2024-03-20 12:07:35
The Czech community around the Polish book saga The Witcher is unusually numerous. The fans of the famous White Wolf also include the artistic team behind the Czech video short story series The Witcher Stories. Although he works with a modest budget and footage, fans are not afraid to compare the production of enthusiasts with the series of one of the largest streaming platforms in the world.
The story of The Witcher Stories does not revolve around the famous witcher Geralt of Rivia. The face of the domestic adaptation is Kolgrim, a pensive monster hunter who wears a viper-shaped medallion around his neck. The character is portrayed by Vojtěch Kačírek, the main organizer and producer of the largest Czech festival with a fantasy theme written by Andrzej Sapkowski’s writer Con Morhen.
“There is a huge community of fans in the Czech Republic. And among them there are enthusiasts who invest quite a bit of money to have nice and functional costumes to represent characters from books or their game adaptations from the CD Projekt Red studio,” he describes.
The experienced production man put together a group of enthusiasts who devote themselves to creating detailed historical and fantasy costumes in their free time. “Instead of going with a bunch of friends with the same hobby to drink somewhere to a cabin, we decided to find interesting places and create engaging images,” he says. Taking photos that so-called cosplayers, as these artists are called, can use for their presentation on social networks, however, stopped fulfilling Kačírek over time.
Together with their friend, video editor and founder of Epic TV Martin Matějka, they decided to move the project in a different direction. “Like many big plans, this one was born over a pint of beer,” laughs the production manager.
Matějka, whom no one in the Witcher Stories team calls anything other than Mathy, introduced Kačírka to the filmmaking duo Martin Třešňák and Filip Mašek. “He knew two talented guys who didn’t have any friends. Well, we’re a bunch of friends, so we decided it would be ideal to put it together,” says Kačírek with exaggeration, who is helped by Filip Ženíšek, the translator of the game The Witcher, with writing scripts for the stories.
More emotion than in the American adaptation
He published the first video project The Witcher Stories four years ago. And that’s when Netflix released the first trailer for its own adaptation of the Polish fantasy saga starring Henry Cavill. Although the costs of the Czech team of enthusiasts are incomparably lower, it is precisely the comparison with the American Witcher that is still the subject of most of the fans’ reactions to the production of Kačírk’s team.
Watch the trailer for The Witcher Stories:
Video: The Witcher Stories
“The feeling when it’s more accurate and better than the parody from Netflix,” wrote one of the foreign fans under the episode entitled Menší Zlo. “There’s more emotion coming out of it,” another agrees. “Comments of the type, let them take an example from us, are really not negligible, which we are happy about,” says Kačírek about the reactions.
He admits that the series was one of the reasons why he and his friends decided to continue filming. “The book work of Andrzej Sapkowski has its own signature, with which it speaks to the reader. It evokes feelings, ideas. Each reader perceives it differently. It is not easy to make something like this into a film,” he notes, noting that although he was not impressed by the first trailer, he did not want to condemn the series before by seeing it completely.
“It’s not my cup of coffee. It’s a kind of stiffening of the original, essential things are missing, a lot of it doesn’t make sense. And our filmmakers, who are not die-hard fans of The Witcher and looked at it from a different angle, the cameraman’s, didn’t like it either,” he explains .
However, he does not deny that the series had a positive effect. “Although I don’t see a reason why I should like the series. However, the work attracted many people to the theme of The Witcher, and they subsequently, for example, read the books or bought the now cult games of CD Projekt Red. Their sales have increased significantly as a result, thanks to which they will probably be able to more create more great titles,” explains Kačírek. Popular video games are for many fans the first step to getting to know the story of the white-haired protagonist, who they could read about for the first time in 1986 in a series of short stories published in the Polish science fiction and fantasy magazine Fantastyka.
The actor “hunts” for a beer
In 2019, five people were behind The Witcher Stories project, today the team is many times larger. In addition to the props, actors and costume designers, the composer and member of the Slovak pagan folk band Strigôň Michal Jankuliak joined the group, who creates music for individual works. The illustrations were done by graphic designer Petr Eric Hofmann, who also became known to fans thanks to the graphics for the Con Morhen festival or the designs for the popular fantasy folk group Deloraine.
“We more or less work for free. We have an account on the Patreon platform where supporters can support us, but we invest all the money in gas, costumes or renting interesting locations for filming,” explains the producer.
Professional actors are rarely seen in The Witcher Stories. Kačírek most often finds faces for individual parts at fan events. “I usually look for a person who has an interesting costume or an unusual face. I succeeded in this, for example, in the case of Vojtěch Jelínek, who looks like an archetypal elf,” he says about the man who played the fictional character of a former fighter from the Scoia’tael elf commando. “In the piece entitled The Return, he portrayed a blacksmith who coincidentally returns to the unit he left in the past. Vojta, nicknamed Elthien in the community, is also an artistic blacksmith in real life, which suited us perfectly,” says Kačírek.
Produkční does not rule out that it will look out for new actors at the upcoming edition of the Con Morhen festival, which will start on April 11 in the location of the House’s mill in Tábor. “Festivals are a wonderful way to connect fans and make new acquaintances. You have the opportunity to make your dream costume and get into the role. When I walk around the area, I notice just such people who know how to loosen up. The offer usually sounds classic with beer,” he concludes.
Photo author: Aktuálně.cz
After five years, the project took a new direction
Behind the Con Morhen festival is a ten-member team from Newitcherpatelní, which is made up of enthusiasts. “I’ve loved witches since I was a child and already in high school I enjoyed organizing gatherings and themed parties. During my natural science studies at Charles University, I organized events for the whole school,” Kačírek describes how he got into organizing. During his master’s degree, he then had a Geralt of Rivia costume made for a Halloween-themed event. “On the basis of this, a friend told me that there is a Blavicon, an event focused on the story of the book saga The Witcher,” he says.
The current Con Morhen is based on the original event called Blavicon, which took place for the first time in 2017. “I attended the first year of Blavicon as a participant, in the second I was already one of the organizers. We managed to unite the Czech community of lovers of Sapkowski’s work and developers of CD Projekt RED, which is one of the most active in the world. People come to our events from all over the world, ” explains Kačírek.
However, due to disagreements in the organizing team, the original event was canceled last year. According to the head of Newitcherpatelny, some of the former organizers had a different view on the future of the festival, so some of them decided to build a new project.