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Interview with
Jailbird / Padua / Tempest
Interview Performed by Jazzcat
1) Welcome to the magazine, as normal with interviews, introduce yourself to the audience..
Thanks, Jazzcat. My name is Arnold Chistai, a 21 years old guy from the northern part of Yugoslavia. I finished the secondary school as a typographist tehnician (that's something like a designer), studied in several universities since that. Also worked on some graphics-related fields (mainly design on computers), but as a machine-craftman as well. Unfortunately, soon to be an army man for a year, as I'm fullfilled with (not) studying :) In my spare time I'm usually listening quality music, collecting/watching The Simpsons episodes on VHS, go to see a movie or to check out what's going on in the theatre. Not an active anti-communist like I was before, but I never forget to support the Otpor (Resistance) and the yugoslavian opposition in any way. Beside that I'm a huge fan of F. C. Spartak, which is our local low-level football-team. :) But 90% of my spare time is reserved for the Commodore, of course. :)
2) Could you tell us a bit about your C-64 history. When did you start in the scene? What groups have you been in? What are the main events and highlights of your scene career?
For some of you out there, could be quite strange that I'm constantly active on the C64 since 1993. I count my scene-ages :) from then, as that was the year I attended at a computer party (Chromance+Faces) for the first time. Now a scene-commonplace shall follow with some local lamer-groups and the first foreign group Megaunit. Due to some post problems I usually lost my connection with my foreign groups, so missunderstandings were common. The same situation with Noname, Lepsi and Hitmen. For a while I was a member of Equinoxe, via Nucleus, but unluckily those were the days when the legendary group started to fade away. At that time I was already a member of TempesT, and when I was invited to Padua, joined immediately. As a pixel-graphician and a cover-designer, I did over 80 different graphics. Main were all those events when my works reached the air in a scene-product, highlights were my my 1st places on YALP '97 and '98 (beating off the way all the PC and Amiga graphics :), the 1st place on North Party 5 (out of two other pictures ;), the 2nd on SM2k, the 2nd on North Party 6, and the 2nd place on Duce's "Cover of the Millenium" cover-compo... Meeting with these successes made me even more devoted and active.
3) I have never seen much graphics from you before until now. It is clear to me that you are a very under-rated graphician. When and what will the readers see from you in the future and what productions?
It isn't my fault. For years I was working with people which kept asking me for graphics, but never used them after all. To be frank, after a while I learned that I must not care about that too much, as I, generally, paint for myself and for MY enjoyement. Though, seeing that the public like your works, is like a drug, and can really make you drudge with your next piece. But back to your question. With Ninja we're working on old-skool demos. The main one we'll totally finish after I come back from the army. It will contain many of my graphics which won't be shown to the wider public untill the release of the demo. I believe that the Padua posse finished a project which is spiced up with some multicolour and FLI works of mine. I also did hard-core graphics which you requested for Onslaught releases, and of course my gfx will be present on compos during my military service, so there won't be slowdowns because of that. Some minor projects show up time by time, I do a logo if someone asks me, even if I'm not so sure will it be used or not. The main thing can't be any other than the process of pixelling, and that is more than enough for me.
4) What is your idea on demo design and style or with the presentation of any project?
I'll maybe sound a bit oldfashioned, but I really adore scrollers, rasterbars, plotters and hires-vectorobjects, I can watch them for ages. :) Old-skool design is my favourite for sure... But as design "codifies" were formally beaten into my head in the school, I know that it can't be learned, nor it can be made from nothing. Actually, you must respect some rules, but you don't really need more than a good and healthy taste. I frequently notice extravagance on this field, both on the C64 and the net, when there are reluctant things on the composition. Those presentations are turning into an even bigger kitsch as "design" is now anyway. Don't get me wrong, I like design, but the "arty" part of it vanished after the '80s, now it's more like Vallejo: awesome for the eyes, but in the same time it is plain nothing. If there is someone I really respect for his design-skills on the C64, it is Sander. IMHO, his works are typical insctances of style.
5) Recently much discussion about graphics at parties has taken place on the C64 mailing list. It is to do with people converting other people pictures and touch them up on C64. Also about people that do this if they would be called craftsmen or graphician. What is your opinion on this topic?
