Q&A with Ruwan Jayatilleke, lead producer and creative lead of Marvel’s motion comic “Iron Man: Extremis”

Chattanooga Times Free Press entertainment reporter Casey Phillips spoke with Ruwan Jayatilleke, lead producer and creative lead of Marvel’s motion comic “Iron Man: Extremis” about Marvel’s plans for motion comics, the difficulty of animating pen-and-ink and the shape of the digital comic landscape.

CP: How long has “Iron Man: Extremis” been in production?

RJ: Active production since December of 2009.

CP: After doing three of these motion comics (also “Spider-Woman” and “X-Men”), do you feel fairly well-versed in how to approach this medium?

RJ: Yeah, I'd say so. Every motion comic has its own challenges, but the thing about any entertainment space that's new or fledgling is that need is the mother of invention. We have to figure out workarounds and cheats to make the dates and deliver the content that will keep our fans investing in the medium, as a whole.

CP: What kind of fan response have you seen to motion comics thus far?

RJ: I think the reception has been pretty positive. It's hard for us to gauge what the size and scope of the medium or the entertainment space will be because we've only done “Spider-Woman” and “X-Men: Gifted.” “Extremis” will technically be our fourth in terms of production.

As long as these remain fiscally inviting, I think we'll keep producing it. Our tact with anything at Marvel is that we want to have a seat at the table. The only way to do that is to go in there and create great content with high value and price it accordingly. It's just as much to get it to the consumer as it is to attract the consumer to the content.

I don't think it works by you launching one and seeing how it works and then doing another one. We're fairly committed to this entertainment space. In the next couple of months, we're going to make some relatively big announcements for motion comics, in terms of our commitment to delivering content to the consumer.

CP: So ways of delivering it, not necessarily announcements of new titles?

RJ: Both. I think there are some pretty expansive announcements coming up, but I can't discuss them now because we want to position it appropriately. For the casual viewer of this content, as well as our hard-core comic book fan, we're very much committed towards continuing to deepen the wealth of content, as well as broadening the spectrum.

CP: Since it's a hybrid of static 2D and animated images, who is the target audience for motion comics? Hard core comic enthusiasts? Fans of animation? Newcomers to the medium?

RJ: I think it's not a wide net since there's no “universal consumer,” in terms of motion comic content. What we try and do is take a great story, obviously ones that are attached to great creators with their own respective fan bases, their own cult followings. What we try and do, in terms of casting that wider net, is picking stories that can stand alone, that there isn't a ton of continuity a casual viewer or fan has to have in order to understand the intricacies of the story. In that way, we're trying to pick stories that have a more evergreen nature to them and still tell a high quality story with compelling visual, dialog and so forth.

Anyone from the casual movie to a hard-core fan to fans of animation to people who like mature stories are our target audience. Our target audience is 17 or 18 and above. Each one of these releases we've done as motion comics has been for mature audiences. That's not to say that we won't do some kids content down the line, but we're focusing on creating really compelling, engaging stories for an adult audience. That's a wide enough net to put out and grab a considerable number of new comic book fans as well as old ones into the mix, fans of our heroes and franchises.

CP: Each of the motion comic series you've released so far have had five or six episodes. Have you considered lengthening the storylines in future releases?

RJ: I think some of them could be longer. I would have loved to do a 12-part story, but part of it is also getting people enmeshed and comfortable with the content in the entertainment space before we try to get them engaged in a longer commitment.

Right now, we've been launching these for sale bi-weekly. The goal, at least from my end, is to get to the point where we're releasing these weekly. If we did a six episode run, it would be week after week after week as opposed to having that break week in between. When you get to that point, we can talk about doing a 10- or 12-part story.

Nipping that extra week makes a big difference, in terms of the time commitment and making sure people don't drop off the story because it gets too much going bi-weekly for 10 or 12 episodes.

I can foresee us going more than 12 episodes on a run before having a break. The other part of it is to make the content digestible on the go. Once you go beyond that, I'm sure there are people with episodic content who have whole seasons of “Lost” on their iPod or the equivalent portable, but I don't think that's the majority of people walking around. I think if they're watching episodic content, they're downloading the stuff they didn't watch last week, watching it and then deleting it.

I don't think anyone wants a 22-episode motion comic season on their iPod to watch back to back. It's possible, but I think more of it is synching with whatever your distribution point is, downloading the newest episode, watching it and delete it, and purchasing the next episode the next time you synch up. I'd love the idea of people downloading these huge chunks of storytelling, but I just don't think the consumer is there yet in terms of the majority. That's definitely a minority right now as an approach to content consumption.

CP: I happen to fall in that minority, but I know I'm a bit of an oddity.

