When Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment senior vice president Jason Hall stepped down from his post in February of 2007, Level Up was there for an exclusive first interview. The press release announcing his exit declared that Hall would enter into "a first-look videogame and feature film development deal through his wholly owned production company, HDFilms Inc," and last May, we got a glimpse at one of his first projects in an embryonic stage. The project in question was a proposed 15-30-minute "Jackass"-meets-"Game Head" television show in which Hall would alternate between interviewing/playing games with celebrities and videogame luminaries--and stunts like pepper spraying his assistant. We weren't quite sure what to make of it at the time, and not long thereafter, we put it out of our mind entirely--until February at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas, where Hall jointly interviewed the Level Up staff and Geoff Keighley.

Last month, Hall invited us back to his offices on the Warner Bros lot--located in the same bungalow as those of "300" and "Watchmen" director Zack Snyder--to show us three episodes of the completed product. Titled "The Jace Hall Show," it's now a five-minute Webisodic series available for download through Crackle and Xbox Live Marketplace, and we've got the exclusive trailer for the show above. Below, in today's installment of Just the FAQs, we grill Hall about exactly what you can expect from his "Curb Your Enthusiasm"-meets-"Jimmy Kimmel" take on videogame culture.

What is "The Jace Hall Show"?

It's a five minute weekly video show that covers lifestyle, entertainment, celebrity and culture as it surrounds videogames.

Free or fee?

Free on Sony's Crackle service. You can also get it in HD on Xbox Live Marketplace for 80 points?

Are you really going to make me do the math?

That's $1 U.S.

Cool. Who's hosting it?

Uh, Jace Hall.

Duh. I knew that. Did his mother really name him "Jace"?

No, that's his nickname. His real name is Jason Hall. He founded Monolith, which developed such games as No One Lives Forever, The Matrix Online and F.E.A.R. Then he headed up Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment. These days, he owns HDFilms, a production company on the Warner Bros lot, and hosts "The Jace Hall Show."

So he founded a developer, ran a publisher and started a production company. Why did he wake up one morning and say, "You know what? I was put on this earth to host 'The Jace Hall Show'?"

As Hall tells it, when he left Monolith to join Warner Bros, he discovered how deeply videogame culture had permeated into Hollywood culture-young Hollywood, anyway. That cough convergence cough, paradoxically, got him thinking about the differences between the personality-focused movie and TV business and the product-focused game business.

"It just started to occur to me that most of the programming in the other industries tends to follow people, not products as much," says Hall. "There's a lot of cult of personality in Hollywood. People enjoy watching that and seeing what sort of train wrecks or exciting things will happen with people's lives. However, in the videogame industry, it's almost exclusively been focused on product. Yet you have this culture that's almost touching everything, in the way hip-hop does. Either you play games or you know someone who does. So I thought, "Well, it might be interesting to spend time with celebrities, just hanging out," because naturally, videogames were coming up around me and in that context-and capture that footage. And since on a day to day basis my life is the videogame industry-those are all my friends; those are all the people I grew up with; and I know that they're very interesting people, what if I let the cameras roll on them? Let's just see what happens and mix it all together. That was the idea."

Okay, but he's not a host--he just plays one on the Internet. So who did Hall go to for advice on how to host a show? Did he holler at Morgan Webb? Did he call up Adam Sessler? Did he hit up Geoff Keighley on his BlackBerry?

Hall is reluctant to call himself a proper host. Nevertheless, he acquitted himself capably in the footage we saw in his offices-"it's this hybrid ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm'-‘Jimmy Kimmel'-type of situation," he says-and he attributes it to years of giving presentations as CEO of Monolith and as the head of WBIE. "Morgan Webb and Geoff Keighley-they're true hosts," he says. "I just have cameras pointed at me, and I try not to make a fool lout of myself. Now, our director, Todd Roy, works with me to make sure that I'm concise and doing things right. He's naturally skilled at hosting himself, so I've got to give credit to Todd with helping me with that. It's been a learning experience."

What was the reaction when he showed "The Jace Hall Show" outside of the studio?

