Things We Think About Games
I have an essay in the new book Things We Think About Games
While I wouldn’t recommend buying the book just for my contribution, I’m happy to report the rest of Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball’s little book is terrific, full of observations and advice for gamers and game designers. Having worked with several of the latter, I’m struck by how nascent and unformed that field is. The fundamental questions are still being asked, and answered different ways: How do you make story playable? How explicitly do you set the rules? How much “work” is a player willing to do?
Whether MMORPG or paper-and-dice, alien-zapping or world-building, games have an active social component unlike anything you find in film or television, which makes them a uniquely challenging art form. Yes: you can watch a slasher movie with your friends, shouting back at the screen. But the film itself is unchanged by your participation. Not so with a good game, which demands involvement far beyond passive entertainment.
So if you find yourself thinking about games, I’d encourage to think along with this book.
On creating emotion
I am writing an extended essay in order to get my IB Diploma for school, and Mr. LaRue is my coordinator. My extended essay is about film, especially about emotions in film. I was wondering if you could help me out by answering a few questions.
What causes emotional catharsis in a movie?
What sort of components (lighting, sound, dialogue,…) have the most emotional effect on the viewers, and do you have any examples?
What techniques are used to produce emotions within the viewer of a movie?
What are some things that you have specifically done (relating to the screenplays that you have written) in order to produce emotions in a movie?
– Danielle
Fairview High School
Danielle is attending my former high school, so I feel some duty to steer her in the right direction, if not exactly answer her questions. But for readers who didn’t grow up in Boulder, Colorado, a little background is in order.
Boulder is a medium-sized (100,000) city tucked right into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It has a much bigger national reputation than it should, largely because of its university (CU) and its reputation as a bastion for all things New Age-y. Mork and Mindy was set there, and quite believably; a man claiming to be an alien would not raise the slightest suspicion on its snowy streets.
There are two rival high schools in the city: Boulder High and Fairview. Except that Boulder High doesn’t really consider it a rivalry, because they’re too cool to give a shit. For example, Josh Friedman went to Boulder High, and would never need to answer a question from a student there, unless it was why his Terminator show glorifies violence at a time when G8 countries should be focusing on global debt relief.
It’s an accepted truth that schools are falling apart and today’s youth aren’t getting nearly the education older generations did, but by all accounts Fairview is actually a much more academically rigorous school now than when I attended. I took three AP classes, which would now be openly mocked by students like Danielle. I never wrote an extended essay about emotion in film. But if I did, I’d probably reach the following conclusions.
Emotional catharsis is a direct function of how much the audience identifies with the character(s). Catharsis is a journey through dark territory, and you don’t go on that trek unless you can put yourself in a given character’s place, and feel like you’re living that experience.
The triumvirate responsible for creating emotion are The Writer, who creates the character and lays out the obstacles; The Actor, who gives the character weight and breath; and The Director, who coordinates the technical elements (such as lighting, editing, and music) to achieve the emotional reaction desired.
An example from my own work: Will telling Edward the final story in Big Fish.
GIANT SPOILER WARNING if you haven’t seen the movie.
On a writing level, the moment wouldn’t work if we hadn’t invested time in seeing their dilemma from both sides: the frustrated son, the slippery father. The script sets up a lot of elements and characters for recalls: Karl the Giant, the shoes, the Girl in the River.
The performances are strong, with actors continuing threads established earlier. In particular, Billy Crudup tends to get overlooked here: because he’s so prickly earlier on, it’s particularly affecting to see him struggle to hold on.
Finally, Tim Burton directs the elements calmly. From visuals to music, he’s careful not to push too hard or too fast, letting the emotion kindle.
Good luck with the essay.
Filed under: Big Fish, Directors, Projects, QandA, Words on the page
Scrippets for vBulletin
The unstoppable Nima has a put together a Scrippets plug-in (sorry, “product”) for the very popular vBulletin forum system. It’s free, and you can find it here. Many thanks to Craig Mazin for his help in the process.
If you’d like to start using scrippets on your favorite messageboard, check the footer to see if it’s vBulletin, then send the link to your friendly moderator. It’s very straightforward to add.
