Cinematography
and Ludology: 1. Introduction The business of this paper
is to enquire more deeply into the various intermediations
of games and films. First, I chew over the interface or
screen level (the explicit level), and second, I deal with
how games thematize or – even – ‘think’
film; and vice versa. My proposition is that not only do
computer games inherit some of the well wrought aesthetic
and functional means of cinema; moreover, both films and
games continue to copy forms of attraction from each other
in an increasingly rapid pace. So, we are in search of my
title neologism: lucidography. What happens when one
tries to figure out the relationships between games
(ludology) and films
(cinematography)? In short, the following
lucidographic typology encloses three captions: Whereas 1 and 2 belong to
the explicit (screen and interface) level; bullet 3 is sited
on the thematic (implicit) level. Basically
there are two cinematographic logics in computer games: i) a
filmic representation that uses the potentials of
interaction; and ii) a cinematic mode which covers “any
non-interactive storytelling or scene-setting element of the
game” (Hancock 2002). The first logic is especially
associated with what is traditionally referred to as
gameplay, which points to 1) the player-flow through
a game’s sequence; 2) the system’s ability to
handle input-output relations (how does the game react on
the user’s interventions?); and 3) the visual, textual,
and spatial representation of the player’s operational
possibilities and constraints (are the clickable buttons of
the game decisive for the chain of events?). Game designer
Sid Meier speaks of gameplay as “interesting
choices” and many players characterize a successful
Counter-Strike run-through as a ‘cinematic’
experience that further unifies the three above mentioned
gameplay logics. Let us now look at two film
techniques adopted by the game industry: focalisation
and montage. Focalisation is a
concept that covers the localisation and disposition of
viewpoints. Where is the point (in space) from which a game
world is observed; and how does the interface depict (or
simulate) what can be seen within the corresponding angle?
What is crucial here is the facilitation of the body in
space in order to create two spatial forms (or, as it were,
depictions of spatial simulations): that of the screen and
that of the user (Walther 2003b; 2003e). The enduring idea
in multiple games is exactly to bring forth the illusion
that physical reality (i.e. the space that surrounds the
screen whilst playing) is transparent with space perceived
‘on’ screen. Different modes of focalisation are
briefly described in table 1 below: Inner
focalisation Outer
focalisation Abstract (or no)
focalisation A world seen from
the ‘inside’, e.g. Quake, Doom, the
interior of race cars, e.g. Need for Speed, Gran
Turismo, etc. A world observed
from the outside, e.g. Fifa 2003, Madden, Tomb
Raider, numerous match and racing games,
etc. Examples: Tetris,
Puzzles, Tic-tac-toe, etc. In Unreal Tournament
one can easily become seasick because the processing of
space happens (almost) simultaneously with one’s
observation of it. Another example – which further
points to the great relevance of proper hardware – is
the ‘holes’ in the flow that arise whenever the
system fails to update space efficiently enough. Thus, while
one races down a mountain with monster Ferrari’s in the
tail (and the opponent’s MacLaren F1 in the lower half
of the split-screen mode in Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
II) it is a somewhat peculiar experience to observe
one’s car vanish into a black gap followed by trees,
bushes, crowds, and other textures. My point is that the
space of focalisation – which primarily targets at a
concrete representation in space – necessitates
undeniable bonds between perspective, space perception, and
space representation. The seasickness, then, is really a
question of space ‘happening’ with the
player, or the player ‘happening’ before
space. Montage is utterly
important in cinema as an artistic means of expression
(Bordwell and Thompson 1996). One distinguishes between
mise-en-scene, which is the way the represented world
is arranged and staged; cinematography, that points
to the camera’s filming of this world (sometimes
cinematography is a term for all the areas of film
production and analysis); and, finally, montage,
which concerns the editing (compilation or disruption) of
scenes, sequences, etc. Often computer games use
montage. However, it works differently compared to films
