Fort Solis Jessica Appleton Interview
Interview with Julia Brown, Actress for (Jessica Appleton) in Fort Solis
For call based interviews we try to present the conversation replies as close to verbatim as possible, for context.
A staple I do in all interviews in order to start things off is to ask that you elaborate a bit about your work, and this particular role for those not familiar with it?
Julia: My name is Julia Brown and I play Jessica Appleton. I did the full performance capture and voice over for the role and she is a astronaut engineer who's stationed up on Mars. Our thriller sort of takes place over one night on Fort Solace where things start to go a little bit wrong.
While not fully shown in the game you are most certainly present for its entirety, what’s the difference between the voice work versus being present within a particular situation?
Julia: So we kind of do the whole thing in the volume as though you're almost shooting a film or a TV show and even if I was just kind of voicing over we would still be doing it together. A lot of the action takes place between my character and Roger Clark's character and for us to always kind of be in comms with each other, it helped like using the physicality of being in the space and with one another and it was interesting how we captured the whole thing.
Because we would do days of what they call locomotive which is just about how your character moves around the space and we capture everything from like turning doorknobs, climbing stairs over and over and over again walking in lots of different ways and then we do days of actually shooting the big cinematic scenes.
Which are such a crucial part to Fort Solace and then we would do all the voice work afterwards which was great because we kind of already had got it in our bodies. We would revisit it back in the recording studios and do it that way. So a little bit different for me, I'm very used to film and TV work where you shoot it all in one day and you don't do it in this sort of bit part process.
When preparing to give your performance, were you given any initial direction in regards to Jessica Appleton? Just in terms of any examples of prep work to get into the mind set of this particular character?
Julia: I was really lucky to work with our fabulous director James Tinsdale and he had done a lot of sort of character work on the script before we began, we didn't have a huge amount of time before I came onto the game.
Kind of got thrown in the deep end a bit but we discussed her at length and tried to find who she was as a person. Then we also did a lot of prep work and what it would be like to be working on Mars so the game designers who were on set as it was, they really helped and trying to find tools.
For myself Roger and Troy to feel the characters we had wore neck braces to remind us that we were wearing like the astronaut suit so we put sort of these pillow pads under our arms which would help us walk in a certain way and we wore boots as well so all these things like really aided us where you don't have you know sets and costumes to remind you that you're up in space.
Comparison of imagining the world as opposed to being on set?
Julia: Yeah for me it was a big difference, both the guys I worked with obviously have a huge amount of experience in the volume and I'm used to going to work and turning up and spending over an hour in the makeup chair and getting transformed into the character and then having like thousands of things to look at on set that sort of take you into that world.
In the volume it's just you and you know loads and loads of sensors and you're wearing a suit that looks like you've got ping pong balls all over you and trying to kind of transform yourself to put yourself into a different world.
It takes a lot of imagination but we were really lucky that we also had the games designers there on the day and they were able to show us the sort of landscapes we were walking through because they'd already done like beautiful drawings of them and even some of them had like walkthroughs that they showed us on the computer and you also have the television screens that kind of show you as the avatar in the suit and it moves as you move which really helped me.
Yeah a lot of imagination but the great thing about doing performance capture is you can't really get it too wrong because if you make it a bit big then the designers can tone it down a little bit. They can alter and adjust lots of things so it means that you can really play without feeling scared to do anything too wrong.
Within Fort Solis there’s certainly a level of mystery being built. It starts off quiet with a light easy going atmosphere and then things get tense quite quick. What was the feeling like from your perspective as you’re going over the lines and seeing this shift in your character’s responses?
Julia: It was a great challenge, I was really fortunate of how we shot the whole thing because we kind of started the first few days with locomotive and I was getting used to how she walked and it was a little bit more relaxed and then we sort of ramped it up and by the end of the week we were doing full sort of choreographed fight scenes.
I think if I'd come in on day one doing like the most thrilling part I would have got a bit of a shock but it was great the way that the shoot was formatted and yeah I think just gradually finding that for ourselves as the actors as we sort of shot it nearly incredible chronological order was extremely helpful.
Aside from being present on Mars there’s a heightened level of danger surrounding your character, particularly as the story progresses. How did you feel going from someone that’s sitting back providing support to directly being in the forefront of the conflict?
Julia: I think again what was nice about it being that way around is it meant that Roger had a bit more of his difficult stuff at first and I was able to like work walk you know watch and learn from the pro and then I had more tricky stuff towards the end but that was the most exciting stuff for me to capture I feel and I really loved working.
