Kwanzoo: We’re here with Felicia Day of The Guild. Could you tell our readers a little bit about yourself to begin with?

Felicia Day: Well, I’m an actor and a writer, I’ve worked on many television shows and movies as an actor, but lately I’ve become known for the work I’ve done on the web, including acting in Joss Whedon’s “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” and creating a web show called “The Guild”.

Kwanzoo: One thing I have to ask for anyone involved in a show about an MMO: What do you play?

Felicia: I play WOW, and any other RPG I can get my hands on. Lately though I’ve had NO time, so if I can sneak away and play on my DS or play a casual game online, it’s a red-letter day.

Kwanzoo: Any favorite RPGs besides WoW?

Felicia: Ultima is my childhood obsession, but I love KOTOR and Planetscape Torment as well. Also Bethesda, Daggerfall etc. Those rock.

Kwanzoo: I’ve read you were an early MUDder as a kid as well. You were homeschooled, right?

Felicia: Yes, all my life until i went to college at 16.

Kwanzoo: That seems like it would have been kind of a culture shock.

Felicia: Ya, kinda but I went to music school, so that was a small tight-knit community, less traumatic a change, and I love to study.

Kwanzoo: Did any of that enter into writing The Guild, with a bunch of people whose connections to the outside world are through a game?

Felicia: Sure, I suppose my online interactions influenced the writing of The Guild, but nothing directly, it’s all drawn from experience and mashed into funny, so I hope, haha.

Kwanzoo: How did The Guild come about?

Felicia: I was bored with the roles I was getting, or not getting, in Hollywood, so I decided to write a 1/2 hour script for a TV pilot. People liked it, but thought it was too “niche.”  My producing partner, Kim Evey, read it and said “Why don’t we do this for the web?”  She had just had a viral hit, “Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show” on YouTUbe, so she knew the venue well.  And we just started shooting the first part of the script!

Kwanzoo: How did you get the other roles filled?

Felicia: I have done improv with Jeff Lewis (Vork) and Sandeep Parikh (Zaboo) for years, so I wrote the roles for them. The others, we had a casting director, my friend Helen Geier, who helped find actors.

We were very lucky to find such great performers, when they walked in the room we knew they were perfect!

Kwanzoo: How’s season 2 going so far?

Felicia: Harried but really well. We’re on an extremely accelerated shooting schedule, releasing 1 episode a week for 12 weeks, so it’s been a learning experience, but everyone is gung ho about making it bigger and better than season 1. The production values are much higher, we’re shooting widescreen in HD and the episodes are a bit longer on average, so all the hard work is proving worth it. The episodes are really great!

Kwanzoo: What’s the overhead like on shooting in HD like that?

Felicia: Er, much higher. Takes more crew member, more EXPERT crew, better equipment (that’s being donated by a great production company, Bunch Cassidy) and longer time to light etc. Much more costly and time consuming, but I think in the end worth it.

Kwanzoo: One thing I’m curious about, is there an existing model for recouping costs on these web shows, or are you guys kind of making it up as you go along?

Felicia: There isn’t really. We are funded now by Xbox Live/Microsoft and sponsored by Sprint. We also have plans for a DVD, which was the only reason we could backpay crew and start off Season 2, with those funds.

It’s a nebulous area now, everyone’s trying to find the funding.  I think it’s going to have to be primarily advertising based, but really, the money isn’t generally there now, it’s too soon to leap for some advertisers.  Slowly it’s creeping over.

Kwanzoo: Why a show about MMO players in particular?

Felicia: That’s what I know best. “Write what you know” they say. I think you can tell if someone is creating something personal to themselves, versus trying to please other people.

Kwanzoo: What do you think about the genre? A lot of players seem to have a love-hate relationship with it. Some parts of the show seem the same, with the guild being the only real support Cyd has, but at the same time she’s using it to wreck her life, and some of the characters like Clara are clearly far gone.

Felicia: Well, it varies, I love playing these games, and if you have a healthy life outside the game, you probalby won’t let it get out of control. I don’t want to condemn anyone’s hobbies, so I try to HAVE fun with the characters, rather than MAKE fun of them. Believe me, there’s nothing I’d rather do on a Saturday night than crank up Vent and my MMORPG and tool around killing things.

Kwanzoo: Out of curiosity, do you play a healer on WoW as well?

Felicia:  My main is a warlock, but I have a priest alt. I want to roll a death knight, one day when I have time.

Kwanzoo: (They’re very nice.)

Changing topics, how did you get involved with Dr. Horrible? I know you’d worked with Joss Whedon previously on Buffy.

Felicia: Joss and I marched on the picket line together during the strike, there was a Mutant Enemy Day on the line with his company he coordinated, asking actors and crew he’d worked with to come march. He mentioned the project briefly for the Internet, which sounded amazing, and then I forgot about it until he emailed me months later and asked “Can you sing?” 

Kwanzoo: What do you think of the reception for Dr. Horrible so far?

Felicia: I think it’s amazing!  But deserved, it’s truly a visionary work, totally out of the box.  Sometimes I can’t believe I was a part of it. I hope he does sequel after sequel, regardless of whether I’m in it or not

Kwanzoo: Yeah, your character kind of got Joss’d.

Last question: When does Season 2 of The Guild start?

Felicia: Season 2 started yesterday! Episode 1 was posted November 24th, available for HD download on Xbox Live’s Video Marketplace, streaming on MSN Video and downloadable from the Zune Marketplace as well! Check our website www.watchtheguild.com for more details!

To go along with the interview, we’ve put up some trivia questions about season 1 of The Guild. Once you’ve watched, give them a shot.
 

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