The Fenix on Cable
One of the brighter moments during an otherwise grim period in Fenix history was when the group was approached by Warner Cable to assist with a production of a viewer-interactive fantasy role playing game called “Demonbinder”. The producer/director of Demonbinder was on a tight budget and had heard the SCA might be a cheap source of costumes, props, and maybe, talent. He did not count on the Fenix virtually taking over his production.
The group approached the project with enthusiasm. The Fenix wound up being almost the entire cast (except for the narrator—- one of the studio managers), placed a few people in the production crew, and even wrote part of the scripts. The director appeared overwhelmed at times but he could not refuse the quality help and acknowledged that the suggested changes—even the ones to the basic story line—were improvements over what he had gotten from his professional staff.
Just about everyone in the march had a role and if you had a suit of armor, two or more. Even Lord Gordon and Lady Mellyrn’s children got into the act, playing mischievous street urchins in the bazaar scene. Baron Dur was delightfully hammy as the disreputable merchant, playing well of off Lord Richard Ironforger’s natural dignity as the honest armorer. Lord Ulrich outdid himself, making elaborate mock-ups of temple doors to complete his “costume” of a brass gargoyle door knocker that came to life to taunt the hero.
Much of the production was done live in the studio. Even for the Fenixers used to being in local theater productions, it was quite a challenge. Each actor had to learn multiple scripts because the story would change depending on the viewer’s electronically voted choices at each major decision point. The cast would look for signals from the director as to which script to follow as he watched his monitor for the tallies from the control room.
The filming on location was done at the Loveland castle, site of numerous Fenix demos and mini-events. An unexpected bit of realism came when the Seneschal Lord James accidentally set Lord Avatar’s cloak on fire in a scene where the hero fights off two torch wielding ruffians. The director kept the camera rolling, not wanting to waste the impromptu special effect. Avatar, cheerfully oblivious to the fact that he was on fire, kept fanning the flames in the mock fight until the cut was called and the crew put him out.
The final product went off without a hitch, but was not the ratings success the studio had hoped. Even though the series was not renewed, the Fenix took the moral victory when the show won the prestigious ACE Award for Most Original Production.
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