Behind the Camera with Guild Director Sean Becker!

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Behind the Camera with Guild Director Sean Becker!

11/22/2010 2:10pm

Before you check out The Guild tpb, check out this exclusive interview with Sean Becker, director of the The Guild Season Two! Enjoy!

How did you get involved with Felicia and The Guild?

Sean: I got involved with The Guild when they were gearing up to shoot season 2. I knew and had worked with one of the producers, Kim Evey, before on previous webshows("Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show" and "Comedy Gumbo" to be exact. Check them out, NOW! Wait, come back! I meant after the interview.) At the time, Kim was looking for someone to direct just the first 4 episodes of the new season. I had only seen a few episodes of "The Guild" but went back and watched all of season 1 and by the end I not only wanted to work on the show, I also became a fan. A HUGE fan(note the use of uppercase letters).

During the first production meeting with the cast, I tried so hard to hold back my fanboy instincts and act somewhat professional. I didn't know Felicia or any of the cast prior to this. My only exposure to them had come from watching season 1 and loving what they were doing. Needless to say, it was hard to stay focused during the meeting while thinking "That's Codex, and there's Zaboo. They're all here, this is sooooo cool".

It sounds funny saying that now, because my work on those 4 initial episodes continued on to 3 full seasons. During that time, I've really gotten to know the cast well. Having said that, I can honestly say that I can't stand any of them! They're the absolute WORST!!(once again, note the use of uppercase letters as well as the additional exclamation point) Robin Thorsen(Clara) brings an entourage of 29("No more, no less." Why??) people with her to set. Vince Caso(Bladezz) also has an entourage, but his consists of various wild animals(sans leash!). Needless to say the 2 groups do not get along(sigh). Sandeep Parikh(Zaboo) insists on calling "Action" and "Cut" during his scenes in order to properly get into character. I'm fine giving an actor that freedom in exchange for performance, but he also says "That's a wrap!" after every scene which is something a crew does not want to hear repeated throughout a 12-hour day. Jeff Lewis(Vork) refuses to say his lines vocally on set so he just mouths his lines and then we have to add all his spoken dialogue later. It's a major pain in post and completely unnecessary in my opinion. Tinkerballa is actually played by a set of twins, Amy and Aimee Okuda. The similar name makes communication really frustrating. Also, how are they both the "evil twin"?! Felicia eats sheet metal. It doesn't actually get in the way of shooting the show, i just thought it was weird. Sorry I had to vent now before we conduct the actual interview to get it out of my system. Of course, I'll leave all this out. Thanks for listening, I really appreciate it.

Were you familiar with online gaming prior to working on the series?

Sean: I was familiar with online gaming but not MMORPG(massive multiplayer online role playing game). My gaming experience came from consoles and portable devices, but I never got into PC gaming. I'm not saying that I haven't been interested in playing games like World of Warcraft. I'm just worried that if I started now, then I wouldn't be around to direct more Guild episodes. I hear all it takes is one taste and you're hooked on the "stuff". Then addiction takes over and your life becomes dominated by this uncontrollable obsession. You say "I'll just try it once", and next thing you know you're in a back alley on a Monday night willing to do anythin.....Sorry, I just realized I'm now talking about heroin. I'm mixing this up with another interview that I did earlier today.

A lot of people already know this but "The Guild" is the result of Felicia's year long Warcraft addiction. She really knows her stuff regarding online gaming and the terminology associated with it. For me, every season I learn more and more about the game without ever actually playing it. During earlier seasons, there were times where we would be ready to shoot a scene and right before I said "Action" I would turn to Felicia and say something like "What the hell is a Raid?" Ideally, I'd love it if Felicia included some type of legend or key with drafts of the script. Nowadays, I make sure to schedule a meeting with Felicia prior to shooting only to define the gaming terms.

Did you ever expect the series to get as much attention and praise as it does?

Sean: Since I didn't start working on 'The Guild' till season 2, I had already witnessed the show's popularity grow to a point to where the fans were funding the show through Paypal in order to get more episodes produced(Microsoft was not a sponsor till season 2).

It was actually quite intimidating at first because I was joining a show that already had a fan base which meant expectations. I was just praying that I wouldn't be the one to ruin everything the cast and crew worked so hard to achieve with season 1. Thankfully, that didn't happen(unless you ask j_bieberino007 on Youtube.) and I was fortunate enough to remain with the show past those initial 4 episodes.

Plus side on joining during season 2 is that I was working with a cast of established characters so performance and acting choices were easier to accomplish instead of having to define new characters and establish a new world. This definitely helped in keeping things consistent and on par with the first season.

What's your favorite episode of The Guild?

Sean: I'd say episode 11 of season 3 is my favorite. Its the one during the lan-party where the Knights of Good face off against the Axis of Anarchy. The whole season had been building to this moment and I had a lot of concern going into shooting these final episodes because it's really just a group of people behind their monitors playing a computer game. How do you keep that interesting for 2 whole episodes? In the end, everyone involved in every aspect of these episodes really stepped it up and as a result we had an well-written, fast paced, nicely shot, action packed finale with not only a great score but amazing performances. I am very proud of that episode.

Anything you can tell us about the new season? What can fans expect?

Sean: I'd like to know too! We just finished season 4, which ended with the group getting an invite to a gaming convention. Spoiler alert!(probably should have put as a disclaimer before the spoiler) I have no idea how we're going to pull that one off. Once the finale ended I got a lot of messages from friends saying "Good luck with figuring out that convention!" Who knows, I'll let my future self worry about it. I'm going to play Halo.

Although we are coming off a season where when I first read the script I said to Felicia, "So, they're all going to be in the game, huh? Um, OK, need to figure that one ou...wait, what's this about a Bollywood video?!"

That's all I know for now. That and we also find out that the Knights Of Good were in purgatory the entire time(Spoiler alert!).

In addition to being the director of the second season of The Guild, Sean also wrote the forward to The Guild TPB. Look for it in stores November 24th! And make sure to check out our interviews with Guild cast members Felicia Day and Sandeep Parikh!

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Behind the Camera with Guild Director Sean Becker!

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Behind the Camera with Guild Director Sean Becker!

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