Last year, Mark Long and Chris McQuarrie released their graphic novel “Rubicon” which is a retelling of “The Seven Samurai” in Afghanistan. The story has five Navy Seals defending a remote farm village in Afghanistan from marauding Taliban. If you haven’t read this awesome book you can snag it HERE, but you should definitely check out the live action pilot for the prequel “Rubicon: The Beginning”, which just launched on Machinima. We aren’t going to make you click any links of course folks we have the video right below! Mr. Long, who is a New York Times best-selling graphic novel author, game designer/producer and screenwriter, was kind enough to sit down with us and discuss the film and his creative process, and you can snag that interview just after the video! Check it out!
INTERVIEW: Mark Long
BSR! : This is shot as a prequel to a graphic novel that released last year, I haven’t read the graphic novel yet, but I would love to know what the inspiration for this piece is, and where you want the series to go?
Mark: Well, it’s great that you haven’t read it, we’ll have to fix that! When you have you’ll see the connection between the two, since the character that actually dies within the first few pages is there. And you’ll understand why his death insights the incidents in the story. As far as where we want to take it, we want to see the pilot find an audience and go to series.
BSR!: So you plan on releasing this as a web series through Machinima?
Mark: Oh yeah, we definitely plan on doing the web series if it is successful.
BSR!: The graphic novel was a retelling of “The Seven Samurai”, aside from it being iconic, do you have a special connection to that story?
Mark: Well, it starts at the origin of the project. Chris McQuarrie was interested in telling the stories of Seals in Afghanistan. And uh, we suggested that he might do something like the movie that Michael Kane classic I really loved. You know this outpost against 2000 and I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. I called him two weeks later and said, you know what would be better? The Seven Samurai because you have warriors protecting the innocent, Chris sparked at that immediately and said yeah we have a real problem of the Taliban returning like the Bandits returning in Seven Samurai. It is a story that very deftly expresses complex subjects like, loyalty, honor, brotherhood, sacrifice. That are difficult to usually do, and it does it better than any war film. Chris agreed and we asked to borrow his idea and we went from there.
BSR!: Talk about the main hero, he is really a badass with a heart of gold, where did you find him?
Mark: You can find Matt on IMDB, but he did a great job of channeling his character, he was just exceptional. I also loved agent Olivera, who wasn’t originally envisioned as a female character but that actress brought such a super great intensity and plays off the male C.O. bravado so well. She’s instantly dismissive of them in a way which makes their conflict so interesting.
BSR!: A lot of your experience has been in the gaming industry, how has creating something like this been different?
Mark: This is my 3rd graphic novel, and really this is a hobby or passion of mine. I really love the graphic novel and prose or writing for a visual media. It can be consumed in the same amount of time as a movie can but can have the same amount of emotion that a movie can. And characters are free to explore nuanced ideas, especially in short form with web series.
BSR!: Do you have any other projects in the works?
Mark: Well certainly we’d love to see Rubicon go to series, and of course Chris would love to write and direct his version. Not the graphic novel or web series but a separate story.
BSR!: Is there a character that you connect to in the story?
Mark: My favorite is Hector, who you haven’t seen yet with the pilot. Hector is kind of the heartbeat of the entire story and he stands in for Dan my creative person. If you see the graphic novel you’ll see that Hector even resembles Dan. He’s named after Hector from The Illead, Achilles foe and the son of the King of Troy and I think Illead is probably my favorite work, I even have the first line tattood on my in Greek on my arm because it’s so important to me. But Hector is so important to me, and even has pieces in combat you know The Rage of Achilles, and if you do some research you’d find so much, that is absolutely fascinating.
BSR!: Some of the cinematography had some really distinct shots. For example when Matt was “saving Haskins” from the warehouse he took a shot and you saw the camera pan down the barrel before the shot went off, where did you get these ideas?
Mark: That is all our director Christian Johnson. He did a lot with our small budget, we had crane shots, aerial shots, helicopters. He really did a lot with such a great creative mind.
BSR!: In the opening scene we see the main character get out of a truck with a headset in and start this relaxed discussion with the men selling him weapons. It seemed so casual, was it scripted or did they improvise that?
Mark: I wish you could see the behind the scenes for that entire part of the shoot. We did it outside of Vegas and Dan trained Matt for a full day outside of production with you know, language and attitude. And then we shot the entire next day for the perfect take and the two of them are responsible for how authentic and surprisingly violent that scene felt.
BSR!: That was definitely a great part that set the tone for the whole pilot.
Mark (Interjects): Oh yeah, and without giving too much away and ruining the pilot we just presented the problem. “You’re meeting people in the desert for a drop location and have no weapons, what do you do?” And Dan thought for about 30 seconds and came up with the whole scene!
BSR!: Any final thoughts you have for us Mark?
Mark: I hope everyone enjoys this, and if all goes well we’d love to take it to series. If you see this and enjoy it go read the graphic novel.
BSR!: Thanks sir!
Mark: Thank you