DRJ#4 - The Videos and interviews I have watched.
- infamousproduction0
- May 20, 2023
- 5 min read
Introduction
These are all of the videos and interviews that I have watched as a part of my research, my hope for these was to get inspiration for my theory section of my dissertation but in turn it also inspired me for what I would create for my documentary.
1. Resident Evil’s Creator Visits Bokeh Game Studio
This was an interview featuring Shinji Mikami and his philosophies of game design. This was incredibly insightful as it allowed me to see what his goals and visions were for Resident Evil (1996), and in turn allowed me to see just how different the approach was to the live action Resident Evil (2002).
2. HIDEO KOJIMA & DEATH STRANDING: Bridging the Worlds of Film and Games
This was an archived livestream that featured Hideo Kojima, he talks about like the title states about Bridging the Worlds of Film and Games. This was an incredibly interesting watch as it allowed me to see into Kojima's decision making, his inspirations and his goals as a director when he sets out to make a game.
3. Hideo Kojima Interview: Visiting His New Studio as Kojima Productions Enters Phase 2
The video on this article was great and I really enjoyed it, the thing I found the most interesting was Kojima's comment on Death Stranding where he said "I made Death Stranding to be a game, and games are games. There's no real need to turn them into films". I thought this was interesting as Kojima has historically always made his games quite cinematic during cutscenes, but he mentions that his film adaptation of Death Stranding is going in a direction no one has tried before.
4. Video game creator Neil Druckmann on ‘The Last of Us’ and new HBO series
This was an incredibly insightful interview with Neil Druckmannm, he gives context into why Naught Dog changed direction when it came to there game design philosophy. He also talks about that designing The Last of Us Part I (2013) and Part II (2020) were completely different games from what they had designed and that they were about exploring human emotion and how they explore taking risks when making games like this.
5. Neil Druckmann about why The Last of Us tv show has made the game even better
This was a short video, where he talks about how the game feels richer now that people have watched the show and then went back to play the TLOU Part I (The Last of Us) game, and found more depth.
6. How Joel and Ellie CHANGED For The TV Show - The Last Of Us Creator Neil Druckmann Exclusive!
Neil Druckmann gets interviewed by Comicbook.com and talks about how all the characters who made the jump to the TV series went through a series of changes for their live action roles. He breaks down some of the changes and what there goals were for those changes. This was insightful and interesting to watch as a fan of both the games and the TV series.
7. The Last of Us | Inside the Episode - 1 | HBO Max
Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin, talk about the emotionally charged beginning of The Last of Us. Druckmann talks about how that love in a world of survival can be dangerous, with that danger being a motivator for Joel's primitive instinct takes over to protect his newfound foster daughter, Ellie.
8. Swipe | Hideo Kojima On His Biggest Influences And The Future Of VR
The thing that I found most interesting about this article is how much 3D influenced Kojima's work. It was an eye opening revelation to see what exactly the extra dimension did for game directors who made very cinematic games. He states: When I started making games 30 years ago, they were far from realistic. "Characters had no background, there was no real story to them. So I made it my mission to depict these elements of the story. I didn’t want my characters to be lines of code, I wanted them to be people. Living, organic things. I also wanted to convey the struggles that these characters have been through, some of the more difficult background they have had. So I see this not as adding dark elements to the game, but rather adding depth.”
9. Resident Evil Village Behind The Scenes Mocap and Visual Production
This video showed how Resident Evil 8 Villages motion capture functioned in a behind the scenes look. This was interesting to see how far acting has been enhanced in video games with the use of motion capture, giving more depth and realistic movements.
10. DEVIL MAY CRY 5 | Reuben Langdon Dante Mocap Comparison - Live Action Performance Behind the Scenes
This was an interesting video that featured Reuben Langdon's performance as Dante, motion capture in the RE Game Engine gives so much detail to the characters and motion capture makes good use of it.
11. Zelda Ocarina of Time Cut Scene: Ganondorf meets Link
The Legend of Zelda 1998 was one of the first adventure games made in full 3D, the 3D element really adds a lot to the story due to the cinematic nuances that have been made possible thanks to the extra dimension. This will be something I think will be important to use in my documentary.
12. Metal Gear Solid 3 - Behind the Scenes and Beta Gameplay [Making of]
This was an interesting insight as this was Kojima's 3rd instalment in the Metal Gear Solid (MGS) series, Metal Gear Solid 2 was more of a graphical upgrade to the first and shared a lot of similarities. Where MGS3 has taken this a step further with motion capture, to think that Kojima was using this technology as early as he was shows how far ahead of the competition at the time when it came to story telling techniques.
13. [MGSV] Character making - Stefanie Joosten as Quiet (3D Scan and Motion Capture)
This was a video of the actress that portrayed quiet in MGS5: The Phantom Pain, this video shows the process of how someone can be scanned through using a camera rig, to have their likeness imported into a game. This would be something that I would love to do for a living, as it allows for characters in games to be much more expressive.
14. What Is Virtual Production?
After having that tour with Declan Keeney in Ulster Universities Virtual Production studio, he had mentioned that the backgrounds that were developed in the Unreal Engine. This made me extremely excited as the evolution of games and their development has brought us to Virtual Production, where the two blend together as a fusion to produce something that utilized physical and digital techniques and technologies.
This website has a great video breaking down the production design on The Mandalorian Season 1.
15. What is Virtual Production & How is it Revolutionizing Film
This was a super insightful article, showing how much Virtual Production is effectively replacing Green Screen and revolutionizing the industry. The video featured on this site was super educational to the Old method Vs the new methods that Virtual Production presents.
Summary
While researching my books, I was looking at these videos and interviews initially to see what other directors and people thought. This did help me find useful information for my documentary, but also allowed me to show how far video games have evolved over the last 30 years. This in turn has ended up providing a lot of helpful ideas for my practice side that I will list on another blog post.
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