Geek Woman: Are you concerned that having female lead characters will effect sales to men?

I think it really depends. I believe there are a lot of men who have played Lara Croft and had no problem. I  wanted to take this to a new level and show men that women have certain strengths that are pretty cool and make it part of the game play to give men a chance to feel this and say whoa this is pretty awesome. Women do have some cool secrets they don't always reveal.

We also wanted Alex to be a girl that guys would love to date as well as admire. We felt that a lot of female superheroes do not feel like women, they look like women but act more like men and are missing the nuances that make them women. Some female characters are so unrelateable it is hard to warm up to them.

Note: I do not use the word superheroine as I feel this word discriminates and does not make it clear that this is a female superhero. As male and women doctors share titles like teacher, professor, doctor and lawyer, why shouldn't they share the title superhero. On a marketing stance, superheroine just doesn't pop like the word superhero.

Geek Woman: How are you going to distribute this film? Will it be produced by Hollywood or is it going to be an independent project?

We are right now in production of a short film called Kuriocity that will introduce the Dis_Konnected world so we can introduce the film, video game, and character elements. We will follow this with a website and forum for people to talk about the film and help give us feedback and what they feel about the storyline, characters and look. We have had an amazing amount of feedback from a My Space page for Alex and have had an amazing response to the stills from the short. We get the sense people are just as excited as we are.

Once we launch the short and it has independent distibution via mobile devices and internet, we will follow with a motion picture and video game which will take a couple of years to produce. We are holding off on any distribution deals for the film and game until the short is complete.

Good news...we plan to make the short episodic so we can keep doing small films to keep the storyline going while the motion picture and game are in production.

I had the toughest time when I was developing this story about Alex to convince Hollywood and the gaming industry that women were really playing games and that they actually needed games that related to them. And of course it was interpreted as women like only girlie or sissy games. I defintely had a lot of work ahead of me to convince them otherwise. I created Alex because I was disappointed with the way men wrote female superheroes and the way men created the women in games. It is the story that makes her very different then her counterparts. What is at the surface conceals a much different type of character. I also wanted to create a girl that kicks butt but kept her vulnerability and feminine qualities. It is the type of movie and game that both boys and girls can play and guys won't feel that it is too feminine and may help him understand a little about how a woman thinks as this would be rewarded in this game. Only way for a man to know what it is like to be a woman is to put him in her spot. (How many times have we played male characters, I want to give men a female character they don't mind being and help bring them closer to the women in their lives.)

My next task is merging film and game into one solid storyline so that the film and game are seamless so you do not feel like you are taken out of that world. Intergration of the storyline to make it a full experience.

Geek Woman: What game characters influenced you to design Alex?

I would say I was more influenced by Disney and comic books. You may see a merging of these ideas in her look. She has some traditional key character features that follow common design rules, Disney uses these rules in their characters.. My favorite comic book influences were "Shi" by Bill Tucci, "Spiderman" and "X-Men" from Stan Lee..."Batman", "Superman" and so many others.

Geek Woman: Are you playing any games currently?

I am limited in my time to play games but have been checking out World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy's new game and have played Halo a lot.

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