The Making of Black Dahlia - Interviews with cast & crew

The making of Take 2’s FMV game Black Dahlia from 1998, as told by the cast and crew themselves. I conducted these interviews from September 2025 to February 2026, gaining a whole new appreciation for what goes into developing a game of this enormous scope.

Watch my retrospective of the game: https://spectra.video/w/rhvmgFLyMoCC4unZozWN3c

Watch my 4 hour “movie cut” of the game: Original resolution: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0C0dev0aj4 HD upscale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTkLF4toBEg

=== FULL INTERVIEWS === You can watch the full interviews on my 2nd channel: Darren Eliker (actor, Jim Pearson): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC0MkuwNaDE David Whalen (actor, Dick Winslow): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3DwwGPaJRo Eric Trow (director): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdg9nRlNhd4 Steve Glasstetter (design coordinator): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCXpbGZ0A3Y Patrick Freeman (screenwriter): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8oN_0it4rI Greg Brown (producer/lead programmer): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orDE5pbG_SI Henry Borrasso (lead compositor/VFX): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkNHxFag7xU Richard Cobbett (writer/former games journalist): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItFHK3Mru9Y

=== MUSIC ===

Listen to/download my Black Dahlia remix EP: https://spacequesthistorian.bandcamp.com/album/black-dahlia-a-fair-balanced-ep

=== CHAPTERS === 00:00:00 Chapter One: From Cyberpunk to Cleveland 00:09:30 Chapter Two: Shooting the Movie 00:11:04 Explain VFX to a 5 year old 00:12:13 Choosing a director 00:13:23 The actors 00:25:55 Neutral Man 00:27:55 Dennis Hopper 00:31:14 Teri Garr 00:33:00 Steve’s Monsterman cameo 00:35:46 “Lost in the Blue” - Living in bluescreen 00:44:44 Trains - the ruiners of takes 00:46:38 The intro sequence 00:48:34 Chapter Three: Putting It All Together 00:52:09 Moving virtual cameras 00:54:27 Winslow ripping out his eye 00:56:35 Easter eggs 01:00:08 Chapter Four: The Puzzles… oh, god, the puzzles 01:05:59 Sandwich puzzles (Gabriel Knight) 0132 Learning from past mistakes 01:10:32 Chapter Five: The Legacy (… or lack thereof?) 01:12:16 Reviews and reception 0117 A retrospective appreciation 01:23:55 End credits

The Adventure Game Hotspot Network: https://youtube.com/@OneShortEye - adventure game speedruns https://youtube.com/@AdventureGameGeek - adventure game reviews The Classic Gamer’s Guild Podcast (https://www.cggpodcast.com) https://youtube.com/@AdventureGameHotspot - the main hub

Join the SQH community on Discord: https://discord.gg/9mcCQt2 Support me via Patreon: https://patreon.com/spacequesthistorian

Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0