Some of the first people Hall showed his show to were the folks at G4 TV. Their response, he says, was positive, and they provided him with good feedback. "They wanted to see how they might be able to integrate it into programming that they already had going," he says. "But I felt pretty strongly that this was is a pretty different sort of thing. It's not particularly product-centric show, and I wanted to keep it that way."

What about game developers? What did they say?

"I'm lucky enough to know senior people at very popular videogame companies, says Hall. "They just thought the show was amazing and they wanted to be a part of it. Because there is a desire within the videogame development world for there to be a little bit more exposure for the people. Since everything is always focused on the product, it's very rare to have names on boxes, things of that nature. So this could be a conduit for people to express themselves; show their personalities; show that there are actually real human beings behind these mega-blockbuster videogames."

How did the show evolve as he developed it?

Hall showed the Level Up staff some early footage from the show a year ago in his offices on the Warner Bros lot. At the time, he was exploring the possibility of a half-hour show for cable TV. But in its current form as a five-minute weekly Webisode, it entertains and informs without ever wearing out its welcome. What happened during the interim to change Hall's approach?

"I don't want to take any magical credit," Hall says. "Because I come from the videogame industry, I'm steeped in consumer research, homework, figuring out what my target audience is interested in. I've noticed that in the film industry, there's a lot of, "I have this genius idea--now I'm going to make everybody like it." It became clear as we really spent time thinking about: who would watch this show; what we would like about this show; what that audience is-the audience wants as much information as possible, as fast as it possibly can get it, in an entertaining form, and through any medium they can get it at." That's when it became clear to him that Internet would be the best primary vehicle to deliver "The Jace Hall Show," and that a five-minute format would enable them to deliver it on a weekly basis on anything from a mobile phone to a home console.

You mentioned celebrities earlier. Can you name some?

Zachary Levi. Christina Milian. Lou Ferrigno. Nikki Ziering (also Hall's ex-girlfriend).

Is that just how Jace rolls?

"It's not so much how I roll as it is reflective of the people who are interested in our subject," says Hall, laughing. "That's the part that I thought was so amazing. I get to Hollywood and find out that someone like Laurence Fishburne is incredibly into Prince of Persia, but you wouldn't know that, right? That's when I started to realize that our industry is having a tremendous impact and effect on these other entertainment industries-and that's what I wanted to capture. So it's not a function of, 'Is that how I roll?' It's more a function of, they're looking for people from our space to talk to about this; to learn more about it; and to show that they have ideas and creative ways to express themselves in this field."

Through his previous job as head of Warner Bros' games division, Hall got thrust into the middle of this world, where he became the guy that Hollywood types would call to talk to about opportunities in games. So for Hall, the show was a natural extension of his informal advisory role, and his guests end up becoming ambassadors to other celebs. "As we're shooting the show, what's interesting is that the number of celebrities that are interested keeps escalating," Hall says. "Christina Milian, as an example, has a lot of celebrity friends. She'll say, 'I just did this show. It was really fun, with this videogame stuff, and I know you play videogames," and the next thing you know, her friends want to be a part of it and ask questions. Because what happens is that we do the interview, but the conversation goes on much longer after that, about doing stuff in videogames."

If he's informally advising actors and musicians about games, it sounds like he's basically an agent. Do guys like Seamus Blackley and Ophir Lupu at CAA need to be worried about Hall coming after their client list? Should they be sweating?

"No, no, no," says Hall, laughing. "Seamus and Ophir should sweat because it's always good to exercise. But no, I'm not going to represent anyone."

Fine. But why should I care if these Hollywood types play games too?

For Hall, it's proof that the geeks have inherited the earth. "I grew up as a gamer," says Hall. "I played Dungeons & Dragons. I wasn't the cool dude...."

Oh, come on.

Hey, that's what he told us.

So he's saying that he wasn't the Mr. Universe of his high school?

"No way, man," Hall says. "I didn't even touch weights until I was 23. I used to be 6'4'', 144 pounds. When I see Tayzon Day, the guy that sings 'Chocolate Rain,' I'm like, 'Dude, that was me in high school.' That's who I was. The thing is, we've become cool. The people who are doing all this stuff; the people who are playing these videogames, we are much more relevant people realizes. And I want to show people that. If a gamer like me can go and hang with these people, they can too. Honestly."