Sometimes I am lucky enough to meet very accomplished people
whose work I admire. Often these are authors I seek out for the chance to
discuss their books or research subjects but in the past decade or so I have
been able to meet several people who work in the film industry at one level or
another. This has been fascinating as most of them have been very willing to
talk about their work and also relate anecdotes about the pitfalls of
filmmaking. To my good fortune, one of these people has been William Stout. Mr.
Stout is an acclaimed illustrator, creature designer, storyboard artist,
production designer and the writer of a few screenplays. This last bit of his
resume was a surprise to me when his name turned up as the co-scripter of the
Roger Corman produced barbarian epic THE WARRIOR AND THE SORCERESS (1984). I
had decided one uneventful night to revisit this little film now that it was
available on DVD from Shout Factory and my surprise at this credit was total.
As soon as I verified that it was indeed the same William Stout I knew I just
had to ask him about it.
I first met Mr. Stout a few years ago when we struck up a
friendship over shared music interests and since then its been a highlight of
the Wonderfest convention each Spring to talk to him informally about his work.
He is a charming, funny man with enough great stories to fill more than one
book and I have always felt lucky to be able to hear him tell his tales. I was
thrilled when he immediately agreed to sit down and talk with me about THE
WARRIOR AND THE SORCERESS for the podcast. If you've never met Mr. Stout I
think you'll enjoy this conversation as a way to get an idea of what a nice
gentleman he is and if you have any interest in the behind the scenes
shenanigans that can happen, you will be laughing along with me. Although we
start talking about Roger Corman and the barbarian films of the 1980s the
discussion ranges across several other movies too. I often forget just how many of my favorite movies William Stout worked on!
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