since the editing of the spaces and sequences of the game
needs to be in line with the interaction possibilities of
the user. As Poole notices, camera shifts, for instance, are
only offered to the gamer in order to provide the most
expedient point of view (Poole 2000: 82; cf. also
Sørensen 2003: 55). Many times cuts are troublesome
as regard the game’s flow. The problem is thus to
balance between aesthetic and functional montage
requirements. Still, we can distinguish between three
montage forms in computer games: When it comes to the
“non-interactive” narration and
“scene-setting” initially evoked by Hancock I
propose to differentiate between the following six
game-cinematographic categories (of course they can be
further combined which gives us an enormous amount of
cinematic game possibilities): 1. Trailer 2. Cut-scene 3. In-game
film 4. Flash
forward and flash back (automatic transport) 5. Automatic
replay 6. User
movie The trailer is a strange
entity aesthetically as well as in terms of narration. It
shows the best pictures from the film or the game but it
does not provide the complete overview. The trailer builds
suspense, preferably through a tight combination of
attention-grabbing music and aggressive cuts – but it
does not deliver any reconciliation. It is a peek into a
world that the trailer, in turn, has a certain detachment
towards. The trailer is a gnomic art form in its own right,
and yet it is nothing without the accompanying film or
game. In our days it is absolutely
unthinkable to market a game without a trailer. Here, the
game industry has relentlessly borrowed from cinema. The
above mentioned tricks – the image stream, the
suspense, the cuts and rhythms – are without further
ado inherited from the film universe. The Black and White
trailer (in itself a hybrid between shooter, strategy,
and adventure) thus depicts martial art scenes (starring a
stand-up cowboy-like cow and a frightening monster), exotic
poly-rhythms, accompanied by delicious pans in adventurous
landscapes. Over the years cut-scenes
have developed into an independent technology in computer
games design (Klevjer 2002). Hancock defines it
thus: The aim of the cut-scene is
to position itself amidst the interactive action sequences
and events within the game. In this respect cut-scenes are
interruptions of the game’s flow, a kind of intermezzos
showcasing increasingly impressive graphical design. On the
other hand, cut-scenes function as motivational elements in
the narrative unity of the game and are henceforth to be
considered unnecessary as well as necessary. Hancock lists
the following formats: In-game films are hard to
spot since they are exactly designed to be invisible for the
end-user. They act as post-rendering of the user’s
movements. For instance, one might not jump far enough, so
the game system needs to ‘take over’ and complete
the jump. In the introductory tutorial level in
Hitman (which, like most games today, is integrated
in the story and action set-up of the game) especially
complex motion patterns and combat techniques are performed
by the system, i.e. the engine, and not solely by the user.
Similarly, scripted examples of tackling, dribble, and
shooting provide the soccer magic with a touch of elegance
in Fifa 2003 and Madden. Flash forwards and flash
backs can in certain games – especially adventures
– be characterised as automatic transport. If
the player is blocked from proceeding in the game’s
action and story the game will push him forward and thus
maintain and sustain the narrative drive (as well as hang on
to the gameplay). In Blackout the player gets a
blackout if he does not, within a fixed time range, manage
to move on. Automatic replay is a
technical appliance typically found in the so-called match
and racing games. A good example is Need for Speed: Hot
Pursuit II where well performed stunts with brakes and
wheels are rewarded with a build-in slow motion replay of
the action (which could, incidentally, be labelled the
‘wow-effect’). Finally, there is the
cinematographic device that I suggest calling user
movie. As part of the game (i.e. gameplay) itself, the
system visualises the player’s operations and choices
through different slow motion, replay, and editing
functions. Once again, Fifa can serve as an example.
For some replays of e.g. an attack have an edifying
character in terms of competence (what went wrong; what was
good; and why was there off-side?); while for others the
replays should merely be enjoyed for their filmic qualities.
