GameCube NintendoSpin.com / Previews / The Movies

Posted on October 24th, 2005 - 6718 Reads

Rated Rating Pending The Movies GameCube Preview

-- Written by Justin Joseph



 Have you ever wondered what it would be like to play a game that spans a century of years? Well, if you haven't it doesn't matter. In Lionhead Studio's The Movies, that is exactly what you're able to do. From the years 1910 until the futuristic 2010, you will take your studio through whatever the ruthless movie industry has to throw at you. You must survive amongst your competitors or you will indeed fail. You have to learn your stuff quickly in order to succeed. But what also drives the concept to make this game even more appealing is that you have the chance to do a lot of "firsts" in the industry. Whether that may involve the technology you use to produce your movie (i.e. color picture) or what you actually have happen in your movie can be your first to do (i.e. first passionate scene).

When it comes time for you to start your whole business, there are three main objectives for you to accomplish. The first is creating your studio, next is getting your movie talent and the last is the actual making of your movie. You will have to focus on all three of those areas as equally as possible to get the most out of your experience, but it may not be as daunting as it sounds. Not everyone who may play this game will be exactly interested in handling all the economic aspects of the business. Lionhead Studios is hoping that non-gamers actually choose to try this game out as they think it can appeal to all audiences. There will be a lot of auto-management options for players to choose from if they don't wish to carry on the economic burdens of creating their movies. However, some players will actually wish to control all the economic aspects themselves. In this regard, you will always have four advisors at your side willing to give you the advice you may need to capitalize on your resources.

Your first task, building your studio, consists of actually building your lot from the ground up and placing all the buildings you will be using. There will be a good number of buildings available at your disposal, and each will provide a different service. For example, a research lab will give you access to brand new costumes, sets and scenes. You also have two options dealing with how you allocate your investment capital. One is completely dumping all your funds into one resource to a fast and quality advancement in one area. That is a very risky but potentially rewarding endeavor. Or, you can distribute your money evenly to allow your studio to run as effectively as possible on all fronts.

In terms of how you actually make your movie, the process is rather extensive, but hardly insurmountable. In reality, it's virtually identical to how the process is gone through in Hollywood. To begin the making of your movie, you will first need a set. You will want to choose one that is hopefully suitable for the genre that you are producing. So far we've seen sets such as a very well-lit and elaborate library to one with a full beach environment. Of course, your traditional dining and living rooms are a part of your repertoire, as just about all movies use those these days. Your sets are also fully customizable in terms of color and prop use. Oh, and when we say customizable, we mean it. You could have the most out-of-place props in your crazy mind aiding the shooting of a scene (but of course it wouldn't help you much in the end).

Once you choose your set, you need some scenes to shoot. In a very jaw dropping number, there is a massive list of over 2000 selectable scenes to shoot in the production of your movie. Also with your scenes are plenty of subcategories that you can choose from. You should hardly ever find yourself hard pressed to find a scene that will cater to your likings. So what'll it be, a passionate making out scene, or how about an all-out brawl? The choice is obviously yours, but make sure it's the best one in accordance to what the public audience may want in the current time period. Some scenes happen to be specific to certain sets, but that still shouldn't take away the variety of scenes that you'll want and probably need when making your movie. Artist dummies will be present when you begin your initial shooting before your actual actors replace them.

Then for how you actually shoot your movie, it is done through the use of sliders. These sliders also correspond to the type of scene you are about to shoot. So depending on how extreme you have your sliders set will determine how intense your scenes actually turn out to be. So obviously if you are shooting a fight scene and have the slider set on extreme, you're asking for some pretty loaded violence. So you actually have to be careful with this. If you don't have a reasonable amount of action depending on what you're shooting, you are asking for trouble. You don't want the scene to be too extreme or too underdone or you're not going to do well. If the public notices you overdid your scenes, you won't get sales. If people aren't impressed with the underdevelopment of your presentation, you aren't getting your money back.

