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GameSpot: So what kind of input do you and the rest of the cinema artists have on the character designs, the environment, and monster designs for Diablo II?

Matt: In terms of the character designs, in terms of the main characters, we've been working pretty closely with the guys up at Blizzard North; kind of going back and forth with them.

GameSpot: Can you give me an example of an instance where Blizzard North is designing a creature and Blizzard Film actually influenced them to change it?

Matt: Well, a good example would be Baal. The design for Baal. We went back and forth a few times, and we settled on something that we all thought was cool and went with it. It's pretty much a give-and-take process, because we're trying to expand on their vision of what these characters should be, what the game should be. Sometimes when they design a character that's going to be in the game, which is going to be quite small, it doesn't really [look good] when it's very large onscreen. Sometimes we have to say "Yeah, this is cool, but maybe we could tweak this here or we could add something here or whatever to make it read better" or what have you.

We did that with Baal. We did it actually with all three of the prime evils and several other characters who I guess are remaining unnamed.

GameSpot: What kind of input does Blizzard Film have on the game's story?

Matt: Again, same kind of thing. We've been working very closely with them, and they came up with the story, the basic story, early on. We ran with it, came up with a screenplay that we thought would work well with the story they wanted to tell, you know, basically weaving in and around the gameplay and furthering their story. Since then, they've been refining their story and refining the quest, and you know, every so often when that kind of thing happens we sit down and talk about it and make adjustments where it's necessary.

So really, they came up with the basic story, and we came up with the way to tell the story; the screenplay - how to make the movie tell their story.

Next: The Diablo II movie