What happens when game
interface and gameplay are copied onto cinematography? A
quick answer reads that the direct transfer from an
interactive medium to a non-interactive medium is not
without certain costs. The special ‘coolness’,
‘playability’ – or whatever term we wish to
use – which is connected to games such as Resident
Evil, Super Mario Bros., and Mortal Combat
– all of which have since been adopted to cinema –
is precisely contained in the fact that they are games to
be played (cf. also Pearce 2002). One produces in a
certain sense one’s own film rather than simply watch
it. Nevertheless, numerous games and films are today
unleashed as simultaneous elements within a vast and very
complex media strategy. Think James Bond movies/games here;
think Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets;
Minority Report; X-Men; Lord of the Rings:
The Two Towers, or Enter The Matrix/The Matrix:
Reloaded. Another important difference that obstructs
the direct connection between games and films – while
at the same time manifesting the poles of both medias’
intuitive potentials of fascination – is the relation
between realised action and framed action
(Heide Smith 2003, in press). Both the book and the film are
‘finished’ forms, whereas the game produces some
rules and object relations that the user can interact with
and hereby ‘complete’ the material at hand. When
one writes a book, one has already terminated the action
(and, of course, the sequentiality by which the action
occurs). When one designs a game, one has first and foremost
created a frame surrounding the actions. And yet the above dichotomy
sounds more rigid than it really is. Of course a lot of
games – especially the complex ones – possess
tools to, at least, steer the development of the
game. This is done by a control mechanism which is nested in
the game’s code. As a player one must first open A
before access is gained to B which, in turn, provides a hint
of C, and so on. However, it is not all that can be
controlled. For instance, even carefully constructed
cybernetic input-output relations can not alter the fact
that some players may never get to A. It is therefore more or less
illusory to consider that one can safely move a gameplay
from the game to the film – even though they hold the
same title. What one can do – and which has been
done so far with great success – is to take
parts of the ludological techniques and remediate
them in a cinematographic context. In the same fashion, one
can export features from cinema to the game universe and
thus create a ‘cinemaplay’, e.g. by using the
cut-scenes and in-game movies as described above. Note,
however, that we are solely on the level of the interface,
i.e. we are only concerned with those elements from games
and films that we can directly observe on the
screen. In the following I shall
describe and comment upon three modes of game elements in
the film (ludological cinematography): 1) The first deals
with a game-like motion pattern and takes place on the
film’s micro level. 2) Second, I shall focus on a
special effect, namely bullet time in The
Matrix (the film) and Max Payne (the game); and
3) thirdly, I show the ironic interface strategy in the
motion picture The Beach. One way of conceptualising
the ludological effect on the cinematic language is to draw
a distinction between micro and macro level. The micro level
refers to the motion pattern of a specific scene or
sequence, i.e. the spatial design of the film. Is there
something within the choreographic succession that points in
the direction of the gameplay? The macro level is linked to
the structural disposition of the film and tells us
something about its overall architecture. In concordance
with this analytical distinction one can say that the micro
level points to the visual expression of the film, while the
macro level is associated with the narrative construction.
In addition, the micro level basically concerns space
whereas the macro level entails the temporal (and,
perhaps, experimental) organization. Micro
level Macro
level Motion
pattern Structural
disposition Visual
expression Narrative
construction Space Time There is a central scene in
The Matrix which, I will claim, is modelled after the
choreographic unicity of the computer game. Also, a great
deal of the cult like success assigned to the reception of
The Matrix might stem from the film’s close
affinity to games. In the scene that commences
the tempo, the image pulse, and the spatial composition, we
tag on Trinity (Carrie Anne-Moss) on her mission inside The
Matrix. After having beaten a couple of cops in the
‘false’ world – using a technique of which I
shall return briefly – Trinity escapes determinately up
on a roof, down some stairs, through narrow corridors and
bleak streets, and finally she disappears inside a phone
booth while calling Tank, the sys-op at Nebudcadnezar (the
pirate ship in the ‘real’ world, 2199). What is
interesting to note here is the choreographic precision with
which the cameras record Trinity and her prosecutors, the
so-called “Agents” (artificial intelligences). The
point of view shifts from tracking (filmed motions
through a track) that ‘geometrizes’ the film-space
and delineates the z-axis (i.e. the lines into the depth of
the image) to a kind of ‘vertical scrolling’ in
which the camera pans in a straight line down the
façade of a dark building. Hence, with the
camera’s aid the contours of an interface are laid out
within which we are able to locate paths, objects, and
relations between them. Hereby game characters emerge into
film avatars – with whom one can not interact, only
observe – and, similarly, the spatial gestalt of a
potential game is reconfigured into a cinematographic level
design. The importance of the depicted space in The
Matrix lies thus not in existential relations to people,
places, and things; rather its value refers to the planes,
coordinates, and tracks inhabited by game characters and
level orientations. In short, the cinematic screen comes to
resemble – it is – a game interface. Films like Jurrasic
Park, Appolo 13, Forrest Gump, and
Titanic all make excessive use of various digital
techniques. This is especially true of special
effects. The funny thing about special effects is that
they may be special – i.e. they transcend realisation
within a world with natural laws – but at the same time
they are intentionally undetectable. One is not supposed to
see them when, for instance, a digitized sequence with
president Nixon is mounted as back layer in a scene with
Forrest Gump; or when the mountain landscape behind
Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger in reality is made
of colorized object relations in a mainframe computer.
