Interviews
Interview with Anonym
Published in Domination #9
Performed by Jazzcat
Welcome back to the Interview section of Domination. After last editions success in this section we return to normal, with only a couple of interviews. But as usual we try our best to find somebody interesting. Most of you should be familiar with him, through his work in PADUA, especially in the quite popular TORTURE demo series. This interview was conducted over the Internet, hope you enjoy…
J)
Hello and welcome to the magazine and the media. As normal with most magazines, please introduce yourself to the audience (name, age, job etc..)
A)
Oh well.. my real name is Frank Michlick, I am 23 and I work as a freelance journalist and new media consultant. I am quite a bit into what you call the multimedia/internet thing, even though I hate the term multimedia, because it's used in too many places.
J)
You are quite well known in this fabulous little scene for your activities in PADUA and the TORTURE demo series. But some out there would like to hear a bit more about you. If possible, could you give the readers a history from when you first entered the C64 scene up until the present day. What groups did you join etc…
A)
Scenewise my history before forming PADUA was really short, I also seem to have some kind of problem to remember when everything took place.
Let me tell you first how I got hooked on the C64 thing, and actually this was the first time I ever had a computer, too. A friend of mine had one of those nice machines, and of course he mainly used it to play games. After playing a few of those, my interest in the machine arouse, so I started doing some programming in basic at my friend’s house. When I finally got my own C64, I was already bored with basic, so I started to look at the code of those nice intros by cracking groups. Somehow I was in some kinda of that group later on, that was called "Nuclear Power Station (NPS)" and they mainly ripped stuff and used intro makers, but me and a school mate started to use a few ripped routines and put together new intros out of those. I also started swapping at that time on a very low level with Power/The Hidden Forces being one of my first contacts.
In 1989 I meet with Roman, who had contacted me before and I continued to do some coding and he did the artwork. We formed our own group called "The Magic Forces (TMF)" and coded some small things. One day we got to talk to somebody who said that he was a member of the subgroup CALTEX of the Beastie Boys and he asked us to join to code some intros. But after a week of being in Beastie Boys, X-Rated was formed and we joined as our own subgroup called ELECT. That’s also when Lubber, Sanflex, Cruise and Macrabos joined us. We released a demo called MEGALOMANIA, which I unfortunately don't have anymore. When X-Rated wasn't going that well anymore in the end of 1989, we decided to leave and form PADUA.
Our first demo was released in 1990 at Horizon's in Sweden and it was called DELUGE.
And you know most of the rest, don't you ;)?
Puh.. quite a bit of a story, I guess I should use that on our homepage.
J)
I remember you as a programmer. But what other jobs do you do on C64, have you had any jobs in the past that you no longer perform? music? gfx? swapping?
A)
Starting in ELECT I sort of became an organiser who also always had to do quite a bit of swapping. Starting in 1991 (?) I also called a few boards from time to time, but later on I stopped that again. I tried to compose music, but I always failed. In the beginning in X-Rated I also thought that I was capable of creating graphics, but when the other members saw the results they
disagreed. I also was into cracking a bit, but mainly to learn about copy protections and how they were made. Nowadays, I like coding together with Leonardo, because each of us had his own preferences and so we team up pretty well.
J)
What in your opinion should a demo contain to make it appeal to the public and make it's standard above
average? Are trackmos the way to go, traditional 'separate part' style or maybe a mixture of both?
A)
That’s a hard one. I kinda like both, so I guess the best thing would be a mixture, meaning, that you can leave
any part at any time and watch every part separately. We were first going to try to install something like that into our next demo (Starburst, actually mean to be released at The Party 1996), but it seems that that won't be possible. It would be nice to have a menu to select the parts you want to see and not just the starting point of the trackmo like mostly everybody is doing it nowadays.
To me also quite a few of the demos that are only made to seem on the big screen and not on a monitor (and are for example mainly using that 4x4 FLI mode) seem to lack originality. Certainly some people invent some neat ways to produce some effects never seen before, but still due to the big resolution and lack of design, those parts are mostly boring to me. I also think that a demo should look good on both a screen and a monitor.
J)
What would you say would be your greatest achievement on C64 personally? What have you done that you hold the most pride for, is there a routine you want to programme but haven't yet done so??
A)
I don't really remember doing anything that made me a hero ;) I am quite good at delaying the release of demos though. We still have quite a few original ideas for our demos in stock, otherwise we would have stopped by now. We never really run out of ideas. My coding is never really that hard though, but mainly time-wrecking. I like to use animated graphics and that often includes quite a few different routines and takes a lot of time. The pity is that sometimes you don't see how much time it took, when it's finished, but I mostly have been satisfied with my results so far.
J)
That’s the same with a lot of things I guess, even magazines, people should just try and see how much time and effort is put into productions. Well moving on, please inform us on your all-time favourites..
