Multi Media Joker asked me to write a short diary about the making of Gabriel Knight 2. They are perplexed, I suppose, as to why an American would attempt to write a story which involves such traditional Bavarian themes. Let me first state that I do not pretend to be a Bavarian expert. After all, I am NOT a native (by reason of ancestral immigration) nor was the production able to shoot in Germany (by reason of financial restrictions). Thus, despite our best efforts at accuracy, I'm sure many of you will be justified in saying they don't dress like that in Munich or that's not a real Bavarian accent, and so on and so forth. I was and am, like Gabriel himself, merely an American stumbling through a foreign world. I wrote GK2 because I was mesmerized by the region and history and (as most writers are egotistically inclined) I assumed that what fascinated me would fascinate an audience - most of whom I anticipated would never have heard of Ludwig II or have set foot in Germany.
The effort may seem terribly naive to natives. But, at its best, I hope it amuses by providing an unlikely vantage point on themes which are no doubt old to you, some recognizable landmarks to play through, and a chuckle or too at Gabriel's inadequacies as an American tourist. As to why, I could never hope to truly explain it, anymore than I can explain where Gabriel Knight came from. But the following chronology may lend some insight to those with the imagination to read between the lines.
August, 1989; I moved to Munich from the Californian silicon valley. I was following my then-husband whose company transferred him there. I willingly took a sabbatical from my programming job with Hewlett-Packard, determined to spend the time working on my novel. I did write ... a bit. But mostly I was obsessed with a newly-discovered interest - computer games (playing them, not writing them). When I wasn't playing King's Quest IV or Manhunter I traveled alone, while my husband worked, to places like Neuschwanstein and Salzburg and Herrencheimsee and Oberammergau, as well as exploring all of the castles and museums in Munich itself. If it was in the tourist guides, I went there.
Naturally, the guides are filled with Ludwig II. Being gullible to romance and tragedy, and having an overactive imagination, the well-rehearsed emotional accounts of Ludwig's life by the tour guides was more than effective on me. The beautiful architecture appealed to my aesthetic nature, the tales of his loneliness to my own inherent introvertedness. I thought I understand Ludwig. I stood in the castles and felt him. And, accordingly, I dished out my deutsch marks and bought the souvenirs and the picture books like every good tourist should.
Jan. 1990; the death of my mother and the break-up of my marriage cut short my stay in Germany. I moved back to the states, with many places left unseen and many interests left unresolved. I wrote to Sierra and offered myself as either programmer or writer. They had no openings so I returned to the computer industry.
Jan. 1991; Sierra started a new group called the Writer's Block. Having found my resume in an old file, I was contacted and eventually hired as a staff writer.
Halloween, 1992; My proposal for the Gabriel Knight series was passed by Sierra's management review team on Halloween dress-up day. I had just finished work on King's Quest VI with Roberta Williams. The initially approved concept for the first Gabriel Knight was subtitled "The werewolves of Bavaria". However, as I worked on the plotline that winter I was drawn by the Salem witch trials and I felt the need to take the story back a step or two in Gabriel's life -- to his "origin" as Shadow Hunter. I put away the "Werewolves of Bavaria" plot, knowing it would be ripe for GK2.
Christmas, 1993; Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father is released. It is deemed enough of a success to justify investment in a sequel.
March, 1994; I traveled to Munich with Robert Holmes (composer for GK1 and GK2 and my "Significant Other"). Through January and February I had worked on the GK2 plotline and I knew the major themes (hunt club, Ludwig and Wagner, werewolves) but I wanted to research the places and themes at the source and let them determine the specifics of the story. I left myself thus "open" to intuition and I did a 2 week tour of Ludwig sites. At Linderhof, I realized that I wanted to SEE Ludwig in his castles (go back in time). At Neuschwanstein I was struck by the wall paintings and the way the doors were 'hidden' when closed. At Herrenchiemsee I read about Ludwig's diary, his suspected suicide when requesting the tower key, and his words to the woman at Seeshaupt. Many of the places I visited for the first time, having only just discovered them through my research. Among them was the Starnberger See, where Ludwig died. We were there on a damp winter's day and the chill seemed more than could be justified by the weather. The place crept inside me like a ghost and I knew it had to be in the game. The most unusual find, though, was Alt├╢tting. In one obscure biography I found a reference to Ludwig's heart being in an urn at Alt├╢tting. The biography was written in the 50's and I couldn't find a reference to the urn in any other book. Was it still there? Where and what was Alt├╢tting? No one we asked at the castles seemed to know.
