Trism Documentary by Apple

Just wanted to write up a little postmortem on the short documentary Apple showed at the event yesterday. I had a lot of fun doing it and was amazed at all the talent involved.

It started about a month ago I think -- my contact at Apple contacted me one day when I was having lunch with a friend.

"Steve, can you be down at Apple HQ at 1:40? We'd love to talk to you."

"Well... umm... it's 12:30 right now and I just sat down to lunch and Apple is about an hour away from where I'm at in SF. Can't we do 2:00 or 2:30?"

"No, we have to do it at 1:40, we have a twenty minute window and that's the only time we can do it."

"What's this about again?"

"We'll tell you when you get here. Right now all I can say is that we want to talk to you."

I was really interested to see what it was. Or afraid. It was either gonna be some kind of special event they were doing, or maybe I had broken some kind of sacred Apple rule and were there in person to revoke my AppStore status and kick me with an iron boot. So I told my buddy Wallace what I knew, crammed whatever food we could into our mouths, and were on our way down there in three minutes.

After we got there, my contact Linda escorted me to a building on the far side of the campus. After a few minutes, John Geleynse (Director of Technology Evangelism -- basically the guy that wrote the iPhone's Human Interface Guidelines) came out, asked us to come into a room with him. He introduced me around. I was in a small room with maybe 12 other people, including a videoconferencing device which showed a lady on the other end. They told me I should just tell my story of how Trism was made, and that it isn't a test, or an interview, and that I should just feel relazed and calm. So I put on my best poker face and gave it to them from the top. I remembered thinking, man, I've told this story so many times now! It almost feels like I'm talking about another person anymore. After CNN and MSNBC and all that I really thought I had capped off that period in my life anad moved on, but that's a different story.

I talk for about 15 or 20 minutes, and after that, I'm excused. I walk out of the building with my contact, and she gave me a big hug. They loved you, she told me. Great, I said, but now could someone tell me what this was all about? The answer finally came: Apple was considering doing a short documentary on AppStore successes, and wanted to see how my story fits the bill. She then went on to say that I should expect a few phone calls in the next week or so to set up a timetable for the shoot.

I talked with the crew over the phone the next week -- all very nice people. They wanted to get a deeper impression about who I was, and what kind of angle they wanted to capture on film. I met the director, a nice lady named Lilibet, who is on assignment from apple with her film crew from NYC. Appatently they wanted to film the entire thing the following week.

So that next week, they arrive at my doorstep Thursday morning, in what was to be the first of two days of shooting. I don't know what I expected, maybe just one person in a handicam filming me around my place. What ended up happening was totally different -- a crew of 25 in my apartment from sunup to sundown. They gutted my place, effectively turning my living situation into a portable film studio. It was a very cool process to watch -- everyone was totally professional and operated like a well-oiled machine. What was even more interesting though was when I asked one of the grips about his history with them all, and he said he had none -- it was the first time they were all working together. These people knew each of their roles to such a fine-tuned extent that they could simply show up on any given day at any given locaiton and perform what they needed to do without getting in eachothers' way. Truly a sight to see.

The first day of filming was all professional stuff. First thing we covered once all the lighting, audio, and set dressing was set up was the on-camera interview. They put these two big lights called "divas" on me (oh how fitting) which were HOT. And I was talking for about three hours straight. By the end of the second hour, I was so exhausted, dehydrated, and cooked. Following that, we did some footage of me on the computer.

The next day was mostly lifestyle stuff. We started at around 7:30 am and proceeded straight to Lombard street, one of the steepest, windiest roads in San Francisco. It had just stopped raining, but nevertheless, they wanted to see if I could bike up and down it a few times for some establishing shots. I agreed, and OF COURSE I FELL!!! I had road rash all down my left hip. They wanted to get me to the hospital, but I said no, if we end up breaking the shoot I know you guys will never be back (they're from NYC afterall). So we got some gauze from Walgreen's, I bangadged myself up, popped 8 advil, and resumed shooting. All in all that day lasted 14 hours -- we didn't get finished till about 9:45pm.

After we wrapped, I heard things from time to time about post-production, but really it was a done deal. I didn't have a say in the creative process, but I trusted them all to do the right thing. I mean hey, Apple obviously paid top notch people to put this thing on -- I knew my "diva" essence was going to be captured in full.

About a month later, John Geleynse pops up in my email inbox, telling me I'm invited to the iPhone OS 3.0 keynote down at Apple headquarters in Cupertino. I thought it was pretty cool, but naturally, I didn't put two and two together. I showed up early that morning, and John approaches me out of the blue, saying I need to come sit next to him when the presentation starts. Still, of course, I have no idea what's going on (Apple originally told me the video would be initially shown at WWDC, so I had put this all out of my mind). Before long, the lights go down, a speaker goes on, and within a few minutes, he starts talking about my story, and shows the video. I was so blushing! It caught me by sprise and I couldn't help but sit there and laugh as I watched myself onscreen.

All in all though, it was a great experience. Very professional people, wish I could have worked with them longer. Everybody was very accomodating, and I learned a lot about the filmmaking process. And of course, I can't thank Apple enough for the huge opportunity they've given me in being presented as their "AppStore indie posterboy" like this. I'm delighted that I could share in the experience and help make the Apple shine.

Lastly, I wanted to speak a bit about Demiforce's plans. All this attention has put a huge pressure on me to keep on creating hit games, which I fully intend to do -- right now we're deep in development of our next title, which I'm hesitant to say much about except for the fact that it is not a puzzle game. As much as I have enjoyed the media attention so far, I feel that I'll be disasspointed if the only think I'm remembered for is being this posterboy. I'd rather be remembered as a guy who made a solid effort in creating new, fun types of games that constantly push the industry forward. I felt I made a great start with Trism, being the very first puzzle game that used the iPhone's unique features to create a never-before-seen type of gameplay. The bar's been set, let's see where we go from here!