Flint Dille

Flint Dille (born November 3, 1955) is a screenwriter, game designer, and novelist. He is best known for his animated work on Transformers, G.I. Joe, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, and his game-writing, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, and Dead to Rights, as well as his non-fiction book written with John Zuur Platten.

Personal background

Dille was born in Chicago, Illinois. His parents were Robert Crabtree and Virginia Nichols Dille. He attended Glenbrook South High School. In 1977, he graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a Bachelors degree in Ancient History and Classical Rhetoric. He received a Master of Fine Arts in Professional Writing (Cinema) from the University of Southern California. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

Professional background

After grad school, Dille worked as a freelance script reader, production assistant, and assistant art director before getting his first writing job from Joe Ruby at Ruby/Spears as a Saturday Morning Development writer. This led to writing scripts for Mr. T., The Puppy, and RoboForce. Later, Dille went to work for Sunbow Productions and served in various capacities as Writer, Story Editor, Associate Producer, Co-Producer on several shows, including Transformers (Generation 1), G.I. Joe, [[1]] and [[2]]. After that, Dille worked briefly at CBS on the in-house production of [Pail Kids], before working with Amblin' on several projects, including Feivel Goes West, Tiny Toons (as a movie), We're Back and various other projects.

TSR and Dungeons & Dragons

At the same time as his animation career was beginning, Dille met Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, and they began collaborating on a number of projects, including The Sceptre of Seven Souls and the Sagard book series. For the rest of the 1980s, Dille focused on animation writing and game writing and design. At TSR Dille also worked on the Buck Rogers Board and Role-Playing Games, the Gulf War I simulation 'Line In the Sand' and Dragonstrike where he wrote and Directed the Video which was an early example of a 'hybrid' film, containing blue screen and digital backgrounds and animation. Dille also directed several audio Interactive discs, including First Quest, Karameikos, Red Steel and Planescape. The TSR Audio Disc: Terror T.R.A.X: Track of the Vampyre, was later re-done as a CD-ROM by Groliers, directed by Flint Dille and programmed by Peter Marx and Evolutionary Publishing.

Interactive Games Dille's career shifted to interactive games in the late 80's when he worked on several projects for the Sega CD platform, including Double Switch, Maximum Surge and Corpse Killer. At that point, Dille then worked on Soviet Strike and Nuclear Strike for Electronic Arts, writing the videos and completed a transition from paper games and products to video games.

Dille's sister, Lorraine Williams, was once manager of the game publisher TSR, Inc. Dille introduced her to Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax at Gygax's request. He co-authored a script with Gygax for a Dungeons & Dragons film; however, the film was never made. Dille, with co-author John Zuur Platten, formed the Bureau of Film and Games.

Video games

• Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu
• Agent 13: The Midnight Avenger series with David Marconi
• Sagard the Barbarian Interactive Gamebook series with E. Gary Gygax
• Dead to Rights

Screenwriting

• An American Tail: Fievel Goes West
• The Transformers: The Movie (1986)
• Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light (several episodes)

Published works

• Dille, Flint; Platten, John (2008). The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design. Los Angeles, CA: Lone Eagle. ISBN 158065066X. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |middle2= ignored (help)

External links

• Flint Dille at IMDb
• G.I. Joe Interview - Flint Dille