[Video] I Wonder What Happens in Tales Of Monkey Island

[Giocherellone]

Nel 2009, dopo TAAAAAAANTO tempo, finalmente qualcosa si muove per i fan di Monkey Island: la TellTale ha avuto il permesso da parte della LucasArts per realizzare una serie di episodi su Guybrush & C.!!!

Nasce così la saga di "Tales Of Monkey Island", cinque episodi per una fantastica avventura che ha tenuto tutti noi con il fiato sospeso, capitolo dopo capitolo.

Cogliendo al volo questa occasione, l'autore Majus ha giocato con la "suspence" dell'attesa del primo episodio (e poi degli episodi successivi) e in qualità di fan, anticipando le domande che ciascuno di noi si faceva sullo svolgersi della trama, ha realizzato per ogni episodio un filmatino in flash, una sorta di "prequel" dove ipotizzava che cosa mai sarebbe successo nell'episodio successivo!

Dato il titolo molto lungo, si è preferito accorciarlo creandone la sigla con le iniziali: questo progetto è conosciuto infatti come IWWHITOMI!



Questa idea ha subito trovato degli ostacoli! Infatti dopo aver visto il primo di questi filmati, la TellTale ha subito storto il naso: magari per puro caso, ma Majus avrebbe potuto indovinare gli eventi narrati e quindi rovinare la sorpresa ai giocatori.

Si è giunti quindi ad un accordo: Majus avrebbe prima sottoposto i filmati alla TellTale, e solo dietro la loro approvazione (cioè solo nel caso non si fossero svelati trama, segreti e sorprese), li avrebbe pubblicati!

Il successo di questa iniziativa è stato STREPITOSO! E infatti ha ispirato altre idee collaterali.

Innanzitutto il fangame realizzato in AGS da parte di Monkey_05_06 & Ben304 "I Wonder What Happens In I Wonder What Happens In Tales of Monkey Island: Rise of the Pirate God" (Ovvero: IWWHIIWWHITOMIROTPG: The Game!), che ripercorre la stessa filosofia di questi filmatini facendone però un vero e proprio gioco!

Ma soprattutto, e parliamo quindi del Bel Paese, la traduzione in Italiano di ciascun filmato, da parte di un fan di Monkey Island che ha messo in pratica i suoi talenti teatrali, in questo caso di doppiatore! WOW!

L'artista in questione si chiama Federico Maggiore (nickname "Mystinsun"), ed è veramente un GRANDE!

Per poter verificare la sua bravura, segnalo sia i filmati in lingua originale (ehm, in Inglese; non so se l'autore, che ha origini Germaniche, ne abbia realizzata una versione in Tedesco), sia quelli in Italiano!

Episode 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80zxVux ... r_embedded

Episode 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zTQgKu ... r_embedded

Episode 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIQaQ1q ... r_embedded

Episode 4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXuwtS4 ... r_embedded

Episode 5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2TLm_u ... r_embedded

---

Episodio 1 - Il varo del narvalo urlante
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... R4XH59T_EY

Episodio 2 - L'assedio di Spinner Cay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzVW0JKK ... r_embedded

Episodio 3 - La tana del leviatano
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... xpV0bbjQlg

Episodio 4 - Il processo e l'esecuzione di Guybrush
https://vimeo.com/15720606

Episodio 5 - L'ascesa del Dio Pirata
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3QwwXNWd9U

Sono presi direttamente da YouTube, infatti stranamente la versione in Flash sembra sparita dal web!

[ciscotn]

si Mystinsun è un mito! era passato anche dal forum.... secondo me fa parte di quelle discussioni perse nei vari passaggi

[Wolf]

Fun trivia fact for Episode 1 - Marius (Fietzek) and I actually debated on the backgrounds a little - in the sense that I actually auditioned for the part of "Background Artist" and thank God I didn't get it, haha! The details regarding how I ended up making the pirate voice at the end of the first episode are lost to time now, but I do remember that the microphone I used was very low quality and I tried to make it sound better in any way I could.

My involvement with the first episode was rather minimal, it only grew from there.

Episode 2 had many more ideas which we actually started debating...

[utdefault]

Episode 2 had many more ideas which we actually started debating...

Wow! Can you give us some small detail about this?

[Wolf]

Wow! Can you give us some small detail about this?

As far as I remember, Episode 2 started because Marius got the OK to make the episodes in a semi-official manner. They weren't "hired" by Telltale, but they would be compensated financially for the effort. So Marius really got into it!

He asked if I wanted to come back for voicing the "pirate" at the end of the episodes and I agreed. After that, there was the character of a film director and Marius knew I was making films, so I was asked if I wanted to voice that as well. I found it funny, so I agreed - tried out multiple recordings. In one of them I shouted, and that's the one that got into the final version.

Marius gave the film director a beard because it was piratey, but also because it was easier to animate (no lip syncing!) and I remember I was wearing the same type of black cap on my film sets - but that's probably just a coincidence. I never asked Marius if inspiration came from the photos I showed them of my filming adventures.

We did talk a bit about who was the mysterious woman, and we both thought it might be Kate Capsize - it made sense that she wanted revenge. Thought, to be honest, I don't remember WHY it made sense at that time. We thought we had the perfect theory, haha )

Oh, just remembered - the crowd of pirates you hear when the siege starts - that's me. I recorded about 10 different takes on pirates attacking. I dunno how Marius mixed them, but it worked fine. Once we started talking more, and I asked them to be part of my upcoming MI Tribute (I'm more piratey than you), we swiftly became friends.

