TRANSCRIPT:
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Welcome to the first Mafia II podcast. Today, we're going to be talking about the extended 90-second trailer, and I am here with DG, producer of Mafia II and Jack Scalici, director of production for Mafia II. I'm Elizabeth Tobey, the community manager here at 2K. How about you guys talk a little bit about what you did on this trailer in general before we start into specific questions about the trailer.
JACK SCALICI:
Ok, well, I came up with the initial concept. I ran it by the team at 2K Czech, we kind of iterated on it a little bit, and we came up with what you see today. I also edited the piece, did the color correction, sound design, pretty much everything production-wise.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
How about you, Denby?
DENBY GRACE:
So mainly my role on this thing was to just make sure…hassle everybody. Make sure everyone was doing what they’re supposed to do, critique where necessary. Make sure basically everything was done to the time and schedule that we had.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
How about you, Denby?
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Getting into the trailer in specific, the big question asked is, “Is this in-game footage?” Can you talk a bit about how you captured this footage for this trailer?
JACK SCALICI:
Well, it was done by the team at 2K Czech, the same team that’s doing the cutscens for the game. So they used their cutscene editor tool along with the game engine to produce it. So, so some of the scenes you’re seeing, we created specifically for this trailer because we don’t have the camera angles in the game like that, you know, really up-close and personal, Momma, things like that. Other places, those are scenes directly taken from cutscenes.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Does that mean that none of this was CGI, all of it was in-game footage that would be comparable to the experience they’d have in the game?
JACK SCALICI:
Yes, you can expect the cutscenes to look just like that. Every model you saw was an in-game model. It’s a model created for the game to be used in the game. Nothing was up-rezzed or anything like that. We didn’t go to a CG company and say, “Here’s our game assets, make them look better.” That is what you’re going to see in the game.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Why did you decide to use a church? Is that an actual church from in-game or real life, or something you’re going to see in the city when you’re playing the game?
JACK SCALICI:
Denby, we have a church in the game, right? Is that still in the game?
DENBY GRACE:
Yeah, yeah. We have the church. The church appears in the city. It’s just there. The player can see it. One thing we don’t do in the game is you can’t actually enter the church. We made part the spoke for the trailer. It comes from Jack’s experiences in his childhood of being forced to go to church by Momma and stuff like that. So that was the real inspiration is that at heart, I think, Vito’s a good catholic boy and wants to do the right thing, you know?
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Why did you decide to use a church? Is that an actual church from in-game or real life, or something you’re going to see in the city when you’re playing the game?
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Let’s talk about some of the characters you see in the trailer. While Vito’s confessing, there are a lot of faces that flash by: gangsters, a detective. Are these characters you’re going to see in-game, and are they going to be part of the plot?
JACK SCALICI:
Yes. Every character you see – with the exception of the prostitutes – will be part of the plot.
DENBY GRACE:
Yes. I think what Jack’s alluding to is the prostitutes are more of a fanciful thing. They’re more of a side delight, if you want.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
That was actually my next question, about those ladies. Who’s the guy sitting with them? Is that in-game, and will people ever get to see women like them?
JACK SCALICI:
Yes. Those are some of the prostitutes we have in the game. We have various different prostitutes. That scene is taking place in a brothel and that is Joe Barbaro. The main character, Vito, that’s his best friend.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Let’s switch gears and talk about some of the action that we see in the game. There’s quite a lot that goes on when all those little scenes flash by. Is there going to be driving in M2? How big a part is driving going to play in the game?
DENBY GRACE:
Yeah, absolutely, there’s driving in Mafia II. It was one of the big things people enjoyed about Mafia II, and we feature realistic cars from the era, and all the things you’d expect that comes with creating a period game set in the 40s and 50s, and the driving supports that.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Let’s talk a little bit about the fighting. We see an array of different kinds of fighting in there. Are you going to be able to shoot, punch, everything like what you see in the trailer?
