Re: Topic Suggestions

[Dan Lyke]

On Sat, 27 Feb 1999, Morbus Iff wrote:
> Topic suggestions:

Thank you!

> b) Defined plot device, or random small encounters?

I don't think random small encounters are interesting enough. They have to
build to a climax of some sort otherwise it's like watching a soap opera
that never goes anywhere.

If you subscribe to McKee (and, while you're adding books to your list
several months out, I strongly recommend his "Story"), what makes story
interesting is that the characters take steps to acheive their goals. And
every time they take an action towards their goal, the world responds in a
way they didn't expect.

If that's all that happens, at best you've got slapstick. But if every
time that gap between expectation and reaction opens up, you can look back
in the story and say "aha, that's why that happened", the story becomes
fulfilling.

The audience is not only looking backwards, but it's taking past events
and trying to predict forward. If you have lots of random small encounters
that aren't foreshadowing future gaps there's a lot of noise in the story.

If the coupling between the foreshadowing and the future reactions is too
tight the story seems obvious (and if it isn't foreshadowed but
flashbacked, ala "What Dreams May Come", it feels melodramatic and
manipulative), but if the coupling is too loose there isn't anything to
distinguish it from real life.

> c) Real-time or "turn based" - meaning, do we wait for the player or let
> them lose out on things as they look at the "Unofficial Strategy Guide".

My end goal is real- time interaction, because I think that lends an
urgency that helps make it compelling, however...


Todd and Steve and I have been looking at taking some of the concepts
we've come up with and making a first pass at implementing our concepts
via a real-time strategy game. One of the things high on Todd's list is
that the game be multi-player. And eventually he got me to agree with him.

But one of the things that still disturbs me about this is that it is
extremely difficult to tell a story without temporal breaks. One of my
coworkers remarked that Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" is a great story, but
first the hero has to go out and find seven samurai, and there's just no
way to make that as exciting as American audiences have become accustomed
to.

The third act happens in real-time. But it's extremely difficult to build
the setup for that resolution without some cuts, without following the
cops as they drive to every single interview and follow every single
dead-end, or watching every mouthfull the couple on a date consumes in a
restaurant (not that I can't imagine some tremendous possibilities with
the latter).


Here's the another related thing that I've yet to resolve: I'm looking at
other markets, pursuing the "chick flick". Puzzle based stories don't work
so well there, but I'm also thinking about soap operas. Soaps are
traditionally high on dialog because they're designed to be "watched"
while other things are going on, housework is getting done, etc. But that
makes them less interactive. If anyone wants to riff on that topic I'd
love to hear thoughts.

> d) Modern age or Fiction based?

Well, I'm a big fan of modern novels in the classical style, ie: Robertson
Davies, John Fowles, even Tom Robbins. But in literature at least the
market for those seems precluded by historical novels in modern style
(There are very few editors and/or agents these days who appear to
understand subtlety).

> e) What should we look at for an Atmosphere Machine? (ie. modifying the
> game based upon a player's reactions - weather, other people, scenery,
> etc...)

I think Todd's actually had the Pixar lighting and layout classes, I've
just learned what I know by osmosis, but I'll give it a whirl. And note
that when I'm talking in visual terms I'm not precluding rendering as
text, there've been many threads on rec.arts.int-fiction about how to
describe a scene, give the feeling of clutter without having to define
the behavior of a bazillion objects.

When you set up a scene, you're looking to set a mood. Is it up-beat or
down? What are the colors and visual cues that we're goiing to associate
with that? If we've got a scene that starts down and goes up we might
start with the lighting in shadow, get a good blue funk going, then move
the action out into the warm glow of a sunset, get the orange uplifting
feel.

The lighting needs to be set up in such a way to differentiate the
important elements of the scene from the background clutter. You'll
generally backlight the characters a bit to give them a little 'round the
edges glow to contrast them from the extras.

Different filmmakers have different theories about composition, but often
you'll associate horrizontal dominants (horizon lines, strung fences, etc)
with a feeling of serenity, verticals (trees, doorways, and so on)  with
mystery or unease. (note that you can take serenity and use it for
despair) And the spear carrying hordes charging over the horizon or the
road shifting from open meadow to tree-lined are great ways to change from
one to the other. 

Layout wise we may be tying a visual element to a metaphor. It may be as
simple as (I think it was "Broadcast News") making the background to the
antagonists flat (always shoot them up against a wall) and the
protagonists deeper (always shoot them in front of windows, open doorways,
etc).

Similarly many movies tie water to some sort of feeling, so we'll (and if
we're smart we'll do this subtly, the hissing teapot in "Henry & June" 
was conducive mainly to laughter) make sure there are full coffee cups on
the table when we're discussing shark hunting. 

Object placement is also important. Going back to Casablanca, note the
what's in between Ilsa and whatever male she's talking with. Did they put
a lamp on the table to provide a visual break between them? While we're at
it, note which side of the screen Rick and Ilsa are on when they're on the
screen together. Resolve this with which side of the road they drive on in
Paris.

Similarly, the guideline of the Golden Mean suggests that things placed
dead-center in an image are just that. Dead. If we want vibrance we put
them on the 2/5ths (approx) points, and if we want them dull we center
them. And we need the usual border objects to make sure that channels
don't funnel our attention out of frame. 

Weather obviously mirrors plot, the parody of this in "The Truman Show" 
was one of the parts of that movie that worked for me, but even movies
which use simile fairly heavy handedly, "Chasing Amy" for instance, get
away with this (although the hockey game scene is a little over the top). 

Yeesh, rereading this it's amazing I still find any movies watchable.

> Talk amongst yourself (in the open). Yup.

Yeah! We got 20 people on this list, after all. This isn't just the Morbus
and Dan and Todd show (or at least I hope it's not).

And I guess I've got to get that web archiving done this weekend so we can
attract more.

Dan