As a journalist at PC World Australia:
Cyber sports, swarming fans and gamer girls - welcome to the world of Jarett Cale, co-producer, co-director and actor in the cult hit series Pure Pwnage.
Since its accidental inception in 2004, the online mockumentary has proven to be tremendously popular with gamers and non-gamers alike. Its first season, which concluded in November last year, consisted of 12 episodes and was released with subtitles in 30 languages. Season 2 is expected to be released in April this year.
The show's burgeoning online forum is now boasting well over 30,000 members, and that's only a small portion of its loyal fan base. One download source has clocked almost 90,000 downloads of the first episode alone, but as the episode is also hosted on several other Web sites, this can only be a modest indication of the total number of people who have seen the show.
Although he refuses to give away any of his gaming strategies, Cale speaks with Liz Tay about the show, his gaming preferences, his life in the real world, as well as being pro-gamer Jeremy.
What are you and co-producer Geoff Lapaire like in real life?
We're much calmer than our Pure Pwnage counterparts. Geoff's [who plays Jeremy's brother, Kyle] always been a huge fan of filmmaking and I've always been obsessed with playing video games, and of course we each share a passion for both or we probably wouldn't be where we are!
As for our jobs/hobbies, well, Pure Pwnage is our job and a more than full-time one at that! We've been very fortunate with the show's success and it's given us the opportunity to work full-time in a field we'd have never dreamed we could just a few years ago. Our hobbies before Pure Pwnage were making fun videos with friends and playing games, and now that the video part became our job, I'd say our hobbies are playing games :)
For how long have you been working full-time on Pure Pwnage? Do you ever suspect that your on-screen persona is taking over your life?
We've been working full-time on Pure Pwnage for two years now, and it's gone by amazingly quick! I've no worries about Jeremy taking over my life, but my girlfriend claims to have noticed a few idiosyncratic changes. I think she's just a big n00b though, lol.
What is a 'pro-gamer'? Do you guys consider yourselves pro-gamers?
A 'pro' gamer by most standards means someone who makes their living competing in video game tournaments, of which there are surprisingly many who do.
This term has also been adopted by many gaming communities to simply mean the best players of that particular game, which is the sense in which Jeremy uses the term. The joke being that many gamers like to fantasize about being 'pro', call themselves 'pro', but they don't actually make any money.
When Pure Pwnage started, Geoff and I were really into a game called Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour which had a lot of the latter type of 'pros'. As for being 'pros' ourselves - certainly not in the literal, money-making sense, but absolutely in the sense that the Zero Hour community used the term!
How much of Pure Pwnage do you think models real life, and how much of it is a joke?
It's hard to quantify something like that, but the popularity of the show in gaming scenes suggests that a lot more of it models real life than a non-gamer would believe.
Before Pure Pwnage it was hardly uncommon for me to game 8+ hours every day and often long after the sun had risen. A large percentage of my daily conversations had to do with gaming, much of which contained gaming terminology that doesn't normally leave a computer screen. It's a tough life sometimes...
Who's involved in Pure Pwnage? How did you recruit the characters FPS Doug, Dave and your on-screen love interest, Tagi?
With regards to producing the show, it's mostly just Geoff and I. We've since brought on a few people to help with things like running the store and maintaining the Web site, etc.
We also receive a tremendous amount of support from our fanbase. Our forum community, subtitles, teamspeak/IRC chats, even the live screening events -- they all get a lot of volunteer help and we couldn't do many of the things we do without them. We have an amazing audience!
Doug has been a close personal friend of ours for many years. He's also a hardcore gamer and also interested in acting and filmmaking, so it was a natural fit for him to become involved in the show. His look is just perfect for the role and his performances would be understated to call them memorable.
Dave we met in Toronto just before his inclusion in the show, which was largely a spontaneous decision that we're very happy to have made. He's an unbelievably popular character given his brief appearances.
Tagi is a drama student who was the first person to get a role in Pure Pwnage by actually auditioning! We put out some ads in local papers to find actors and the last person we met with was Tagi. She had this adorable personality and what we felt was the perfect girl-next-door-playing-an-mmo [Massive Multiplayer Online] cuteness. We knew we had our 'mmo grrl' about two minutes into the audition.
How do you come up with ideas for each episode?
It's a strict rule of writing down any funny ideas you may have. They often come while in the shower, laying down to sleep at night, riding the subway, etc. Whenever you least expect it, you'll get this great idea and it's important to write it down. Then we compile our 'ideas list' and start to flush out the events of a particular episode.
The story arc for the season, and series, has been loosely decided from the beginning, but each episode's particular content is often related to what's been happening in the gaming scene, or what made us laugh out loud while we were buying milk at the grocery store the day before.
What's it like to be an Internet celebrity? Do you hear much from your fans?
It's incredible. I'm often stopped in public by an excited fan who just wants to chat about games for a minute, or get an autograph, or just let me know how much they love the show.