We finally found Alt├╢tting, a little place, on the map a few hours east of Munich. We almost did't go - we were running out of time and it seemed unlikely to yield much of interest. But we did go, driving there from Bayreuth on our way back to Munich. Of all the places we visited, Alt├╢tting left the biggest impression. I had never been to a Catholic pilgrimage site before, and the combination of the heavy Catholic symbols of Mary and the candles and crucifixes, the crutches left at the side of the church, the hand-painting plaques of horrible diseases and injuries on the walls of the shrine, and faces of the worshippers, all struck me as being very heart-wrenching.
Not only did Alt├╢tting become an important site in the game (one to which, I┬┤m afraid, the puzzles do little justice!), but the Black Madonna of Alt├╢tting took her rightful place as guiding spirit over the plotline.
August, 1994; The plot outline for GK2 is done and the shooting script begun. Staffing ramps up. Coming on board are Sabine Duvall, our producer, Nathan Gams, creative director, and his wife Darlou Gams, art director. A native German living in the U.S. for many years, Sabine was chosen both to help with the accuracy of the German side of the game and because of her strengths in organization. Nathan was chosen because of his versatility and talent in Graphic Design - we knew GK2 would combine many mediums, including photography, film, painting, and graphic design layout. Darlou is simply the most talented illustrator Sierra has ever had. Visual design possibilities are explored and storyboards started.
November 1994; Nathan and Sabine fly to Germany to begin photography on the backgrounds for the game. Nathan is to make 4 trips before he's through. As I_d hoped, he found the sites I'd chosen as powerful and fascinating as I had. Our film director is hired. Pre-production breakdown of the script begins.
February, 1995; the final draft of the shooting script and programmers scripts are complete. The writing of GK2 ended up taking 14 months. Pre-production (laying out props, sets, storyboards and other filming preparations) is already well-underway based on earlier versions of the script.
April, 1995; We are delayed getting into the studio by the lingering project, Phantasmagoria. However, pre-production headaches, extensive casting time, and changes in our film staff mean we can use all the extra preparation time and more. Our L.A. film crew, lead by director Will Binder, is overwhelmed by the amount of work. The production script stands at 700 pages and the cast includes over 40 actors. By May, we have cast Joanne Takahashi as Grace and the last week of April we begin filming the first scenes of GK2.
September, 1995; After three-and-a-half months of shooting (with various breaks in studio schedule for other projects) film production wraps. We are mere months away from our projected ship date for Christmas '95. Fortunately, the game skeleton has been programmed with text boxes where the video scenes will (hypothetically) "drop in". Nathan and our lead video artist, Tony Hernandez, struggle for over a month in late summer to find the right video processing that will run smoothly on double-spin CDROM but will look as good as possible full-screen. Scenes are being edited by our L.A. editor, Peter Lonsdale and we are all thrilled with how the video portions are turning out. The opera is filmed live in Seattle Sept. 5th & 6th.
December 13, 1995 - GK2 goes gold; Despite the hair-graying effort of 16 hour days all Fall by the Sierra production team, we nevertheless owe our ship date to some sort of miracle. The amount of video, audio, music, and programming that had to come together at the last second was absolutely insane. But then, expecting the impossible and trying to implement epic projects admidst the limits of merely human conditions was the trademark of both Ludwig and Wagner. It seems they've struck again.
