Faith Johnson quizzes David L Craddock about his new FPS documentary
David L Craddock is the co-director and co-writer of FPS: First-Person Shooter, an ambitious four-and-a-halfhour documentary about the history of the popular genre from CREATORVC. All the biggest names from the genre are interviewed including legends such as John Romero, John Carmack, Becky Heinemann and many more. Retro Gamer spoke with David about his experience making the acclaimed documentary.
How did the idea to produce FPS: First-Person Shooter come about?
The idea started with Robin Block, the founder of CREATORVC. Growing up, Robin’s favourite first-person shooter was Halo 2. Robin had read an article on the history of the FPS written by Richard Moss and asked him to write a synopsis detailing a narrative throughline for firstperson shooters and what games to cover. Richard recommended contacting me based on Rocket Jump: Quake And The Golden Age Of First-Person Shooters, a book I wrote about the making of id’s Quake trilogy. I started as an advisor, then became a producer because I’d spoken to the who’swho in FPS games. When our Kickstarter launched, Robin asked if I’d consider directing the movie alongside Christopher Stratton. Richard wrote the scripts for each segment, and I wrote the rest. We edited each other’s scripts, then worked with Chris to add gameplay footage, box art, commercials, etc to transform it into an audio-visual treat.
Why is the history of FPS games important to document in a feature film?
The first-person shooter has been one of the industry’s most influential genres. In FPS, we strived to chronicle the making of as many influential shooters as possible. On the surface, it’s a story about how a genre started and evolved. Look deeper, and it’s a story of creative people chasing their dreams and building experiences that have touched millions of lives.
How do you approach putting all the information together you need for such a sprawling genre of gaming?
Richard’s synopsis was our starting point. It listed dozens of FPS games, so we contacted developers who had worked on them. The developers who agreed to interviews formed the foundation for the games we would cover. I worked with Richard to formulate questions which ran between ninety minutes and three hours.
From there, Richard and I wrote scripts based on transcripts of the interviews. We revised these scripts until we were happy with them, then gave them to our editor Chris. He turned out what we called a narrative cut,
