description: symposion, discussion of people, talking video games, movies / prison, talk group, gay, gay sex, murder, interactive
(Geoffrey): (rating 6)
There's little said about the gaming/movie industry that I did not know/thought of yet. The thing is that it seems to be difficult to make a good movie from a game, but also the other way around. Another thing was talking about the differences as in mentioning that movie was more passive and games more pro-active. The truth? Nobody could tell for sure.
Then we saw the interactive movie: Late Fragment. It was an experience from the director which took hime 2-3 years of his live. As the audience you get a remote control and a few people were allowed to control it for some minutes. In this case you decided, whether you wanted to see more about the character development, or not. I
To be honest, in the beginning I found the movie quite messy. People started clicking when they wanted to see something different. In the end I was able to understand a little bit what the movie was about. Still 2/3 archive footage I did not see (since it would take about 4 hours) and I am wondering about the other characters.
So I guessed it worked afterall, the interaction. Who controls the remote, is master of the movie. Still, I don't know whether I am waiting for more on these types of movies.
Showing posts with label symposium-screen-play. Show all posts
Showing posts with label symposium-screen-play. Show all posts
Drift over to the AFFF website for more details on this symposium, I will not try to summarize what was being said.
I was pleasantly surprised to see two people from Tale of Tales on the panel. They made the excellent almost Zen-like game The Graveyard some years ago.
It was clear from the types of comments they made that they have a very thorough understanding of media. They noted for instance that the majority of the games are still driven by the traditional narrative from the seventies that sprung from coin operated consoles. These machines introduced the notion of scoring points, reaching levels and the "game over" state - all this to persuade the player to insert more coins and to continue playing. They pleaded to let these conventions go and focus on creating engaging environments that invite players to come up with their own narrative instead.
The Dark Knight and The Matrix were mentioned as examples of mainstream films that have a mass appeal but still have rich characters and depth on a thematic level.
There was talk about trying to bridge the gap between films and games. It was useful to note the parallel between big Hollywood studios and indie film companies on the one hand, and big game producers and indie game makers on the other hand. There are different gaps between these different entities.
In the Q&A someone from the audience tried to put today's symposium in a larger context, that of multimodal storytelling (although he did not say it with so many words, I am using this term to express my interpretation of what he said). Games and films are just two instances of a common universe, just as the internet, comic books, animation and music are other forms. Instead of having a "film vs. game" discussion, instead of a "which one is better / more expressive / engaging / ..." contest, we should appreciate them for what they are, keep on trying to explore and improve that what needs to be told using the characteristics of the medium at hand.
I was pleasantly surprised to see two people from Tale of Tales on the panel. They made the excellent almost Zen-like game The Graveyard some years ago.
It was clear from the types of comments they made that they have a very thorough understanding of media. They noted for instance that the majority of the games are still driven by the traditional narrative from the seventies that sprung from coin operated consoles. These machines introduced the notion of scoring points, reaching levels and the "game over" state - all this to persuade the player to insert more coins and to continue playing. They pleaded to let these conventions go and focus on creating engaging environments that invite players to come up with their own narrative instead.
The Dark Knight and The Matrix were mentioned as examples of mainstream films that have a mass appeal but still have rich characters and depth on a thematic level.
There was talk about trying to bridge the gap between films and games. It was useful to note the parallel between big Hollywood studios and indie film companies on the one hand, and big game producers and indie game makers on the other hand. There are different gaps between these different entities.
In the Q&A someone from the audience tried to put today's symposium in a larger context, that of multimodal storytelling (although he did not say it with so many words, I am using this term to express my interpretation of what he said). Games and films are just two instances of a common universe, just as the internet, comic books, animation and music are other forms. Instead of having a "film vs. game" discussion, instead of a "which one is better / more expressive / engaging / ..." contest, we should appreciate them for what they are, keep on trying to explore and improve that what needs to be told using the characteristics of the medium at hand.