Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin

SyFy has three new series. One is a cooking show.

Hvart ero that svic ein, er ec sia thicciomz,
eþa ragna roc, rítha menn dauthir?

Game Writing Info

I asked a friend of the blog who works in the game biz for some info on the structure of the game industry. If you're in the game biz, this is old news to you, but if you're not, it might be interesting.

There are publishers and developers. The publishers are akin to the studios; developers are akin to production companies.

For example, Activision is a game publisher.  Generally, they don't create content.  They distribute it.  EA and Blizzard are also a video game publishers. (Blizzard and Activision operate completely separately from one another though they're under the same corporate banner).

Developers actually make games, like production companies actually make shows. In the Activision umbrella is Neversoft (Guitar Hero), Infinity Ward (Call of Duty), High Moon, Treyarch, and a 1/2 dozen other developers.  They also just recently established a deal with Bungie (Halo). Activision is more or less a name that ensures sales and a distribution route, like Fox or NBC, etc.

If you want to do anything creative, you want to be involved with the developers.

Most developers are smaller boutique type companies. Video game publishers are focused more on the business side of video games and are not very focused on innovation. They quite frequently will buy out developer companies that are innovative to stay competitive in the marketplace. They are also the reason you see Guitar Hero 9 and Tony Hawk 27.

However, some companies produce and distribute. Rockstar games both published and developed Red Dead Redemption.  Most developers start out wearing both hats.  Then get bought out by a bigger publisher.  Red Octane was the original publisher of Guitar Hero.  It is still involved with Guitar Hero, but now Activision is the publisher.

Writers don't always get the writing gigs on games. It seems people who are good at creating a smooth work flow, or have a background in programming, or have a grip of money, often get them. Companies don't typically have a department, like say a staff writing team, like television does.

Sounds like the early days of the movies. Hopefully as games mature this will change!

As for breaking in -- the bottom line is video games don't need a story.  Unlike film and TV, games don't need writers.

Take Guitar Hero.  It's a huge franchise that rakes in cash hand over fist.  It really has no need for writers.  The game could simply be colorful gems on a digital highway with a guitar controller (which it basically is).

A good story is frosting in the video game world.  Gameplay heavily outweighs story.

Also, the need for people who can manage a projects work flow and/or program the game are higher up the totem pole than writers, for mainly practical reasons.  Without them, there is no game.  Without writers, you can still have a game.

Video games aren't known for their dialogue.  In fact, they are known for their horrible Engrish translations: "All your base are belong to us."  I think the bar is much lower in what is acceptable, to the point that an employee who can do something else (3d level design, program, etc). gets these jobs.

PORTAL is a great exception.  Getting sarcasm across in a video game is awesome.

I think it's much easier to break into video games as a writer as a known entity.  Like Tom Clancy and his SPLINTER CELL stuff.  For an unknown, it is almost impossible (unless you have another skillset more suited to video games, which many people do. (3D modeling, animating, etc.)  If you have that it's probably easier.  I just meant on a one to one comparison of people who are strictly writers with no other skillset, it's tougher.

I actually think people involved with new methodology of advertising would be able to make an easier transition into video games.  The work flow documents for many of these "viral" and ARG based advertisers (www.whysoserious.com) are very similar to the documents used to create and map out video games.

I guess, in short, it's less about writing an emotionally involving story, and more about creating an interesting puzzle.  Not saying they are mutually exclusive.  Just saying, video games reliance on story isn't as high as it is in film / telelvision.

Yeah, there are plenty of games which don't rely on story at all. I haven't played GUITAR HERO (I'm trying to learn actual guitar), but I can't imagine why I'd want a story -- you're there to "play" rock'n'roll.

But I do think that games are getting more into story and dialog. Obviously the makers of ASSASSIN'S CREED 2, BIOSHOCK 1 and 2, and RED DEAD REDEMPTION all put a lot of loving care into their dialogue and story, to name just a couple I've played lately.

In general, games are getting more sophisticated. The rendering on RED DEAD REDEMPTION is spectacular. Good writing may just be icing on the cake in some games. But who wants bare cake?

(Yes, yes, I know. The cake is a lie. Whatevs.)

What Do You Want to Know?

I'm going to Banff in a few weeks, to attend the Banff Worldwide Television Festival, where I hope to interview Vince Gilligan (BREAKING BAD), Ian Brennan (GLEE), Ricky Gervais (THE OFFICE, EXTRAS), James Manos (DEXTER) and William Shatner (famous horseman).

I've got some questions in mind, but what questions would you most like me to ask these famous creative folk?

