Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1524863
M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S 55 "This could be something really special?" Or "This is something new?" KZS: We didn't know. It was really cool, and, yeah, Snake himself is very iconic. So, there were glimpses of that. There were some glimpses of "This is gonna be cool." EM: What sorts of other materials would you get for those early Metal Gear Solid games that would help inform your choices for who you were casting? KZS: We had a single picture of each character that we were casting for, and I had the audition sides. EM: Would you get video references of them talking during the Codec scenes early on? KZS: Sometimes in the sessions, we would have that. Yeah, sometimes we would have the little Codec guy down in the corner there. EM: What was it like the first time you met Hideo Kojima? KZS: Oh my gosh. I love Kojima. He's a very kind man. I've seen him in person probably less than 10 times. He's interested in the Japanese portion of the games, and then hands off the English to his producers and myself. So, he was gonna come to the recording studio while we were recording for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. We were waiting for him to come, and I was fiddling with a yo-yo in front of the front desk, and I turned as they came in the door, and he is just a rockstar. I mean, he's dressed all in black, he had a black trenchcoat on, an open black trenchcoat. He had several assistants following behind him. I stopped playing with the yo- yo, but I was holding it and we introduced ourselves. And he looked at me and bowed, and put his hand out to gesture for the yo-yo. So I handed him the yo-yo, and he did a simple yo-yo trick. I bowed, put my hand out, and at the time, I could yo-yo like crazy. I did an Around the World and then a thing where you make a triangle and the yo-yo goes between it. I did that. When I finished, he just bowed, and then walked away. Laughs. It was classic. I remember thinking, "Oh crap. I just dissed Hideo Kojima." But he kept asking me back for games, so … I think he got over it pretty quickly. EM: Your work on the Metal Gear Solid games really started a chain reaction in the gaming industry with our expectations for dialogue, and for storytelling as a whole. Did you feel like a pioneer at the time? Did you feel like others would follow in the path that you'd created? KZS: I never felt that, but I knew what we were doing was special. I remember getting a phone call from the Resident Evil people. They called and literally said, "We're thinking L-R: Snake actor David Hayter, Kris Zimmerman Salter, and former Kojima Productions producer Ryan Payton