That line is from the wonderful world of She-Ra, Princess of Power:
I never cared much for this show, but the title opener is pretty fabulous. She-Ra of course is the sister of He-Man, another Lou Scheimer production. Mr. Scheimer was not only the executive producer of the show, but he was the voices of many of its characters. Oh, and he was also the executive producer for Fat Albert (I’m pretty sure he didn’t do the voice overs for that show).
What I love most about this opener is She-Ra’s voice: she sounds like a 49-year old drama teacher. At first, this is puzzling ad weird. But watching it over and over, I can’t think of anyone better to project a Princess of Power. In contrast, let’s listen to what the foreign exports sound like: Spanish: young and girlish. French: 60’s vamping. Italian: serious business. Russian: kick your ass bitch. German: zuper zexy! Mandarin: Kung-fu goddess war cry.
Meanwhile, I can’t get enough of this:
And, how unfair is it that Raz looks like a lady hobo? Shouldn’t she be modeled after generations of beautiful Fairy Godmothers?
Totally not fair. Uh-oh, who’s this guy?
Lastly, if you remove the 70s trumpets from the theme song, you can totally hear the freestyle beats coming through. Can you feel that beat in my heart?
This group of guys aren’t just a bunch of developers huddled in a dark room, (although looking back on it, you could practically print some 8×12’s in the joint – more to do with Dutch weather than a love to bathe in monitor glow I think). Over in Utrecht, I met up with two of the co-founders of Ronimo Games, Jasper Koning and Fabian Akker who sat down and had a chat about their new Nintendo WiiWare game, Swords and Soldiers. Inspired by the ending to Super Moine and the Flash game, Age of War, Swords and Soldiers is kind of like a mutant cross breed between Worms and Civilization. It takes flat style illustration and couples it with strategy as well as the love for senseless, repetitive violence. You make them better. Faster. Stronger.
Not only is this game coming while the company is practically still in diapers (they just graduated last year from HKU), but they’re Dutch, and trying to do comedy all in a $10 game. I personally would have attached some string to a ball and called it a day, but everyone has their thing.
They’ve made the most out of what their education and country has to offer. According to Jasper, they were able to secure some subsidies for their company (albeit not a whole lot, but enough to keep them and their game independent). In fact, when they first started they quickly grew out of building that housed collective artists but were able to get the digs they are currently using for their company alone with the help of the government. Talent definitely has its rewards.
Just because they get a little help doesn’t mean that they have to answer to anyone. Swords and Soldiers is the result of a collaborative effort between everyone at Ronimo whether it was a designer, a programmer, an animator, or that weird guy in the corner (they’re all in corners – HA!). They even got some local high school students to test out the game with high marks from those who like strategy games. I give the boys high marks for being funny and creative. I mean, how long have I been saying there should be a game about barbecue sauce?
Interview originally in Dutch taken from Items Magazine #1 2009. If there are any corrections or additions to the translation, please add to comments below. Dank u wel!
Viktor & Rolf is a company where 25 people work, where under many designers work on different collections, shoes and accessories as well as the online shop. How do you make sure everyones works closely to your ideas?
RS: We are the creative directors of our brand, that job covers different areas: the women’s collection, the men’s collections, accessories, website, perfumes. In each of these areas we are involved. We make the sketches of our ideas for them to visualize. Read the rest of this entry »