Hollywood uses the computer, and yet the idea is to conceal
the latter in a “transparent immediacy” that in
turn favours realism (cf. Bolter and Grusin 1999). Often the
spectator knows that the computerised effects are
present; however, that’s beside the point. Nevertheless, there is a
central scene in The Matrix, once more, where the
film does not try to hide its special, digital effects. When
Trinity is not overcome by the Agents in the scene referred
to above it is largely due to her magnificent kickboxing
skills shown just as masterly in a sequence that has since
been dubiously copied to other films (e.g. the spectacular
introductory plan sequence in Swordfish; and using
intertextuality in the animation film Shrek). Right
in Trinity’s powerful jump into a direct vertical
tangent from the floor, the image is frozen, where after the
camera slides in a circular sphere around Trinity who thus
becomes a figure of immobility and speed at once. The
Wachowski brothers placed two film cameras at the start and
end point of the entire motion track and no less than 120
photo cameras along the curve of the total ride recorded by
the camera. Once the scene with Trinity is shot the cameras
record the action sequentially while the photo cameras
simultaneously take 120 pictures of an exact place in space.
Indeed this is an elegant way to combine a continuous and a
discontinuous organization of space by fusing film and photo
in one and the same image set. Next, computer manipulation
interpolates the discrete photo footages so that they look
like a seamless animation anew. As is well known, the result
is astounding. Another example of bullet
time that is worth spelling out is a scene in which Neo and
Morpheus have jacked into the matrix and is now walking on
the streets of a major city. At one time they pass through a
random pedestrian. Morpheus – or, actually, Tank, the
system operator – freezes the scene so that the urban
location suddenly becomes a stylized cartoon scenario.
Shortly after, Morpheus says “turn around” to Neo
who turns around and looks directly into a gun held by the
person they have just passed and who has now been
transformed into one of the Agents of the matrix. The
crowded city space becomes a ‘city scape’, a
‘liquid’ world or a variable interface that can be
scaled and decomposed à la SimCity or the
pause-menu in a first person shooter. The world is on
standby. Had this been a computer game, it might have been
here, at this moment, one should save the game; perhaps this
would have been a signal to the system to download new
levels into the memory of the computer, and so on. Now,
instead, it is a motion picture, and Neo and the rest of us
must wait to see what the director (or: system operator) has
in stall for us. The panoramic camera eye
refashions itself into a Potemkin embellishment that is
distinguishable from the avatars in the simulation software,
the “loading program”. Neo and Morpehus are in
motion while the rest of the programmed world is at a
standstill. However, the movement that Neo and Morpheus thus
demonstrate as opposed to the cinematographic bullet time is
ironically suspended when the next sequence in the film
shows us the ‘real’ reality where the two main
characters are locked into position in their ‘cyber
chairs’ while being loaded into the matrix. Bullet time, which is a
pregnant visualisation of the martial art tradition of the
Hong Kong action movies, has since been utilized with great
success in the computer game Max Payne (2000) in
which several slow motion effects, calculatedly unrealistic
close combat scenes and illustrations of “New York
Minutes” occur. At this point one should not
fail to notice the flaws in my argumentation. What we have,
is exactly an influence from the film and to
the game, and not oppositely. This is not the entire truth,
though. Rather, we are dealing with a delicate, mutual train
of influence. It can never turn out complete, because the
cinematographic layers most often are installed as zones
within the narrative sequence of the game, and because the
ludological events in the film similarly are unrealistic due
to the absent possibility of interaction. But, as Poole
remarks, the remeditation points in both directions, from
games to films, and from films to games. One can trace the
inspiration to multiple combat scenes – including
The Matrix – in computer games like Street
Fighter, Mortal Combat, and Tekken (Poole
2000: 75). Further, The Matrix draws heavily upon
genre characteristics of the Japanese anime
tradition, most notably the adult cartoon Ghost in the
Shell by Mamoru Oshii (1996) where the male protagonist,
Major Kusangani, like Neo can jack in and out of cyberspace
through a plug in the back of his head. Also, cinema, games,
and animation point to a common consumer culture in which
tempo, violence, and ballet-like precision movements are
centred. Whether this is good or bad – in a moral
agenda – I will leave unsaid. The last example of a
‘ludologisation’ of cinematography is taken from
director Danny Boyle’s The Beach (2000). In the
film we follow the young Far East backpacker Richard who
stumbles across an unspoiled, paradisiacal choral island. On
the island he encounters a modern hippie society whose
patriarchs and matriarchs are eager to protect their secret
