How would you like to make any movie that comes to mind, anytime, of any length, with any detail?
For years, that's been rather difficult. What if you don't have or want to spend millions of dollars just on one movie alone? What if you don't want to spend an entire life on just one movie?
Yes there have been super 8 cameras, then the assorted video cameras, and lately full motion digital recording is turning up everywhere.
But what if you want more than just stupid skateboard tricks on Youtube?
What if you want to take any idea and play with it, mix vaudeville with the Vietnam War, explore British economics, have an elephant slip on a banana peel, " . . touched him, saw her, towers of death and silence, angels of fire and ice. Saw Alexander covered with honey and beeswax in his tomb . . . take moonlight trips to Marrakesh and Ponders End? See six vestal virgins smoking cigars? Moses in bedroom slippers? Naked bosoms floating past Formosa?"
What if you want the ultimate bully pulpit, the way to present any idea, with any subtlety, setting and resetting however you want or need, and doing all that with relative ease, doing far more than the average Hollywood production, for a fraction of the effort?
How would you like to have and use a truly large scale and completely focused personal loudspeaker?
The issue is communication and making that happen, and we of the Collective MacAvity are working on this, incrementally, and do rather look forward to doing all of the above ourselves. We might even do a staging of Peter Barnes' The Ruling Class, which was quoted above. But then again Peter O'Toole did rather do the definitive version didn't he.
An answer we propose to this communications issue uses current and developing video game technology, the internet, and low cost DVD and other production channels to allow a small team, or several teams, with a really big message, to make a lot of varied movies rather quickly and for a long time.
We currently work on this answer on our own and will develop it in enough time because we will consist of one of those teams, or at least the core of one, and we will crank out a variety of movies. To decrease that development time, getting support and assistance as needed will let us do more sooner as we continue this research and start bringing out completed projects.
When considering using filmmaking as a method of communication, arguably a biggest communication megaphone in American society consists of Hollywood and show business in general. At the same time though, the Hollywood and show business system also has an equally major problem of complexity, slow reaction time, and too many cooks able to piss in the soup.
First off, three axioms that make this concept plausible. These have no set order or importance, all three are equally linked and ranked.
A) When someone's made a nice bowl of soup, don't piss in the soup. When someone's written a really good novel or a short story and it's a major success, when adapting to movie Leave The Story Alone. Don't add scenes. Don't add random characters. Don't screw with the ending because some other story needs to be mixed in, because it doesn't. Just make the movie, and everyone will cheer at the sheer originality.
B) Henry Ford did not invent the automobile. He did invent the Ford Motor Company, and did a really good job making a lot of cars. Roger Corman did not invent the movie. He did take the basic movie making techniques and proceed to crank out movie after movie, non stop and very quickly, and basically make a comfortable profit on every movie, or at least evidently near every movie.
C1) movie making does not require a camera.
C2) Computer animated movies do not have to be from Pixar and Dreamworks.
C3) Video game software does not need to make a video game.
This proposed solution actively develops and maintains a filmmaking and distribution system which begins and remains fast, flexible, and relatively cheap, one that has ongoing innovation built in as a feature, one designed to hand to absolutely anyone to use, one that then gets used to crank out movie after movie after movie. At that point, the question of communicating a message gets reduced to developing the material to pump through this production engine.
We will make movies, or particularly, tell stories while making pretty pictures, or not so pretty pictures, and will do such using this method. A logistical difficulty in filmmaking, as noted, remains that “Hollywood” Has Big, Ongoing, And Complicating Production Problems. On our part, and as outsiders, we finally noticed that video game image and movement quality have increased to such a level that most current games effectively became movies themselves. We don't play video games, from general lack of interest, but some people we have worked with do. When we asked them for suggestions, we got very emphatically pointed at a game series called Unreal Tournament and the software built into it.
Since that time, we have run across other video game engines of which there are indeed one or two at the moment.
