Local man 'appears' in video game

Associate editor

Former WOBL radio DJ and Brighton Township resident Terry Lee Goffee has been performing as Johnny Cash in tribute concerts for eight years, and in the homes of video game players since September.

In the video game "Guitar Hero 5" by Activision, Johnny Cash appears performing his 1963 number one hit "Ring of Fire." Of course, Cash died in 2003, so Activision needed someone who could portray his actions and mannerisms for the game.

Goffee said he received an e-mail through his web site from producer Matt Jackowski of Neversoft Entertainment, a division of Activision. In it he asked Goffee to do the motion capture for Cash that would be digitally combined with a computer-generated avatar of Cash.

"We came upon Terry's site, and are positive that Terry is the best Johnny Cash tribute artist out there," Jackowski wrote. "He had the same motions and mannerisms that Johnny bestowed on his audiences for decades."

Goffee said he was flattered by the e-mail and agreed to do the motion capture. He flew out to Los Angeles, Calif., in March to do the recording.

In motion capture, the performer is put in a black suit, to which are affixed reflective tabs at key points. The performer is then put in a structure with stationary cameras positioned at various points.

"As you do your movements, those cameras film you," Goffee said. "Then they have two assistants with hand-held cameras that are walking around you, moving the cameras up and down, so you are filmed from every conceivable angle."

A computer program matches the data from the reflective tabs to corresponding points on the avatar. The avatar then moves according to the performer's recorded movement.

Goffee said the company had already created the Johnny Cash avatar for the game when he did the motion capture, based on how Cash appeared in the mid-1960s. He said not only was that appropriate for the song he recorded in 1963, but that is also Goffee's era of Cash's career.

In the "Guitar Hero" games, players use a guitar-shaped controller to match notes that scroll on the screen to colored buttons on the fret board of the controller, strumming in time to the music to score points. As points are accumulated, the player earns stars to advance to different venues, where different musician characters perform different songs.

"In this case you have to accumulate 158 stars before you get to -- I think it's called the Electronic Nashville Honkey-Tonk," Goffee said. "When that opens up, then the song 'Ring of Fire' and Johnny's character become available."

He said he has played the game just to get to that venue -- the 12th or 13th level -- to see how the character turned out. And he thought a player would have to complete the entire game in order to see the credits.

"I've got friends, my son, my daughter at home playing this game trying to get all the way through it," Goffee said. "My son finally did, and the credit rolled by. And then we discovered after that, as soon as you plug it in you can go to the credits without even playing. I don't think I've played it since."

"Guitar Hero 5" includes 85 songs by 83 artists. Only Nirvana, with "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Lithium," and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, with "Runnin' Down a Dream" and "American Girl," appear twice.

Only the one song by Cash appears on "Guitar Hero 5," but Goffee said Cash's character might not be finished. He said he has seen a number of blogs on the Internet speculating Activision could release a future version of "Guitar Hero" featuring only Johnny Cash songs.

"Now, that doesn't come from the makers of 'Guitar Hero,' just people blogging; so whether it's true or not remains to be seen," Goffee said. "But after I did the song, 'Ring of Fire,' they asked me, since I had my guitar with me, if I would do an impromtu mini-concert. So I sang maybe five or six other songs, and they continued to film while I was doing that."

In addition to appearing in "Guitar Hero 5," Goffee will appear as Johnny Cash in a concert to benefit the United Way of Lorain County on Saturday, Feb. 13, at 7:30 p.m., at the Lorain County Community College Stocker Center. Also appearing will be the Amherst girl band G-Force.

Tickets are $20. For tickets or more information, call the Stocker Center box office at 440-366-4040 or 1-800-995-5222 ext. 4040.