is viewable on-line -- he showed it to me. I can't find the link now (see below). This link takes you to a website about it -- it looks interesting.
  
• A fascinating article written by six MBA students at MIT in 2000 after a 6-month class project about the business reasons for the demise of Infocom, Down from the Top of its Game.
• An online version of Plundered Hearts, to play if you're interested. (Well, actually, all the Infocom games -- you click on the icon to get the java to start in a pop-up window. To be honest, I just played the very first two moves of PH, and geez, it's kinda good!)
  

Note added Tuesday: Found the link for BBS: The Documentary. It is broken into several chapters -- unfortunately the titles are too long to read which part is which, so you have to guess. On the other hand, the chapters appear to be independent of each other, so the order probably doesn't matter. This link (same as the first in this paragraph) is to Part One.