Hooray For Hollywood And Games!
The “Hollywood And Games Summit,” held last year at the Beverly Hills Hotel, was the video games industry’s first real attempt to publicly break down the language barrier between movie makers and game makers. The “first annual event” was one day long and deemed a good first try by many in attendance.Highlights included “The Art Of Pitching” with Fox’s Steve Asbell and Electronic Arts’ Neil Young sharing insights into how to get your idea made. More comical was director Paul Anderson’s talk which contained a few choice observations, but was mostly insightful because he inadvertently revealed that he clearly didn’t understand the games he was translating to the big screen. Which pretty much sums up most of the history until now between Hollywood and video game IPs
Our industry is still being treated as an “exploitation” medium by most. We’re still expecting stories that were built specifically for games to translate to the big screen as is. And we’re still falling victim to a business model that fails when marketing folks who don’t understand the machina behind gaming get insecure about losing their jobs.
Luckily, this year’s “Hollywood And Games Summit” conference schedule is a bit more
evolved and, hopefully, indicative of how far we’ve come in bridging the communication barrier between games and movies from an entirely holistic standpoint.
For instance, the keynote speaker -- Clive Barker -- is someone who, unlike most who merely view the games medium as another means for IP exploitation, is making a conscious effort to really understand games from an emotional and psychological perspective. Famed for the classic horror flick, “Hellraiser,” Barker is now embarking on a somewhat experimental horror game called “Jericho” to be released by Codemasters in the fall for PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.P>
Seemingly part “Silent Hill,” part “Geist,” and part “Aliens,” Barker and the team at Madrid-based Mercury Steam Entertainment are trying to create a game environment where you don’t shoot one zombie, its head falls off, and then you move on to the next zombie. The game’s goals are to ask the question “what is evil?” and to give the player intelligent enemies with whom they may either sympathize or to whom they may even relate. [Click here for a video interview with Barker.]
The conference will also feature a game maker talking about moving into film, specifically Jordan Mechner of “Prince Of Persia” and “Karateka” fame, discussing “How Talent Can Successfully Cross the Digital Divide.”
Mechner is now co-writing the big-budget adaptation of the “Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time” story under the Disney umbrella. With Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay teaming up as producer and director respectively, it’s expected to have huge potential, though Bay’s inclusion in a movie that won’t have any car chases or anything blowing up will no doubt raise questions, regardless of how well Bay’s July 4th tentpole “Transformers” does.
This year’s conference already looks like it’ll improve on last year’s, though it’s anyone’s guess whether any real, hard questions will be asked of the panel, unlike last time. For example, will any of the journalists in attendance ask Electronic Arts’ Neil Young whether they’ll market the senior game development staff on the boxes for their Spielberg game alongside Spielberg’s name? Shouldn’t they put the names of senior developers on the box like you see the names of the movie makers on movie posters? Why use film talent to sell a game and not promote your game talent?
Unfortunately, this year’s conference still painfully excludes the “Chronicles Of Riddick” team who, in my opinion (and GameRankings’ opinion, too, it would seem), made the best day-and-date game-movie ever. Also missing is the Activision/Dreamworks development partnership team, which turns out some well-targeted father-daughter demographic, high-quality games in a manner that deserves discussion.
For those interested, the second annual “Hollywood And Games Summit” is now spread out over two days -- June 26 and 27 -- and has been relocated to the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel. I’ll be there. Feel free to buy me a beer if you see me propping up the bar.
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Horror pioneer Clive Barker opened this year’s recent “Hollywood & Games” conference by sharing with an intimate crowd of games and movie professionals his personal experiences and understanding of games as a medium.
>> Hooray For Hollywood And Games!
The Hollywood And Games Summit held last year at the Beverly Hills Hotel, was the video games industry’s
first real attempt to publicly break down the language barrier between movie makers and game makers. The “first annual event” was one day long and deemed a good first try by many in attendance.
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