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| July 4, 2009 |
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Interview by Philip N. Zeman, Editor-in-Chief Part 1: "Agent 12" and Detonation FilmsBob Forward is well known among Transformers fans as one of the Story Editors and writers of Transformers: Beast Wars. Many people also know he's been around the cartoon industry for many years wearing many hats -- writer, director, storyboarder -- and also has done some live action work. What many might not know is what he's currently doing. Bob was kind enough to let ASM interview him about these new projects as well as reminisce about his earlier work. The first part deals with Bob's "Summer Project", namely a short film entitled "Agent 12", availble for viewing at either Detonation Films or iFilm. This movie was first brought to my attention by a post by Bob himself on the Usenet newsgroup alt.toys.transformers. That ultimately led to this interview. Philip N. Zeman: Bob, let me first welcome you to ASM, and thank you taking the time out of your schedule to answer these questions. Bob Forward: Happy to do it, Phil. :) Phil: First off, for those who haven't seen Agent 12, how would you describe it? Is it a spoof of spy films? Is it a kid-based action adventure? Or is it just an opportunity for a big kid to blow up toys? BF: More the last two, I think. We didn't intend for it to be a spoof, though it definitely pays homage to a few spy classics. Mostly we just wanted to do something cool. One problem we both have with the current kid fare is that it is so PC and tame it is no longer any fun. We wanted to try making something that kids would find entertaining but which broke almost every BS&P (Broadcast Standards and Practices) rule -- yet stayed fun and upbeat. It's a careful tightrope to walk, but putting it in a world apparently populated exclusively by 12-year-old boys with toys seemed to do the trick. It made all the action cool but kept it an obvious fantasy. Phil: Where did you get the idea for "Agent 12", and how long has it been in your head, waiting to come out? BF: Angus [Forward, my son] and I had already experimented with filming toys and fireworks during the 2001 4th of July -- we ended up making a short film 3-minute film called "Monster Attack" using toy army men and a mechanical dinosaur. I couldn't send it to iFilm because I used Rob Zombie music and I don't have the rights. :) But I'll post it on one of my websites if anyone is interested. It's pretty simplistic, but the results intrigued us enough so that we wanted to try another -- this time with real people in it. Some friends of mine have been working on a Star Wars spoof for the past four years called "Troops II." It's an incredible piece of work, in many places equalling or even surpassing Star Wars. But it is a huge project, and goodness knows when they'll be done with it. Still, when I saw one of the sets they had constructed in their garage, I realized: "Hey, we could do that -- maybe not as well, but we could do it." Then it was just a matter of sitting down, figuring out what we could pull off, and then creating a story around it. "Agent 12" was the result. Phil: Is "Troops II" a sequel to the original "Star Wars" spoof "Troops" from a few years ago? If so, are any of the original creators, such as Kevin Rubio, involved with this new one? BF: It is a sequel and many original people are involved, but the only ones I know by name are Dave Max, Eric Hilleary, and Pete Evans. This one is much less cheesy, however. As I said, it is good to the point of being feature-quality (at least in what I saw.) Phil: What made you decide that this was the right time to make the film? Did you have a break in project work, or did your or your son win the lottery? BF: It was a combination of many things. As stated above, Angus and I wanted to make a film anyway, and my older son (Max) had just gotten a job as a video editor and was showing me some of the things a desktop editing system could do. I had just come off "Dan Dare" and was desperate to spend some time with both boys before they forgot who I was. And I had noticed that Angus and the other kids his age in the karate class were starting to get good enough that they were entertaining to watch. But after having spent waaaay too much money on the "Skyjammers" promo, I had to assure my wife that whatever we did, we would do it cheap. "Agent 12" was completed for about nine hundred dollars, including the purchase of a used go-kart. Most of the editing was done on my 4-year-old Vaio computer, though the final assembly and some effects were done on Max's G4. Almost the entire thing was filmed in our garage, and my wife insisted we had to put everything away in the evenings so we could park the cars at night. So everything had to be designed for quick disassembly. Phil: After you made the decision to start making the film, about how much time was spent on the short, from initial casting to final editting? BF: We technically started in May, but most of that was writing the script, doing the storyboard, and making an animatic (where the storyboard panels are scanned and assembled into a roughly-timed film of still images to plan timing and spot problems.) We also found a used go-kart and began jazzing it up with sprinkler parts and PVC sewer pipe. Serious filming started in June, when the kids got out of school, and was completed in September. We had to hustle. As it was, Angus grew two inches and had four haircuts during the course of production. :) Phil: What sort of work was involved in building all the sets seen in the film? BF: That was a lot of fun, actually. We discovered that the local home-improvement store sold these huge 4' x 8' sheets of insulating Styrofoam for like three bucks a sheet, and they were even silver on one side. Cheap bits of PVC, old hose, and plastic food and