VIDEO GAMES AND HOLLYWOOD – WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

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Video Games And Hollywood – What Does The Future Hold?
Written By: Meagan VanBurkleo(Game Informer)

Over the past few years it has become obvious that Hollywood and the video-game industry are testing the waters in foreign territory – spreading tendrils to feel out what each has to offer in terms of entertainment, talent and technology. But is this trend a signal of a much larger movement?

Examining Hollywood, we have recently seen game development studios swallowed up by movie production companies. It is now common for video games to be simultaneously released with blockbuster movies (usually to lackluster reviews), and CG is being embraced like never before, taking the cinema experience to new heights in the process.

In the video-game sector we see development studios reaching out to Hollywood talent for their voices or likeness. Critically acclaimed directors such as Steven Spielberg and Zack Snyder have been signed to game deals by mega-publishers, and studios are looking for artists and composers outside the gaming space to contribute to the interactive medium.

There is no doubt that the lines between the industries are beginning to blur, but we ask, are Hollywood and the video-game industry on the brink of converging?

Our Experts:

We sat down with an expert hailing from each industry to try and answer just that. First we spent some time with Jim Sonzero, a commercial and horror movie director that was shoved headfirst into the video-game biz when asked to direct Resident Evil 5’s cinematic sequences. He scored the job after his work on the 2006 horror film Pulse caught the eye of Japanese developers at Capcom. As for what his new role specifically entailed?

“Traditionally in the game world, the cinematic and the narrative short films that move the story forward as the player loads to the next level, usually they are directed by programmers, so they tend to be a little stiff and not cinematic,” Sonzero explained. “So what is happening – and everyone is talking about convergence, interactive converging with Hollywood and the two worlds colliding – this is a perfect example of that. They wanted a blockbuster look and they wanted a Hollywood storyteller who could breathe life into their cinematic scenes and make them more interesting and more cinematic – not to be redundant. So they contacted me as a film director to work on these sequences and make them feel like a film.”

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Additionally we chatted with Mark Lamia, studio head of Treyarch, most recently in the spotlight as the developer of Call of Duty: World at War. Aside from recent releases, Treyarch is perhaps best known for their work on the Spider-Man film adaptations. As a habit Treyarch chooses to work with Hollywood talent whenever possible – not just in licensed titles when sharing the talent pool is anticipated.

“At Treyarch we have the privilege of collaborating with some of the biggest properties and talent in Hollywood,” Lamia confirmed. “Spiderman is the property that Treyarch is primarily known for, as well as the James Bond Quantum of Solace game. But we also interact with much Hollywood talent on our original properties such as Call of Duty. So for example, on Big Red One the team worked with a number of the Band of Brother actors, and with World at War our designers and writers worked with Gary Oldman and Kiefer Sutherland. I think the incredible acting talent that comes from Hollywood is starting to be seen in more games.”

Trading Talent:

And trading talent is undoubtedly where the largest amount of convergence is found.

“As we get better with creating stories and our technology allows us to create richer worlds, the level of crossover grows,” continued Lamia. “The obvious place that people think about is voice acting. It’s not uncommon anymore to see high profile Hollywood talent lending their voice to games. Such as found with Judi Dench – very high profile people. I worked with Patrick Stewart on Star Trek stuff in the past, and Mark Hamill did voiceover work in Call of Duty at times. But also, we are seeing writers in Hollywood who are getting involved in the business. We are seeing the art directors, effects artists – definitely animators, particularly people who are doing CG work. We are seeing a lot of audio composers, which is another area. There are a lot of people from movies who are going to work in games. And people who were doing work in games that are now doing work in movies and TV. So in that sense, on a talent level, there is a large amount of convergence.”

He continued by explaining why Treyarch prefers to use Hollywood talent whenever possible.

“Why use a more accomplished actor? We kind of feel like we are at the point where our stories and our characters are really major staring roles in the game and we feel that the player would like to play alongside a well-known actor that they can interact with,” Lamia explained. “We looked at who would be an awesome sergeant to be fighting alongside with – barking out orders – in regards to Kiefer. And Gary Oldman, he did such an amazing role as Sgt. Reznov for us in World at War. He did such a great accent and was able to execute the role perfectly. We are definitely looking for the best talent we can in order to bring that experience to the gamers.”

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Kristen Bell's image used in Assassin's Creed

Lamia also mused that the aging gamer generation has some influence over the trend.

“Culturally, the people who are entering Hollywood are gamers. We are getting to the first generation of Hollywood gamers. These are people who grew up playing on their console or their PC. So as this continues to happen and as games become a bigger piece of entertainment in our broad culture, the idea of being able to work in games or to translate a Hollywood IP into a gaming property isn’t going to be so novel.”

Sonzero also offered up insight, explaining why Hollywood talent themselves might want to get aboard the gaming train.

“A lot of actors are loaning their voices and scan rights to games,” Sonzero began. “I think directors, clearly Spielberg and Cameron, are all in this space right now playing with motion capture and CG. The amount of freedom that you have to move the camera around and to make incredible dynamic and cinematic sequences is something you could never pull off in live action without tons of effects work. Where CG is headed – what I experienced on this Capcom project, they have a proprietary finishing software called Frameworks – is that it creates such an interesting texture to the look that is so exotic to the eye that it looks better than live action. As this continues to improve, we are going to see actors selling their scan-rights to a studio and continuing to live on forever as a character and never have to worry about aging. They will be forever young as a file, frozen in time with all the range of motion and their expressions in their faces. It sounds a little hollow and haunted, but it kind of makes sense.

