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MAGFest Interview: X-Strike Studios! River City Rumble and Beyond!
By Kevin - 12.04.03
Presented here, for the first time anywhere, is an interview with the proprieters of River City Rumble, X-Strike Studios. Conducted in the early morning hours of 11/02/03, shortly following THE CONCERT at MAGFest, this interview seeks to probe deep into the group's collective psyche and ask the big questions that matter - or something equally impressive sounding.
Preliminary notes for River City Rumble: Written and directed Tim Ekkebus. Music by Mustin and others. The guys who were present at the interview, and their role(s) in the film:
Chad Williams - Slick, a frat guy, visual effects, (also webmaster of the kickass X-Strike Studios website.)
Juese Cutler - Mojo
Rory O'Boyle - Thor, a Home Boy
Tim Ekkebus - Randy/Rocko, a Generic Dude, a Home Boy, a Frat Guy
Kevin - First of all thanks alot you guys for bringing this to MAGFest, it was a lot of fun. Pretty
much, it was what I was looking forward to coming into MAGFest, since I'm such a huge River City Ransom
fan.
Tim - Did you enjoy the Smash Brothers earlier?
Kevin - Oh yeah, they started playing [the recognizable theme music from River City Ransom}, and I saw you guys go APESHIT.
Tim - Yeah, we're totally putting that song in the movie.
Kevin - Hopefully the quality is good with that one microphone they had going.
Tim - Apparently someone took it right off the board, so it'll definitely go in.
Kevin - How long have you been together as "X-Strike Studios"
?
Tim - X-Strike Studios
started in March or April of 2003. I've known Juese since we were kids, I've
known Chad since he knew Juese, and I've known Rory since he knew both of them. The core of it has just
been together since the spring of this year.
Kevin - I saw on your website that you guys have another film [other then River City Rumble]
. Does it
pertain to video games?
Chad - It's not about video games, but it contains a lot of references.
Kevin - What's it called?
Tim - White Dawn: Dark Territory.
Chad - Lemme get in right now.
Tim - Chad, the director of White Dawn: Dark Territory.
Chad - Basically, me and Juese started this T.V. show, which ran two and a half years on the campus T.V.
station. We had this one skit, we thought it was awesome: a super villain with "racist powers." 1920's
silent movie type guy. Basically took that...
Tim - What was his name?
All - Caucasio!
Chad - We turned him into an anti-hero, this kind of pull-the-trigger, time-travelling,
racist-on-racist, KKK, neo-Nazi, all this crazy shit.
Juese - Basically, racism can be funny because its so unbelievable. We just took that to the umpth
level, which we thought would be funny, and it was the point of the movie - it didn't quite come across,
a lot.
Rory - I'm the guy who played Caucasio. You'd like to note that we were trying to make fun of racism
and in no way are racist ourselves. Except for Ben Lathan.
Kevin - I'll keep that in mind then.
Tim - We've moved on to video game movies, that was a "practice run."
Chad - It was more of getting two years of campus T.V. out of our system.
Kevin - You definitely need those side-projects so that you can wander your way into what you really
want to do. I guess my next question would be, I saw on your website that you have listed the video
games that you are currently playing or are influenced by, but who are some of your influences in the
world of film. The film was admittingly low budget, and...
Tim - Shirts was the budget.
Kevin - Yeah, it is crazy what you've done with so little money. So which filmmakers do you look to as
writers and directors? I know that there are probably a lot of in-jokes, video game and film related,
just from shots from other directors that you've liked.
Tim - I dunno, my favorite movies are the Star Wars movies and Jurassic Park, though I think Lucas is a
crap director. I like the Matrix films. Actually, a lot of my influence for that movie, as far as how
to direct an action-comedy movie came from this movie called Drive, which was another low-budget action
movie, it was an American made Hong Kong action film directed by Steve Wang, with Mark Dacascos and
Kadeem Hardison. Really good movie but no one has heard of it at all. But its really cool, and as far
as action-comedies go, its something to look to.
Juese - Steven Chow does Hong Kong action comedies. He did Shaolin Soccer, picked up by Miramax but
might or might not show...
Tim - Which might be for the best really.
Chad - That type of film. I didn't direct that one, but I'm directing the latest one we're doing, Ninja
Story Time, and for that, I tried to draw a lot of shit from Anime, like I studied alot of Angelic Lair,
if you wanna print that.
All - Don't!
[Kevin - (I do cause it's funny!)]