Cracking Group - Fantasy Cracking Group
Cracker - Triad
Demo Group - Snack/G*P
Demo - Digital Messiah by Megastyle
Programmer - Ivo Herzeg (Mr.Cursor)
Musician - Jeroen Tel
Graphician - Gotcha
Disk Magazine - Mamba
Scene Party - Horizon '90
Sexual Position - Any one with the right person
Food - Fried noodles with chicken (Chinese), or was it cat instead of chicken ;)
Drink - Banana Juice
Woman - My fiancée
Movie - Space Balls?? I am not really sure
Political Party - none really, which does NOT mean that I am not interested in politics
Computer Game - Tetris (or Ping-Pong?)
J)
If you had the opportunity to get ANY scener from past or present, any disk magazine and any BBS for your own ULTIMATE dream group, who would be in the group and why? and what would you call it?
A)
Wow, so many difficult questions in one.. hmmm.. almost impossible to answer. But I think PADUA has really always been my favourite group, because I mostly got along well with everybody. Of course we never really were the best group, but I think it's also very important how you get along with the other members. I certainly would like to have Johannes Bjerregaard, JCH and Jeroen Tel in that group. Gotcha and Ans/Spirit for the graphics. And Mr.Cursor for the coding. I am still missing the cracking section though.. hmm get Snacky, but I would not really know where to get the originals from nowadays.. oh well. The name? No idea, usually finding good names really gets people into fights.
J)
What programmers do you respect and why?
A)
All of them, but those who claim things for themselves that they actually have stolen. I think everybody is doing his best, especially nowadays, and also what is fun for them - and that’s what really counts.
J)
The scene is in a somewhat slump at the moment, the commercial industry is riddled with low budget and budget games and the scene is generally not as big as in glory days. What would be the best thing to rejuvenate the scene? What should we do, to bring back the old scener or to create further interest in this old machine?
A)
We should keep on producing things for this computer. The games are getting less and less, so the demos should be getting more and more. I do not thing that we can really force anyone to come back. We should try to deal with what we've got. We need to keep the C64 spirit alive.
J)
What has PADUA got in store for the C64 in the future? Will there be any music or graphics collections, a new
TORTURE demo, or maybe a new demos series or dentro.
A)
The Torture series has ended and we do not really like graphics and music collections. Currently we are trying to finish STARBURST 100 percent (a demo!) and we are also ready for the next one ;)
J)
Have you ever been in serious disagreement with any other scener or group? Meaning have you been involved in a scene related war and what do you dislike most in the scene?
A)
I have never really been involved in any scene war, but I have been fighting with Lubber, who afterwards got kicked out of PADUA. I was quite angry at him at that time, but nowadays I would not mind meeting him again.
J)
What are your goals in life, is there anything you wish to achieve, how do you want things to be, say in 10 years time?
A)
In the far future I would like to finally get a diploma in something and maybe setting up my own company again. I like to be sort of independent business wise, and about the close future: I am going to get married in May.
J)
Congratulations on your marriage, it is great when your in love with someone so much. Anyway, magazines come and go, but over the past year or so they have reached an improved pinnacle never before seen in C64 related journalism. What are your favourite magazines from the past and present and why? What should a magazine contain to appeal to it's audience?
A)
My favourite magazine from the past would be Mamba, I think - I liked their design and also the writing was nice to read. I cannot really name any favourite magazines of the present, because I never really read any. The most important thing about a mag is the scene news for me, even though now I seem to read about quite a few groups that I’ve never heard of. Charts are nice to look at too, and I always liked to read original stories/essays too.
J)
Have you ever been involved in any commercial projects such as a game on any computer/console format? Or do you have a desire to make something, such as for example Bob/Censor has done with his coming game BOUNCY BALLS or Quiss/Ex-Reflex's recently released CENTRIC??
A)
I have been involved in the production of a few C64 games, but only one really got released. At one time we were also producing a commercial German disk magazine. I never really got involved in any PC or Console productions, except for some infamous CD-ROMs and some WWW-sites.
J)
What is your personal definition of LAME and ELITE? Any examples of these?
A)
Those words don't really exist that much for me. I just consider it lame behaviour when somebody boasts too much about e.g.; stolen code.
J)
Well I’m quite sure you have a few greetings you would like to give out, so here's the perfect opportunity...
A)
First of all I would like to say hello to everyone in PADUA. Others who should be mentioned are:
The whole Offence-gang, The Syndrom/TIA/Crest, Kingfisher/Triad, Odin/Science 451, Deff/F4CG, Darklord, Stone, Bobble, Dytec, Effy/The Guardian Angels, Rcc+Ans/Spirit.
J)
Okay, thanks for your time and I hope you enjoy the magazine, any last words to leave a final impression on the audience?
A)
Keep the C64 spirit alive and keep on producing. Meet me on #c-64 and do not forget to visit the PADUA homepage at: http://www.padua.org
Yours
Anonym/Padua
Hopefully STARBURST by PADUA is already out by the release of this magazine. If you wish to be interviewed leave feedback to the Domination editorial.
Best Regards;
Jazzcat/Onslaught.