RJ: I used to try and do it, but it became an issue of space on my portable. There's also that cathartic feeling of, once you get through a piece of content, you get to delete it. Part of that experience is that you feel like you're cleaning out something and get to refresh your palate with the next episode. It taps into that vein of the comic book fan, where you have long runs of content and are able to go back and forth and refer to them.

CP: Watching the trailer for “Iron Man: Extremis,” the degree to which it's animated far exceeds what I was expecting. If you're going to invest so much in the production values of a motion comic, in terms of voiceovers and animation, why not make an entirely animated version?

RJ: I think one is economics. Obviously, creating animation is a whole different set of fiscal commitments, and also, it takes a long time to create great animation. There would be an experience drop off because Adi (Granov) obviously can't draw the “X” million of frames to do “Iron Man: Extremis.” The only way to do this is to redraw it as an animated feature or animated episodes. To me, as both a fan of “Iron Man: Extremis” and the producer of the project, that seems off story what would be a good approach.

The integrity of this is the story that Warren (Ellis) laid out, which is brilliantly complex that any fan of the content can grasp on to, and Adi's visuals, which are so cinematic and beautiful, and he does such a great job of setting up those scenes and sequences of events. It would be a cop out to have someone redraw all that stuff in Adi’s style. That begins a disconnect with the story.

As you start adding more and more things that don't enhance the story but push it further away from its core content, you're really looking at a different story then. Adi’s art is very much a part of that.

I love the vendors and companies we worked with to put together these motion comics. Magnetic Studios was one. They did all the directing and visual effects. Edge Studios did the casting and audio production. Underground Music did the scoring of each episode. NYAV did the 5.1 surround sound version, which is going to be really cool, if you have a surround system and play this on your TV.

We looked at it, and the only way to honor the story and not be constrained by it is really to work from the core elements that make it such a compelling piece of fiction. Going back to Warren's dialog and story to Adi’s brilliant, cinematic visuals - as well as these subtle moments like facial expressions - when you look at that sort of content, we have to look at it as bringing elements to the story that enhance it.

I think that's what Magnetic Dreams did really well, their idea of bringing computer-animated CGI, extending some of the art without altering it or effectively using camera movements to indicate motion or a moment. Not only was that really skillful on their part, it was also this great cheat we used so we didn't have to animate the rote things that were going on in the story.

That's where there are things like that uncanny disconnect when the viewer looks at the art and knows it wasn't meant to be animated. When Adi drew this, this was obviously years before the motion comic, before this endeavor began at Marvel, so a lot of that art wasn't meant to be moved around in any capacity. What ended up happening was that when Magnetic and I looked at each of these comic book panels, the most important thing to us was to keep the integrity, not only of what Warren and Adi did, but also to see how we could further move the story along and naturally use Adi’s lens work in the comic book panels and follow that grain and texture while, at the same time, providing a complete experience for a motion comics viewer.

The same applies to the voice casting, voice direction, audio production and scoring. The fact that we're committing to 5.1 surround on this project shows that we see it as a high-quality project with a high entertainment value. We're delivering to consumers at $1.99 per episode. That's the thing. When you look at that voice casting and acting, we hired real actors, working actors who commercial work, animation work, film and TV work.

And when you get to the point of Underground's musical scoring, Amotz Plessner, who scored each episode, basically sat a full orchestra and had them play out sequences. He further embellished those moments with extra electronic elements he added in.

James Snyder, who both cast with me and then did all the voice actor direction, pulled these really great performances. Between him and another person, Jon Autry, who did the audio production and sound effects, they really went for the highest grade of everything.

The wonderful thing about this project, despite the long hours and the insanity of getting this project both on schedule and keeping it on schedule, is that each one of these modular parts that make up the motion comic is excellent on its own and tells the story on its own. Once you put all those modular pieces together as one motion comic, the value far surpasses any of those single elements that made it.

That's the wonderful thing about this project. The goal wasn't just to make the visuals as incredible as possible or the audio as full and rich as possible or for the acting and music to have this resonance with the consumer. It was to make sure all those things worked in concert as one composite piece.

That's what good compelling fiction is. That’s what makes a good comic. It's not just great writing or great art, per se, but how those pieces work together. That's the important thing for the consumer to realize. They're starting to understand that, that it's not just putting a voice to a comic book and moving the comic book around. The point is that this is a piece of fiction to pay attention to, and there's value to it inherently, even if you've read the graphic novel collection or single issues of “Iron Man: Extremis” or “Spider-Woman” or “Astonishing X-Men.”

