“When we were doing Buffy, it took hours to get a 30-second shot of a vampire face morph,” recalled Marsters. “It was so low-tech. Like, I was lining up my eyeballs on a TV monitor so my face would be lined up on screen correctly. It was so old-school. And these days it’s a whole different world. You just put actors on a green-screen set now and let them have fun. What that does is free the actors up to tell the story and not worry about the technical stuff.”
The most important thing to Marsters at this juncture in his career is artistic freedom; in addition to the fan-funded film, Marsters’ band will independently release their new album, Bougeoir Faux Pas, later this year. “Without all the money looming, when you don’t have to go through a big corporate structure to tell your story, I feel more free as an artist,” he said. “That’s putting a lot more power into the hands of the storytellers as opposed to the businessmen. I have no problem with businessmen who want to do creative things, but this is really nice.”
Which isn’t to say Marsters is totally opposed to working within the system. He’s partnered with Dark Horse Comics to release Into The Light, a new Spike-centric comic book that he wrote. “It was interesting to me to explore what happens right after Spike gets his soul: He can’t steal, he can’t murder for food or shelter anymore, so how does he survive? I wanted to show him homeless and starving to death, with his clothes falling apart. It’s about how he starts to become a not evil character.”
Sadly, fans who are hoping this new installment might motivate a producer to bring the next chapter in Spike’s story to the screen will likely be disappointed, as Marsters has officially hung up his black duster. “I told Joss that he had seven years to shoot the character after Angel ended because Spike is not supposed to age, and I am,” he said with a chuckle. “Without massive special effects, that ship has probably sailed — and that’s fine with me.”