Once you take care of this step of the process, you will move to the scriptwriting phase. This is probably the most important aspect of your movie making process because the story determines how great it actually is. Once you finish your script, your crew and actors will assume their roles and begin the filming of your movie. Once that is finished, it's time for post production. This is the phase in which you completely customize the audio and text presentation of your movie. With this, you have the option of adding audio text captions or adding your own audio creations. To make things easier on your end, your actors' mouths will actually be voice synched automatically with the script that you create for them. Now if you happen to spend too little time working on your script, have big name actors and expensive sets, chances are your money won't be returned to you. But if you have a very good script, decent actors and nicely presented sets, your money should come in after opening week. Once people begin seeing your movie and spread the word about how good it is, the dough will begin rolling your direction. (no pun intended)

Other factors will also influence the popularity of your end product. The overall use of the genre that you produce for is a big one. If you create only action movies, people will eventually grow tired of your stuff, no matter how good it may be, and maybe go elsewhere for something fresh. But if you go with a healthy diversification of movie production, you should be just fine. Actual world events can also affect how many people view your movie. In a great example stated by IGN, once man (supposedly) lands on the moon, there will be a huge demand for sci-fi type movies. To make things more interesting, even personal issues you have with people can influence your studio's reputation. For example, a local kingpin can request that you give one of his kids a lead role in one of your movies. If you go along with that, you will not have to pay any taxes for a while but your credibility may suffer in the public's eyes. Sure what they don't know won't hurt them, but risking getting yourself caught almost isn't worth the price you might pay.

To make things even more interesting for the final build of the game, Lionhead Studios is really pushing their online concept for The Movies. To showcase previews of your movie, you won't be required to utilize mpeg trailers to hype up your stuff. You will simply use "mini-movies" that you can make yourself that will be showcased to the public and online. Then once you actually finish the movie, you can upload the entire movie to their servers for the online community to view and critique. This only happens on the PC version, but it is definitely a nice perk. Lionhead has also promised small file sizes so downloading them won't be a pain to the general online community. Then people can view and review your creations, which can then in turn help you become eligible for online awards. This can net you some exclusive props, scenes, sets, costumes and other such goodies, so that's something to definitely look forward to.

So for those of you that may have aspirations about entering the movie industry, this game may very well help you get started. You have to maintain your studio, your actors and your own job as you progress through the century that which is The Movies. So will you be the next Lucas, Spielberg or Tarantino? Or will you be the next industry flop? Depending on what you do and how you do it, the movie going public may or may not welcome you with open arms. Sure this may be a fantasy-driven title, but that doesn't mean the true ruthlessness of the movie industry isn't encompassed in it.

So when it comes to actually being the director of your movies, you need to get the actors which will provide your "talent". When you find the people that you wish to hire for your movies, you will gain control of them right then and there. With them in you grasp, you can make such orders as hiring, firing, sending to wardrobe and various others. Now unfortunately you won't have access to all the big name celebrity actors right at the beginning. But that's where the option of being able to create your own comes in. You can change the appearance and name of your actors as you see fit. You will actually follow these people throughout their entire careers, both great and bad roles. You will have to figure out what genres of movies to pit them in based on their current strengths and age. You don't want to have your best actors in lower budget endeavors. But you also won't want to have your best comedy actor in an action movie.

The best of the best that you can recruit are also recognized in different ways. One method of determination is the funnel of money that happens to be above their head. You'll definitely want to keep these people active as often as possible, because that money will consistently fly away from the funnel. You don't want your money to be wasted, so keep them busy. You can also tell who the real actors are by the type of people who may be following them. Whether these people may be trainers, assistants, therapist or even the fans, they can all help identify top notch actors. You will also want to make sure these people keep your actors happy, or you will end up worrying about taking care of that yourself. Sometimes your situation may become so sensitive with some of your actors that you'll need to hire security to keep the cameras away.

Your hired actors will also have their very own unique personality, and the way they behave will show through. For instance, if you have your leading comedic actor wearing formal clothing while shooting a scene, he or she won't be the happiest person in the world. However if you put that person in a wacky chicken outfit, they will gleefully strut around while clucking and such. Your actors' personalities will actually be well suited for multiple types of movies. But if you so choose to do so, pitting them in a lot of horror roles will eventually have them become more familiar with that line of work. However, you do need to be careful that you don't have your actors in roles they aren't suited for. This could possibly cause your actor to do an unintentionally poor job and less money for you. However, the more they do something like that, the better they will become. But of course your actor isn't always going to just give in to all your orders. They won't always be easy to handle, as they will generally know they are needed to make your movies what they are. This can give them a huge ego and force you to give them the "star treatment" at all times. If you don't keep their happiness bar full at all times with such lines like the best wardrobe, a great trailer and a great entourage, you're asking for conflict.

