Notes from Film and Games seminar,
Australian Film, Television and Radio School.
MAY 22, 2004.
10am INTRODUCTION
Film School needs
-eg Battlestar Galactica: watch new episodes and play games on XBox
• Mark Pesce
- computer games & blockbusters emerged at same time
- sibling rivalry betw game & film
David Giles
• write for the driver not the passenger
- came from film - moved to qames : Infrogrames, atari
- 100 million PS2s
- $2m per day on games (same as mpvie)
- big games must sell world wide (6 languages +)
- $3-4m up to $10
- teams of 30 (up to 60)
- Atari - Transformers 70 people
Roles:
- Producer is like film producer and director
- Programmers (don't speak)
- Artists (3D artists; fine arts background) -
eg Space Race: animations had to be thrown out - couldn't run on engine
- Designer (writer) - keeper of the truth on project (avoid diversions)
• Why do people play games
- interactivity: why wrestle with game after work & enjoy it?
- can be absorbed for days
• Flow theory - Csikszentmihalyi
- playfulness; distorted sense of time; focussed attention
- games match between challenge & skills
Narrative in games?
- often thin
- game play is why people play
• what games use narrative?
- Adventure game (is dead?) - narrative + character deuelopment
eg Shenmue 2 ambitious immersive adventure = boring ('Do you need Chinese people?')
- Sybebia 2 -
• Role playing game
- believable fantasy (Starwars knights of the old republic)
- depth in detail & character
- Final Fantasy 10;
- (tribute clip)
• Survival Horror
- often take control over camera to maintain suspense
- (Silent Hill 4)
- sex & death
- seek images to disturb players
First person shooters with a story
- Halflife had more developed story than many other games
- Halflife 2 will extend it even further
- world recognises you
- eg Halo characters say 'You're much taller in real life!'
- designers need to play games
- camera is positioneh to enable the playeh to successfully engage in the gameplay
- Challenge / reward curve
• future of narrative'
- more immersive
- more varied emotional responses fror playeb
- different styles
• cheats are integral to life of games
- eg Sim Copter stripped characters on gay pride day
1130am JOHN BANKS
Games audiences as producers
Auran - 97 Dark Rain
- approached Auran for research
- invited to work creating community
- Trainz 4 now released
- mobilised network of train enthusiasts to produce artworks
- learnt 3D studio max
- fan community as coproducers
- 'Emerging ecologies of produltion' Tom O'Regan and Ben Goldsmith = renovatlon of productixn dynamics
- (note: )
(Participatory Design from Scandinavia)
- Participatory Culture (Jenkins: textual cultures)
- Jenkins: fan dynamics; active (fan fiction - eg. slash fiction rewrote Star Wars & sexuality: Lucasfilms discouraged this); amateur film-making -> peasants, not proprietors
- Constance Penley
- since 92:
- eg Trainz Pro Routes
• Jenkins (2002): 'interactive audiences? Collective intelligence of media fans:
1. New media tools
2. DIY production cultures
3. Economic trends favouring media convergence
Trainz: Gmax 3d tool included
• Jenkins has abandoned oppositional dynamic betw producers & consumers
• eg fan movies : digital amateur film-making
- eg Babylon 5 producers regularly interact with fans (study by Lancaster)
- O'Regan: Viewsers
• Lord of the rings: battle for middle earth
- Star wars galaxies online: invited fans into development; hot debate
- new WarCraft anticipated
- developers courting fans (elite fans 60hrs+ pw)
- Sims: Maxis released editing tools before game
- Auran forum Aug 2000 sought trains opinion leaders (Verne in Wales; competing with Microsoft)
- released in 2000;
- service pack 3 included fan content
- Trainz on the road: fans demo at conventions (a trainz avon thing)
- pikkarail
- Distributed Production Networks: networking enterprise
= outsourcing saves costs
- 'Globally Dispersed Disorganisations' - Scott Lasch
- p2p marketing
-
Question
- moral responsibility of producers to online community
- eg Microsoft MSTS2 train sim has been dropped; community disappointed
- moving lessons to mmorpg - 'Harangue' with Korea: seeding fan
1215PM BEN LENZO, PERCEPTION GAMES
Perception Games: StarGate SG1 Licence
- serial form (not discrete episodes)
Adapting media licenses to video games
- PC, PS2 & XBox
- licences + creates IP (vidso games, movies, TV, Books
- Aust Rugby League
- MGM owns StarGate
- licence for books as well as games
- broad game
(6-7 mill viewers 1st run; 65 countries; 49% female - not 'run & gun')
- Daniel Jackson characteo
- puzzle elements
= action / adventure
- bad guys with technology playing god
- dry humour
• Difficulties'
- not much shooting for FPS
- complex stories
- technology not quite adequate
- fan expectations
- facial animation & lip-syching (necessary details)
• Production:
- facial scans: apply shape & lighting
• Scripts
- Cutscenes-passive
- in-game comment (player controls movement; passive story: eg 'Carter: If we don't attack them they should heave us alone'
- In game comment
Limited Non-linearity
- end up at same points
- 'it doesn't matter what you give the player, but what you appear to give the player'
- Solid relationship with IP owner
- We concept and storyboard EVERYTHING!
