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Episode 45 - Pinball Art Director w/ Greg Freres
PodcastAnalysis updated yesterday1 hr 14 min listen
Highlights
- Elvira and the Party Monsters won Best New Equipment (pinball) at the 1989 AMOA show for the first time in seven years; prior years video games had dominated the award
- Police Force outsold Elvira and the Party Monsters despite Elvira being the superior game; Bally name was still tainted from company troubles
- Williams art department received their first Macintosh computer in the mid-1990s shared among six artists with a sign-up list
- Greg Freres was hesitant to embrace computer art technology and took years to fully embrace it, unlike younger hires Linda Deal and Paul Barker
- Greg created original pencil sketches for Medieval Madness composition but John Youssi completed final art; Greg was overseeing slot machine work and flying to Vegas three times a year
- Steve Ritchie is difficult to brainstorm with, immediately rejecting ideas until one finally resonates enough for him to say 'I can't hate that'
- Cassandra Peterson was receptive, understood pinball, and wanted to be involved in all three Elvira games
- Dennis Nordman originally suggested party animal theme before Elvira was licensed; concept evolved from Spuds McKenzie era and became seed for Elvira game
Notable quotes
“Roger Sharpe came through engineering and said, hey, we've got this opportunity...When it got to Dennis and I, Dennis and I weren't working that closely together yet.”
“We threw the double entendres in there immediately...We just had fun with it.”
“I don't know what the hell you guys are talking about. It sounds good to me. Let's go with it.”
“He's never been good at brainstorming...you spill it out, and he immediately goes, no...it wasn't until you got to the point where he would say, I can't hate that, that you knew you had something.”
“It took me many years to really full fledged get into it. But the good thing is I had hired some younger people.”
“I worked from photography...but I did not sit there and put photographs on the illustration board...I did not sit there and put photographs on the illustration board and then airbrushed on top of them like some other artists at that time were doing.”
“Why did you opt for photography? I said, pardon me? He goes why did you use photographs of the characters...I was like I didn't...I tried to explain...he was like, oh okay...I might have lost sleep that night.”
“I need to keep my hand moving. I need to keep active in the design process.”
“You can Yowcify it for me...I'd love to work with you, collaborate.”
“This could have been one of the biggest mistakes of my career, but it just felt juvenile.”
Entities
- Bally Manufacturing· company
- Williams Electronic Games Inc.· company
- Dr. Dude And His Excellent Ray· game
- Elvira and the Party Monsters· game
- Medieval Madness· game
- Monster Bash· game
- Party Zone· game
- Star Trek: The Next Generation· game
- White Water· game
- Brian Eddy· person
- Cassandra Peterson· person
- Dennis Nordman· person
- Greg Freres· person
- John Youssi· person
- Kevin O'Connor· person
- Larry DeMar· person
- Linda Deal· person
- Margaret Hudson· person
- Pat McMahon· person
- Paul Barker· person
- Roger Sharpe· person
- Steve Kordek· person
- Steve Ritchie· person
- Thomas Blackshear· person