from the threatening world outside. As in Lord of the
Flies and with loads of intertextual references to
Apocalypse Now (“there is nothing like the smell
of napalm in the morning”), The Marathon Man
(“is it safe?”), and Peter Weir’s The
Mosquito Coast, the island community degenerates into
competing fractions, and thus the catastrophe seems
unavoidable. In the midst of this conspiratorial process
Richard is excommunicated from the idyll and cast away into
the woods where he quickly dissolves into youthful
madness. As I said, The Beach
humorously deploys lots of intertextual references to a
young generation’s preferred media and entertainment
culture. Even so, in the woods with Richard, the film cannot
help but showing the remeditation and the intertextual
‘machine’. Boyle depicts lurking paranoia and the
dissemination of the human self by recreating the cinematic
screen into a Nintendo interface. Richard runs through the
tropical woods, and in a cycle of shots he is malformed into
something that resembles a game character in a 3D shooter
– complete with GameBoy Advance point scores, inventory
list, and menu bar at the bottom of the screen. In a short
glimpse Richard is not a lively human being but a figure
made of pixels, an avatar who gathers points, game objects,
crosses obstacles, and who eventually becomes a mediated
centre within a ludological framework. In Boyle’s
vision modern filmmaking’s ongoing import of gadgets
and objects of a broad leisure culture is shown to belong
not only to a thematic level but manifests itself explicitly
on the interface. The world that Richard takes shelter in as
a shield against the outer world, and the reality with which
he secures a base of references, is exactly that of computer
games (especially the portable ones), the animations, and
the ‘neo-mythological’ film classics. Therefore,
it is totally natural that his intrapsychic condition is
represented as a ludological interface, and, similarly, that
the gaze of the film necessitates the internal world of
Richard in the shape of a concrete image of the cited pop
culture. In our examination of the
lucidographic paradigm we have now arrived at the inspection
of how games influence cinema in terms of thematics and
structure. This means that we do not focus on the visible
explication of ludological practices (i.e. the
interface-screen) but instead direct our attention towards
the underlying sequentiality, structure, thematics, and
narrative disposition. We shall therefore look closer at
time in the game-film, the macro level, and we shall
furthermore distinguish between 1) structural and 2)
thematical remediations of the game within the
film. A number of significant new
films are heavily enthused by the way games are structured
on a macro level. In this respect we shall dwell more deeply
into the award winning German film Lola Rennt (1998)
by Tom Tykwes. Lola Rennt circles
around an unfortunate male and a heroic female. Manni has
just completed a smuggling job and has received 100.000
Deutschmark that he is supposed to pass on to his boss,
Ronnie. Regrettably, Manni looses the cash in the subway.
Now he rightfully fears the wrath of Ronnie; however, the
problem is that he has only got twenty minutes to come up
with the money again. Desperately he then phones his
girlfriend Lola who, in the split-second after, rushes down
the stairs, through the streets of Berlin to the bank where
her dad is the manager. Her pledge for a loan is rejected,
and she leaves the bank empty-handed. As Lola sees Manni
again he has in the meantime robbed a mall and is killed
shortly hereafter in a shootout with the police. And then, all of a sudden,
the story begins anew – and this time with the
realisation of three different strings of event. In one
version, Lola raids the bank and takes the father as
hostage; in another Lola is lucky at the casino while Manni
– lest we forget – is still nailed to the
telephone booth. Lola Rennt relates to
the logic of the computer game in several ways. First and
foremost there is the real-time mode which, as it were, is a
sort of expanded or hyper-real real-time, since 20 minutes
are shown as (in sum) 81 minutes. We are presented with a
stylized film universe whose elements are pieced together by
a bunch of media forms and film genres – and, of
course, the computer game as well as a provocative
hypertextual structure where the characters that Lola
randomly bumps into function as ‘links’ to other
worlds. Lola Rennt becomes a sequentialised,
non-linear story, i.e. a cinematic, historical presence
that pursues the (potential) paths mostly covered by
traditional narratives. The non-linear aspect is thus
manifested in the movie as symptoms of the ‘wrong
turns’ frequently experienced by players (one turns
right instead of left; shoots the villain too quickly; fails
to retrieve one’s ammo, etc.). On the level of the
interface Lola Rennt is no less appealing; cinematic
techniques comprise pans, jump-cuts, slow and fast motion,
split-screen, intercut color, animation, integrated title
leaves, and much more. Maybe realism and
existential sincerity are mislaid in a movie like Lola
Rennt because, as noted by Torben Grodal, it is altered
from a “mimetic” to a “playful mode” in
its rewinding to and forward recording from a central
bifurcation point (Mannie’s death) (Grodal, no year).