Driving Forward:

Aside from prospective talent pools, what does each industry look to the other for? Does one industry drive the other forward? Sonzero began by tackling the industry he knows best, film.

“My perception is that they [Hollywood] are looking to games because of the audience,” Sonzero explained. “As games continue to evolve and more and more eyeballs are headed to interactive, they are looking for a way and a rhythm to capture the attention of the gamer and get them into the movie theater.”

“I think that game studios are looking to Hollywood to bring credibility to video games,” Sonzero switched gears. “Games have always kind of been looked at as the ugly sister of entertainment. With game revenue skyrocketing by comparison, I think that they both need each other. It has become almost a symbiotic relationship, and games are coming up and earning respect because the loyalty of fans to some IPs. The two industries merging is an incredible proposition. If you look at what is happening in games – you walk into any GameStop or Best Buy – look at some of the concept art and the development and the worlds that are being created. It is a renaissance. There is so much incredible creativity exploding in this sector of the business. So how do they bring that to the movie audience? How do they get that credibility? That is what each is looking for.”

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Grand Theft Auto IV was ridiculed by mainstream media, while the equally-violent film The Departed was nominated for four Oscars. The game industry looks to Hollywood for pointers as to how to obtain this level of recognition and credibility.

As a game development studio head, Lamia holds cinema in high regard as a source of inspiration.

“We really look to movies for inspiration,” credited Lamia, “Call of Duty in particular, and our movie games. We look to them to draw inspiration from great moments. The difference is that we try to allow the player to interact and live in that great cinematic experience, as opposed to a movie which is much more passive experience. But we look to them for inspiration; we look at the art direction. When movies come out with different art directions, such as with color in 300, we pay attention to all those things.”

“One of the things that we do at Treyarch in preproduction is to gather reference material, which includes gathering a massive amount of material from books,” he continued. “But one of the pieces we do for research is that we get any movie or TV program that we think might inspire us, and we see how the movie makers have explored everything from the theme, to the story, to the art direction, to the CG and animation and effects – pretty much everything.”

As for which industry is driving the other, Sonzero believes it is mutual at this point in time.

“I think they are feeding off each other,” confirmed Sonzero, “but I think gaming is the new frontier. All the motion capture technology, it is improving as we speak. There are things coming down the pipeline through the game world that is revolutionizing the industry. As games continue to become more and more real and the skins and the textures become more and more exotic to the eye, they will probably pass up live action. There will always be beautiful live action films and cinematography, and it is fantastic for traditional narrative storytelling, but to get the young eyeballs the exoticness of what is happening in the game sector is taking the lead.”

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While details about the game remain reclusive, Quantic Dream’s Heavy rain is already stunning in its realism.

Lamia answered the queston with a bit of hesitation due to his self-proclaimed lack of expertise in filmmaking.

“What I can say is that our industry is really rapidly changing – always changing. We have a platform where technology is constantly evolving. What we can do on the art side and the creative and engineering side as a result of all this change is pretty exciting and pretty dynamic. So we always feel that we are on the cutting edge in terms of entertainment. We have to create interactive worlds; we have to work with large teams to get one character to perform in our game. So we always feel that we are on the cutting edge, but whether we are more cutting edge than movies, it is really difficult to say.”

Inherently Different?:

Having established that talent may soon be drawn from a single pool, the questioning changes to the future of each form of entertainment as a medium. Is there a belief that movies and games will converge into an entertainment hybrid? Sonzero thinks that in the near future video games and movies won’t be mutually exclusive.

“I think the line is blurring between what is a movie and what is a game,” began Sonzero. “I think that in the next generation of games – moving into the 3D space – I think what we are going to see is the possibility of games and interactive movies coming out simultaneously, where the film could actually be the cinematics of the game. Or there could be trans-media or multiplatform releases where a movie is released simultaneously with scenes from the game. There could be live action games, there could be motion capture hybrids, there could be alternate reality games tied into movies; the possibilities are exponential as to where this could all lead. A really great sign is that all the eyeballs are going to interactive, with revenue north of 18 billion dollars reported in 2008. It has Hollywood’s attention. So this giant machine, this studio machine, is definitely interested in how they can continue to merge and produce new projects that will continue to captivate new audiences.”

Lamia reasoned that the mediums are inherently too different to fully converge, reiterating that the talent is where the crossover originates.

“I think one is an interactive medium, and one is a more passive form of entertainment, and that distinction alone makes them very different,” offered Lamia. “Creatively you are going to see more and more collaboration by nature as games appeal to a broader audience. But as far as the actual experiences, they will definitely remain different. For people who want to engage in gaming, movies aren’t quite going to satisfy what they are going after. At the same time if you want to kick back and watch a movie, most games are not what you are looking for.”


The Future:

So where do our industry experts see the video game and cinema industries in ten years? While they may disagree on the hybrid entertainment theory, both are of the belief that interactive media is changing the leisure landscape.

“Look at sporting events and TV, where people have to text message in their votes and things like that. That is a very interactive experience. It will be interesting to see if you will be doing a ‘choose your own adventure’ in the middle of a movie. I am not sure if that is where it’s headed, but it is interesting,” Lamia concluded.

Sonzero believes that the above is more than just a possibility. He sees it as the future.

“I think we will see and be able to play movies. They are going into an immersive interactive space. There will be some sort of interactive controller that you can play in your seat, and be able to play games on the big screen…in 3D [laughs].”
 
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