JACK SCALICI:
Yes, there is a melee system, and Denby can detail that.
DENBY GRACE:
Yeah, absolutely, there’s a melee system in the game, and I think in future podcasts and future features, we’re going to go into a lot of depth on that and what we have done there. There’s weapons from the era, as you’d expect, but then there is quite an in-depth melee system that we think is going to be rewarding to the player. It creates that visceral feel that you’d expect of a mature game of this ilk.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Switching gears again, people raved about the music. Can you talk about the song that you hear in the trailer? Is there anywhere that people can get them? Is there a reason why you chose those in specific?
EJACK SCALICI:
The first thing you hear is actually “Deck the Halls,” a popular Christmas song. We wanted to open up with something that everyone’s familiar with. Christmas, church, wintertime, snow. So, it’s something everyone can identify with, whether you’re in the UK, France, Germany, the US. Everyone knows Christmas, everyone knows church, family, things like that, and everyone knows that song. For the action montage, we wanted something that would reflect the period in which the game takes place, which is the 1950s. We needed something that could really drive the action, and that’s why we chose Little Richard. That song is called “Long, Tall Sally.” You might remember it from the movie Predator. Everyone really loved it and we’re really happy.
DENBY GRACE:
Yeah, I think most of the mp3 download sites will carry that tune, you know, it's a very famous tune, so people will want to go out there and listen to it some more. He’s a great artist from the era, and I think we all have a little bit of Little Richard in our hearts.
JACK SCALICI:
Yeah, we’re also going to be releasing a soundtrack, and we’re going to try to make sure that all the key songs from the game make it on to the soundtrack.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
You started answering my next question: Will there be more music like this in the game?
JACK SCALICI:
Of course.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Lots of it?
JACK SCALICI:
Lots of it, yes. This is the biggest soundtrack 2K has done to date.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Let’s talk about that new last 30 seconds of the trailer. This is entirely new footage that people haven’t seen. Why did you leave it off the first time around, and what do you think it adds when you put it in?
DENBY GRACE:
Initially, the first trailer was done for our exclusive announcement on the VGA awards, and we were given a pretty strict 60 second slot. So, we wanted to make sure we hit all of our goals within those 60 seconds. But then, we really felt like the story, the small trailer story that Jack had constructed wasn’t finished, it didn’t feel done. So we added this ending, a nice wrap-up of the trailer story, and we felt that Vito coming out of the church, putting momma in the car before he heads off into town with the boys, was a nice ending. He closed the door on her, hey, he looks after his mother, and all this sort of stuff, but ultimately the mafia rules the roost.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
So, who are those guys that Vito gets in the car with, and where are they going? Or is that left up to imagination?
JACK SCALICI:
Well, it’s four guys in a car….
DENBY GRACE:
To answer your first part of that question, they’re Vito’s best buddies. Joe’s in there. There’s Henry Tomacino, who we’ve been introduced to before, and then there’s another guy who we’re not really talking about at this time.
JACK SCALICI:
You remember him from the first trailer too. The drunk guy in the back seat.
DENBY GRACE:
Yeah, he’s a guy that you’ll see quite a lot, but we’re going to introduce him a little bit later.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Now, how about the cityscape that we see when they’re getting into the cars. Is that actually the city you’ll see when you’re driving around?
JACK SCALICI:
Yes. That is the city. We basically just stuck the camera at one specific spot in the city, scripted those animations, and hit play.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Can you expect the entire city to look approximately like that, or do different sections of the city look distinctively different?
JACK SCALICI:
Just like any real city, you’re going to have different parts. Each area is going to have its own flavor, its own ethnic makeup. It really mimics real life. You’re also going to have the game taking place at different times of day, different weather, so it’s not all going to be at night, snowing.
ELIZABETH TOBEY:
Final question before we go: when do we get the next trailer?
JACK SCALICI:
You can expect the next trailer to come out- *gunshot*