Notwithstanding the opening of the film’s palpable
flirtation with ironic media codes and norms, Lola
Rennt leaps from being realistic to being playful, i.e.
it is transported from an environment (a space) that
normally engrosses a linear plot to experimenting with the
temporal construction of this very plot. Thus, Lola
Rennt seeks towards an incongruous ‘testing’
of precisely those conditions of realism with which it was
initially subsumed. The question is whether this
‘repair’ of an irreversible destiny that
traditionally marks the linear medium (if one is dead, one
is dead!) happens under the auspices of realistic or
construed premises. The latter claim – the
interrogation of constructed worlds, stories, and timelines
– accounts for why we presumably watches and
understands movies such as Groundhog Day, Sliding
Doors, and Existentz in a different fashion. In
Groundhog Day the main character is forced right
until the end to live through the same twenty four hours,
day upon day. In Sliding Doors Helen (Gweneth
Paltrow) catches the train in one story while the doors
close in the other. The film follows through juxtaposition
the two parallel stories that unfold from the same point of
departure. Most of the action in Existentz takes
place inside a future video game where the brain inhabits a
realistic and, at the same time, bizarre and
‘physicalised’ mental universe that, however, at
the end turns out to be yet another Chinese box in a
deceitful reality game. In these films we somehow accept the
twists and turns of the plot in repetitive branches since
they are part of the suspension of natural laws that we
choose to believe in. In conclusion, one could say that in
Groundhog Day and Sliding Doors the iteration
and the bifurcation of the plot and its temporal make-up is
a consequence of the super-natural story kernel;
while the repetition and the ludological composition in
Lola Rennt is rather an effect of a certain
toying around with ludological and cinematographical (i.e.
lucidographical) structures. How does the film medium
stage a wide-ranging popular culture wherein the computer
game plays a central role? Let us return to The
Matrix of which Steven Poole comments: In its allegory of a fiction
within the fiction, The Matrix illustrates to what
extent the paradigm of reality necessitates a contract of
illusion in computer games: one is present and absent at the
same time. One is the character, one plays. However, a
distinction must be marked: one is precisely not the
character, one plays. The
interdependence of presence and absence in gaming exactly
demands this dialectics: the concoction of identification
(‘is’) and control (‘is not’). This
delicate duplicity is exemplified by the “loading
software” that Neo together with the hacker rebel
Morpheus gains access to. In cyberspace, which is directly
connected to their consciousness, they are equipped with
adventurous combat skills, they can handpick weapons from
gigantic resorts, bend spoons and throw themselves elegantly
off skyscrapers – the latter now being common sense in
blockbuster movies like Spiderman, Daredevil,
and Hulk. However, as Mads Ole Sørensen
remarks, in The Matrix one “reaches the ultimate
relation to the virtual avatar, since if one is killed there
[in the virtual space; BKW], one also dies in a
physical sense” (Sørensen 2003: 80). Naturally,
it is the ‘replay’ and ‘save’ operations
that separate the two media from each other, the real
computer game and the un-real virtual reality software in
The Matrix. In the latter, the interaction may be
de-embodied – the real body sleeps in 2199 while the
mind is out on the loose in the 1999 space; yet, the mind
seems to be fragile and fatal to such an extent that The
Matrix comes close to signifying a very moral conclusion
(cf. Walther 2002 and 2003a). If the personified simulation
can be staged in infinitely repetitious loops in which
reality is pliant and ‘gamable’; then the mind is
the absolute ‘stop’-bottom of the game. When the
mind is terminated, the game is over. Hence, the dilemma
remains whether it is the mind or the body who is really
‘game over’. Both, actually. The Matrix
instates a two world system where Neo and Morpheus can do
certain things in the virtual world and something else
– and less – in the real world. But death, it
seems, unites them both. If one dies in one place, one dies
as well in the next. There is little doubt that
the era of The Matrix belongs to ludology, the
computer games. The age of ludology invokes a frame of
references and preferences, not alone for the effects and
the cinematography played out in perfection, but furthermore
for the paradigmatic interpretation of the film. Computer
games are –
one could insist with Kant (although he obviously did not
think of this himself) – the transcendental condition
for the movie in the digital era, the ‘optics’
that makes the film’s reality construction
intelligible, perhaps even creatable in the first place.
