Dark Commando
Mel Odom on writing, media tie-ins, and undead Green Berets.
      by Tara O'Shea

Odom's original Angel novel, Redemption.

While there is currently a lot of vampire product out there -- from Anne Rice's vampire chronicles to TV series like Buffy and Angel, Forever Knight and Kindred to role playing games, comics, novels and films, what makes Dark Commandos stands out is its premise. There's not a whole heck of a lot of velvet, lace, and gothic trappings that a lot of fans of the genre associate with vampire lore thanks to Anne Rice and White Wolf role playing games. Dark Commandos bears much more resemblance to USA Network's slick and cutting edge espionage series La Femme Nikita than it does Bram Stoker's Dracula. In the first episode which was released in early January plays very much like a high-tech action movie, until the revelation that one of the characters on-screen is not quite what he seems.

"One of the things I really like about Dark Commandos is the fact that it is a guy's kind of vampire. It's the action/adventure stuff, but there's also enough story there that the female fans will be interested too. What I think will be neat is that they're government special Ops. One of the things that was really big for a while for guys where the special Ops stuff. Navy Seals, Green Berets. That kind of stuff. But the Dark Commandos are one step beyond."

Undead Green Berets.

"I think it's exciting to watch too because it's a 'webisode.' You download a three minute 'episode' from the web, and you watch it at your convenience. You don't have to set the VCR; you don't have to remember what day it's on."

Sounds exactly like the kind of thing a guy with TiVo would love.

"The story itself, I think, is interesting because Non is religious. He was a knight in the Crusades, which while it's touching on Forever Knight a little bit, I think they're gonna take it in a little different direction with Non.

"One of the things I've gotten from the Buffy stuff is that a lot of people really like the action. One woman who reviewed Revenant on Amazon really liked the fight scenes, and said 'here are probably chapters without [a danger-packed fight scene], but it won't seem that way.' Dark Commandos really lends itself to action and great characterisation because here's a guy who's struggling with his own religious beliefs, and he's in the middle of very dangerous situations where he could be killed."

Which would be a major bummer for Non, who as a staunch Catholic, is terrified that if he dies as a vampire, he will be denied entrance to Heaven.

"Once it catches on, I think people are going to be talking about this show. I've seen the first episode -- I've seen the trailers for the second, and I've read the scripts for the first ten. I think it moves, and is going to be the kind of story that people will want to watch. What Ed [Gross] has in mind to do at some point is for people to press it on DVD or put it on VHS. One of the neatest things about this is that in a lot of ways it's a training manual for other people interested in doing their own television shows. They're showing the green-screen, they're showing how all the elements come together, how the CGI stuff works with what they shot."

Dark Commandos: The Undead Green Berets.

The first three minute episode features two actors, a keyboard, and a chair. But through digitally compositing, Tom Sanders (the creator, director, and special effects guru for the series) creates a vast warehouse full of computers and high-tech security systems. Every frame of every DC episode, in fact, has some sort of CGI element. While that sounds expensive, it is in fact how the first ten episodes were able to be done for $15,000, a fraction of a current live-action television series episode budget. The actors are shot on video in a green screen environment, and all the sets and effects are laid in using graphics software.

"It was amazing! I had seen some 'Elastic Reality' stuff before, but I just did not know how much they could do with this stuff. There are going to be some young people who are interested in how they can do these things. Not only is DC going to be a good show, but it's going to be a primer for people who want to create their own television shows."

The 11th Hour would like to extend special thanks to Mel Odom for overcoming his trepidation and giving us his home phone number. No, you can't have it. It's ours. All ours.

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