CS-Nation

Covering the future of Counter-Strike
the_family_god
interview: the_family_god
Dan Frome, better known as the_family_god, is the well-known man behind the Militia and Militia II movies, some of the best Counter-Strike Machinima ever made. His new project, ClanWars, is going to be another Counter-Strike Machinima movie, and CS-Nation has the scoop!

CS-Nation's Exo: You've been in the film industry for a while. What have been the influences and experiences that drove you into this kind of business throughout your life?
Dan Frome, the_family_god: I wouldn't say I'm "in" the industry really. But thanks for the plug! I grew up watching a lot of Spielberg films. "Jaws" was probably the most influential film of my childhood. I loved film making but I never thought about it as a career, because the chances of actually 'making it' are worse than landing a spot in the NHL. Over time I realized that I kept coming back to filmmaking in one form or another, so the choice to be a filmmaker is still a pretty recent decision.
CS-Nation: Give us a brief summary of your movie history, and different competitions and events, for those who don't already know.
tfg: I've been making my own films since I was 14. My first film to gain any publicity was a stop-motion animated film called "superWurst 2," which was kind of like a violent version of "The Nightmare Before Christmas," except it filmed hot dogs and sausages killing each other with guns. It was a really messed up movie, yes, but the MuchMusic TV network thought it was worth 60 seconds of their time to interview me because of it.

I had two other films, "A Normal Day," and "Uniforms," that were entered into the International Teen Movie Festival. Both films were mentioned on television and in the Toronto Star (Toronto's biggest newspaper). "Uniforms" ended up being aired on TV, winning a few other awards at different film festivals a couple years later. That was when I started experimenting with machinima animation. My first big machinima film (Militia II) got nominated for Best Director, Best Film, and Best sound at the 2002 machinima film festival. I got the award for Best Sound, which was very cool because I had never been recognized for that. Equally important, it won the "Best User Created Movie" at the 2002 Fileplanet awards - I enjoy the awards that are decided by the general public!
CS-Nation: How did G.Worx pictures come into existence, what do they do, and who takes part in production?
tfg: G.Worx used to stand for "Guerilla Worx." It's somewhat of a weird story but I'll condense it as much as possible. My Dad owned an old Panasonic reporter's camera, therefore when filming a movie I looked more like a news cameraman than an actual "filmmaker." My friends started calling me "Guerilla Dan" because I would go out on really busy downtown streets and film my movies without permits or location control. So I formed a group called "Guerilla Worx Pictures," which is just "G.Worx Pictures" now.

So more about what G.Worx is... It's a tight knit group of guys who like to make films, but we have different skills to offer to each other. The main categories/people are the programmer (Larson MCColl), the animator (Jason Myles), and the director (me). But our roles aren't hardcoded. We usually help each other in different ways depending on the needs of each project. We put those three elements together and hopefully release a film worth watching. Because we're very small we usually focus on one project at a time, and we do various joint projects such as ClanWars with the Chipmunk Ninjas machinima group.