There Are No Ghosts at the Grand - Official Behind-the-Scenes Clip

[00:01] Welcome to England, Mr. David.

[00:03] >> Hello. I am Alex Brightman and I am an

[00:07] actor and a writer and a voice actor. I

[00:10] play Chris David, who's an American who

[00:12] inherits this crumbling old British

[00:13] hotel. So, There Are No Ghosts at the

[00:14] Grand is this crazy amazing mix of

[00:17] genres. First-person, story-driven

[00:19] mystery with ghosts, renovation, and

[00:23] musical numbers.

[00:24] >> Let me welcome you to the Grand,

[00:30] a hotel famous across the land.

[00:34] >> And during the day, you're fixing it up.

[00:36] Kind of with like you're painting walls,

[00:38] scraping wallpaper, blasting gunk with a

[00:39] sandblaster. But at night, the whole

[00:41] place changes completely. The hotel's

[00:43] crawling with ghosts, monsters, creepy

[00:46] stuff. And the same tools you were using

[00:48] to renovate, now you're using them to

[00:51] fight back. The paint sprayer is now a

[00:52] weapon. Furniture cannon now starts

[00:55] doing damage and it gets nuts. Totally

[00:57] wild. But the clock's ticking. You've

[00:58] got 30 days, 30 nights to get the job

[01:01] done before things [music] unravel

[01:02] completely. So, while you're doing all

[01:04] that, you've got this smart-aleck

[01:05] Scottish tool, favorite character in the

[01:07] game. Literally this paintbrush with a

[01:09] face giving you advice, encouragement,

[01:11] the occasional insult.

[01:13] >> When you said bring the Grand back to

[01:15] life, is this what you meant?

[01:17] No. I mean gear, we like A PAINT SO NOT

[01:20] SOMETHING ALL THAT

[01:22] >> Outside the hotel, the whole setting is

[01:24] this seaside town to explore. Little

[01:26] shops, winding streets, fishing boats,

[01:28] even this rusty scooter you'll see. It's

[01:30] all charming and weird, kind of full of

[01:31] secrets. And by [music] the way,

[01:33] speaking of musical numbers, this game's

[01:35] got ghosts, renovation tools, haunted

[01:37] hotel rooms.

[01:38] And if that's not weird enough, suddenly

[01:40] someone breaks into a full musical

[01:41] number.

[01:49] >> [music]

[01:51] >> Ska songs, punk stuff, jazz. And it's

[01:53] not just for show. Each character has a

[01:55] song that reveals something about them,

[01:57] like their fears, their past, their

[01:58] secrets. But the twist is, this is

[02:00] great.

[02:01] I'm singing with them.

[02:03] >> It's hard to watch, but [music] hard to

[02:05] resist.

[02:06] Our town can't cease to exist. Slip away

[02:10] into [singing] the abyss. Down in the

[02:13] deep, deep dark.

[02:15] >> Chris, the character that I play, duets

[02:16] with every one of them. So when they

[02:18] open up, he answers. Sometimes sort of

[02:20] gently, sometimes not, sometimes a

[02:22] little aggressive. But the cool part is,

[02:24] you, the player, actually choose what

[02:26] Chris I sing.

[02:27] >> It's green.

[02:28] >> I'm on your side.

[02:29] >> Then why are you lying to me?

[02:32] Mhm.

[02:34] >> I I'm not.

[02:38] >> His verses change the tone of the song

[02:39] sometimes or push it in a different

[02:41] direction. You're shaping the

[02:42] conversation through music. For someone

[02:44] like me who loves theater and music and

[02:46] weird storytelling, this is honestly one

[02:48] of my favorite parts of the game. Makes

[02:49] it completely [music] unique uh and

[02:51] fascinating. You get these moments where

[02:53] someone's telling you this world lore in

[02:54] a song, and then you, as Chris, sing

[02:56] back. And so it starts to shape the

[02:58] story. So it's got everything. A little

[03:00] horror, a little comedy, a little

[03:01] musical stuff, and somehow it completely

[03:03] [music] works.

[03:04] >> So, you're the new owner of the Grand

[03:06] Hotel huh?

[03:07] >> I'm not staying. I'm just here to sell

[03:09] the place.

