Sam Lake
Sam Lake, born Sami Järvi, is a Finnish writer who is mostly known for his work on the popular Max Payne video game series. Lake is good friends with Petri Järvilehto, a founding member of Remedy Entertainment, the company behind Max Payne. Järvilehto needed help with script writing in one of Remedy's early games called Death Rally, and invited Lake to write. Since then, Lake has helped write and design Remedy's most successful game: Max Payne.
He attended the University of Helsinki, where he studied the English language and literature.
Max Payne
Lake played several roles in the development of Max Payne. He not only wrote the game's story and script, but also helped design levels, and was the face model for the character of Max Payne, which many players joke had a "constipated" look. He posed as Max Payne in the game's graphic novels as well. Because of the game's budget, Remedy could not hire actors. As a result, Lake, along with other Remedy programmers played the roles.
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne
In this sequel, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, Lake stuck to writing. The game's script ended up being about four times as long as some movie scripts. For the sequel, Remedy's budget was increased, allowing the ability to hire professional actors to model for the graphic novel cutscenes, Lake was replaced by actor Timothy Gibbs. However, if the player should watch any of the TV set shows during the game, they will see that Sam models for "John Mirra" in the fake television show Address Unknown. There is also an unofficial mod to give the character his old face back.[1]
The ending theme song, "Late Goodbye" is based on a poem by Lake. The song was adapted by the Finnish group Poets of the Fall.
Mob boss Vinnie Gognitti remarks that the creator of Max Payne's in-game cartoon series, Captain Baseball Bat Boy, is a man named Sammy Waters, which is a play on Lake's own name.
Max Payne: Payne & Redemption
Whilst Sam Lake isn't directly connected to this film, he does strongly support and condone the project, and has been quoted on the official website saying "Payne & Redemption seems very ambitious and impressive. Good luck with your project! Looking forward to seeing it." and more recently "It's wonderful that you are working on this. I'm looking forward to seeing the whole movie!".
Future projects
Lake is currently involved with writing Remedy's next game Alan Wake, a "psychological action thriller" slated for release in 2008. An upcoming Max Payne film was also slated for release in 2007, though it is unknown to what capacity Lake will be involved with the project or if the project is still live.
External links
- Internet Movie Database page
- JIVE Magazine Interview Feature: Sam Lake: On Video-Game Storytelling
- Official Website of Max Payne: Payne & Redemption - The Independent Film