paint tray liners, sprayed silver, did the rest. Bottle caps were used for all the buttons. Expansion foam (insulating foam sprayed from a can) filled gaps and when it was painted silver, [it] looked like a weld. The best part was that the foam sheets could also be used for flooring. They looked like metal but were soft enough for the kids to land on during stunts. Phil: Who are the actors that appear in the film, and what relation do you have with them? Obviously, Angus Forward is your son, but what about the other people? BF: All of them were local kids, most of them from school or the karate dojo. I'd usually bring their parents over to view some of the work in progress because I wanted to keep everyone involved. Because Angus and I had done almost all the robot-fighting-the-military stuff already the kids could see that they were going to be involved in something that might actually be fun, and it kept them enthused. Then when they saw the sets, they really got into it. Phil: What sort of training did the actors have or obtain prior to or during filming? And just how close was Angus to that fire? BF: Everyone in the film was trained in karate, even Josh (the Sentry) though he didn't do any fighting. None of them had ever acted before. I preferred to work with kids who had martial arts training because they were generally much better behaved and took direction well. Let's face it, we were dealing with 12-year-olds -- I wasn't expecting any Oscar performances. But the kids surprised me -- even though they were complete amateurs, they really took it seriously and did a lot better than I'd dared hope for. And all the fire and explosions on the set were real, but were not as dangerous as they looked. Some were crackle-pops hung from the ceiling, and the local magic store supplied me with "flash paper" which created terrific fireballs without noise or heat. Angus did get smacked on the shoulder with a piece of debris during that run-through-the-exploding-robot scene. (You can even see it happen if you watch carefully.) But aside from that small welt, none of the actors got hurt at all. Phil: To paraphrase the Joker from the first Batman film, "Where did you get all those wonderful toys?" And I'm not just talking about the robot, either. We see devices that shoot fire, we see missles, and we see by far the coolest Go-kart in existence. Who designed these props, and how long did it take to build them? BF: The go-kart took longest. We knew it needed machine guns and missile launchers and a rocket engine and grapples -- we just had to figure out how to build them cheap. The gatling gun was made of coffee cans and sprinkler parts. The missile launchers were sawed from sewer pipe. The rocket engine was an old coffee pot. The grapples were sprinkler pipe, wooden dowels, and bottle caps, painted black. Everything else was toys. Some we found in the trash or remainders bins. Others we bought. The great thing about toys these days is that they are so detailed that just a few touchups are all that is needed to make great miniatures. A wide-angle lens and low angles gave the impression of size. And the missiles were all various types of bottle rockets, procured from an Indian reservation in Nevada. Phil: Were you living out a childhood fantasy with that Go-kart, by the way? BF: Not just mine, I assure you. Angus took that puppy out on the street a couple of times, full bore with the rockets going and everything. Guys in Porsches were skidding to a halt with their jaws dropping. We couldn't do it often though because the vibration would start shaking all the bolts loose that were holding the props together. Phil: Who got to be the the one pressing the buttons to fire missles and blow things up? BF: Actually, a lot of the time we were lighting fuses. And the boys got to do quite a bit of that, since it was part of the fun. We had soundproof earmuffs and safety glasses at all times. But when we got into the explosions that had to be carefully timed (the ones with the actors actually on the set) we switched to electronic ignition. I wired a couple of six-volt lantern batteries into a box with some buttons and we used TigerTail model rocket igniters to set off the charges. And those buttons I pushed myself. Phil: Will we see more of Agent 12 in the future? BF: We're talking about it. Now that we finished it, we have tons of people volunteering to help with the next one. We may even have girls in it, since the karate class has several young ladies who can kick serious butt. It all depends on the work schedule. Phil: What other projects do you foresee falling under the "Detonation Films" banner? Meaning, do you have anything else coming up, perhaps things other than family projects? BF: We're pondering that now. Since we actually completed "Agent 12," we seem to have no shortage of volunteers to help on anything else we might want to do. So we're kicking around some ideas. But nothing concrete yet. Phil: And finally, how's your foot? (That was you we heard in an outtake talking about your foot, correct?) BF: HAHA! Yes, those bottle rockets were really unpredictable. We ended up with several scorch marks on the big green canvas were were using for a greenscreen. I usually kept the boys behind a plywood for safety, but I had to work the camera. I was wearing shoes, so it just stung a little. :) 1: Agent 12 | 2: Skyjammers | 3: Past Projects and the 80's TV Resurgence | 4: Other Questions ASM would like to again thank Bob Forward for taking the time to answer our questions. For more information about "Agent 12", check out http://www.detonationfilms.com. For more information about "Skyjammers", head to http://www.skyjammers.tv. For more information about Bob Forward, you can view his official site at http://www.bobforward.com or his family site at http://www.sharonandbob.com.
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