READY PLAYER ONE- The film “Ready Player One” based on Ernest Cline’s bestselling book, is set in the year 2045, with the world on the brink of chaos. But the people living in this world have found salvation in a hyper-realistic, 3D, videogame paradise. Directed by Steven Spielberg, the film combines real actors who enter a sci-fi fantasy virtual world complete with incredible animation.
Justin Sullivan is a professor at Tyler Junior College in East Texas. He created an original digital character that appears in the film. He told Red River Radio's Chuck Smith more about what he teaches and how he got involved with the film.
SULLVIAN: "I teach game and simulations, specifically I teach 3-D modeling, all the 3-D modeling courses and I teach the 3-D animation courses."
RED RIVER RADIO: So you created a digital character, a digital extra. We'll get into that in just a moment but, right now-- all of this had to have been a really big thrill for you."
SULLIVAN: "It was, yeah. Never in my life would've imagined I would be in a Stephen Spielberg film, you know. As a kid, Stephen Spielberg during the 80's, that was just everything. He was amazing and I just could never imagine I'd be part of that."
RED RIVER RADIO: The movie uses a lot of animated characters, explain to us what exactly is a digital extra?
SULLIVAN: "The character I created was, it's just a background character. It's only in the film for a few seconds and even though it was only on there for a few seconds, it still took me a lot of time. It me a few days to design, model and texture the 3-D character for the film."
RED RIVER RADIO: Ready Player One was a successful book that was going to be made into a movie, how did you get involved?
SULLIVAN: "So I'm a huge fan of Ernest Cline to begin with and then in 2016 a friend of mine from California told me that Warner Brothers was looking for people to work on the film. And I also knew at the time that Stephen Spielberg was working on the film, was directing so I jumped at the opportunity to be par tof that."
RED RIVER RADIO: Did you have to go through some sort of digital audition?
SULLIVAN: "Definitely, yeah there's a lot of freelance work have websites now. Talent House was a website they use for it. So you have to submit everything to a website, upload all your files, it was a selective process. Yeah, you had to go through the ordeal and then they let you know if they wanted to use your work or not."
RED RIVER RADIO: So when we go see the movie, how will we know which one is your character? SULLIVAN: "My character is all about hearts, and it's the only character I've noticed out of the thousands of characters in the film, the only character that has hearts. She has hearts on her wings, she has hearts on her chest. You see the character with hearts on her, that's my character."
RED RIVER RADIO: Without giving anything away, can you give use any cues as to when your character appears?
SULLIVAN: "My character is right next to Batman, and Goro from Mortal Combat, and Laura Croft from Tomb Raider, amazing characters I grew up with. And next to Parceval which is a main character which was so cool! I'm still in shock that that actually happened.
RED RIVER RADIO: I bet. Well before we go, any final thoughts on your experience or working in today's digital creative industries?
SULLIVAN: "You don't have to have an amazing computer that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars anymore. Technically anyone can do it if you have talent, the skills, and the passion-- you know."
