HARMONY GOLD INTERVIEW Typed by Tom Mitchell Downloaded by Sunny Hirai Reformatted by William Chow THE FOLLOWING INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD FIRTH, HARMONY GOLD'S DIRECTOR OF CREATIVE SERVICES, APPEARED IN THE VOLUME 2, NUMBER 3 MAY 1986 ISSUE OF MACROSS LIFE (THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF THE MACROSS FAN CLUB). FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE MACROSS FAN CLUB, WRITE: THE MACROSS FAN CLUB P.O. BOX 2566 COSTA MESA, CA 92628-2566 JUST JOINED THIS EXELENT CLUB, AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT. THE NEWSLETTER, MACROSS LIFE, IS GREAT - TOM MITCHELL FEATURE INTERVIEW: RICHARD FIRTH...HARMONY GOLD'S MAN OF PUBLICITY Ko the Creation Con on the weekend of March 22, 23 at the Disneyland Hotel, your club director, Yvette Nunn, had the pleasure of interviewing Richard Firth of Harmony Gold. He was present for the ROBOTECH SALUTE, which kept him quite busy. Luckily, Yvette was able to get him at a free moment on the second, less busy day of the con. Without further Introduction... MACROSS LIFE: Before we get started, I'd like to thank you for being able to give us this interview. Now, please tell us just what your job at Harmony Gold is. RICHARD FIRTH: I am the Director of Creative Services which involves publicity, promotional work, and advertising for the company, particularly for ROBOTECH and HARLOCK, etc. ML: How did you get into this job? RF: Well, I had worked with other TV companies. With Group W, I worked on HOUR MAGAZINE then HE-MAN. From there I went into celebrity publicity for people like Lisa Welchel, and Michael J. Fox when they were not quite as known. Then I went over to Telepictures where I worked on THE LOVE CONNECTION and their soap opera, RITUALS. I also did work on the launch of THUNDERCATS. I then heard the HARMONY GOLD was in need of a director of Creative Services, which was one notch above my previous jobs. I was ready, there was really no way I could further progress at Telepictures, so I took it. I received a "Robo-education" in three days flat. Immediately after that, I was at San Diago Comic Con doing the very best I could. People were asking me things like, "What's protoculture," and I had to look up what I did not know in a ROBOTECH bible. It was a battle by emersion, actually! ML: Is the success of the series a surprise? RF: No, oh no. It has always been my theory that if you treat audiences intelligently they will stick with you and that's what has happened. The people are looking at it and saying, "This is more than just an animated series." It is more reality based. ML: Let's talk about the characterization. It's deeper thanjust about all of the American animated series. When you sawthese qualities of deep characterization, what was your reaction? RF: Well, you have to understand that I had just come off working on a soap opera for an entire year! ML: So you were just jumping from one right to another... RF: Exactly! There's the complex relationships between the characters, the treatment of controversial themes: I mean what other animated strip has the consumption of alcohol. Obviously, you have a love triangle, you have a cross dressing character, and inter-racial romance for Roy and Claudia, so it was very much the same. Here were all the same character and situation of RITUALS...That's the way we've been handling it. We've been treating it, the story line, like the complex relationships you have in a soap opera. ML: I really think that Robotech is a transition point for "American" animated shows now... RF: Exactly. And then You've got the Sentinals for next year. You'll see the children growing up: you'll see Dana Sterling and Bowie Grant as kids. And later in the series, Scott Bernard as a child. So you'll geta feel, I mean it's obviously compressed from a soap opera genre, but you get to see what makes these characters the way they are. It would finally make some sense why Dana Sterling would risk her entire group to go back and save Bowie Grant because it's more than just being a leader, commander, it's a long relationship like in the terms of being brother and sister. So it will make more sense. ML: Can you tell me more about the UNTOLD STORY, like who's doing Eve's voice? RF: Well, we want to get away from that title. It's actuallynow known as ROBOTECH: THE MOVIE. And as for whom is doing Eve's voice, you'll have to ask Carl about that. It's his job, not mine, but I can tell you what it's about... ML: Great! RF: OK, It's takes place during the time period where the SDF-1 is making it's ways back from the edge of our