Re: Re:Interview with Rob from season 4 team 8
Posted: 05 May 2017, 20:40
I don't know whether you havev Rob's interview transcript anywhere, but as the team captain here are my answers:
Which actors/characters did you most enjoy encountering during your time on Knightmare?
Most of them: Treguard, Merlin, Motley, Pickle, Brother Mace, Mogdred, Gundrada, Mellisandre (in that order).
Once you'd appeared on Knightmare, did you find yourself comparing other quests to yours? e.g. having thoughts such as: 'That team was rather lucky!' or 'We were much better on the Corridor of Blades!'?
Yes - you realise how easy it is as an armchair viewer to wonder why teams didn't react more effectively, but when you've faced the Block and Tackle or the Corridor of Blades, you are more sympathetic to reaction times and novelty, and this despite learning from Series 3 and practising precise directions! Remember these kinds of challenges were also unprecedented in the earlier series. You also realise that some teams - such as the winning team - had it easier on the Corridor of Blades, because in our case Pickle introduced vertical movement to make the scene more exciting; whereas a simple left-right manoeuvre in time was all that was required. And that doesn't seem fair, but it's entertainment at the end of the day!
Knightmare fans sometimes enjoy speculating about what spells that were never cast would have done, had they been used. Your team had a TINY spell when the quest ended - what do you think it was intended for?
Shrinking Mogdred temporarily. Shrinking and Expanding were used earlier on the series, however. It's difficult to see why the production team don't answer some of these questions by now. It's also fun to consider unverifiable spells that the team might have brought - e.g. casting 'ENBOLDEN' in the face of Mogdred or Lord Fear. It might not have amused the production team, but would have been amusing nonetheless ('TIN'!).
Was playing Knightmare more scary than watching it, or less scary?
Scary on the first room (the Place of Choice), the Swinging Axe room (unseen), the Corridor of Blades and the Block and Tackle. For the first room it was surreal, 'we're actually on Knightmare and that's my brother in the Dungeon!'. But after that, after a night in a hotel, it was pretty much the same as viewers experience it for the first time - focused on what's going on in the game.
Regarding the reaction back at school - we came from two different schools. There were remarks such as - after Episode 15 was broadcast - how I jumped momentarily when the Assassin arrived - one friend said he replayed that clip again and again! Typical questions were: "What was it like to be on Knightmare?" "How did it work?" and "Did you win?" (to which my answer was 'not exactly ...' - how else to phrase it?!). Our final episode (#16) coincided with the end of the school term, of course, so when we were back at school in January the moment, like the Christmas season itself, had largely passed.
What are your thoughts on Knightmare VR?
I would rather see the Eye Shield sequences develop so that there were actual choices on it (eventually an almost infinite number of choices, of course) and for characters, objects and graphics to be superimposed accurately on the moving camera positions and angles. When I saw the first Eye Shield sequence, I thought the production team HAD mastered lifelike VR-type graphics.
Finally, in regard to comparing it to Series 3, I actually much preferred Series 4 - the forests, the inn with all those people in it, the boat across the lake. But I wondered why there was a clean break with the scenes of series 3 - I was expecting new challenges, but also familiar scenes. I think they could have introduced outside scenes without using the Eye Shield if they'd wanted to, and made the transition from series 3 smoother by incorporating some of the previous rooms. I suspect the extra cost of royalties is the reason why that didn't happen. The mine ride in series 3 was more exciting than the steps into Level 3, in series 4.
Looking ahead, I know many Knightmare fans like Lord Fear but I never really took to him, partly as I thought he was overused (not least by himself!). The dragon rides were impressive at first, but quickly became so many 'passive paths' - and effectively discarded by series 8 in any case. Winteria, Wolfenden and the galleon were ideas that must have looked good on paper, but I found them just too unbelievable to work - I actually prefer the smaller-scale outdoor scenes of series 4 (and didn't find our particular quest 'too purple'). The variety of scenes in, say series 5, was an improvement and that despite Tim telling me it wasn't new rooms, but what happened in the scenes that made an adventure. Characters like Pixel, Elita and Ah Wok were disappointingly irritating, though. Difficult to disentangle moving on, having been on Knightmare (and continuing to grow up) from the merits of the later series, though.