“Traditional” scrippets, with the [scrippet][/scrippet] markup, are now available for the following systems:
In addition, you can use the interactive Scrippets Maker to generate markup for other systems that allow you to modify the CSS, including…
- Movable Type
- TypePad
- Wordpress.com
- Tumblr
- and many others
For general instructions on how to get the Scrippet Maker version working on these semi-supported systems, click here.
A real Movable Type/TypePad plugin should be very straightforward, so if there are any developers interested in creating one, please check out the code.
WGA West board elected
Results are in, and here are the eight members elected to the WGA Board:
John Bowman
Katherine Fugate
David Goodman
Howard Michael Gould
Mark Gunn
Karen Harris
Kathy Kiernan
Aaron Mendelsohn
Katherine Fugate, Karen Harris and Howard Michael Gould are new to the Board; the other five are incumbents. Congrats to all of them.
In particular, I’m happy to see Howard Michael Gould, Mark Gunn and Aaron Mendelsohn included. I’ve had good conversations with each of them about the past and future of the guild, and look forward to the perspective they can offer on priorities and pitfalls ahead.
The purpose of drama, and its relationship to Cameron Diaz’s ass
Matías from Mallorca, Spain writes in:
I’d really like you to comment on these thoughts by David Mamet:
“People have tried for centuries to use drama to change people’s lives, to influence, to comment, to express themselves. It doesn’t work. It might be nice if it worked for those things, but it doesn’t. The only thing the dramatic form is good for is telling a story.”
I haven’t read Mamet’s full essay on “Countercultural Architecture and Dramatic Structure,”1 but through the wonders of Google Book Search, I was able to look at the quote in context. It’s part of a meandering rant, and not the key thesis of his essay. So I feel safe disassembling it without challenging the authority of a revered playwright.
He doesn’t detail his logic behind why drama doesn’t work for those four specific purposes, but it’s part of a larger criticism of how filmmakers spend too much energy making “statements” and too little effort on making movies. And fair enough.
I don’t have evidence to argue that drama can change people’s lives. I know it can affect them; I’ve got a folder full of emails about Big Fish. But “changing someone’s life” implies a marked and permanent alteration, and given my limited sample size (myself), I haven’t found that any drama has necessarily done that.
Can drama influence or comment? Certainly. We often think of comedy as the preferred means of making a social or political observation (Bulworth, 9 to 5, Borat), but there’s a long history of issue-oriented dramas, many of them top-tier (Reds, Traffic, Hotel Rwanda).
Can writers use drama to express themselves? Well, yes, obviously. Most artistic works, from graffiti to haiku, can be considered self-expression — though to my thinking, anyone who defends his work as self-expression is very likely a hack.
There’s no question that you can write a movie about how shitty your parents were. Mamet isn’t really denying that. He’s saying drama isn’t good for this purpose, the same way you can pound a nail in with a wrench, but it’s not the ideal tool. Maybe drama, with its demands of plot and tension and resolution, is not particularly well-suited to a lot of the tasks put before it.
Ultimately, I agree with his point if not his conviction. The foremost purpose of a movie should be the story itself. If a secondary purpose (such as social commentary, or “telling my journey”) weakens the story, you’ve weakened the movie.
I know this is high talk coming from a guy who co-wrote Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. But that trainwreck is actually a perfect example of how a movie collapses when nearly every element (wardrobe, choreography, wire-fu) is allowed to trump story.2
WRITER
Why don’t the Angels just sneak onto the boat?
DIRECTOR
We need a striptease number.
WRITER
But what are they doing?
DIRECTOR
It’s going to be sexy -- lace stockings, riding crops and...
WRITER
But why are the Angels doing it?
DIRECTOR
I dunno. They need to get something. Think of something they need to get. You’re the writer.
(Repeat 149 times.)
What Mamet is arguing is that even high-minded goals like social commentary ultimately become Cameron Diaz’s swirling ass — attractive distractions that ultimately lessen a movie. And he’s got a point.
