DRJ#5 - Concepts and ideas for the practice half of dissertation.

Introduction

This post will include some of the concepts and ideas I had for the practice half of the final project. As my project will be a participatory documentary I thought it would be good to look at some examples of people that have developed similar style documentaries that I could use for inspiration. I either want the documentary to be educational for people that have never played video games before or a documentary interviewing a game designer asking them questions around, if there game was converted to live action what would be their goals for the film and what they would like to convey from the games.

The Evolution of Cinematics in Video Games

This is an idea that I have had that I think will help uniformly answer my question of, "Why is the narrative experience of a video game franchise diluted when it is converted to a live action adaptation?".

Originally I chatted with my Professor Victoria McCollum about interview John Romero, the creator of Doom. With the intention of asking him questions in an interview about what choices he would like implemented if another adaptation of Doom were to be made. This interview would have been included in documentary originally titled "What elements of games, can make the jump to live action adaptation?". Ultimately, due to my appendix rupturing at the start of the semester and my duties as a class representative limited how much time I could have spent developing my project, and I found myself with less and less time. This was due to helping other members of my class as an actor, providing support during the strikes that were affecting UU lecturers and helping a few people in my class with mental health issues by pointing them in the right directions.

As much as I would have loved to have made that interview happen, my idea for The Evolution of Cinematics in Video Games I firmly believe is a better approach. My reasoning for this comes down to a few things. The first being, a lot of the examples on blackboard of previous years dissertations from my interpretation, don't actually answer the questions that have been set out for the paper. Another reason, is that while a lot of the students have outlined well how the practice they have designed will play out, it still doesn't tie in with the final project as a whole in my eyes.

For sure, they have made great content for their practice and there are some truly stunning final projects. However, my way of thinking is that of producing an educational participatory documentary to work as a visual aid. This comes from a line of thinking that, due to the nature of my project I think that a companion documentary that explains the evolution of video games would be extremely beneficial. This is due to, a lot of people maybe haven't played video games. Everyone has most certainly seen a movie, or a TV series at least but with the barrier of entry that video games produce it can be off putting to a lot of folks, which means they would probably prefer a movie or TV series adaptation before deciding to explore the franchise.

The inspiration for this actually came from my family, when The Last of Us TV series came out in January 2023 it was a huge bonding moment for us all. My dad always used to watch me play The Last of Us game back when it came out on the PS3 and it was a great father-son bonding moment for us, but he always said "I wish this was a movie or something instead." This got me thinking, and talking with him about this an ultimately I decided to make this documentary in this way due to this conversation. There could be people out there like my dad, who maybe don't have the time, money or experience to play a video game. So if I made a documentary explaining the journey of video games evolution, through the likes of 3D, motion capture and how it is now evolving film with Virtual Production. Then I theorize it would help answer my dissertation as it will provide context for this, as to what makes video games cinematic and how they achieved that through years of development.

Conclusion

I am convinced that this is the right way to go, a visual companion guide in the form of an educational participatory documentary is exactly what I think that I should do for my final project. With my degree being a Bachelors of Science I believe very strongly that my practice should be an educational tie in to help those understand my dissertation better.

Originally, as I said this is something that I was not planning on doing. But looking on it and reflecting upon this decision I feel very strongly that this is what I should do. Whilst it won't be as cinematic as other projects, in terms of fancy cinematography etc my goal is to create an educational video to help those who haven't played video games what makes the cinematic, so they can better understand my dissertation.

Thanks for reading!