Cinema and the Code: Exploring the Birth of the Cinematic Form and Alternate Endings in Film and Games

1. GAMES II YOUNGBLOOD, MACHINIMA, THE HISTORY OF FILM AND VIDEO GAMES, AND ALTERNATE ENDINGS,

2. TODAY’S DISCUSSION • Youngblood’s “Cinema and the Code” article summary • Machinima Art • Birth of the Cinematic Form • Alternative Endings: A Marriage of Film and Games?

3. Youngblood, “Cinema and the Code” • Cinema is the art of organizing a stream of audiovisual events in time—like music • Four medias through which we can practice cinema—film, video, holography, and structured digital code • Digital imaging as a new cinematic language • Image transformation • Parallel event-streams • Temporal perspective • The image as object

4. Youngblood, “Cinema and the Code” (cont’d…) • Image transformation • Mechanical cinema is the art of the transition and electronic cinema is the art of the transformation • A cut is a cut, metamorphosing operation is open-ended • Parallel event-streams • Three possibilities: superimposition (overlay), spatially separate event-streams (framed and unframed) • Eg. Split screens in film (optical printing) or floating image-planes in video

5. Youngblood, “Cinema and the Code” (cont’d…) • Temporal perspective • Wiebel looked to art history as influence for digital media • Perspective was no longer bound to a static point of view • Temporal perspective only seriously explored in experimental film—Michael Snow • The image as object • Image processing • Mechanical cinema relies on the frame • Electronic cinema only deals with its location or position within the larger frame

6. Youngblood, “Cinema and the Code” (cont’d…) • The image as object (cont’d…) • Digital image synthesis • We can control the location, the perspective, angle of view and geometry of the image object in a three-dimensional database • Conventional editing reconstructs “real” time and “real” space • Three-dimensional display—binocular (stereoptic) or holographic • Cinema vs. video games—the spectator is the camera, “a point of view that is active within the scene” • Cinema is moving from the two-dimensional image on a screen to the three-dimensional object in space

7. Birth of the Cinematic Form • Birth of filmmaking (1895) • The Lumiere Bothers, Louise and Auguste, conceptualizes the idea of the Cinematographe, one of the most earliest forms of projecting an image. • All of Lumiere short films were considered actualities; films that portrayed reality. They were considered primitive documentaries because they would capture its physical environment. • For example, “Arrival of a Train (1895)”, literally depicts a train arriving and pedestrians walking inside, and “Baby’s Breakfast (1895)” showing exactly a baby and his/her parents eating breakfast. • Arrival at a Train: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgLEDdFddk • Baby’s Breakfast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW9MR6bz3zo

8. Birth of the Cinematic Form (cont’d…) • Birth of video games (1952) • “OXO” was the first ‘computer game’ to use a digital graphical display. It was invented by A.S. Douglas, whose primarily focus was not to create a videogame. OXO was strictly intended to be used in his thesis paper on human-to-computer interaction. • OXO in motion - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCTRWD3DFsA

9. Birth of the Cinematic Form (cont’d…) • Decade of innovation (1990s) • Important time in videogames, as there is a distinct transition from raster graphics to 3D graphics. • Myst (1993) was a point and click adventure game. While not exactly maneuvering in a 3D area, the player can explore the environment of a game by clicking certain paths and objects. • Metal Gear Solid (1998), defined a type of videogame that borrowed cinematic techniques from actual motion pictures. The narrative is now just as important as the gameplay. • MGS - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuTmDljP_QY

10. Birth of the Cinematic Form (cont’d…) • Technology! (2000 – present) • Film • There is a growing popularity of how people want to view their film (ie. IMAX) Currently, many people expect to see these big Hollywood budget movies (ie. Avatar). It has even come to a point where all types of movies are intended to be watched 3D! • Games • Videogames are turning more and more cinematic. For example, “Heavy Rain” allow players to take control of what happens in the narrative. There are many paths to take, and each one determines the outcome of the overall story. • The “Call of Duty” series perfectly captures the feeling of being at war. Bullets shoot towards the player, ground shakes as a bomb is thrown. There is that feeling of being engrossed in the setting. This was something that game developers weren’t able to do in the past. We are living in a world where videogames are given the same production values as big budget films.

11. New Media Resistance: Machinima and the Avant-Garde • Machinima: a contraction of machine and cinema first coined by the “The Strange Company” film collective. • Traditional narrative machinima is created by scripting a story, recording game play within a real time 3D environment • Machinima is unlike animation because the 3D engine that controls the images exists within the parameters of a video game. • For some games like “Simlife”, machinimators allow for the construction of nearly any environment and avatar imaginable. Machinima does not need to exist in the confined of what would be described as a game

12. Early Machinima • Gamer-oriented • Offers practical advice for successful game play • Machinima has evolved to become a multifarious techniques with its own distinct genres and tendencies • “Male Restroom Etiquette” • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzO1mCAVyMw&feature=relmfu • “Red vs. Blue” (Halo) • “Make Love Not Warcraft” (South Park) • Machinima is a nascent technological breakthrough which radically redefines the means of production associated with traditional narrative filmmaking

13. Machinima Art • Machinima resembles found-footage filmmaking in its appropriation of extent images and sounds; however, machinima employs digitally appropriated environments, avatars, background stories and even pre-rendered sequences • Machinima art as a critique of video games • Machinima art as a cheap platform for cinematic expression

14. Limitation of Machinima • Machinimators often attempt to work within the aesthetic and narrative constructions of contemporary Hollywood cinema • Most machinima theorists and pioneers are fascinated with non-narrative possibilities but they admit that machinima has a brighter future in its narrative form

15. Why machinima is worth of study • Personal video game consoles have become so widespread • Over 117 million Americans are counted as “active gamers” • Machinima = new media resistance • Radical critique of video games • Attempt to redefine the politics and ideology of video game culture rather than praise it

16. Alternate Endings • DVDs allow more interaction with film • Alternate endings in special features allow us to choose which ending we want to see • “Heavy Rain” gives ultimate control of characters in the way a ‘choose your own adventure’ book does

17. Paranormal Activity (2007) alternate endings

18. It’s your turn! • What do you think about the interactive relationship between video games and their players, and that of an audience and their ability to choose an alternate ending of a film? • Could the alternate ending option for films be a step in the right direction to complete interactive film? • Do you think ‘choose your own adventure’ films are a possibility? ???

19. Works Cited • Elijah Horwatt, “ New Media Resistance: Machinima and the Avant-Garde” (Cineaction 73/74 2008) http://cineaction.ca/issue73sample.htm • Heavy Rain. 2.0. [Sony Computer Entertainment.] Quantic Dream. February, 2010. Video game. • Gene Youngblood “Cinema and the Code.” Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary After Film. Eds. Jeffrey Shaw and Peter Weibel. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003. • Paranormal Activity. Dir. Oren Peli. Perf. Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat. Blumhouse Productions, 2007. Film. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgLEDdFddk • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW9MR6bz3zo • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCTRWD3DFsA • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uswzriFIf_k • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VS00FyRwR4w • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuTmDljP_QY • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzO1mCAVyMw&feature=relmfu