- It’s apparently also in On Directing Film
. ↩
- If you’re bored and curious, the DVD commentary between me and The Wibberleys is an amusing dissection of how Full Throttle got so messed up. ↩
A fork, a phobia, a friggin’ lot of entries
![[Scene Challenge]](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/scene_challenge.png)
I have a head cold today, so it ended up being a better day for reading than writing. And ’twas lucky, because more than 110 entries came in for the most recent scene challenge. I’m happy to report that most were quite solid — significantly better than last time, though that was probably because the subject matter wasn’t as rigidly defined.
The best entries managed to incorporate the three required elements (fork, photo, phobia) gracefully. There were some easy-to-spot trends:
1. Combining two things
We had fear of forks, fear of photographs, photographs of forks — and fear of photographs of forks. Luis Calil’s scene needed tightening, but included many variations on the theme. I could imagine it in a play.
2. Fear of clowns
None of my top picks included the clown angle, but it was probably the single most-cited phobia. And I’m fully in that group. I would rather hold a snake or eat a spider than be in a room with a clown.
3. Psychiatrists/Psychologists
A natural choice, given the phobia aspect. I can’t recall any professional photographers in the mix, strangely.
From NY Rich:
INT. STAFF PSYCHOLOGIST OFFICE -- ARMY BASE (GEORGIA) -- DAY
Sterile, windowless, gray - standard government issue. Two wood-framed chairs sit on either side of a small end table with a tacky lamp. The walls are bare, except for the diplomas and a Successories poster on Leadership.
DR. BOOMER MIKELSON (40) sits across from his client. Tall, lean and balding, he’s dressed in a short sleeve dress shirt and high water pants. He sits cross-legged, leans back in his chair, strokes his goatee like a wannabe Freud.
Across from him is PVT. TEDDY SHEFFIELD (19), the client. He’s short and skinny, with a pockmarked complexion and ears like Dumbo’s. Exactly the kind of guy you’d love to run into -- if you’re the enemy. He sits nervously, wrings his hands, fidgets in his seat.
DR. MIKELSON
So, Teddy, we’ve been making good progress with the systematic desensitization. Let’s not throw all that away, okay? We have one more session and then you’ll be clear to apply for Ranger school again. You with me today?
TEDDY
Yeah, I guess. I’ve been thinking about today all week. Gave me the shits.
DR. MIKELSON
Okay, well, that’s understandable. It’s a big step. But you’re ready. Let’s get started.
Dr. Mikelson reaches into a folder and pulls out a photo of a large snake. He hands it to Teddy, who accepts with trembling hands.
DR. MIKELSON
Okay, Teddy. Look at the picture and tell me what you’re feeling.
Teddy takes a deep breath. His hands still shake. His face turns red.
DR. MIKELSON
Teddy, stay with me. This is review. We’ve done this already. Breathe. Tell me what you’re feeling.
TEDDY
Like I want to run away. Like I can’t get far enough away from this thing. My skin is crawling.
DR. MIKELSON
Okay, good. You want to run away but you’re not. Excellent. Anything else?
TEDDY
My stomach hurts. I may need to use the bathroom.
DR. MIKELSON
You be sure to let me know. Okay. Ready for the next step?
TEDDY
I don’t know. I think. Okay, okay.
Dr. Mikelson reaches into a bag. Pulls out a fork and knife and a small snake, which he puts on a plate. Teddy pushes his chair back as far as he can.
TEDDY
What the hell is that? Get it away! Get it away!
DR. MIKELSON
Do you want to be a Ranger, Teddy?
TEDDY
Yes.
DR. MIKELSON
Then you know can’t shit your pants every time you see a snake. You have to pass survival training. Snakes come with the territory. Now, you’ve been desensitized to talking about snakes, to a photo of a snake, to a rubber snake, and now the next step is a real snake.
TEDDY
I don’t want to do this.
DR. MIKELSON
It’s the only way.
TEDDY
What’s the fork for?
DR. MIKELSON
Ever hear of G. Gordon Liddy? The Watergate guy?
TEDDY
What’s Watergate?
Dr. Mikelson takes a deep breath.
DR. MIKELSON
Really? Nevermind. G. Gordon Liddy is a great American who, as a child, was deathly afraid of rats. So one day, in order to conquer his fear, he decided he would catch a rat, cook it, and eat it. No better way to show you’re not scared of something than to eat it.
