Pre-Production

A Day in the life of a Computer Game Character

We are now discussing a different idea that Harry came up with, where we are shooting a 'game'. 

As I am the only girl in the group it's safe to say all my other team mates are familiar with Playstation, Xbox and/or PC gaming and as it is I am a game fanatic as well so this idea was very agreeable for every member.

It was interesting talking about different game elements we could include like achievements, selection panels and many other things.

Role playing games like The Sims franchise was one of the first concepts we discussed and we will probably include the 'needs' bar elements in our short film.  

RPG games like Grand Theft Auto and Fallout have a massive fan base, all of our team members have played them and the audience will be able to pick up on some of the subtle and not so subtly inspired elements as it's safe to say they will have come across these games. 

So the overall theme is we are going to follow the life or a student but with a 'game' style twist. We used these and similar videos as inspiration for our idea Real GTA and Hotline Miami.

Harry and I were going through the videos on this really good YouTube channel The Warp Zone, which gave us some good ideas.

Below is the treatment that was submitted with more of an insight into the idea:

Treatment: Group 8

Title: TBC

Headline:

A day from the point of view of a man whose life plays like a video game.

Story:

The story will follow an unnamed protagonist at university, whose life plays out in the same way as video games do. Not so much an action game, but more an open world role playing game or a simulation. His day plays out as that of any typical student – eating, showering, studying, socialising and relaxing. However the way he carries out these actions are more like that in a game. When he showers, he fills a cleanliness meter, as does eating. Studying involves the building of skill points in the same way as a character in The Sims, talking with a friend via text would play out like navigating a series of menus in a game to select a reply. His morning will be a montage of such events, until his game objectives tell him he needs to attend a lecture as part of his daily routine. As he changes from his house to campus, a loading screen appears to show just how like a video game his life is.

Walking to campus, he navigates maps, passes non playable characters and interacts with his environment in the same way as an open world role playing game. Once at lectures, he enters the room as a video game character would in a “rabbit hole” type area – one in video games where the character enters, performs activates but his not seen until they leave. Once the protagonist leaves, on screen skills and achievements appear as they do in role playing games - he levels up, and is visibly pleased by this. Moving on in his life, he is called by a friend asking if he wants to go out tonight, as any student would. Dialogue of the person calling is heard by the viewer, with the phone being applied on screen to show the name calling also. This initiates video game style fast travel, and another loading screen appears to show the character will now be entering the Rutherford bar.

In the bar, the protagonist purchases drinks and adds them to his inventory like a video game character would. An on screen intoxication meter slowly adds up as he drinks, and he talks to people throughout the game in a way similar to games where dialogue choices are available to be chosen by the player on screen. As he is more intoxicated, the more comical his responses become until danger warnings appear to show the character as being in a state similar to that of a game character who has low health. He leaves the bar, but doesn’t make it far before falling asleep on the pavement. The film ends with the character laying on the ground “wasted”, a reference to the Grand Theft Auto series where wasted means dying.

Characters: Male protagonist, 3 friends (1 male, 2 female)

The main lead would be a typical student, preferably male as this would be more accustomed to the typical video game player (Even though women do play video games, it’s considered more of a male hobby). Having a protagonist that is not named would fit into more of the Role Playing Game / Open World genre we are aiming to parody where the player chooses the characters name, so it would be up to the viewers interpretation. The protagonist will not talk. All his dialogue is done in the role playing game style where a written dialogue choice is presented and selected, but not spoken. The person they are talking to however, replies as if they had spoken.

The only other characters included would be in the bar scene, where the protagonist is socialising in the third section of the film. There won’t be any deep conversation with them, each character will only say about a line. 3 characters will speak to the protagonist; One when he is not drunk, the second when he is slightly, and the third when he is very. These characters will be given names that appear next to their heads, as what happens in game dialogue scenes. However their names have no significant importance to the story. The purpose of differentiating male from female friends is due to the dialogue the protagonist has with them: when drunk, he will try to chat up one of the female characters for comic effect. 

Locations:

For the first part of our film set in the protagonists house, a house on campus would be needed. 2 of our team members live on campus so one of their houses would be suitable. A shared house would be better to film in than a corridor dorm room as there will be more room to film and less people moving around the background (i.e, if we have to film from the corridors)

The second location would be in the general campus area. The protagonist will move from their house to a lecture theatre. An area that is not too busy would be good for filming the walk to campus. While we want to include members of the public that would act as non playable characters, the more characters on screen increases the chance of people will be looking at the camera / messing about in a way that makes us need to re shoot. The Parkwood footpath would be helpful for this at a time that it isn’t extremely busy, i.e, before or after lectures finish. As for a location where we film the protagonist going into a lecture hall as a rabbit hole, areas that are more open would be useful, again at a time that is not extremely busy. The Grimmond lecture theatre waiting area is open, new, well lit and has plenty of space for our protagonist to walk out and stand while his stats increase, therefore it is a preferable location. Hopefully one of the 3 lecture theatres will be empty at the time of filming, and some of our team or friends should know if there are any gaps in timetables where the room is empty. If it is still busy, we may come back at a later time as the area is open until later than lectures finish.

For our third scene, our character will be at a bar. Again, the more people that are around, the higher the chance they will be difficult to film around, especially if they have had alcohol. Rutherford bar would be the best for this as it is the quietest, however we still want people to be in the scene. Some members of our group are members of societies that use Rutherford bar as a night out every fortnight. As these members know the people who go to these events, we should easily get these peoples permission to film around them, while they shouldn’t be too distracting.

Style / format:

The style will be a light hearted parody of the video game genre. The viewer won’t need to be an avid video game player to understand all the references as the references being made will be to genres and conventions rather than individual games. However nods will be made to more well known titles for comedic effects.

The main way these effects will be achieved is through pre created overlays being added to the video track in premier pro. Moving animations will need to be created in after effects, such as moving images to show saving, moving map animations, moving dialogue choices, etc. These will then be placed onto the video track too. Our group collectively has experience with all of this software.

Narrative structure:

The narrative of the film will be split into 3 parts, in chronological order of the day’ events:

The start of the day: Set in the house of the protagonist, here they are going about with the more mundane tasks of student life. This may include showering, eating, studying, doing work, relaxing, socialising through technology. The video game twists shown on screen with these activities will make them more interesting to watch, also making them slightly comical.

Around on Campus: The protagonist leaves his house after a presence of a loading screen and goes to lectures to learn, or in our story, gain skills and “level up”. He is not shown inside of lectures as explained, and this will give the illusion that time has passed to the viewer.

Socialising at the bar: Here the protagonist will arrive after the presence of another loading screen. This will include a skip in time until the evening. The character will socialise here as described, and on his way home, pass out drunk in a similar style to being “wasted” (losing all your health) in the Grand Theft Auto series. The film will fade out just as it does in the game, and the film will end.

Duration:

Each of the three scenes will be split into around a minute, with possible less time in scene 2 and not a lot will be going on. This will be allocated to the other scenes, so our film should last slightly under the three minute mark.

Team Roles:

Members of our team feel that we all have our strengths in a variety of different areas, and would like to try different things to learn and enjoy. However some members have strengths in certain areas. Harry and Stephen would prefer to work on pre production elements such as storyboarding and script writing as they are keen video game players. Beth and Luke helped the team get high marks in the premier pro workshop, and Moritz is a member of KTV, the Universitys, TV channel and his skills will be great for filming on set.