Latest news with #MeettheExperts
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Secret Level' creator Tim Miller explains how he gets writers to create short stories based on video and role-playing games
In putting together episodes of Secret Level, creator Tim Miller utilized a very similar system that he used when doing the show Love, Death + Robots. He assembled this group of novelists and short story writers and helped to give them key information about various video games to build stories off of. 'We make these big decks that tells you all the do's and don'ts and we send them to the authors and then they pitch us. We'll usually ask five or 10 authors to pitch us on any given game. Then we pick the best idea that we like and they write a prose version of that story which we then adapt into a screenplay,' he tells Gold Derby during our recent Meet the Experts: TV Animation panel. Secret Level, which is available to stream on Prime Video, is an animated anthology series that tells standalone short stories based various video games and role-playing games. Among the games that were used as the basis for episodes in the first season were Dungeons & Dragons, Mega Man, New World: Aeternum, Pac-Man, and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. Miller has won three Emmys in Best Short Form Animated Program for Love, Death + Robots in 2019, 2021, and 2022. More from GoldDerby As Joel returns to 'The Last of Us,' cinematographer Catherine Goldschmidt explains what went into killing him off TV Animation roundtable panel: '#1 Happy Family USA,' 'Secret Level,' and 'Arcane' '#1 Happy Family USA' co-creator Ramy Youssef reveals how animation was the perfect way to capture the middle school experience Miller is a longtime lover of short stories and how flexible the format is in allowing one to tell different narratives. He gave an example of how this translated to television by remembering a pitch for a television series he made about lesbian necromancers in space and how the people in the meeting stopped him before he could get any further. However, to pitch something like that for Secret Level wouldn't cause anyone to bat an eye. 'That kind of freedom is impossible to get with the heavy lift of a movie or a series and you have to worry about it being popular to kids, grandmas, moms, dads, and everybody else. We can afford to be niche.' When looking to what might serve as the basis for episodes in the second season, Miller doesn't divulge any specifics but does demonstrate that there are four categories of games they work with: nostalgia games, indie games, games that are coming out, and games that are currently out and popular. He especially loves the ones that fall into nostalgia because of the memories that they can they can bring back for him. 'Like Pac-Man was the first video game I ever played and so it has meaning to me. I still remember putting that quarter in the slot and so I love the fact that we can kind of go after anything in that regard and sort-of control the narrative and go after what we think is interesting instead of a commercial vibe.' This article and video are presented by Prime Video. Best of GoldDerby Making of 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' panel: Bringing the Balrog to life was 'like doing a slight of hand card trick' TV Animation roundtable panel: '#1 Happy Family USA,' 'Secret Level,' and 'Arcane' '#1 Happy Family USA' cocreator Ramy Youssef reveals how animation was the perfect way to capture the middle school experience Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
TV Animation roundtable panel: ‘#1 Happy Family USA,' ‘Secret Level,' and ‘Arcane'
The films of Disney, Pixar, and a cult-classic anthology film were brought up as defining pieces of animation when Gold Derby assembled artists behind three animated programs that are eyeing to score Emmy nominations next month. The types of stories they want to see told through animation and what episodes they might want to submit for Emmy consideration were also topics of discussion for our Meet the Experts: TV Animation panel. The panelists were #1 Happy Family USA cocreator and star Ramy Youssef, Secret Level creator Tim Miller, and Arcane writer Amanda Overton. Watch the full roundtable panel above. Click each person's name to watch an individual interview. More from GoldDerby As Joel returns to 'The Last of Us,' cinematographer Catherine Goldschmidt explains what went into killing him off 'Secret Level' creator Tim Miller explains how he gets writers to create short stories based on video and role-playing games '#1 Happy Family USA' co-creator Ramy Youssef reveals how animation was the perfect way to capture the middle school experience Overton remembers loving The Little Mermaid when that came out but had a huge revelation when she saw Beauty and the Beast and how the film added 3D elements to its 2D animation style. 'When they started doing those, they just felt so immersive to me and I felt like I was being sucked into the world. And then when I saw Toy Story for the first time, I was like, oh my God, this is gonna change everything.' Miller remembers watching Speed Racer and Ultraman as a kid but it was an infamous sci-fi/fantasy cult classic that made him see a path for himself in the medium. 'I guess Heavy Metal really made probably the biggest single effect because I would go with my friends at midnight movies and for the first time I wanted to be an animator and I realized I didn't have to do things that were for kids. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just that I felt like maybe that wasn't my specialty.' He adds that he feels like he's seeing game-changing animation all the time now and specifically cited Arcane and joked that he was 'so sick of hearing people in pitches go, 'So, can you do something like Arcane?'' For Youssef, Disney and Pixar were highlights for him but the thing that really wowed him with animation was watching South Park (which he had to secretly watch since it was forbidden in his house) and being absolutely floored at what the show's characters would say. 'I can't believe they just said that! I mean, this is like the stuff that my uncle says at dinner and everyone tells him to be quiet and now you're watching these characters on Comedy Central saying it … and they're saying these things that are so loaded and I love the power of that and the subversiveness of that and just how insane it was.' This caused Miller to remember when someone first showed him a VHS tape of Trey Parker's short film The Spirit of Christmas. This article and video are presented by Prime Video and Netflix. Best of GoldDerby Making of 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' panel: Bringing the Balrog to life was 'like doing a slight of hand card trick' 'Secret Level' creator Tim Miller explains how he gets writers to create short stories based on video and role-playing games '#1 Happy Family USA' cocreator Ramy Youssef reveals how animation was the perfect way to capture the middle school experience Click here to read the full article.