It is also a must that you keep tabs on what your actors or doing because of the possibility of their quitting or dying at a young age. Many bad habits can be a cause of this. This can be exceptionally tough if your replacement actors don't have the confidence needed to perform, and end up causing a poorly produced movie as a result. However, if you do pay attention to your actors and take care of them, your money will indeed begin pouring in. Your hired talent can also mingle with each other, which can in turn be a good and/or bad thing. They can actually fall in love with each other or cause a nasty onscreen rivalry. But you can actually take advantage of this quite a bit. If you have two actors falling in love, they will be absolutely perfect for roles in a romance movie. But, if you pull the stupid of casting bitter rivals with each other in a movie like that, bad things are bound to happen. Even more interesting, is that relationships can develop between anyone, including yourself and your talent. The best way to get this to happen is to have them alone together in a secluded area. They may eventually strike up a conversation and things will take off by themselves. These feelings can be that of love, hatred or mutual friendship, and these feelings will grow as time goes along.

Unfortunately, having a consistently successful actor with a lot of confidence will cause loftier demands. Whether this may be a luxury trailer, insane pay or an expanded entourage, they will desire it. But if you do wish to have this actor be known from your studio, meeting these demands is almost inevitable. Unfortunately a new actor can be so nervous and unconfident you won't make any money, but an overconfident actor won't rake in the cash either. If you allow your talent's ego to reach an unnecessary level, you are looking at all kinds of nasty behavior arising. This can be anything from drinking too much, being too sexually active or simply having their storm off the set right in the middle of shooting a scene.

These nasty habits can also adversely affect how they perform in their roles. For instance, if an actor of yours becomes too fat form overeating, you will have to either send them to plastic surgery or sign them up at the local gym. Plastic surgery will produce immediate results, but it will more than likely not have the positive long-term effects the gym can offer them. It also doesn't help that sending them under the knife is a bit more pricy than the gym, but you may make that money right back with the movie. However, having them undergo liposuction may not teach them a lesson in a proper diet. You can also send alcoholic actors to AA meetings or have them attend anger management and addiction therapy if necessary.

While liposuction may be your best bet for immediate results, the gym is probably the best investment for you and your studio anyway. The more healthy exercise your actors get, the better their physiques will turn out gradually and appear more toned. While this can also be achieved through plastic surgery, you won't want to overuse the tool just because it's a quick one. It actually is possible to cause your actors to become unrecognizable if their bodies are manipulated too much from surgery.

You also won't want to forget the public's view of your talent. The press can easily give your actors a bad rap. However, sometimes all the public needs is some yummy gossip to have their interest in a star rekindled. A secret sexual affair can easily cause something like that. On-set scandals can also create huge media frenzies if the cameras manage to snag the proper evidence. Whatever it may be, these events can either give your actors the recognition they've always wanted, or have the public hate them with a passion.

To make things more rewarding on your end, the better your studio's reputation, the more choice of talent you'll have. As your popularity increases, more people will actually want to work for you and you'll more than likely not have to deal with their normal whining and moaning. Simply drop by the scriptwriting office, research facility or crew facility and you'll see a nice number of people anxious as ever to land a contract with you.

But it also goes without saying that because of how difficult actors can be, you'll probably want to maintain a staff of six to twelve of them. Obviously if you don't have enough people, you won't be able to fill all your movie's roles. But you'll also run into a laundry list of problems if you attempt to handle too many at once. Actors can obviously be very problematic and throw their normal temper tantrums, so you'll have to be careful with that. But not only will you have your actors, but your extras will require guidance as well. However, these people are far more cooperative and easier to make happy since they normally aren't commonplace actors. They will much less likely give you grief and will normally do as you please.

So as you can see, The Movies is definitely a new type of videogame come next year. It does borrow the same basic concept from games such as The Sims and all the PC Tycoon games, but nothing like this ever before. You will indeed be your own director and hopefully develop some box office hits. But that will obviously require you to maintain not only your studio, but the people you star in the creations you make. The choices will be yours and yours alone. So like stated at the beginning, will you be the next Spielberg or Lucas? Or will you be the next industry flop? Begin making your own movies March of next year.

Recent Previews

Page generated in 0.01465 seconds; 6 queries executed. Copyright © 1999 - 2007 Jesse MacVicar - All Rights Reserved.

Partners - Creative Uncut - Codename Revolution - Nintendo Wii News - PlayStation 3 - Nintendo Gamenet