[03:09] >> Well, I hope you do better than the last

[03:11] guy. He disappeared, you know.

[03:13] >> My father? Yeah, I know.

[03:15] >> So I play Chris David. He's an American,

[03:17] which I know a lot about. Uh he inherits

[03:19] this old, sort of half-collapsed hotel

[03:22] on the English coast, the Grand, from a

[03:23] father he never knew. He shows up and he

[03:25] just thinks he's going to renovate the

[03:26] place. Really, he's there chasing

[03:28] something deeper.

[03:29] Chris has his own secret mission that

[03:31] not even the player is fully [music]

[03:33] aware of. He's searching for something.

[03:35] Breaking into places, stealing stuff at

[03:37] night, while during the day he just

[03:39] renovates the Grand and acts like

[03:40] everything is normal. So everyone in the

[03:42] town thinks they've got him figured out.

[03:44] This brash American guy who doesn't

[03:46] belong here.

[03:47] But Chris is misjudging [music] them,

[03:49] too.

[03:50] The ghosts, the villagers, the hotel

[03:51] itself, none of it is what it first

[03:53] seems. And what makes this really fun to

[03:55] play is that he's not always honest with

[03:58] you or with himself. [music]

[04:00] >> It's a good idea to keep the cot close.

[04:03] >> [snorts]

[04:03] >> Be careful. One background check and

[04:05] you're done.

[04:05] >> Yes, I know. I know. I'm going to need

[04:07] them to trust me if we're going to pull

[04:09] this off. But don't worry, they don't

[04:11] suspect anything.

[04:12] >> He does this thing that players don't

[04:15] see.

[04:16] He's unreliable. He's secretive. And

[04:18] half the time you're not even really

[04:19] sure what he's seeing is actually real.

[04:21] But he also has heart.

[04:23] He's trying to make sense of this place

[04:24] and of himself. And slowly, through

[04:27] these ghost hunts and these weird

[04:28] musical numbers and strange encounters,

[04:30] you start to slowly see the truth come

[04:33] eking through.

[04:38] >> I tend to get cast as people who are

[04:41] morally flexible. Let's just go with

[04:43] that. And Chris totally fits that, but

[04:45] in a different way. He's not really a

[04:46] villain,

[04:47] but he's also not very honest. Um, he's

[04:51] carrying this past that he doesn't

[04:52] really fully understand. So, he's making

[04:53] choices that the player might not always

[04:55] agree with or understand, and that's

[04:57] really fun for me. The sort of mystery,

[04:58] the complexity, um, and I love

[05:00] characters where you're not quite sure

[05:01] if you trust them, or they kind of say

[05:03] one thing, but they really mean another,

[05:05] and you don't know which one's which,

[05:06] and the cracks start to show slowly. So,

[05:08] Chris definitely has those, those

[05:09] cracks. Um, he's not evil, but he's just

[05:13] complicated. He's layered. So, yeah, it

[05:14] has been a real blast playing someone

[05:16] who is trying to do the right thing,

[05:18] but also kind of doing a bunch of

[05:19] sketchy stuff behind your back.

[05:23] >> I'm not here to renovate and decorate.

[05:26] I'm here to investigate. And to help me,

[05:29] I've got a talking cat.

[05:30] >> You're the one doing all the talking,

[05:32] you know, Mason.

[05:34] >> And a set of power tools that also talk.

[05:37] >> Well, hello there. I'm Robert C.

[05:40] McBrushy. It is also a blast to be

[05:42] working beside McBrushy.

[05:44] >> And am I allowed to say who that No, I'm

[05:45] not allowed to say who's playing it.

[05:47] Then I won't I won't. Okay, I won't. I'm

[05:48] getting a lot of this. Don't say it. But

[05:50] he's this talking power tool, Mick

[05:52] Brushy, who helps you throughout the

[05:53] game. He's a grumpy, Scottish, mildly

[05:55] passive-aggressive sort of machine-type

[05:58] thing, and he's very good at getting

[05:59] paint off of a wall. And whoever's

[06:01] voicing him,

[06:02] whoever's voicing him,

[06:04] total legend. You are going to love it.

[06:06] Mark my words.

[06:09] It's really

[06:17] Oh.