The online blog 'BoingBoing' has an interesting interview with Academy Award winning visual effects guru John Gaeta (Matrix, Speed Racer). When asked if immersive games could replace the passive experience of movies Gaeta states:
"It is possible that in 10 years or so, the fidelity, the image quality of things you can make in real time will be viable for cinema. So, movies or portions of movies could be generated in real time, maybe even Pixar-level type work,and mingled with work from real actors -- the commingled work, you could generate that real time.If you've generated the universe of the cinema real time, you've universalized the world of the cinema with the interactive counterpart. You could potentially put a movie in a different type of projector, and have portals out of that environment where you can interact and play.
What makes a movie powerful is -- the singular vision of the director. It's a different beast than interactivity. You wouldn't make "Apocalypse Now" any differently than Coppola did, it's perfect as he envisioned and executed it. But if you could work with the entire universe surrounding "Apocalypse Now," if the director could deposit the sets and the environment in this universe, and we could step into that, a hybrid zone where you can perceive what he's directed with semi-interaction, expository exploration within his sculpted piece of content -- you have something new.
People talk about narrative with infinite variations, and that's interesting, but if I want to see what a great director thinks should happen, and I want the unexpected to come up through his mind, I don't want to contaminate that. Think about animated pictures, first. In 10, 20, 30 years -- when you have space and form and texture acquired by the camera, it is possible to conceive of a universalized format. A movie can exist within a dynamic, interactive place. You could crisscross movies, jump out the side door, go into the experience yourself.
Another thing that could be interesting -- because of the magic of compositing, it seems like it could be interesting to have movies that are both passive and interactive at the same time. Worlds surrounding the important moment, as sculpted by the director -- the moment, the acting, the story stays exactly as the director envisions it - but the world surrounding that moment is dynamic. So when I go to see the scene of the couple chatting by the seaside, the waves crash differently each time, and the world goes on a little differently each time, unobtrusively, around the carefully sculpted moment."
It's a very interesting article that touches upon what machinima might become in a few years once the technology catches up. You can read the full version of the article by following this link.