To our mostly tech-savvy fans, there's little difference in the medium in which they receive their entertainment. They don't see 'the Internet' as being a place with nothing but amateur user-created content or some illegimate form of entertainment. To them we are as big of stars as anyone on TV or in films, and their behaviour when they meet us is what you might expect from anyone meeting a cast member of their favourite TV show.
We also receive hundreds of messages a day from fans through the various channels they have to contact us and it's all just so inspiring. The live episode screenings bring the feeling of fame to the next level when we're swarmed by several hundred fans fighting for autographs. Surreal is the perfect word to describe it all.
I hear Jeremy gets marriage proposals from his female fans. Is this true? What's your love life like at the moment?
Jeremy has had a couple marriage proposals from female fans, but for the most part they just want his babies :)
I do have a girlfriend right now who is also a gamer. She's my dream girl - cute, laid-back, and loves playing games. I could overlook things like poor taste in music, or an obsession with shopping, but I could never be with a girl who didn't like playing games.
What were your influences for making this show?
While we're fans of many filmmakers, actors, musicians, etc., and they have influenced us to pursue a career in entertainment, Pure Pwnage itself was born more out of accident. We were shooting some test footage using a borrowed camera in order to familiarize ourselves with our editing software and the result was a mock preview for a show called Pure Pwnage that wasn't intended at the time to be made.
We put the video online onto a C&C [Command & Conquer] fan site we frequented at the time and it was very well received, so we decided to go ahead and actually make a first episode. The downloads kept growing exponentially and we realized the show had gone viral, so we decided to dedicate the majority of our time to producing more episodes.
If we can credit any influences for the show itself, it's probably the poor quality of so many professional 'Hollywood' television and film productions that convinced us we could make a show out of a dorm room that people would watch!
What are some of your favourite games, past and present?
Geoff's been a big PC gamer since we were kids. In fact, he's the one that introduced me to Command & Conquer! I didn't get my first computer until high school, so my old school gaming was all done on consoles.
I got an Atari 2600 for Christmas when I was really young, but it wasn't until the original Nintendo Entertainment System that my life was officially changed forever. I'll never forget the magic of endlessly playing Super Mario Bros. in my living room as a kid. I'm a huge Miyamoto fan to this day. I remember when the Super Nintendo was released and spending countless hours every day for weeks doing time trials in F-Zero, just to shave fractions of a second off of my Mute City times :)
I was always very competitive in school and sports, and that affected my approach to gaming. It was never about relaxed fun for me, it was about finishing it as fast as possible, getting every item, and being better than all my friends. I've since owned nearly every console out there, and kept an up-to-date PC.
These days I'm a huge fan of RTS [Real-Time Strategy] and the notion of gaming as a sport, but still spend a lot of time with my Xbox360, Wii and especially DS.
Do you prefer console or PC games?
Each has their own strengths. The keyboard and mouse setup of the PC lends itself well to RTS and FPS, but doesn't allow the fluid platforming or fighting experience of a console. The PC will always have fancier graphics (as it should, given it's many times more expensive), but the console will always have the accessibility and for many genres, the better controller.
The main advantage of earlier PC gaming was that you could go online and compete with people who aren't in your living room, but that advantage disappeared in the last few years and I find myself playing more and more console games again. I'd feel like I was missing out if I didn't play both!
How do you feel about the growing popularity of gaming amongst the general public?
While I'm definitely in the 'hardcore' gamer category, I love to see people who have normally avoided gaming start to enjoy and appreciate it. The DS and Wii are making good progress in this area, and even my mum plays games now. I think this bodes well for the future of gaming as a spectator sport, as right now gaming just doesn't have the public acceptance to bring cyber athleticism to a mainstream and respected level like say, football.
As more people become familiar with the idea of these games not being just a 'toy', but instead a great platform for real competitive sport, we'll see it get the attention it deserves from the public and the developers. It'll be a while before we see stadiums filled to see the latest big video game match, but I certainly wouldn't rule that out. Just take a look at the StarCraft scene in South Korea!
So, how do we pwn like you do?
Teh_Masterer would be unholy mad if I shared the secrets of the Gamer Army!
You've mentioned in other interviews that you will only make three seasons of Pure Pwnage. Where will you go from there - have you any other shows in mind?
Eventually we plan to make films, starting with a feature length Pure Pwnage movie, but we've also got some great ideas for other television shows. It's impossible to say what our first non-Pure Pwnage project will be, it's too far away and we don't spend much time thinking about it. Right now we're just focused on Pure Pwnage and making it the best show we possibly can.
You've come up with some awesome lines in Pure Pwnage - what is your favourite quote from the show?
That's too tough! It's like asking a parent who their favourite child is! :) But the truth is, I really don't have a favourite line. To pick out just one would do the others injustice - and that would remind me of ghey.
