The good folks over at Nerd Reactor got the chance to sit down with "Resident Evil: Damnation" director Makoto Kamiya at Comic-Con. We have the interview below, but if you can't speak or understand Japanese, and don't feel like waiting for the translation back and forth, we've transcribed the whole thing below the clip. Enjoy!
NR: When you decided to make the movie, what were your ideas to tie in the video game and go on from where resident evil 5 left off
MK: Chronologically this story comes after Resident Evil 5, but the thing is, given what happened in 5, how the BOW's evolved what the world is like, we sort of imagines what's gonna happen in Resident Evil 6, so when we put together the story for "Damnation," we sort of kept that in mind, and put together a story that would lead into Resident Evil 6, given what's going on with the world and with the BOW's.
NR: How closely did you work with the game development team to make it synch in and follow the whole Resident Evil style?
MK: We dealt directly with Mr. Hirabayashi who's also the producer of Resident Evil 6, so he was really our only contact in that sense, but at the same time, we created the CGI models of the human characters and the creatures and those were sent to Capcom for the development team to look at and make some tweaks so that it matches the look in the Resident Evil 6 game. In that way we dealt with the development team as well.
NR: The one cool thing you can notice is, for both movies, Leon is the main focus. Why do you think Leon is the bigger focus?
MK: If I were to give you the insider info, the producers came to me and said we want Leon to be the main character for this film as well. But at the same time, since the main character of Resident Evil 6 is Leon, and since Leon was the main character for "Resident Evil: Degeneration," I think it would just be correct to have Leon be the character again.
NR: Did you get to work with the English voice actors for the movies?
MK: Yes I did.
NR: The BOW in the trailer looks like it was pulled out from the original game, but evolved at the same time.
MK: As for the Licker, we actually received the CGI model from Capcom, so, we're basically using what they're using, so it's like the same Licker. But the thing is, in the film, we'll be featuring other creatures, and as for those, they're like a special "Damnation" edition of the creatures you've seen before.
NR: How was it producing on this movie; the CGI, doing something like this?
MK: It's tough, really tough, really painstaking. You have to do everything from scratch because it's all CGI. It's not like you can just shoot something. You have to create everything, whatever that's gonna be in the film. It's tough, but at the same time, it takes on a form, as you actually see what we want to create, it's really fun, it's such a fun process to work on.
NR: How did you study up on the lore and everything Resident Evil to make this?
MK: I didn't really necessarily re-explore the whole lore, or the universe of Resident Evil, but there are certain characters and creatures that do come from the game, so I re-examine those specifically, and if I had any questions on how a particular character would act, or how a particular creature would move, I went to Capcom and asked them, 'is this what he would say?' or 'is this how it would move?' and they would give me the answer and that's how we would work.
NR: For anyone who skipped the one [first move], or for anybody who's going to see this or looking forward to it after watching [the first movie] again, what would you say to them?
MK: This film works as a standalone. If you haven't played any of the games, or if you haven't watched "Degeneration," you'll still enjoy this film. But if you DO watch "Degeneration," or if you play Resident Evil 5 or Resident Evil 6, you'll actually get to enjoy "Damnation" even more. And if you watch "Damnation," then actually get to enjoy Resident Evil 6 even more, so I do recommend that you play the other games, and watch "Degeneration" before "Damnation."
NR: Was there anything in the movie you would've liked to add personally but couldn't, or got taken out?
MK: Initially when we started working on the plot for this thing, I wanted to do a love story between Leon and Ad, but that didn't happen. There are a bunch of constraints when creating a film: the length, the budget, schedule, things like that. Given that, there were actually some characters we had to drop from the script at the very end, like "bye-bye." And some specific scenes, sequences that we had to drop from the film. I guess videogames have a longer production schedule and with film it's tighter. So given that tighter schedule, it's just a sacrifice you have to make.
This film will be released theatrically in 3D in Japan, but will be a straight to DVD release in the US, arriving on Blu-ray September 25.
Thanks to Nerd Reactor