We had an amazing stunt coordinator called Nathaniel and working with him and getting to do all that and again Jessica having a little piece of the action. I think it helped as well that we'd sort of read the script through a few times together and we felt how it feel we would really discuss the scenes at length and knew that this had to be scary and tense and brewing and how we could sort of capture that and have it grow and grow as the game goes on.
There’s a really great cast that makes up this game, you’ve got Roger Clark as Jack Leary and Troy Baker as Wyatt Taylor joining yourself. What was that like interacting with them? With that, any fun interactions from behind the scenes you’d care to share?
Julia: Yeah; we had such a fun time, we shot all together for a week in London and I was a little bit nervous before beginning because I knew how much experience both of them had and I was coming to it sort of quite fresh, to Mo cop, had done a little bit in the past but never done like a full game. They were so lovely, they both sort of welcomed me with open arms and really helped me with anything I didn't know and yeah we had a good laugh.
We went out for dinner pretty much every night together and we really enjoyed doing the sort of big cinematics towards end of the week. This was one of the funny behind the scenes stories; is that Troy, we were rehearsing a fight outdoors and Troy was going over his part with our stunt coordinator and Troy goes big or goes home and he managed to get shoved up against the wall and his butt basically went into the wall and made a huge crack which was hilarious.
The game studio weren't angry at all, sorry the performance capture Centroid, they asked him to sign it so he's now signed the wall that says “Troy's ass was here” which is good I think, they maybe have a frame on it now but instead of getting the wall fixed they thought that was giving it more value so yeah there was lots of lot laughs to be had and then it's been so lovely being part of a process that goes on for a long time.
Obviously games take so long to make although this was a really fast turnaround with such a small team but meeting up with the guys again and I work with Roger again and Liverpool capturing some more voice over and then we had a really fun trip to Boston together. We were at PAX East so a lot of laughs and drinking and Roger loves a Guinness but it's great fun because I'm half Irish myself.
Gamescom Experience?
Julia: I'm super excited, it's my first Gamescom, I think it's Rogers as well surprisingly and we're gonna be on stage tonight for Opening Night Live and the game is going to come out as we're talking about the game which is really fun because it's been so long awaited.
So it's so nice that for our release, like we're all together to celebrate it and I'll get to see a little bit more about what the game's world is like being quite new to it all. It's super exciting and it's so nice for an independent game with such a small studio to you know be celebrated on this scale and hopefully have a really big exciting launch.
What’s it like to see your voice and or likeness attached to a game character?
Julia: It was so exciting, I was really waiting to see the first glimpse of Jessica because I think she was kind of the last face that they created. I had my facial scan back in January, the start of the year and yeah I didn't know what would be like, they changed her hair so I've got like kind of like buzz cut with a fringe and she's got like lots of earrings and nose rings, it's so funny to see your face there but it doesn't quite look like you.
It's like a new version which is a good laugh. It kind of will show me what I look like if I ever get my hair cut like that and then just to see your body. Roger, he has such a distinctive walk and way of moving and I know that like so many people love that in Red Dead Redemption and he's got you know, he really embodies it in the same thing.
I watched him walking around the volume when we were doing the shoot and was so impressed at how he basically brought this character a whole physicality and way of moving and then when you see the characters and how they move now in the trailer and stuff I'm like oh my gosh, this is Roger.
It's so distinctive and certainly that's something that I would want to like keep practicing and learning as I go on in the games world is like really choosing a distinctive physicality for each of your characters but yeah it's super cool. I do see my walk and I'm like, oh that's funny I'm doing that little thing with my hip and the way I move and it's really special to have that a character that just is you.
Do you see yourself being interested in additional game related performances in the future?
Julia: Yeah for sure I have loved the experience, every minute of it and it's been so amazing. It's like such a great test of your imagination each day at work and just the perfect kind of work to kind of split up when I'm doing film and TV. I'm really excited to kind of be involved in more and hopefully continue to do lots more games.
Lastly I would like to leave a spot for you to say something or go over anything I might have missed during the interview?
Julia: I think we've covered all bases but I just want to say to everyone, that I hope they enjoy the game. We can't wait to share it with you, it's so exciting that it's been such a fast turnaround from a group of really hard working people. Fallen Leaf is such a small studio and I think it's amazing what they've pulled off and I really can't wait for y'all to see it.
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