It all depends. If a picture is plain wired and only retouched on the Commodore, I'd say it's cheating. I am a bit more conciled with Cyclone's way of painting, as he's at least pixelling his own stuff, but, still in Brilliance, and if you've ever tried to paint in that program, you'll see it's childs play to come out even with own design. I don't see why would we call someone a C64 graphician if the person is doing his graphics on the Amiga (or on the PC, whatever)? Personally, I feel very ok with doing remakes. As first as I do really everything on the C64, using only the pixel- and the copy-tools, and secondly because the skill is, in most of the cases, much more important on the C64 than the motive. Doing charicatures, girl-portrays, landscapes, monsters, or balls in baseballcaps won't make you an artist even if you do your own work. On the other hand, I don't care about my reputation as an "artist" at all, which I never was or will ever be anyway. I wouldn't fool other people with wiring as much as I'd fool myself. I simply can't see the point of wiring as long as I can do pictures in the same quality or even better than a wired one would be, only by handpixelling it on the pure C64-way...
6) Ever have any disagreements with any sceners or C64 related people or groups?
No, not really. I try to avoid these kind of things. Some people on the IRC can be really boring with constant call-ups for ragging, just because they're on the #c-64 24 hours a day and think that makes them an elite or a C64 scener at all. I always try to be as much friendly as I can.
7) Any hints and tips for the learning C64 graphician out there?
Yes, many! :) I can give specific tips only considering how I've learned pixelling: first I ripped logos and copied the tehniques, later I came up with some of my own works, but I guess most of the graphicians did the same way. There is a specific way of good dithering and anti-aliasing, which can't be explained by words. Shapes, figures are also very important to do well, or to understand the right way of mixing colours. Personally, I found lights as one the most important factor of a good logo/picture. So rip, look, explore, find, copy, try, learn, practice, practice, practice... And of course, never give up!
8) How would you describe the differences between scene personalities in the DEMO scene and CRACKING scene?
Tough question. I've never been a part of the cracking scene, nor called the boards. Consequently, know only what I've read about it in different magazines. I'm maybe not the only one who thinks that people from the cracking scene are much more arrogant, while on the demo scene, the sharing of knowledge and the friendship between concurrent groups (and their members) is more usual. Demo scene was, from my point of view, always more about products and innovation, instead of speed and competition...
9) Out of the following, which are your favourite on C64 of all-time...
Demo Group: Crest, T'Pau, Megastyle, Censor, Oxyron, Triad, Focus, Black Mail, Booze Design, Graffity, Panoramic Design...
Demo: gees, way too many to list them here...
Programmer: Ninja, for not giving up doing world records and fantastic old-school coding even everyone else is reiterating the concept... And Crossbow, Graham, of course.
Musician: Anything that's jazzy, funky or melodic can cheer me up, whoever is the composer. The only thing I don't really like is techno.
Graphician: DeeKay for his unbeatable tehnique. RRR, Cupid for their great logos. Electric for his quality. Then Poison, Valsary, Mermaid, Sander, Aomeba... And from the oldschoolers Hein Holt, Gotcha, Hobbit and Mirage.
Game: I don't play games too much. Probably Pirates!, Elite and Paradroid
Cracker: I don't really have a favourite cracker.
Cracker Group: ...nor a favourite cracker-group.
10) How has the internet changed your computer activities? Is it really that positive for the scene? or does it have it's negative side too?
The negative sides are obvious: the snailmail scene and the mailtraders decreased, the once so huge cover-scene is also dying. I really loved to swap, but often had postproblems, even threatened by the post. So I'm really glad that I've found such a force as the internet is. It's an easy matter to stay in constant contact with my friends or groupmates. My collection of scene-wares decreased 3-5 times, since it's so easy to download stuffs from the ftps. Nevertheless you can get the latest releases within hours, if not minutes. Snailmail wasn't neither so cheap and safe as my server is, but swapping had it's certain "feeling". I remember how excited I was when I've found a pack in my mailbox, already knowing who sent the pack by the handwriting on it, wondering who's the sender if the form of the letters weren't familiar or noticed a country I don't have a contact from. How great was to open the pack and to slide in the disk into the drive, to read the note and to check out the wares... Internet changed the scene and my life for better, that's for sure, but in the same time, knocked out a very important part of it.
11) JailBird, an interesting handle, ever been to jail or committed a crime to deserve jail? or is the handle from somewhere else?
