Last Post

New blog is now setup and running. I look forward to see you dear readers at new blog for the exciting new start!

p.s. It's on a Korean server with a Korean blogging tool, so you'll encounter some broken, funky letters if you don't have Korean fonts installed on your computer.

On Interactive Storytelling

Contrast and Compare, if you will.

Business Week: Can A Game Make You Cry?. "We [at EA] have had this goal for a long time, "Can a computer game make you cry? Can it move you in the way that great art moves you?" And in order to be able to answer that question, we think that partnerships with people like Steven are going to be interesting steps along the way. One of the reasons that we collaborated with Steven versus any other director is that Steven was very converse and passionate about the medium [of video games] and one of the things that Steven talks about all the time is no cut-scenes.

His thought is always, "How can we tell a story through the surface that this medium provides us with." And whether Steven has been expressing himself in film or television or his other works, at the core of what he knows how to do very well is connect with an audience and tell a story. So what he brings to the table is that sort of instinctive skill around how to connect with people and tell a story. I think that's very important if we want to answer that question that EA was founded on."

Kotaku: Will WIrght's SXSW Keynote. "So a few thoughts on storytelling. First why .. I hate stories, stories that my computer tries to tell me. Story's been the model from movies, it's kinda our heritage. But first of all the nature of story... I look at the world as a simulation. Here's a world stage. Lots of things cascade into the next stage. And certain things cause changes in other things.

Story causes a chain and conveys it to a viewer... a story's all about the chain of events, very linear, unchanging, you've all seen the same version of Star Wars.

But games are very open ended. Also, movies are primarily visual. Games are primarily interactive. So when we take away the control from a player, we're taking away the most important thing from them. It's like going to the movies and showing a blank screen..."

Make no mistake, Will Wright ALSO works for EA now. He also has the most successful, non-violent game that ever made, called the Sims. As much as I love Spielberg's movies, you can bet that my money is on Will, all the time, on this interactive medium called games.

No market for first time filmmakers?

A dog's break fast movie: "Attempting to figure out who your market is after your film is complete can have dire consequences on the rest of your career. I'm not saying that filmmakers should give up on personal or off-beat films, or go to Hollywood's extremes of trying to offend no-one and appeal to everyone. However, I do believe that they should at least explore their market potential before they start those cameras up. As far as I'm concerned, the earlier you consider your audience the better.

For example, if you're looking to sell your movie, it's a good idea for the cost of making a film to be proportional to it's market. If you don't know who is going to want to see your movie, how can you budget accordingly? In a way, the less you spend, the more edgy and risky and personal you can be. Keeping your film's audience in mind will allow you to be much better prepared for getting it seen once it's finished. Nobody likes to pigeon hole their film, but the reality is at some point you need to be able to tell people what section of the video "store" (please tell me you're not still going to the video store?!) your movie is sitting in." This where the business side of Show Business comes in.

I call the shots here

Times Online: Quentin Tarantino. "I’ve given nobody the authority over me to say I can’t do anything — I can do anything I want or can achieve. I don’t ask permission. I might ask forgiveness, but I won’t ask permission. There is no “they”.

Here’s the thing: they can write a mean letter, they can write a mean memo, but these guys don’t have any real fight in them. If you’re an artist, as opposed to a careerist, and your movie is more important to you than a career in this town, they can never beat you.

Directors don’t get better as they get older. They get worse — they get out of touch. There is this weird thing about movie-making where you kind of figure out how to do it. You’re just pulled along by the experience — there’s no way you can predict what’s going to happen. And on the second one, you know a hell of a lot more than you did on the first one, but you’re still being pulled along at least 25%. But when it came to the third one, now I kind of got it, and that was scary to me." Always a fascinating character, Mr. Tarantino. Grindhouse is my most anticipated movie of this spring.