[MUD-Dev] Much Respect to JessicaM

[Sean Kelly]

On Mon, 9 Sep 2002 Daniel.Harman at barclayscapital.com wrote:
> From: Michael Tresca [mailto:talien at toast.net] 
 
>> I'll take this one step further.  The nature of MMORPGs is
>> user-crafted content.  In all media.  ALL MEDIA.
  
>> No more traditional movies.  You plop the camera in a MMORPG, buy
>> the rights from the guys who participate, clean it up, and sell
>> it. That's your next movie.  Virtual actors have already removed
>> the need for storyboarders since you're filming the action in
>> real time and can tweak the characters' actions later. Less and
>> less traditional film roles are necessary.
  
>> No more traditional TV.  Just plop the camera into a Soap MMORPG
>> (it's coming, I'm sure).  Watch it for an hour.  Gee, kind of
>> like Big Brother.

> Sure... and tv will kill radio, and video will kill the cinema.
 
> I would also take this opportunity to remind you how well received
> Mr Lucas's forays in this direction have gone - JaJa Binks anyone? 
> Perhaps Lucas is unique, but the more he has become enabled by
> techonology, the worse his movies have become. Constraints seemed
> to bring out the best in him.

This is drifting a bit off-topic, but remember that Lucas only
directed the first movie... and I believe that was the last movie he
directed until Phantom Menace.  Lucas' talent has always been art
direction, not script writing or movie direction.  And I agree that
his fascination with pure digital effects is not far short of
disastorous -- there are scemes in Attack of the Clones that would
have been far better if he had at least tried to do some sort of
motion capture for the humanoids rather than asking the animation
team to just wing it.  I'm also convinced that his love for
long-shots was as much to obscure the poor quality of his CG
animation as it was to show off his nifty panoramas.  I've been a SW
fan my whole life, but AotC was the worst film I've seen in years.

> Anyway, I honestly believe that actors do considerably more than
> just stand there reciting lines. However pretty we can get the
> real time graphics, interfacing with a control system that would
> allow proper facial expressiveness for instance, doesn't seem that
> likely anytime soon.  Espcially when you consider all the subtle
> aspects of a performance, the intangibles that separate a poor or
> moderate performance from an amazing one. Translate that to a PC?

One thing I liked about Snow Crash was the emphasis placed on
animation of the human face.  This is something too often forgotten
in CG cinema.  Also, ever notice how hand-drawn animation is more
evocative than a CG scene done with an eye for realism?  The
imagination does a great job of filling in the blanks, so long as
you leave it enough blanks to fill.  There was a rash of digital
video games a few years back that proved this point quite well --
that a player could be more immersed in King's Quest 1 than he could
a DV game.

> Final Fantasy the movie was chock-full of state of the art CGI. It
> was roundly criticised for the wooden performance of the 'actors'
> and a plot better suited to a computer game. I feel there are
> parallels that can be drawn between this and what you are
> proposing.

But it was the first feature-length film with all human CG
characters.  And they spent an unbelievable amount of time on the
main character's head (something like 4 months).  The animation may
have been a tad stiff at times, but I thought they did a fantastic
job for a first-shot at a CG film starring rendered humans.

> Perhaps with the mud-hammer, everything is looking like a nail?

I think it's more the need to make broad statements based on
generalizations and hunches.  "Reality TV is popular and people are
making short movies with the Quake engine so before you know it we
will be watching The (un)Real World on Fox."  Thing is, with no
high-budget production equipment and an already existing medium for
viewing (the internet) there's no reason to put a reality show based
on a virtual environment on TV.  That isn't to say it won't happen,
but I don't think TV is going to be the prevailing medium if it
happens, or that traditional movies will fall by the wayside either.

Sean


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