The game play in Unreal Tournament and rather a number of other videogames involves typically and subtly shooting many moving things as they shoot at you. Over the years, with increasing demand for game complexity, the image quality and level of detail have also immensely increased in quality, and continue to so increase. In turn, for filmmaking, the more important features exist underneath the surface and remain extremely accessible and adaptable. Taking Unreal as one example, and noting that many game engines are very adaptable; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_Engine ;
“The Unreal Engine is a game engine developed by Epic Games. First illustrated in the 1998 first-person shooter game Unreal, it has been the basis of many games since, including Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, Turok, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas, America's Army, Red Steel, Gears of War, BioShock, BioShock 2, Tactical Ops: Assault on Terror, Borderlands, Mirror's Edge, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Section 8, and so forth. Although primarily developed for first-person shooters, it has been successfully used in a variety of genres, including stealth (Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell), MMORPG---Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game--- (Vanguard: Saga of Heroes) as well as RPGs---Role Playing Games---with Mass Effect, The Last Remnant, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.”
The features of the video game engine tend to include an internal camera system that allows for recording of action occurring in whatever sequence of events a filmmaker or game creator assembles. Such assembled sequences can become any movie that anyone can think up, in any detail, where any detail not included already can get created externally by the filmmaker or game maker and easily imported into the game software. These movies, once created, do not need the game to be played, the game software becomes a filmmaking creation engine of movies. The output or recording of the video files will vary from game engine to game engine, but once those files exist and are edited as needed, a filmmaker releases and distributes this new movie just like any other movie. These movies can range from crowds to individuals, at any time in history or fantasy, with motion control built in to allow bodies and objects to move, turn, and tumble in completely realistic detail. Realistic lighting, preset motions, and importing of prerecorded sound files allow anything from the shuffling of cards in a dim casino through a daylight full assault in WWI Belleau Wood . . .
Of course, one response to such a system states “But this looks like a bunch of video game characters!!” The easy two part answer to this objection gives the overall answer: “Think puppet theatre.” The two parts that make up this answer consist of writing and of visual quality. Of writing, as always the most important issue, when you have no story, you have no movie. Tell the story well, and no one cares how the movie got made. Of visual quality, absolutely anything using the game engine can get made and seen, where we've already noted that anything not built into the standard software can get created externally and imported. In turn, of the quality of game engine imagery, see the following links,
How much time, effort, and money would be required to make a feature movie for each play by William Shakespeare? 38 plays, 38 casts, all the costuming, all the sets, all the support crew, the lighting, the makeup, the cameras, the rehearsals. Now, imagine doing all that with almost as much ease as writing about it. Imagine using a computer to build a 3D image and model of the inside of a box. There's your set. Imagine using a computer to build a 3D head, body, arms and legs, and give them motion and speech. There's your actor, in full costume, with dialogue. Imagine using the computer to record what that actor does and says on that set. There's your movie.
Next, repeat that 37 more times. There's the 38 movies of the complete plays of Shakespeare.
To contrast two extremes, the building of a video game requires mapping out and assembling all the features and actions of all the possible occurrences that may turn up in that video game. Such a production does indeed involve a lot of animators, writers, artists, programmers, actors, all the company infrastructure to support all that, and so forth for many pages. On an other hand, when the sole interest in the video game engine becomes making a movie, the focus absolutely narrows and the complexity and required time absolutely drops. Only the basic virtual set to film a scene becomes needed, with the basic operational features to create and record that scene, and then one or one's team moves on.
For another contrast of extremes, when making a conventional movie, the issues include the creation and care and maintenance of costumes, lighting rentals, camera rentals, insurance, negotiating with assorted civic authorities, the logistics of all that crew and cast, and enough other features to get an entire college degree on the subject. When creating a movie using video game software, one needs the gaming software, a game quality computer to build with, software for outside additions, sound engineering, editing and distribution production which can occur on the same computer, a script, the money to pay and house the filmmaker, and finally time just sitting and working. Of time required, to cite just one issue of conventional filmmaking, one loses none of the time that the conventional variety uses up waiting for rain to either start or stop.
Basically, the really big issues in video game based computer animated filmmaking become 1) thinking up ideas, 2) having a really good entertainment lawyer on retainer, 3) maintaining the project pipeline, and 4) paying the filmmaker(s) to sit in a corner and work.
