Travel Blog: Filming Project Mesa #1

Hey folks!

We're two days in filming on our Half-Life doc (what we're calling Project Mesa right now) and I just wanted to give you an update on how things are going. I'm currently using Austin as my home base we travel to various cities in Texas and the neighboring states to interview folks about the legacy of this franchise.

Yesterday I drove 250 miles to Dallas and back to talk to Randy Pitchford about being the studio that has made more Half-Life games than anyone else! Gearbox Software are responsible for not only the two expansion packs for Half-Life, but they also worked on the PS2 port of the game, the unreleased Dreamcast version, Half-Life Decay and much of the original retail version of Counter Strike. In fact we got some fascinating insight into how all that stuff was put together and often difficult relationship between the two studios.

Myself and Jeremy in LA at the moment talking to a bunch of people. Yesterday we sat down with Sony Santa Monica's Cory Barlog to talk about how the games impacted his creative vision and how the first game basically lost him his first job in the industry. We also talked about God of War for a breakout video we'll release later this year.

Finally last night we sat down with indie dev and Riot editor Laura Michet who ran the Epistle 3 Jam. This is a jam where indie devs attempted to make Half-Life Episode 3 based on Marc Laidlaw's infamous blog post. It was a fascinating and often hilarious interview.

It's Friday morning here in LA and we're up for another long day of filming. Today we're talking to Geoff Keighley about his time interviewing Valve during both the launch of Half-Life and Half-Life 2. And this afternoon we sit down with perhaps the most prolific designer in narrative first-person-shooter design; Vince Zampella. I can't wait to talk to him about Half-Life's place in the history of narrative FPS. 

Once we're done with that it's back to LAX and home for the weekend. On Monday we travel to Phoenix to chat to an old friend about Counter-Strike, and up to Sedona to film the Mesas. Expect an update with some glorious photos then.

This doc has already taken us in some interesting, unexpected directions. It's morphing into an examination of fandom, and the ways in which we ourselves own the media we love as they become markers in the stories of ours lives. It's the most excited I've been about a project in a long time. I think we're making something weird and special here.

I have to pack up and hit this LA traffic to go talk to Geoff. If you have any questions about the project please stick them below! I'd love to answer them.

Talk soon!

Danny