Actually, the Jailbird (or JB) handle started as a joke, but to be honest, as a kid I did a lots of things I regret today... As a football fanatic, had much fun while following my fave team everywhere they used to play the ball, but the constant fights between the tifoz of the two opposite teams leaded me and a bunch of my friends both to the hospital and the police. I can't even remember how many times were we imprisoned and beaten up on the police-station, but my handle, my crooked broken nose and a neat scar on my forehead keeps reminding me not to do stupid thigs any more :)... However, about two years ago Mosel King and I had some troubles with the police coz they catched us while doing a graffity. That was pretty lame, as we had to leave it unfinished and the whole graffity-scene in our town was laughing how ugly piece of shit we did ;)
12) Scene parties in the past sure would have been fun. Which ones did you go to and which is your favourite one?
My first party was the Chromance+Faces '93 in Szolnok, Hungary. I was only 14 and pretty afraid not to do or say something wrong, as I didn't knew too much about the scene. It's really funny now when I think back, but that was really my first bigger scene-experience. Later I've attended at YALP'97, which was a Yugoslav party and way better than the first one, had pretty much fun there... Since that, I wanted to visit a few parties, but usually my plans were always misscarried due to some reasons.
13) How long would you spend on an average picture? Do you also plan any multi-screen graphics like "Eddie" from the Censor demos by Dragon or the vertical 3-screen pic in Illmatic by Valsary/Elysium?
For a full screen picture I usually need 5 to 10 hours, it all depends on how motivated I am. Plain multicolour is harder to handle because of the restrictions, while in IFLI there are almost twice as much pixel to set. With Ninja we plan to do an interlace (probably multicolour) picture on 2 screens which will scroll horizontally, and once I'll probably do a vertically scrolled 2 or 3 screen IFLI. Actually, I've already did a 2 by 2 screen hires with Hitmen's sign (the Sisters of Mercy thing), but it was never released...
14) Anything from the past that was quite funny, shocking or impressive that you would share with the readers?
In the first 2-3 years of my scene activities I've had hundreds of great, funny and even shocking expereiences, due to the neat thing that 4 members of my first two groups were living in my city, and we were always hanging together, constantly partying and boozing :) As kids we've had even our first kiss in the same time, by giving a drunk bitch hand to hand. Later we turned on the C64, to write a review about it ;). Or, a quite funny story was when Nucleus came to visit us and we went to drink (a good start, isn't it? ;). We've had a spray can, so after a few beers Nuc painted a nice TempesT logo on a wall near to a dark park. Later a friend who was hanging with us sprayed a Myth logo and gave me the can. After that, we decided to check out a disco and just when we wanted to get in the car, a fag policeman suddenly jumped out from the darkness and catched me with the spraycan in my hand. He forced me and another guy to rub off the graffities with our jackets, nevertheless punished the car-owner dude because he was quite drunk. The best thing was when Nucleus started to argue with the policeman, and later we laughed our asses off :) Or, once when Phantom and Picasso started to fight because of a damn ugly girl who thought she's the eight wonder of the world. Later she dumped both :) We were constantly organizing great booze-parties at Phantom's place... Once Picasso fell out from the window on the storey, luckily wasn't too serious :). Zombi, an oldskool yu scener, fucked up himself in a pogo, and while Phantom was in constant panic because of the furniture, Flash and I were so drunk and hungry that we ate the only thing we found in the fridge. Later it came out to light that it was actually a bowl of dog-food :) Or funny was when we were celebrating my birthday in a pub with some girls. Later, when we decided to have a walk, two drunk girls climbed up to an electric-pole... And while Flash was laying on the ground and puking on himself, with Phantom and Picasso we were trying to take down the girls from the pole :) These are all such stories which can bring back so much memories, connected to the scene by that we've all had a C64, came together few times a week to watch some demos, to read each other's contactnotes, to copy the latest stuff, and to have some REAL fun... Things I really miss, but on the other hand I know it's, after all, better that we all grew old (we never thought Flash will ever find a girl, far from that he will marry one! ;), and went by different roads...
15) Feel free to say hello to anyone you know out there in C64 Land...
Well, greetings to all my friends I know, you surely know who you are! I love you all! ;)
16) Any words to leave a final impression on the audience?
The C64 scene is much more than a hobby... It's a lifestyle. Love it, be it, keep it alive. Stay devoted, respect the traditions and believe in yourself. That is the secret.
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