On our part, when we want to write an essay, we start a word processor on a computer and start typing. With that in mind, the project we work on---in between everything else we do---has two parts: A) developing a “word processor” system of filmmaking based on a video game engine and assorted other software packages, where we then B) crank out all the movies we can think of. We have some original project ideas, and we have an even larger set of story adaptations that we think would made really good movies. Increasing skill and refinement from all that filmmaking will then return back to A), and then back across to B), each reinforcing and adding to the other. Additionally, an integral part of A) will create C), having and maintaining such a level of documentation that anyone else can assimilate and make use of these methods which themselves will have ongoing active demonstration and development as we continue with A) and B).
Of this process, our commentary so far exists at http://themacavity.com/ Yes, when you look at all the names on the site, our all time favorite film producer remains Irving Thalberg, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Thalberg “While he was alive, he refused to allow his own name to appear in his films.”---As Thalberg noted, the issue always remains to get the many movies made, not get stuck in just trying to make a single movie.
Keeping A) and B) in mind, and to outline the scale of possible projects, one of our project ideas does call for a film for each play by Shakespeare. Remember the conventional film vs virtual film advantages noted just above, especially for filming 38 plays in sequence while also making other movies---Our plan is to more or less interlace Shakespeare, followed by a mystery, followed by a comedy, followed by a drama, followed by a war movie, followed by Shakespeare, followed by, and so on—certainly variations will occur in the selection, but an ongoing and varying program will remain a primary intent. When we run out of Shakespeare, we'll swap something else in. A) and C) will stay as major as B), so we really do need to have projects to test by mixing them in with everything else that comes to mind.
For distribution at this point in time, one can advertise through YouTube and Google. DVD production requires relatively little cost. Given enough interest, not only can one do a conventional theatrical filmmaking release through a standard theatre chain, more and more such releases have shifted to digital, which again greatly cuts the up front cost---And in North America alone, there are already over 16,000 digital projection theatres.
Once again, this system makes filmmaking so relatively easy that having a really good entertainment lawyer on retainer becomes one of the features.
On our part, to keep the bills paid, we work full time doing other stuff. Personal research and projects thus have to get scheduled in among everything else, and we also keep having to stop and sleep now and then. Some of the software needed gets very expensive, and the paid work does get swamped, so on one hand such software can get paid for in time, but also that research winds up getting done intermittently.
James Cameron's Avatar cost somewhere in the range of $300 million for one single extensively computer animated movie. For the system outlined in this email, even just $3 million to $5 million could start an entire production system and fund it for rather a long time. Our ideal situation would get so much cash up front, and an entertainment lawyer on retainer, that we could disappear into a corner with notes and computer and crank out movies and not have to notice how bleak the economy and how to keep the bills paid. Considering a guaranteed audience for some projects---Shakespeare, to name just one---regardless of how bleak the economy, a series of well made but very inexpensive movies should manage a profit, so even an up front pile of cash could make money for an investor.
Robert Rodriguez made El Mariachi with $7,000, as he tells in his book Rebel Without A Crew. On an other hand, Rodriguez followed up with Desperado for a budget of about $7 million and Once Upon A Time In Mexico for about $29 million. By contrast, this proposal goes even further by staying with the video game engine as the ongoing tool and thus keeping the costs, and efforts needed, at a much greater minimum.
The ongoing focus is and will remain to fixate on video game software based computer animated narrative
movies, and perhaps documentary movies, all made absolutely inexpensively, quickly, absolutely really well, and totally prolifically. When someone comes in and complains of the limitations of the particular form, Too bad. You're a storyteller dammit, exceed the form.
In turn, and completely independent of anyone’s filmmaking, a video game engine company's R&D will continue to develop and upgrade to match greater and greater demand for greater and greater features and detail in video games---and this proposal expects to very easily piggyback upon those improvements to also create greater and greater subtlety for basically the same cost and return.
And with investment and support, the A) creation of that production system will get done a lot sooner than otherwise, and B) a lot of movies can get cranked out, and C) several teams of filmmakers can go out and about to beat the drum, tell the stories, play with all the ideas . . . . . .
We thank you for your time, and we look forward to hearing your reactions . . . .