Chad - But I mean, generally, since they didn't teach us shit in college, its been that I watch my
favorite movies and just pay attention.
Tim - I would just like to say that I got a bachelors in History, and this is my first movie.
Juese - I'm the one with the video and film degrees and I write now.
Kevin - That works out! I'm working to get a film major at William and Mary.
Chad - My biggest influences as director of visual effects for River City, as far as the head-punching
and shit, I totally got stuff from www.blumpy.org...
Kevin - blumpy.org?!?@!?!?
Chad - Blumpy.org has this great two video series called El Savior, and they use great-fucking matte
techniques, and masking. Watching those in slow motion, like this girl gets a mallet through her head,
which is really a squash, anyway...
Tim - Like a watermelon or something.
Chad - They just masked it so well, it looks so good, totally inspiration for George's head punch. We
exploded a watermelon - that was awesome.
Kevin - I noticed, or kinda felt a Troma feel, I dunno if you guys are familiar with Troma films.
All - Yeah, yeah, yah, yes, etc..
Tim - I've slept on the floor of their offices.
Kevin - ...and I'd be want to say that you guys "out-Troma'd Troma" in the sense that I think I laughed
more during this that I have ever, during anything (including Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D.), which while
funny...
INSANE MATT POLLARD INTERLUDE THAT IS VERY INTERESTING AND CONTAINS SOME CHOICE WORDS THAT ARE REALLY
FUNNY BUT NEARLY INAUDIBLE ON THE VOICE-CORDER. Tim informs him that there is an interview in progress,
and...
Kevin - But I wanted to say that, for Video Game players, and going back to what've we said, its good to
see people, even with no budget, making a video game movie that doesn't treat the source material like
shit.
Tim - Thank you.
Kevin - And you guys took the game, referenced the game, made fun of the game, made fun of yourselves,
made fun of the movie, made fun of the people acting in the movie, and to get laughs like that, it goes
beyond the "Troma bad joke thing," its a little bit deeper.
Tim - Whether people like the movie or not, I want people to at least thing that we respected the game,
and yeah, pretty much that’s the whole point we're here.
Chad - I'd like to say that every time there are millions of dollars thrown at video game production like
Tomb Raider, where it looks like the video game character for two minutes and then takes off her shirt
and is then a black-fucking ops whatever - God I'm upset - you know, Mortal Kombat Annihilation, the
list goes on...
Tim - That we really liked though, because Mortal Kombat was pretty good.
Kevin - I'd have to agree, my favorites the Double Dragon movie, I think it might have influenced you
guys.
Tim - Mark Dacascos is in that.
Kevin - Here's a question of mine, I dunno if you've seen it or heard of it or not, but I film that I
think influenced the type of film you guys made and the sort of game on which you are making it is
called The Warriors. All the gangs in New York are together, one of the leaders dies, and every gang
blames it on this one gang...
unidentified - Are they then chased?
Kevin - Yeah, they have to make it back to Coney Island. Fights everywhere. If I can impart anything
to you guys for thanking you for making RCR, its to recommend this movie. I'm gonna head out now, I
won't be able to type all this (HA HA HA). Thanks alot you guys!
All - Yeah, thanks alot!
Tim - Just as far as the company goes, we took alot of inspiration from KFSS Studios and One-Up Studios
and what they're trying to do with music, you know, by the fans and for the fans. These are movies by
the fans for the fans - cause I don't care what people who don't play video games think.
Kevin - Now tell the wide Virtual Fools readership when we can expect to order this great film from your
website.
Tim - We're hoping for the spring, but its definitely not going to be rushed at all. We're gonna do a
DVD with a good score from good mixers, many of whom are at this very convention, Extras, a documentary
of this convention, and God knows what else - its going to get a full/total picanche.
Rory - Keep your eye out for future releases, we've got several films already in the works and nearing
shooting completion. Trailers will be up on the site shortly.
Kevin - (To the Rest of VF) Anything you wanna say/ask?
Bobby - Nope, it rocked.
Jimmy - Yeah, who was Clyde.
Tim - Clydes not here, its Ben Lathan.
Kevin - OoOoOo, have you guys ever seen Clerks: Animated Series?
Tim - Yes
Kevin - Oh God Wow, that just changed everything, because I noticed the Randall influence in some of the
actors. You have a very similar sense of humor to us (VF) because we're big into the Clerks/Kevin Smith
sort of thing. Signing off!
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