Meet the Devs: Thomas Hennessy (2015.04.07)

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:11

   [Music] hey guys I'm here with Thomas Hennessy Thomas how you doing I am wonderful I think you are officially the newest employee of cig I guess technically maybe that is true when was your official start date 30th of March Monday the 30th of March when did you start working here about a year ago under a contract Bas yes well I I started out obviously on the next great Starship so that wasn't an everyday a full-time thing that was you know every couple weeks I would come in and help out and we would film those episodes M and then I actually came in and helped the pilot of around the verse and helped film Hollywood Ben and all those funny little bits and I had no idea what was going on it was the weirdest show in the

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   world that first episode is so I like we just watched it maybe what the day yesterday the day before it was like oh they were hosting from their desk it was it was a great show it was a great show no it was great and and and and it was just little by little you know and then I and then I went and do the movie yeah came back from that all right fine talk about your movie I didn't wasn't trying to I was trying go ahead talk about your movie I did a movie so I did a movie as you know as you guys I'll tell you guys then he knows this already uh I directed root directed a movie called Another Time starring Justin Harley and and James kaon Justin Harley was green arrow in Smallville I think is probably the yeah most famous thing he's known for a bunch of like people like that TV actors and stuff so I did that in the summer and then you guys asked me to come back he needed some more help around the verse was starting to pick up

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   and so I just started coming back every week and coming back every week and found myself here more and more and then found myself doing more and more and traveling more and more and yeah now here I am sitting with you yeah they sent you to paxi to film all that packs South packs East South by Southwest all sorts of cool stuff coming up games it was a fun couple months it's been a it's been a wild 2015 so far so when you got back from filming your movie and you started working here basically full-time right what was one of the things you like what was one of the things you liked about ATV and was the things you immediately tried to change I mean I know CU well help put the show you know I don't know that I came in even like immediately like oh I want to change this I want to change this because I think that coming into the situation you got to kind of assess exactly who the audience is what the show is trying to accomplish

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   and what we're working with it I think the thing that took me by the most surpriser that I was most unprepared is just the quick turnaround it's it's it's so fast it's so many things where it's film it film it edit it and and and put it out and so that was something that took a little bit to kind of get used to especially coming from a a much more controlled elaborate you know film making background where you have 20 people or 40 people or or something on set and here it's one or two guys you know doing this whole show and running multiple cameras that you can't even see you like line it up hope it's good and go to the you know next thing and see like even right now as we sit here there are three cameras and we can't see any we can't really see what's going in we have one person looking into one of them and the rest of them you know sometimes that's how sometimes you you see stuff and it's like oh the framing was off on that or why did they do that and

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   sometimes that's why it's we just you know we have to go with it and we want to put out content real time you know because it gets you we want to give the most up toate stuff so we turn it around fast and we don't you know we don't sit on stuff and nature of the game requires us to put on things as fast as we get them almost the number one thing though I did want to change back to your original question is is you're looking at right here is we were filming against bare walls and I was like you know I I get it that this is a really really tight space for those of you who who aren't seeing the interview we do interviews in here all the time this is like a 12x 12 room possibly with two editing bays in it a bookshelf with a a couple of servers or or not servers but uh raid drives with all our archive footage SE stands equipment everything and this is all takes place in this room

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   so there's just a little itty bitty Corners cut out for us to do these interviews yeah and so it was like how come we make this more visually interesting I get it we can't get a you know the depth of field like I get when we film 10 for the chairman in Chris's office and I can kind of get that nice out of focus background and bring Chris to the front but at least we can break it up a little bit so the big thing was was putting up these posters that was the probably the first thing I did so so you never worked in the video game industry before this correct that is correct what's the big what's the major difference between film and something you're more accustomed to like television and video games you know what I I think they're actually very similar in a way I mean I think that a lot of people this feels a lot like working in the post-production side of film making so is what it is it's a lot of artists and and comp uh compositors and and things like that doing so I think it's it's really similar to

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   that for those of you that okay there's currently a raid going on right now okay something's crazy just happened five people just ran in and started shooting Ben nope no we're filming we will we will uh uh not cut this out the community team has been attacked and they will be Avenged when we're done with this interview you know I think it's quite similar actually in a way it feels very much like working like in post-production side of film making you know we have a lot of compositors and artist and MERS and a lot of that stuff happens if you do something that has a lot of special effects work it's it's in in this difference it's you know it's going into a game instead of a film but at at the end of the day we are creating picture and sound for people to consume as entertainment uh video gam is a little more interactive I think you uh

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   entertainment experience but it's still picture and sound and and so on and so forth we're still dealing with a fan base who has very high expectations for For What and very very passionate fan base which is is true with I think in some in some TV shows and things like that as well so I think it there's a lot of similarities there's a lot of differences as far as the the this is a much more long form piece yeah you know is we're we've got you know but we've got many goals along the way so you know it definitely took some getting used to this like I think the specifics of how we create Community content but I think as I've learned you know it was intimidating at first cuz I was like I don't know anything about video games but as I've gotten more comfortable and kind of learn what all the pieces are and who what everybody does it's a lot of things are very similar obviously

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   there's some still things I I'm trying to learn and wrap my head around with some of the programming and and the coding and stuff like that which you know is hard to wrap my head around but for the most part big picture stuff I think makes s sense to me yeah I was really impressed because like you in terms of even not in the industry you're just woring a really big game or you don't really play video games so the fact that you've been able to pick it up as well as you have has been impressive right yeah I mean my video game I joke I mean I probably play more video games than I joke about you know I joke like wordss with friends that's that's my game right there Wars with friends I got Solider on my you know I grew up with the Sega Genesis stuff so the like the NHL 94 which you know awesome you know and then the N64 stuff the Mario Kart Shadows of the Empire loved that game you know that stuff but I don't know I

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    think as just I got a little older and started getting into more things it's just you find you have less time yeah to you have less places to spend your time you have less time but more options right and so it's one of those things where not necessarily because I didn't like games but it was I just didn't have time you know and then I didn't have money you know so I then you know I was in the military you know I did all that that's when I think I was playing games I had you know money could buy the latest console or whatever PC Mac whatever it is um people going be like mac you play games on a Mac he's a mat guy Mo let's just move on from that you know and then I got out you know and I was kind of doing different and I was working you know in film and television or doing some acting and Goofy stuff like that and then decided I wanted to go back to college and I wanted to you know get a degree and do all the stuff so I'm kind of like the broke college

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    student putting myself through college and you know so I didn't have the money for the Playstation 3 or PlayStation 4 you know it was just one of those things where like all right well you know I want to make a film or I want to do this or I need you know I want to buy a camera I want to do and my disposable income went somewhere else so I kind of got out of it but then being here especially with this game you know is really makes you like you know this is something I want to buy into this is something I want to kind of play this is something I would actually even consider buying and building a PC to play oh wow down the line yeah I that's how cool you know this game is and and how cool it is to work here is that just your PR hat do you really mean that no I absolutely 100% mean that no this is this is cool all right man so we're going let you out of here before we go do some rapid fire we already kind of got these answers during the other meet maybe they've changed yeah maybe maybe as as a official employee my tastes have changed

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    Fair video video game Shadows of the Empire favorite video game that James has seen NHL 94 okay Words With Friends favorite movie James has seen Chasing Amy okay good that's about it okay you know what it's really hard to find movies that James has seen because James has not seen anything made post probably 1991 so yeah sounds about right you know but we we let you we still love you all righty thanks for joining me thank you I'm James Pew Thomas Hennessey and you just met him wow you butchered that you want try that again no I want to stay with that one well they it's on him not me