We then also started working on the Kauff/Gustav characters - I had Kauff for a long time, but they came up with Gustav. It just worked so well. We even had a movie planned out and several episodes. Unfortunately, due to lack of time (and them being hired by Telltale afterwards) the plans kind of fell apart.

The third IWWH was quite something! We were REALLY getting into a better production with it and I started contributing to the script a lot more.

Hope this is not boring for you guys! ^^

[Giocherellone]

Hi Wolf!

Hope this is not boring for you guys! ^^

Are you kidding?
We're hungry for these news!

Go ahead, I can't wait to read the sequel!

[Wolf]

Right so.... IWWH 3 - I was super excited for this one.

Talked to Marius about it and learned that Murray was going to be featured. We both knew he'd appear due to a promo image posted by Telltale. In retrospect, I would have prefered being completely surprised by his appearance, haha.

So I proposed that I play Murray - I auditioned for the part and Marius loved it. I don't have a naturally low voice, so I reaaaally strained my throat to get to do that voice. I can't do that now anymore )) Really proud of that performance.

And for this one, Marius and I had a Skype talk, the first for this series, and we talked about ideas. I've always admired Marius' work so this was really amazing, that I get to work with one of my favorite artists. I get the same feeling today whenever I have the chance to collaborate again with Federico M.

So, we talked on Skype and acted out a scene or two. Marius is so easy to work with and the ideas flow fantastically, we were basically writing the script as we went along. I *think* this was the moment when we were throwing ideas around and I came up with three jokes - the first one was based on Marius' idea of Murray getting stuck in Guybrush's hook. I asked "How about Guybrush gets excited and starts waving his arms around, showing Murray to everyone, and Murray is like bluarghbleargh-stop it!!"

The second joke was that Murray would become sort of like a jealous pet - he looks at the ship and sees a random anchor, and thinks it's the same anchor that Guybrush chose in the Carnival of the Damned. "Is that the anchor? You still have the anchor?? You fed it, haven't you?" - just like a dog who gets jealous when his owner feeds the other dog first. It was a longshot, in terms of humor, and I wasn't sure if people would get it, but it went really well in the end clip. That line with "you fed it" was supposed to sound super low and I didn't want to use digital modifications to my voice, so I recorded things in the morning, when my vocal cords were relaxed. I still would've loved to hear it go lower, but I was happy with it.

The third joke was the uvula one - we were discussing on how they get out of the manatee, and I proposed "Use. Murray. With. Uvula."
Marius had ideas in the same direction, maybe Murray could use his teeth to bite or something. As we were talking about it, I made a silly noise, imagining Murray being shoved indiscriminately into the middle of it, again with the bluarghbleargh, which made Marius laugh and that's how we kept it. The funniest part though was after the game's Episode launched, people were disappointed that nothing happened when you tried using Murray with the uvula )) To this day, when I replay it, I still try doing that. Nostalgia.

To be clear: These are discussions that we had over 11 years ago. My memory is good, but I'm not stating this is 100% how it happened. If at any time Marius says "Well actually Wolf came up with THIS idea, not THAT idea", his guess is as good as mine. We worked as a team and, when you do that, ideas blend in together. I just remember we laughed a whole lot, sometimes to tears, and it was a very enjoyable process. Professional, yes. But very silly and fun.

This episode also had the famous line at the beginning with "I have to remember you that...." - which is incorrect, grammatically. It should have been "I must remind you..." - I'm from Romania. Marius is from Germany. None of us noticed the mistake, haha!

Oh, I just remembered. At one point, we were talking about the Manatee swallowing them. We were like "What kind of sound do we use here?" and I went like "Hompf". We loved it, it went in. I do remember recording for the manatee sound, but I can't recall if we went with my voice or with Marius' voice. When you animate, you tend to be a little bit of a perfectionist - which is perfectly ok - so if Marius made any modifications, I always went with the choices made. There are no disputes, if it is all to make the final product better.

The manatee sneezes and there are a lot of crashing noises, including the sound of broken glass. A Telltale sound designer / animator (I can't remember who, so sorry!) told Marius that it was thanks to our clip that he remembered to add broken-glass noise to the scene in the actual game. So when you hear glass breaking in the game in that moment, that's thanks to us. Sort of. Kind of. I like to believe we influenced that.

At the start of the clip (sorry for not taking things in order, memories come back in different ways), the original line was "Oh, a sword! Oh, a Morgan!" - which I found hilarious. I dunno why it was changed to "Oh, Morgan!". I still think that "a Morgan" would've been funnier.

It was around this time that a rumor started to spread, that these animations would find their way onto the game's DVD. I was so excited. I imagined how fun it would be and we still had two more episodes to go! But nothing prepared me for Episode 4 of IWWHITOMI. That one was.... wow.

[Giocherellone]

Oh my...

Use. Murray. With. Uvula.

SNORT!!! FANTASTIC!

[utdefault]

I don't have a naturally low voice, so I reaaaally strained my throat to get to do that voice.

Thanks again, Wolf.

Use. Murray. With. Uvula.

SNORT!!! FANTASTIC!

Già!

[Wolf]

I've spoken with Marius. I think we'll make a small documentary about all this stuff and show you guys some behind the scenes, never before seen, stuff What do you say?