Which actors/characters did you most enjoy encountering during your time on Knightmare?
Most of them: Treguard, Merlin, Motley, Pickle, Brother Mace, Mogdred, Gundrada, Mellisandre (in that order).
Once you'd appeared on Knightmare, did you find yourself comparing other quests to yours? e.g. having thoughts such as: 'That team was rather lucky!' or 'We were much better on the Corridor of Blades!'?
Yes - you realise how easy it is as an armchair viewer to wonder why teams didn't react more effectively, but when you've faced the Block and Tackle or the Corridor of Blades, you are more sympathetic to reaction times and novelty, and this despite learning from Series 3 and practising precise directions! Remember these kinds of challenges were also unprecedented in the earlier series. You also realise that some teams - such as the winning team - had it easier on the Corridor of Blades, because in our case Pickle introduced vertical movement to make the scene more exciting; whereas a simple left-right manoeuvre in time was all that was required. And that doesn't seem fair, but it's entertainment at the end of the day!
Knightmare fans sometimes enjoy speculating about what spells that were never cast would have done, had they been used. Your team had a TINY spell when the quest ended - what do you think it was intended for?
Shrinking Mogdred temporarily. Shrinking and Expanding were used earlier on the series, however. It's difficult to see why the production team don't answer some of these questions by now. It's also fun to consider unverifiable spells that the team might have brought - e.g. casting 'ENBOLDEN' in the face of Mogdred or Lord Fear. It might not have amused the production team, but would have been amusing nonetheless ('TIN'!).
Was playing Knightmare more scary than watching it, or less scary?
Scary on the first room (the Place of Choice), the Swinging Axe room (unseen), the Corridor of Blades and the Block and Tackle. For the first room it was surreal, 'we're actually on Knightmare and that's my brother in the Dungeon!'. But after that, after a night in a hotel, it was pretty much the same as viewers experience it for the first time - focused on what's going on in the game.
Regarding the reaction back at school - we came from two different schools. There were remarks such as - after Episode 15 was broadcast - how I jumped momentarily when the Assassin arrived - one friend said he replayed that clip again and again! Typical questions were: "What was it like to be on Knightmare?" "How did it work?" and "Did you win?" (to which my answer was 'not exactly ...' - how else to phrase it?!). Our final episode (#16) coincided with the end of the school term, of course, so when we were back at school in January the moment, like the Christmas season itself, had largely passed.
What are your thoughts on Knightmare VR?
I would rather see the Eye Shield sequences develop so that there were actual choices on it (eventually an almost infinite number of choices, of course) and for characters, objects and graphics to be superimposed accurately on the moving camera positions and angles. When I saw the first Eye Shield sequence, I thought the production team HAD mastered lifelike VR-type graphics.
Finally, in regard to comparing it to Series 3, I actually much preferred Series 4 - the forests, the inn with all those people in it, the boat across the lake. But I wondered why there was a clean break with the scenes of series 3 - I was expecting new challenges, but also familiar scenes. I think they could have introduced outside scenes without using the Eye Shield if they'd wanted to, and made the transition from series 3 smoother by incorporating some of the previous rooms. I suspect the extra cost of royalties is the reason why that didn't happen. The mine ride in series 3 was more exciting than the steps into Level 3, in series 4.
Looking ahead, I know many Knightmare fans like Lord Fear but I never really took to him, partly as I thought he was overused (not least by himself!). The dragon rides were impressive at first, but quickly became so many 'passive paths' - and effectively discarded by series 8 in any case. Winteria, Wolfenden and the galleon were ideas that must have looked good on paper, but I found them just too unbelievable to work - I actually prefer the smaller-scale outdoor scenes of series 4 (and didn't find our particular quest 'too purple'). The variety of scenes in, say series 5, was an improvement and that despite Tim telling me it wasn't new rooms, but what happened in the scenes that made an adventure. Characters like Pixel, Elita and Ah Wok were disappointingly irritating, though. Difficult to disentangle moving on, having been on Knightmare (and continuing to grow up) from the merits of the later series, though.