November 8, 2022
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Washington Post: Graham Reznick on interactive Horror, Supermassive and “King’s Quest”

Reznick gets his due in extensive conversation about Until Dawn,
The Quarry and Supermassive’s The Dark Pictures.

Is the interactive horror movie making its long-overdue comeback?

By Alexander Chatziioannou

“I think the entertainment industry has a tendency to shoot itself in the foot and get too excited about emerging technologies,” said Graham Reznick, lead writer on both “Until Dawn” (alongside indie-horror legend Larry Fessenden) and “The Quarry.” “We’ve seen it over and over again with 3D and VR. These are viable artistic mediums that need to be explored organically. But when you get a lot of money and expectations put into them, they can easily topple before they’ve had a chance to mature. That’s probably what happened in the ‘90s with FMVs.”

Reznick even includes traditional adventure games in the interactive movie’s long lineage of partial successes and outright failures. Growing up without a dedicated console, he would use his father’s work PC to immerse himself in games like “King’s Quest,” which he considers “essentially, weirdly templates for what Supermassive ends up doing.”

“[It] seems counterintuitive because the latter [of Supermassive’s Games] are primarily narrative-driven,” he told The Washington Post, “but they do share more with Sierra adventures than people tend to realize.”

While citing point ‘n clicks as a precursor to the modern interactive movie may raise some eyebrows, at the same time it highlights how a fresh perspective on the genre — one focused on storytelling rather than the technological spectacle and star-studded casts of the FMV era — proved vital for Supermassive’s success with the genre.

Byles, who joined the Guildford-based studio in 2010, is slightly older and, having followed the medium’s cinematic ambitions from the start, somewhat less controversial with his historical references.

“I loved ‘Dragon’s Lair’ — I spent a bloody fortune on it!” he said, referring to the most celebrated product of the Laserdisc era, a gorgeously animated fantasy arcade game helmed by occasional Spielberg collaborator Don Bluth that was visually indistinguishable from his award-winning animated films.

Despite approaching the interactive movie’s winding genealogy from different entry points, both contributors were aware of the pitfalls involved in Supermassive’s undertaking. If overinvestment doomed the medium’s most orchestrated pursuit of the interactive-movie ideal, it could be argued that Supermassive’s creative triumph was, at least partly, due to the freedom of operating outside the zeitgeist.

Read in-depth article at The Washington Post

November 6, 2020
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GEP Alumns on Bandcamp Friday

From the psychedelic rock’n’roll musical sequence in Graham Reznick’s I CAN SEE YOU.
Three versions of “Spray it On” from three different phases of the writing and recording process.
All from early/mid 2006. Plus, a bonus Clara Clean jingle!

Glenn McQuaid resurrects LUNATIC ASYLUM with the brand new
SYNTAX ERROR IN THE HUMANS EP. Inspired, amongst other things,
loading computer games from cassettes at top volume.

October 8, 2020
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Reznick on the Mind: PT2


Longtime GEP pal Graham Reznick discusses his first encounter with Glass Eye Pix

and the many projects he has collaborated on, from Ti West’s THE ROOST,
to Larry Fessenden’s THE LAST WINTER, to his own films I CAN SEE YOU,
THE VIEWER and THE CAREGIVER. He speaks about independent film
and the extended Glass Eye family.
Check out Reznick’s discography on Bandcamp
October 8, 2020
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Graham Reznick discography on Bandcamp!

The newest digital album from GEP pal Graham Reznick titled “UNSUMMONED” is now available on Bandcamp. Three ambient soundscape/drone tracks used in THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL and elsewhere.

Take a listen to Reznick’s discography on his Bandcamp page. Featuring unreleased rarities from TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE, CREEPY CHRISTMAS, DEADWAX, Reznick’s Glass Eye classic I CAN SEE YOU and more.

Graham Reznick on BANDCAMP

August 7, 2020
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Graham Reznick drops new track from I CAN SEE YOU

“The Sun Walk” – an unearthed, never released track from
GEP pal Graham Reznick’s 2009 film I CAN SEE YOU.

Take a listen on Bandcamp

June 19, 2020
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GEP Pal Graham Reznick drops “Melllon Balller” on Bandcamp

Glass Eye pal Graham Reznick (I CAN SEE YOU, UNTIL DAWN) releases a psychedelic minimal house track titled ‘Melllon Balller.’ Performed as bed music during Fessenden’s live Tales From Beyond The Pale episode “The Vampire Party.

For Juneteenth, 100% of Reznick’s Bandcamp sales today will be donated to BLM and Campaign Zero. In addition, Bandcamp is donating their revenue share today (and all Juneteenth’s going forward) to NAACP.

Listen HERE

December 12, 2019
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Graham Reznick’s SOUNDS OF THE AVIARY now available!

“SOUNDS OF THE AVIARY,” a collection of the time-warped, oscillator-detuned,
cassette-damaged synth music from #TheChambersTape,
is finally available! Includes the 35 min ambient odyssey SIDE B,
previously unheard in any digital form.

From Complex Distractions: “Where am I going with this? Well I’m leading you to something called The Chambers Tape, folks. What is The Chambers Tape? It’s a complete and absolute mindf**k of an episode of the podcast Tales From Beyond The Pale, which was written and directed by Graham Reznick. Reznick spins a story of a mysterious tape titled The Aviary which appeared in just a couple random cities back in 1974. It’s a self-help tape fashioned to lull the listener into becoming one with themselves and the world around them. The voice on this tape is Dr. William Chambers. Of course, nothing you are hearing is what it appears to be. Reznick works the episode as if we’re listening to the tape and taking instruction from Chambers, as new age-y synths come in and out of the mix. Think of the old tapes of The Dharma Initiative on Lost, or Mercurio Arboria’s Arboria Institute in Beyond The Black Rainbow. A mixture of new age psychology, psychedelics, and something sinister just below the surface.”

See Full Review HERE

Take a listen to THE CHAMBERS TAPE, now available on the
TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE PODCAST

April 17, 2018
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GEP pal Graham Reznick talks “A Quiet Place” with Hollywood Reporter!

From Simon Abrams: I’m pretty thrilled that we’re having this conversation, Graham, mostly because I’ve been a big fan of your work as a sound designer on indie horror films like Automatons and The Roost, two Glass Eye Pix-produced movies that both gave me one of my favorite post-film reactions: Who’s responsible for ____? I have to know more! Even more thrilling: I wanted to know more about sound design, a field of work that I knew — and probably still know — next to nothing about. Your work made me pay closer attention to what both of those films were doing on a completely different level than what I was used to. I started thinking about horror movies in terms of sound and how their sense of atmosphere was developed through the layering of noises on a soundtrack. Basic stuff for you, but something that I know I — and probably some of our readers — often take for granted since we often think of movies as a primarily visual medium.

Read Full Interview HERE

March 10, 2017
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Fessenden and Reznick in the Guinness Book of World Records!

From the world of alternative facts comes this official stat from The Guinness Book of World Records: “Longest script for a graphic adventure game: Screenwriters Graham Reznick and Larry Fessenden (both USA) wrote 1000 pages of dialogue for Until Dawn (2015), reduced from an initial 10,000-page outline. The script’s epic length was in part owing to the game’s extended development period. It was originally announced as an action title back in 2012.”

Well, sort of true… anyway, was a lot of work, was a fantastic experience and we are honored to be sited!

November 22, 2016
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Twitter Q&A with Graham Reznick

We sat down (on Twitter!) with Graham Reznick, a multi-talented sound designer, mixer, film writer + director who has been using Waves plugins for in films like In a Valley of Violence and Gone: VR 360! Find out how he mixes audio for film.
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