Episode 4!  We are nearing the end (and my favorite episodes which are 5&6, hehe) but this is a big turning point in the series because the traditional “Dragon Age” party has now been formed!  Four characters:  Mage, Rogue, Tank and DPS Warrior.  Well balanced, right?  (Except Josmael is a level 1 mage, erg).

I love the introduction of Nyree, Marcia Battiste is an AMAZING actress, she was absolutely who I pictured in this role when I wrote it.  I actually combed through hundreds of submissions and her headshot caught my eye outside the list that was actually scheduled.  I’m so INCREDIBLY meticulous about casting, i really feel like it’s never an actor who is bad in a piece, most of it is the casting.  Our casting director Helen Geier (from The Guild too) has a wonderful eye and is able to cull from HUNDREDS of submissions great choices to see for each role.  As a writer/producer, you can hear a dozen actors read the same script, and some will make you want to retire from embarrassment, and some will make you want to accept your award during your audition because you feel like you’re so brilliant, haha.  Same lines out of different actors’ mouth can mean night and day.

Some people have mentioned the accents of the characters a few times, especially Dragon Age fans. To me it was UBER important for the human characters to have British accents like in the game.  The Qunari in the game have always had neutral American-ish accents, and as far as I knew (before DAII was actually released) the Dalish had American accents too, from Origins.  They changed that after we knew better to Welsh, but finding Welsh actors would have been impossible anyway in LA so it worked out fine. 🙂

The cave scene is darker on YouTube than we actually have on the master files, we’re looking into why those scenes got darkened so much, it might be because of the YouTube upload.  So that’s just a technical thing we’re looking into just FYI.  The acting however, with me getting Nyree into the group, I just loved that twist.  I love how Saarebas screwed her over, and then the gold I stole from the Dalish in ep2 gets her on board.  It really pleases me, that story thread.

The inn is MY FAVORITE set in the whole piece.  OMG when @gregaronowitz showed me the designs (which you can see step by step on his blog now!) I was so geeked out.  Seriously, acting in a RPG inn in REAL LIFE has to be one of my top 10 dreams come true.  And having Tallis’ big backstory monologue was something I almost cut out, but it actually ties in REALLY nicely to the DLC piece of content you can play with my character.  In this and the DLC you really get the full flavor of Tallis (and for DA fans the easter egg that Nyree worked with Cassandra!  #highfive).

I can’t wait for you guys to see the beginning of next episode, you’re gonna flip!