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.