That's what makes Marvels' approach to motion comics unique from other content providers who've gone into that space. I'll call out “Watchmen” as one example. They had all this buzz surrounding it, and I'm sure it sold really well, and then they dropped a bunch of projects out right after it that didn't do that well or really of value to the consumer, and now you've seen nothing really come out of DC Entertainment since. The same applies to other providers that have dropped out motion comics. There attitude has been, “Unless it's an outstanding hit or this epic blockbuster, we're not going to do it.” I think that's the wrong approach. Yes, you can be opportunistic in this space and choose your best shots, but there has to be a commitment to the consumer that, if you're expecting them to put their dollars down and risk on a piece of content, that there's going to be some solace there in continuity to it and not that it'll be just, “Oh, I bought this really great piece of fiction, and you're not going to do anything more. You're just going to phone in the rest of the content.” I think we've taken the very opposite approach. It's not that we're trying to define the medium itself but trying to understand what the consumers want and what works best.

That approach parallels the story of “Iron Man: Extremis,” where Tony (Stark) is test piloting the future. It's not him trying to control it or change it as much as he's trying to understand his place within it. He's trying to guide it towards a place where humanity is in a better place than it would have been if the bio-terrorist Mallen tries to change and control the future. It's interesting that Iron Man/Tony Stark is trying to find his identity in the world while test piloting the future and melding technology to himself. He sees that as bettering himself and humanity, whereas Mallen is trying to pull back time to this much more segregated, narrow-minded time.

That's interesting, because it speaks to how the content or technology and software, this idea of being a futurist, is pushing entertainment and technology forward. You're either going to be someone who tries to understand and anticipate what's making these changes and what the future's going to be, or you'll be one of these people who is going to be bulldozed by trying to control and manipulate it. That's the key difference between Tony and Mallen, but also what Marvel is trying to do in this space and what other people have tried.

CP: It seems like Marvel is taking this digital approach to the medium very seriously across the board with the Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited service and the new iPad app. Why is Marvel pushing right now to explore the digital side of the business?

RJ: From a general standpoint, looking at motion comics and the digital media realm, part of it is that we understand that there's an audience out there that enjoy our content, whether movies, TV, animation, video games, the consumer products, hard or soft good. We know they're there. Part of putting different versions of our comics up, whether motion comics or digital comics through our subscription service on the web or through iTunes on the Marvel app, it's about reaching out to the consumer and giving them as many options to enjoy content as possible.

I think, for most of us, the comic book experience is always going to be printed paper. But there's obviously a younger consumer or more tech-savvy consumer who's primary experience for all content is digital, not picking up a floppy comic book but enjoying everything on a small screen, whether their laptop or desktop or their iPad.

No one is ever going to say that print comics don't have a place and that they're not important to us because they are important to us. Our hobby shop retailers and book trade partners are important to us, but part of enriching the experience of consumers and growing the audience segment is reaching out to different consumers. That's not going to happen from printing more comic books or printing different ones.

Part of it is also looking at the new technologies and softwares and implementation and distribution points and channels and seeing how we can get our content there, whether that's motion or digital comics.

We're trying to cast a wider net when we release these, but we also temper it with the fact that we recognize how important the printed comic book and graphic novel collections that we do for the trade and mass channels are. I think people sometimes read that the wrong way. They see the doom and gloom of digital distribution, that it's going to destroy this or that. I think, for now, it's only going to enhance it and drive people towards the print side. It's an argument that people make fun of, that digital distribution doesn't help people go to book stores and buy a physical product, but I think that's wrong. I think there are a lot of people who have discovered really great stories and then gone to a hobby shop they'd never visited or their Barnes and Noble or online and buy the hard goods because they want to enrich that experience by holding the book. They want to keep reading about those characters and stories in physical print instead of reading it digitally because it's a different experience, even if it's the same content.

You said that when you watched “Iron Man: Extremis” you saw how far we pushed towards full animation. For me, when I started this project, boldly, my one goal was unsaid, but I worked with Mike Halsey and Joel Gibbs over at Magnetic Dreams, and my one goal was to push the content and the idea of motion comics to where we're competing with full-scale animation.

Obviously, it's not full animation in “Extremis,” but it gets really close in certain parts. I wanted to demonstrate that this content has just as much legitimacy as an animated feature or animated episode and that just as much blood and sweat and efforts are going into this content.

The results can be reaped from that. There's not this brick wall that's going to stop us. There are further ways of enhancing the visual and audio experience. As we push ahead with future motion comics, you're going to see that. In one aspect, we did a lot with playing with characters as 3D/CGI animated objects in the motion comic, but I think there are ways of using that same approach and applying it to other elements in the story and creating this immersive environment for the consumer.

Our hope is that, once this launch is out and people watching it and talking about it, they don't need to measure this against their animated show on TV, but we're giving them just as many elements from those animated shows and incorporating it in when possible to make this really an intricate piece of content. At the end of the day, it's about placing high value content in consumers hands that's going to make the difference. Having these one-hit wonders isn't going to get us very far in the digital space as a whole.