TEDDY
You want me to eat that snake! Are you fucking crazy! No way! I can’t do it! You’re nuts!
DR. MIKELSON
Ranger school, Teddy.
He cuts a piece of the snake off, hands Teddy the empty fork. Teddy takes it, a look of absolute terror on his face.
DR. MIKELSON
Go ahead, you can do this. I have faith in you. You can do this.
Teddy trembles violently. He looks at Dr. Mikelson like a lost puppy, tears stream down his cheeks.
He tries to breathe. But it’s no use. Soon, his respiration is up and his eyes begin to twitch.
DR. MIKELSON
Teddy... You can do --
TEDDY
Noooooooo!
Without warning, Teddy hurls the fork at Dr. Mikelson, like a carnival knife thrower. Dr. Mikelson can’t react in time and the fork lodges in his forehead, as the blood trickles down his face.
DR. MIKELSON
Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!
Teddy curls up in fetal position in his chair, rocks back and forth as Dr. Mikelson’s screams fill the office.
INT. STAFF PSYCHOLOGIST OFFICE -- ARMY BASE (GEORGIA) -- DAY
SUPER: “One year later”
Sterile, gray - standard government issue, except there’s a window. Two wood-framed chairs sit on either side of a small end table with a tacky lamp. The walls are bare, except for the diplomas and a Successories poster on Commitment.
Dr. Mikelson sits across from DR. SMITH (50), an overweight, pasty man with oversized glasses and a lazy eye.
DR. SMITH
Okay, Boomer. You know how this goes. Let’s begin.
He pulls out a picture of a fork and shows it to Dr. Mikelson, who begins to tremble uncontrollably and then bursts into tears.
Just then, through the window, a platoon of Army Rangers jogs by -- including one Pvt. Teddy Sheffield.
DR. SMITH
Tell me what you’re feeling.
NY Rich also managed to include one of the other common threads: stabbing someone with a fork.
4. Never meta entry I didn’t like
Andy’s entry recalled The Koo-Koo-Roo Incident, while Jörg Fischer saw conspiracy in the contest itself.
5. Brevity is the soul of wit
Shorter is generally funnier. I really liked Synthian’s Loch Ness Monster bit:
EXT. LAKESHORE - DAY
TIN WHISTLE MUSIC and WAR DRUMS sound amongst Angellan Clover and SPLASHING waves. But all for naught, as...
EDDIE’S POV
is a slightly less breathtaking panorama... of GILLY THE CHUB.
THE CHUB
Look. In like-- less than a minute, this place is gonna be swarming with police. The newspapers are gonna come... and we’re just a couple-a kids. There is NO way they’re gonna let this be our discovery! They’re gonna take everything from us... and you KNOW it-- But there’s one thing they can’t take away. Because in the next thirty seconds... you’re gonna make a decision that’s gonna stay with you for the rest of your life.
Something SPLASHES and SQUAKS with a GARGLING WRETCH OS.
THE CHUB (CONT’D)
And I hope you can appreciate, that we’re in a unique situation right now... that we’re never gonna be in again. So ALL I’m sayin’ is: Dude... we could be the only two guys, ever... to have a juicy bite of Loch Ness Monster.
MONSTER (OS)
Ooaaaaaangh...
THE CHUB (CONT’D)
I know you got that whole... fucking terrified of sea food thing... but that doesn’t matter right now. Because I’m tellin ya’... if we do this! Science Guys ‘ll come pump our stomachs in like, not even 30 minutes, I swear to fuck.
Panicked FLIPPER SOUNDS.
THE CHUB (CONT’D)
And I know I said I’d give you five bucks... and it sucks about my dad dying in the boat and the bubbles and all. No doubt. I acknowledge... that was real fucked up! But right now... its not even about that. Its about something bigger.
He pulls out the Loch Ness photo and holds it out.
THE CHUB (CONT’D)
We had a dream dude. You remember that? We sat in my step mom’s shitty apartment and we stared at this picture in Weekly World News and we said: We are gonna put that mutherfucker in our mouth! And now three months and six thousand miles later the ONLY thing that survives my dad’s fucked up idea of a lake picnic is THIS FORK...
