Tales from the Borderlands, after Walking Dead 400 Days, is my favorite project I worked on at Telltale. I was the Director of Cinematics at the time and very busy, but kept trying to find excuses to work on it, and I got to do a lot of really fun work that ranks with my favorite from my time with the studio. Lots of hours spent in conference rooms laughing as ideas were kicked around, and also very some late nights trying to get the humor and action just right.
Episode 1: Zer0 Sum
“Arena Sequence”
My main contribution to the climatic battle was writing the first draft and doing a large portion of the design work, stubbing out each beat individually after many whiteboard runthroughs with Steve McManus. The team executed on it brilliantly and it’s one of my favorite sequences.
Fun fact: “Feel my daggerbones” is an in-joke between my wife and I.
Episode 3: Catch A Ride
“Vallory Intro”
I was fortunate enough to do some writing and design on this episode (particularly the opening sequence). I also worked on the climactic battle sequence in the design stage. The clip attached was a last-minute reshoot as we couldn’t get the scene working so I spent a few days on it.
Episode 4: Escape Plan Bravo
Credit Sequence - “To the Top”
Tales from the Borderlands (and Borderlands in general) is known for it’s exciting, set-to-music credit sequences, and I was lucky enough to work on one. I shot most of this sequence with help from Nick Herman, one the project directors. It was a lot of late nights to get right but in the end was worth it, it’s one my my favorite things I’ve ever done.