Twitch's live, interactive, scripted sci-fi series Artificial has made the best of a bad situation when it comes to COVID. Adopting the moniker Artificial: Remote Intelligence, the choose-your-own ending series powered through the epidemic by filming from home for Season 3, though it is now coming to an end.
After tonight, there will only be two more episodes in the current season of Artificial, so we're going to be sharing our chats with the cast and crew over the next couple of weeks. In this particular exclusive, we learn a lot from Bernie Su, the Emmy Award-winning creator of the show.
One of the things we discussed in our chat is how similar the show is to RPGs and tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons when it comes to the create-a-character process. He tells us how the characters of Kira (Castlevania's Alejandra Reynoso) and Zander (Avatar: The Last Airbender's Dante Basco) were created by the audience and a lot about the casting process.
To hear our chat with Bernie, click the podcast player below, otherwise scroll down for this portion of the transcript!
Literary Joe: I wanted to ask you about the world-building. You guys have world-building, you have character creation episodes - which of those takes the most preparation?
Bernie Su: I mean, so it takes more prep to do the create-a-scene because you kind of have to design the parameters of the scenes. So you can have a scene between say, you and I, and we're talking about like foosball for no reason. Cause the audience decides they wanna see it, you have to give them the parameters of what they're gonna talk about. Right? So you have to design the skeletal structure of the scene, so it fits into the drama of the world. Then we open it up and let the audience pick lines and write lines and all that stuff. So that part is probably the most prep.
The actual implications are definitely the character stuff. When we create characters, that's the rippling effects through multiple episodes. So, two characters have been created in the show so far, as Alejandra does the character of the Kira and Dante's Zander, right. And those two characters are probably the two most impactful new characters of the series. Except for Elle, of course. Obviously, Elle is important because she is brand new, and she's the focal point.
But so, when you look at all your other characters, all due respect to Asher and Meredith's characters, it's like you see a lot more drama come from the Kira and Zander characters and the audience created those characters. And it sends huge ripples through the series for both of them. And I didn't even know at the beginning of the season that we were gonna use Dante in the show. And it just kind of came to me as a concept of everything being aligned.
So just to give you the history of this, when we did the Kira create-a-character with Justin, technically we had started the story yet, and they created that character when we had to cast her, and then we couldn't get her into the show until like three episodes later because the casting process takes a while, right? So the second time we did it, I'm like, all right, we'll obviously pre-cast the character, pre-cast someone. And then just create the character for that someone. And, who is impactful and cool and just like, feels like they fit in the world. Just have fun, and have a good time with it.
Literary Joe: Rufio!
Bernie Su: Rufio! And I called Dante up. And Dante and I had been wanting to work together for a couple of years and not to the point of like we had, we were all close, or anything with projects it just kind of, you have to find the right project. And, in this case, where I can literally design it for him, or the audience can design it for him, I thought that was hilarious.
And the text goes, "Hey, you want to be in Artificial?" He was like, yeah, man. And I know I had a call with him, "So yeah. I wanna explain this to you." And on the call, he's like, "So who am I going to play?" And, I'm like, "I don't know, our audience is going to pick the character! This is what we do!" And it was very, very respectful. I was like, "If you don't want to do it, you don't have to do it."
I think it's like whimsical and crazy, and we'll make parameters of the characters. So like, if he doesn't wanna be a Nazi pedophile, we're not gonna let Nazi pedophile hit the board. So, we create the parameters of the characters, and then the audience does it. And if you rewatch that create-a-character, I'm basically vetting everything through him, you know, it's like, "What lines are comfortable for you to say? And what names do you like, man, just go for it." And if he picked a name that was too similar to another person's name, I would've just told him he can't pick that name, but I'm pretty open-minded to whatever that way. That was super fun, though.
Literary Joe: And when I talked to Dante, we kinda likened the character creation to D&D, Dungeons & Dragons. So, do you have any experience with that?
Bernie Su: Yeah, I haven't played in years, but I mean, I grew up as a teenager playing D&D, I have played many RPG video games. I was literally playing D&D on my PC with like 2-D graphics and stuff. So yeah, I mean, a lot of experience with it. I'm definitely out of practice in D&D, like, if you said, let's get together and play right now, I'd be like, "Wait, I need to re-learn a couple of things." But I'm very familiar with it. And when you said that, I was like, yeah, pretty much, attributes, name, occupation all of those types of things, all very D&D-esque, and I think that's a very accurate comparison.
*This interview has been edited for clarity.*
The groundbreaking Twitch series Artificial returns with Artificial: Remote Intelligence. This season takes a huge step forward with a bold new sci-fi vision and ground-breaking interactive methods, including an audience-controlled musical score and revolutionary new interactive Worldbuilding episodes. Viewers will be able to dictate aspects of the production including casting of new characters, story, and set design.
Artificial airs live on Twitch tonight and every Thursday at 5:00 pm PST.