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.[1]
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.
Flint Dille is the grandson of John F. Dille,[2] publisher of the original Buck Rogers comic strip, and is part of the Dille Family Trust, which owns the rights to the character.[3]
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, Inhumanoids and Visionaries. After that, Dille worked briefly at CBS on the in-house production of Garbage 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.
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.[4][5] He co-authored a script with Gygax for a Dungeons & Dragons film; however, the film was never made.[5] Dille, with co-author John Zuur Platten, formed the Bureau of Film and Games.[6]
- 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 won "Story of the Year" for his work on The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and on Dead to Rights.[7] Dille was the writer for other video games, including Fantastic Four 2, Teen Titans, Superman Returns, James Bond: Tomorrow Never Dies, Soviet Strike, and Nuclear Strike.[7]
- Frank Miller
Dille is a close friend of comics creator Frank Miller; "Frank and I met during what I call our 'professional adolescence' when he was doing the Dark Knight and I was doing the Transformers cartoon series," says Dille, "and we've been great friends ever since."[7] Dille was selected to spearhead the design, scriptwriting, story generation, and overall production of a video game adaptation of Miller's Sin City for Red Mile Entertainment.[7][8] Miller planned to direct a Buck Rogers film, with Dille as producer,[9] but this project was scrapped in 2009.[10]
- Other projects
Dille co-created and co-executive produced Dimension's 2005 horror film, Venom.[7]
Dille also taught an Alternate Reality Game Design class at UCLA film school, Winter Semester 2011. http://www.slideshare.net/dorianrichard/asek-core-arg
Dille co-wrote the Agent 13: The Midnight Avenger series of graphic novels with David Marconi, and also the Buck Rogers XXVC comic modules Rude Awakening.[11]
- Video games
- Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu[12]
- Sagard the Barbarian Interactive Gamebook series with E. Gary Gygax[4][13]
- Dead to Rights[14]
- Wheelman[15]
- Screenwriting
- An American Tail: Fievel Goes West[16]
- The Transformers: The Movie (1986)[17]
- Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light (several episodes)
Critical reception
Regarding Dille's script for Fievel Goes West, critic Cliff Terry wrote, "Screenwriter Flint Dille has provided a story that is frenetic and fast-paced—in the end, too hyper, too cluttered—with some decidedly dark touches that, conceivably, could have undertones of the Holocaust. To lighten things up, Dille periodically tosses in bits of relatively sophisticated humor. At one point, the desert is described as 'a million-acre catbox,' there are references to espresso and endive, and when Miss Kitty cuts out on Tiger, she purrs—Casablanca-like: 'We'll always have the Bronx.'"[18]
Published works
- Dille, Flint; Platten, John (2008). The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design. Los Angeles, CA: Lone Eagle. ISBN 158065066X.
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References
- ^ "The Ultimate Guide to Video Game Writing and Design (9781580650663): Flint Dille, John Zuur Platten: Books". Amazon.com. Retrieved 2011-02-12.
- ^ "Skywalkers would have pleased Buck's creator". Philadelphia Daily News. February 8, 1984. p. 8.
- ^ The Hollywood Reporter (December 20, 2008). "Sin City creator eyes big-screen Buck Rogers". The StarPhoenix. p. E10.
- ^ a b La Farge, Paul (2006). "Destroy All Monsters". The Believer Magazine. Archived from the original on 2008-10-04.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ a b Sacco, Ciro Alessandro. "The Ultimate Interview with Gary Gygax". thekyngdoms.com. Retrieved 2008-10-24.
- ^ "The Bureau of Film and Games". Retrieved 2009-11-19.
- ^ a b c d e Red Mile Secures Key Talent for Sin City Game
- ^ Sin City: The Game - It?s Going to Be Unreal at FEARnet]
- ^ "The Return of Buck Rogers". IGN.
- ^ Vejvoda, Jim. "Did The Spirit Kill Buck Rogers?". IGN.
- ^ The Comic Book Database: Flint Dille
- ^ Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu (2003) at IMDb
- ^ Sullivan, Patricia (March 5, 2008). "E. Gary Gygax; Co-Creator Of Dungeons & Dragons". Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-10-17.
- ^ Dead to Rights at IMDb
- ^ Wheelman at IMDb
- ^ An American Tail: Fievel Goes West at IMDb
- ^ http://www.transformersthemoviedvd.com/
- ^ Terry, Clifford (November 22, 1991). "Spielberg rolls out small guns in 'Fievel'". Chicago Tribune. p. F.