Without the presence of computer games there would be no
‘realities’ to stage and manifest. The Wachowski
brothers’ blend of action-packed story and metaphysical
thriller unswervingly addresses the media competences of a
young audience who intuitively – though perhaps not
knowingly – recognise complex epistemological themes as
well as multiplication of universes known from writers such
as Jorge Luis Borges and Phillip K. Dick. The Matrix
consists of levels; the characters in the film have access
to virtual sub-worlds; it is almost as if they interacted
with an information system using controllers and joypads;
and, finally, the rapid pace of the film can best be
compared to a gameplay, a relentless flow through a space
with hidden areas, dangerous places, and friends and
enemies. The basic elements of
lucidography as I have dealt with them in this paper are
listed in the table below (Table 3): ELEMENTS TECHNIQUES 1) Film elements in the
game Focalisation Montage Trailer Cut-scenes In-game
movies Automatic
transport Automatic
replay User-movie 2)
Game elements in the film Motion
pattern on the micro level Special
effects Ironic
interface strategy 3)
Game motives in the film Structural
macro level Thematic
macro level A number of contemporary
films “try to learn from the a-chronological structure
of the computer narration where time can not be solely
controlled by the sender but is instead more open and
uncertain (Ertløv Hansen 1999: 73). Prominent cases
of this deconstruction of time and story could, besides the
already mentioned, be Quentin Tarrantino’s Pulp
Fiction, Christopher Nolan’s Memento, or
David Lynch’s Lost Highway and Mulholland
Drive. Such a statement about comparison is indeed
arguable. Maybe the four films have more in common with
Modernism’s decomposing of chronology (as in e.g.
Godard and Bunuel). However, my point here is that these
movies are catapulted into a media driven society where
computer games represent a strong and essential form of
story telling. Therefore, the issue is not to point at the
potential intentions of the directors (did Nolan et al.
think of games or not in the actual film making process?).
More importantly, the computer game seems to frame certain
models of analysis and horizons of interpretation that
enable us to see and understand these films in new and
challenging ways. What I am arguing for is basically that we
should carefully avoid confusing the level of direct and
indirect import-export in the works of films and games.
Elements from films or games are visible right there on the
screen – whether it be on the laptop monitor or in the
movie theatre; and, in addition, there are elements and
motives, structures, and temporal dispositions, who travel
from one media to the next, from games to films, and vice
versa. What we have is a dual challenge: First, to
systematically approach the various levels and techniques of
this media interplay, and second to design a toolbox for the
interpretation of the contemporary marriage between games
and films. In short: a lucidographic ‘reading’ of
the game-film requires both a rigid description of the
deployed techniques and a multi-facetted cultural
analysis. However, the relocation of
structural features of games and films is not sufficient to
explain the range of experiences tied to popular and, at the
same time, innovative hybrid genres like e.g. Fox
Network’s 24 Hours (Walther 2003d). Here, one
must predict that the lucidographic hypothesis will be
seriously tested. 24 is properly just the starting
point of a huge amount of media content where games and
movies cross each other and work out new strategies as well
as set new standards for design, interface, compositing,
thematics, and so on. The fact that games and
films today make alliances on more than one level is not
merely due to an explosion of technologies that enable swift
production of special effects and spectacular (digital)
stunts. Nor is the union the outcome of a culture of
affinity that challenges narrative edifice. The intimate
relation is also based on the fundamental spatial
conception of both computer games and motion pictures (see
Aarseth 1998; Walther 2003). Both depict space; they
take place in space; and they invite
recognitions that are spatial in nature. The kind of
commitments that games and films make possible is directed
towards focalisation, understanding of level structure, and
identification with characters and worlds. Naturally, the
technological progress has heightened the potential for
working with true 3-dimensionality, in games and in cinema,
and with the development of digital tools for filming,
editing, and post-production there seems no longer to be any
obstacles for the total congruence of games and
films. Are there? Even though games
and movies freely copy from each others domains – which
is natural evidence for the much celebrated media
convergence – there are still dictating differences.
