Recent interview with Sean Vanaman (talks about TWD s1 and s2 for a good bit)
All right, sorry if this should go somewhere else, but I figured since he mentioned some pretty interesting things about both season one and two it should probably go here... I dunno, for more exposure at the very least, I guess. I haven't watched the whole interview yet (I have some stuff I have to get done first), just the bits and parts that have been outlined below by the Tumblr user badclem, which is how I discovered the video in the first place.
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"IGN recently did an interesting and candid interview with Sean Vanaman, lead writer of Firewatch and project lead/lead writer of the original Walking Dead game, about his past work for Disney and Telltale and his current work at Campo Santo. Interview starts at 1:33:00.
A few things I found interesting:
The choice and timed dialogue mechanics were initially created by the original TWDG team to address matters that were unique to their project. At the time, Vanaman didn’t think that those mechanics would become the template that Telltale would use for all their future games. 2:15:52 - 2:20:41
Vanaman admits he misses writing for the Walking Dead characters, expressing an interest in working with Clementine again and has some ideas for her story. 2:09:32 - 2:10:57
Early in TWDG S2′s development Vanaman wrote a rough draft of the entire season arc and a script for the first episode before handing his work to Nick Breckon and leaving Telltale. Most of that work was then completely “redone”, enough that he feels he has no creative ownership over Season 2. 2:21:50 - 2:23:12
The choice to make Lee black wasn’t an arbitrary one; it plays a subtle but important part of his character and affects his interactions with other characters in the post-apocalyptic South. 2:11:49 - 2:13:20"
Comments
I saw that interview a little while ago, it was interesting to see his insights into having worked on the game. His discussion about Epic Mickey is also interesting if you want to hear more about his background.
Well, now I'm curious. What was the rough draft, and more importantly, why did it get re-written/re-designed? I'm wondering if there's a specific reason for that. I mean, it's a draft from the guy that made the overly successful first season. I'm not a developer, and I don't know how the process goes, but throwing out the script from the original creator doesn't seem like the wisest move. So I'm really curious what the motivation for changing up the whole thing was.
Could be budget constraints, time constraints, exec's forcing certain story decisions, etc. It's probably just as likely a decision not made by the writers themselves. Either way, S2 had a distinctly different feel than S1. I personally preferred S1 so I didn't view the change as positive.
I think it's just a matter of drafts changing and iterating over multiple times anyways. It's not so much that they threw out his script, but probably something more along the lines of it just changing over time.
That could be it, too. I'd be interested to know if the original draft had Kenny in it since he's such a polarizing part of S2.
I would assume that the original draft did have Kenny in it. I believe I read or heard somewhere, it might have been an interview with Gavin Hammon (voice of Kenny) that Kenny was meant to die in Episode 5 of Season 1, and that Gavin had recored lines of Kenny dying. But after he had done so, Sean went to him and told him that those lines were removed and that it was purposely meant for his fate to be unknown. So with that in mind, it would make sense that it was a decision he would have made to bring Kenny back for Season 2, but that's my speculation.
great stuff, i think his comment about lee being a guy that feels like he needs redemption rather than actually being a guy who needs redemption was interesting, because that is more relatable to a lot of people
Boy that was close. He got lucky, real lucky.
[Google translator]
Sean: It was all them okay!? All them! I had nothing to do with it! [bolts out the door]
Yeah, I've been curious about that myself. Stories do through a number of drafts, that's normal, but I would've loved to have known what the original draft of Season 2 was and the script for the first episode, before it started going through all the changes.
Also in the interview, Sean mentioned two scenes he'd written that were kept intact within Episode 1 of Season 2. I wish he had said which ones, although if I took a guess at it, I'd say maybe the scene with Christa and Clementine at the campfire, since that was one of the scenes to appear in a early sketch, and, maaaybe the table scene where Clem talks about her past, given with how it's about her reflecting upon on Season 1.
Whoever wrote what, I really I love those first two episodes, and Nick Breckon and Andrew Grant did a really nice job with them, but it would have been great if Sean Vanaman had stuck on board along with them and the others.
I'm smelling the plot for Taken 4
this interview just makes me sad
im now imaging a proper season 2 wrote by Sean lol IF YOU'RE READING THIS ,COME BACK FOR THE LOVE OF GOD,COME BACK xD
I hope Sean's nostalgia of writing season one would be enough to convince himself to work on season three
The interview kinda makes me sad. One day, I want someone to just spit out what the original plot was, noone seems to want to do that.
Well I hope the guy comes back, even if it's to help slightly in some way. Damn talented and put Telltale in a direction that led to them being titans in the story telling department (they were awesome before, I'm just saying).
Given that Firewatch is just about done, maybe it's possible for him to come back and write an episode or two for S3?
Of course, that would depend on whether or not he'd be up to it, but it seems like a possibility. I mean, the door's always open for that, right? I don't see why he couldn't do so if he wanted.
Wait so... why did they leave Telltale?
Pretty sure they just wanted to go do their own thing, move on to different pastures and all that. It doesn't seem like there's any ill will between them and Telltale, and it was simply their choice. They probably felt that they did enough good for the company after TWD S1, and that it was time to move on.
sorry did they censored "bullshit" but not "fucking" ok...
btw that dude on the right was annoying. the whole interview he had look on his face. while the other dude look so into the interview.