Raindance Has a Slew of Coen Bros Scripts

I wouldn't recommend trying to write like them, particularly, but certainly worth a read.

A Fistful of Dollars

After watching THE EXORCIST, Hunter and I (but not Lisa) watched A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS again. Now there is a thoroughly fine movie. Streamlined story. Simple motivations. Not a lot of talk. ("Mister, why are you doing this for us?" "Because I knew someone like you once, and there was no one to help.")

But what makes it a classic? Especially in spite of the Italians playing Mexicans, and the bad dubbing?

The music. The music is fantastic. Ennio Morricone's score elevates what would otherwise be an exploitation picture into a classic of cinema.

Spielberg once said, "I can make people cry. John Williams can make them weep."

There's a tendency to shortchange postproduction in low budget movies. Soundtracks get shorted in particular. The money just runs out. But ironically, sound is more important than picture. Proof? Try watching TV with a bit of snow in the picture. So long as the sound is okay, you can watch. The moment the sound gets scratchy, it's painful to watch.

Picture tells the story. Sound goes straight to the heart. (To grossly oversimplify.)

Make sure they don't short your soundtrack budget. The soundtrack makes the dramatic scenes score, and makes the jokes funnier. It makes or breaks the movie. A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS cost $200,000, which wasn't a lot for a movie even in 1964. But a decent chunk of that must have gone to the score.

Just ask Sergio Leone. He knew.

The Exorcist

Lisa, Hunter and I watched THE EXORCIST. I know this movie made a big splash when it came out in 1973, but I was shocked how bad the storytelling was. It feels like a great example of why you should not make a "faithful" adaptation of a novel. (And especially, not let the novelist adapt his own book.) The movie starts off with a fifteen-minute sequence in Northern Iraq where Max von Sydow (44, but already playing ancient) is digging stuff up... that never really relates to anything that happens later. At least not if you haven't read the novel. In fact it's 25 minutes in (I was looking at the counter) before there is anything to exorcize. It's not until almost the third act before anyone calls in "the exorcist," whom we haven't seen since minute 15 or so. And there's a whole subplot involving a police lieutenant that never goes anywhere at all, but winds up in the epilog.

Now there are good horror movies that start quietly and slowly. But they are building something. THE SHINING is creepy from the get-go. Nothing terrible happens for a while, but Jack Nicholson and the kid are both quietly creepy long before serious badness starts.

THE EXORCIST just has scene after scene that doesn't relate to the story. Why do we need to see Ellen Burstyn acting in a movie? Her problem is her kid is going to be possessed. Does it mean anything that she's in a movie about campus unrest?

I had a strong urge to stop watching up till about minute 60. And yet the movie made a ton of money. $440,000,000 worldwide, in fact. And won Best Adapted Screenplay, and has been called "the scariest movie of all time," which it certainly is not, so go figure. (It is less scary than your average episode of HOUSE.)

My takeaway from this is that it's all very well and good to write a "good" movie. But if the climax of your movie is stunning enough, the audience may forgive the bad parts. What got people in the door was Linda Blair turning into a cursing demonic nightmare with Mercedes McCambridge's voice. Linda Blair's head going around and around. Language so foul and blasphemous that the movie was original rated X. This was alarming stuff no one had ever seen before, and that's what people came to see. By the time they walked out of the theater, they'd forgotten all about the dull irrelevant bits because of the smasho ending.

People go see movies to be entertained, and part of that is the pure spectacle of seeing something they've never seen before. If you're the first person to put really convincing CGI dinosaurs in your movie, you don't actually have to make a great movie. Everyone will go see your movie whether it's great or not.

What is so urgent about your movie that people will rush out and see it?

What Happened to Nottingham?

Here's the very interesting story about what happened to Ethan Rieff and Cy Voris's fascinating script about the Sheriff of Nottingham -- sort of an early Sherlock Holmes story, with the sheriff tracking a terrorist named Robin using period forensics -- on its way to becoming the awful new ROBIN HOOD movie.

I remember negotiating to option Ethan and Cy's stuff long, long ago when I was a development guy. (I think it was a horror movie about the goddess Tanit.) Good to see they've become such good writers; sorry to hear they're getting badly rewritten.

The Rikers of Space

Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes pitch "The Rikers of Space," a sitcom based on Star Trek: TNG. What I love about this is that it's sort of a joke, sort of not. I mean, they would do it if someone bit. It goes on way too long, but this is how we work up series. And pitch them. Starts with a possibly ridiculous idea. Then you start working it out, figuring out what it is and what it isn't... Anyway, fun.