First, the film – at least in its traditional form,
i.e. as non-interactive materiality – is a realised
action (or string of actions); whereas gaming means to
‘frame’ actions. To put it accurately: a game can
be seen as framing of events (sometimes in random
order; at other times in a fixed order), and a gameplay can
be labelled realizations of the framed events. This
difference between realisation and framing is a simple
difference; however, it is a crucial one. Second, the film
may thematize the potential of interactivity (as in
Lola Rennt), but it can never materialise this
potential. Films show and are clearly inspired by the
space, structure, and dynamics of games, but films do not
for that reason become games. In a similar vein,
games may adopt certain filmic expressions and
artistic qualities; but it happens in order to support a
cultural teleology that primarily has to do with
winning and are only secondarily founded on
observation. Currently a range of
promising experiments with database programming, dynamic
websites, random access, and other brands of interactive
cinema are pushing cinematography further and further in the
direction of convergent new media. Consider for instance Lev
Manovich’s Soft Cinema (2002) and the Danish art
group Oncotype’s interactive roadmovie Switching
(2003). Yet, none of them are games in a strict sense. If
they hold agonistic motives – the desire for winning
(Greek: agon) – it is because they invite the
observer’s interference with the secreted structural
organization of the films. ‘Winning’ becomes a
measure for the success of, or failure in, unravelling the
code, the structure underneath the spectacle. The question
is for that reason whether cinema as an art form can truly
run away from its paradigmatic foundation in basic narrative
ground principles. Besides, one should not forget that both
films and games are conservative leisure. One does not endow
all movie goers with remotes so that each of them can add to
the fun by interacting their way to precisely their
film. Here, the problem is not that the cinematic material
bends toward the potentials of games; but rather that such
approaches, which would otherwise seriously challenge the
new possibilities of digital media and interactivity,
presumably would go against the traditional bias of social
and cultural practices. ‘This is what we do when we
watch movies’; and ‘this is what we do when we
play games’. It is hard to decide on the worst
nightmare of de-socialisation. Is it a family that can not
agree on what film to see and therefore resorts to quarrel;
or is it a family where each member holding his or her
remote control creates his or her very own movie on separate
screens? References Aarseth, Espen (1998):
"Allegories of Space: The Question of Spatiality in Computer
Games", http://www.hf.uib.no/hi/espen/papers/space/ Andersen, P. Bøgh, M.
Wibroe og K.K. Nygaard (2001): “Games and
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Springer Verlag: Berlin, London et al. Bolter, Jay David og Grusin,
Richard (2000): Remediation: Understanding New Media,
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(1996): Film Art – An Introduction, McGraw-Hill:
New York EDGE (2002): “Licence
to Kill”, nr. 113 Ertløv Hansen, Ole
(1999): “Har vi set det nye årtusindes
fortælling?”, in Kosmorama, nr.
224 Grodal, Torben (1999):
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and Embodied Experience” (manus) Hamburger, Henry (1979):
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& Co: New York Hancock, H.: (2002):
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http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20020401/hancock_01.htm Heide Smith, Jonas (2003):
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Carsten Jessen (red.): Spillets verden: En bog om
computerspil, Gads Forlag: København (in
press) Jenkins, Henry (u.å.):
”Game Design as Narrative Architecture”,
http://web.mit.edu/21fms/www/faculty/henry3/games&narrative.html Jensen, Jens F. (2001):
„Film Theory Meets 3D“, in Lars Qvortrup (red.):
Virtual Interaction: Interaction in Virtual Inhabited 3D
Worlds, Springer Verlag: Berlin, London et
al. Juul, Jesper (2001):
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Press: Tampere Manovich, Lev (1998):
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Futures, Amsterdam Manovich, Lev (2001): The
Language of New Media, MIT Press: Cambridge,
Mass. Pearce, Celia (2002):
“Towards a Game Theory of Game”, in Noah
Wardrip-Fruin og Pat Harrigan (red.): First Person: New
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(www.cpandfriends.com/writing/first-person.html) Poole, Steven (2000):
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Revolution, New York: Fourth Estate Rouse III, Richard (2001):
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erhvervet fra forfatteren) Tosca, Susana Pajares
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æstetik, Syddansk Universitetsforlag:
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(2003b): “La représentation de l’espace
dans les jeux vidéo: généalogie,
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(www.gamestudies.org) Walther, Bo Kampmann
(2003d): “Fra værk til net-værk:
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presented
by Brown University
In Search of a
Lucidography
2. Film
elements in the
game
3. Game
elements in the
film
4. Game
motives in the
film
5. Outro
Table 1: Types of
focalisation
Primarily, the
cutscene is there to make a game’s world more real
– not just by telling a story, but also by reacting
to the player, by showing him the effects of his actions
upon that world and thus making both the world more real
and his actions more important. The cutscene fills the
role of both prequel and epilogue: showing the player
what the world is like before he enters it, what needs he
has to fill, what he has to work with and what he has to
face, and afterwards showing what the effects of his
actions upon the world were, whether good, bad or both
(Hancock 2002).
Table 2: Micro and
macro level
With a cunning
script incorporating a kaleidoscope of Homeric, Christian
and Gibsonian references, it starred Keanu Reeves as a
computer hacker who learns that the world is something
like an enourmous game of SimCity run by computers to
keep us enslaved (Poole 2000: 74).
Table 3:
Lucidographic matrix
dichtung-digital