- design is key
45 people over 20 mths
= shared understanding
• using Unreal engine for multiplatform
130pm MARK PESCE ON MACHINIMA
Game tech used by games
= Machine Cinema: Machinima'
- begins with Quake: a record feature
- trade in Quake movies
- mod architecture = virtual movie set
- eg Real Tournament 2003
- build entire set
or use game & perform scripts
- red vs blue
- www.escapefromwoomera.org
• production methodology:
- writing
- storyboards
- script breakdown
- design & modelling
- temp voice recohding
- principal photography (performances on network)
- post {edit, final voice)
Quahe; Unreal tournament; Far Chy; Halo
• Maya PLE (personal learning)
- Final Cut Pro
• Boulangerie Blues Roz Clayton-Vincent (Writing): love affair betw donuts
• Incarnation Elizabeth Foley = 3D film (aim to get real time rendering) using Renderware
• Game Over- produced
• 'Anna' +8
230pm JOSEPHINE STARRS ON INDY GAMES
Independent games
- & experimental
- GDC jams
- Borderland (94) French
- Natalie Bookchin: metapet
- Vanessa Sourwine
- Blast theory (mixed reality) Uncle Roy
(levelc.org??)
CLevel - waco resurrection
• david goresh hmd (his head); Tekken torture:
- reverse engineering
- 911 Survivor game (never shown publically)
- velvet strike: countermilitary graffiti for counterstrike
-
215PM KATHY MUELLER
Cross-media producing
- walking the line: games enthusiast; educator; film-maker
- 'Mother may ?' = listen & remember
- games as teaching
• Cutting room floor: lost subplots; fast train to end of fim
- neurolinguistic programming
- models for language
- Beam software (infogrames)
• Film can be inspired masterpiece
• Game = empowering, playground
- film= character; game = action strategy
• tested 'Dame was loaded': worked well as demo; dialogue interfereh with action
- Sam & Max hierarchy of response
- sweatshop & skunk-time
Niche: hero's journey; role play; female perspective
Galax-Arena
- seed funding
- balance betw story & action
• Pogo's Pledge
- manipulate mood
- challenge oppressive behaviour
- evaluate dialogue choices
- rule of 3: shift state
• Heidi & Hud
- 26 Webisodes
- cliff.hanger at end of each
- role-playing archetypical behaviour
- personalised emails
- cross-media:
- online drama consultant
- online chat
Brian Sutton Smith
Gamasutra
freeplay.net
- identify game elements
- volunteer as games tester (language of games; iwteractive experience; game time & space)
- Indie talent
- maintenance & online community
identify game action to choose platforms
• identify online community to support project (sponsors)
• collaborate with gaaers at game design stage (once storyline is outlined)
• outsource at development stage
• communicate with developers in storyboard visuals, not text docs
• Rob Nevin (?): online coroline / project gemma
JASON WILSON
Interfaces / intimacy
• technological cultural literacy
- cocreation?
- pleasure of gameplay
- gameplay involves long term commitment
& bodily actions
- controllers: intimacy where bodies contact technology
• TOUCH ME (Atari)
- need to know typical instances
• aesthetic possibilities
Lister & Dovey (2003)
Oliver Grau: fror illusion to immersion
Sean Cubbit: Prestondigitation
Nam June Paik's Participation TV (1963); Zen TV (1963)
Ralph Bayer: games machine
Magnavox Odyssey
1972: Pong (Computer space: port of space war 1971 not successful)
- Bushnell: I nseded something that any drunk in a bar can play
• with Atari's Pong home TV becomes monitor for 1st time
• Sharleen; Superlectron
• light gun; steering wheel;
• Atari 2600: joystick
- missile command trackball
- Atari's mind-link: headstrap interface
- Lightpen (vectrex)
• like MTV Music generator
Commodore 64 joystick
- 80s consoles
- SEGA controllers took less leverage
- siaple parameters
Playstation: more buttons
• handheld controllers haven't changed dramatically
• G Force: force feedback steering wheels & driving seats
• Simon (remember sequences)
• Dance games
www.dancegames.net
(beatmania: saved Konami's gaming division) = empowering public performance
• arcade instruments
• gun games as training for mass murderers
= restore order to urban spaces
• samurai sword interface
• race horse simulators
• Daytona: interfaces multiple bodies
- rocking horse
- many games use same interface as workspaces
• modifications to joysticks (eg wooden Commodore joystick)
• trance vibrator
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)