solar system from having been folded there by Admiral Gloval. We cut back and forth from what's happening on Earth. basically, is thatthe secrets of Robotechnology, the very existence of Robotechnology, are being held from the public. They (thegovernment) don't want the public to know about it. You see, they would have to admit that all this did not come from Earth but someplace else, and they don't want to do that because it would terrify the population. On the other hand, the "true believers," as they are called, peoplewho think that they know how everybody else should be, B.D. Edwards and his crew, feel that they should be in control of this and that it's the best interest to save the Earth. But unfortunately, the folks, the Earthlings, the three girls and guy, as it were, are interested in bringing notice: they have the bike that they have gotten, as it were. The male character's friend has been killed for showing him the bike. He now has it, and he must find a way of making everybody know it exists. ML: Eve - is she still a computer generated person like in MEGAZONE 23. RF: We are trying not to make a big deal out of it. We are trying to let the surprise work. I mean the people that already know from MZ23, that's fine, but for those seeing it for the first time, well...As well, there will be new music and it is due out this summer. ML: What are your personal expectations, Richard? RF: Well, I'd like to keep working for a few years! The Expectations are that we'll do the SENTINALS, and then we are hopeful for another 65 for ROBOTECH 3. Carl's got plans through ROBOTECH 5 which would give us an episode for each day of the year for a year and a half. He would like to makeit circular so that the last episodes we'll say, "Episodes 285." They'd lead back into the first ever episode. It wouldmake sense. The retired Commodore Hunter, whom ever that maybe, could very well be speaking at the graduation of the later day cadets or whatever, and they ask him to tell them the story all over again: it comes back. ML: So what led Carl Macek to choose Macross over the multitude of others (aside from Southern Cross and Mospeada)? RF: Well, it had to do with what Harmony Gold owned. Carl is fond of telling people that we at HG went to his store and bought some animation cells from some other productions we do...they asked him if he thought this would work, because they saw all the Japanese publications and things and he made some phone calls and sold the comic rights and everything that afternoon. They brought him in, he looked at their library of tapes andsaw Macross which he was already aware of, along with Southern Cross and Mospeada. So he was able to put the series together. ML: I understand that the price tag for the MACROSS MOVIE:DO YOU STILL REMEMBER LOVE was too high and that the movie itself would not fit into the length of what you wanted to do. RF: It also did not have much to do with what we were doing anymore. They [Tatsunoko] had changed it appreciably like the second MZ23 movie. Also, since the price tags are so high in Japan, it's easier if it costs the same amount to animate it the way we want it. Why spend all that money on something that would cost even more to fix? ML: Do you have any personal favorites from Japan's series/shows? RF: Yes. I have, though I don't understand because of the language, enjoyed CRUSHER JOE and the spoof with the two girls, THE DIRTY PAIR. But unfortunately, we don't own them. The DUNBINE episodes are beautiful. The thing is, we need 65 episodes to syndicate a series. The MACROSS MOVIE, for that reason, was not one of our choices. It just did not suit our purpose. And using shows that look really different are hard to fit in. Of course, there's always the chance to do the "the best of Japanese Animation," put together 5 or 10 episodes of each one so that people can enjoy it. But that is in the future. ML: How is the success of the Robotech Fan Club, the "RDF" (ROBOTECH DEFENCE FORCE)? RF: It's doing well. Now that we've gotten the elements out, the membership kits, it's starting to pick up. We have a quarterly newsletter, graphics, items available, things like that. ML: What would you like to say to our members? RF: Just that I thank them very much for showing so much interest in something in the fantasy created through Macross. It's important to us that we are able to stimulate people's imagination. ...this is what we enjoy. It's a thoughtful pensive strip as opposed to something that sort of ends each day. It's very important to us that they are so interested in what we are doing and we thank them very much. END