He raises the fork.
THE CHUB (CONT’D)
Fuck that dude... this shit is destiny.
(beat)
So I’m gonna ask you one more time. -- What’s it gonna be? Lets eat us some fuckin monster.
6. Photographs revealing infidelity
A natural choice. One favorite by Jef Blocker combined adultery with anthropomorphism in an amusing way. More conventional — but more likely to be a scene in an actual movie — was this entry by Craig:
INT. DINER - DAY
CHUCK is sitting in a booth, eating alone. LAWRENCE, a far from inconspicuous private detective, walks up to his table.
LAWRENCE
Charles Allen?
CHUCK
Yeah, that’s me. Somethin’ I can do for you?
LAWRENCE
Mind if I sit down?
CHUCK
(Turning his attention away from the stranger and back to his dinner)
I doubt it would matter if I do.
LAWRENCE
I imagine you’re right. Let me explain, Mr. Allen. My name is Lawrence Mead. I work as a private detective.
Chuck looks up from his plate, sauce hanging desperately to his lower lip
CHUCK
Really? I thought the trenchcoat was more of a fashion statement.
LAWRENCE
I’m glad you think this is funny, Mr. Allen. I’m here because of your father-in-law.
CHUCK
Oh, Jackson?
He stops to spear a bite of the meat on his plate. Shoving it into his mouth and not bothering to swallow before continuing.
CHUCK
(Continuing)
How is he? Still the same obnoxious self-aggrandizing--
LAWRENCE
(Cutting him off)
Rich. That’s how he is. Rich and convinced that these business trips of yours involve more than just business.
Chuck stabs another bite with his fork, and points it at Lawrence.
CHUCK
Look, if we’re going to talk business, you might want to get something to eat. The food here is great.
LAWRENCE
That’s all right. I don’t eat food that I haven’t made myself. After that movie, you know with the two girls down in Alabama, I just don’t trust what anybody else tries to serve me.
CHUCK
That’s pretty messed up, if you ask me Larry. You oughta talk to a shrink about that.
LAWRENCE
I didn’t ask you and I didn’t tell you to call me Larry. Besides, I don’t think I’ve got much of an appetite right now anyway.
Lawrence pulls out a photograph and pushes it across the table to Chuck.
LAWRENCE
Your beloved father-in-law is willing to pay me a lot to find out what’s going on when you leave your wife at home all the time for these trips.
He pushes another picture over to Chuck.
LAWRENCE
(Continuing)
A whole lot. Of course, if he gets what he wants, not only do you lose your wife, but you lose access to all her money. The way I see it, these pictures may be worth a good bit more to you than they are to him.
Chuck scrapes up the last of the food on his plate, and as he finishes the bite, picks up one of the photographs.
CHUCK
Fried Green Tomatoes.
(Off Lawrence’s confused look.)
The movie you were trying to think of, the one that’s got you so scared, that’s Fried Green Tomatoes. A chick flick.
He wipes his mouth with his napkin, then looks at the picture again with a smirk.
CHUCK
(Continuing)
Now, let’s talk business.
And the prize goes to…
Marvin, whose entry best demonstrated a key quality in comedy that probably merits its own post: funny writing keeps surprising you, like rumbling thunder you keep expecting to end. It’s not side-splitting, but it’s tight and sprightly.
INT. BEDROOM - DAY
An OLD MAN with liver spots sits at a desk, his back to us.
A KNOCK at the door.
It opens and BILLY, 16, walks in. He sports a James Taylor mane and a private school uniform.
BILLY
Hey Grandpa.
No answer.
Billy curiously looks over Grandpa’s shoulder. A disturbed look comes across his face as he watches his grandfather...
Use a knife and fork to cut into a photograph of an old woman. He slices off an arm and pops it in his mouth.
BILLY
Why are you eating that picture of Grandma?
GRANDPA
I ate all the others. I saved your grandmother for last.
BILLY
Why don’t you just go to the kitchen? We have food.
GRANDPA
You know I’m afraid of dogs. And yours scares the shit out of me. He won’t let me down the hall.
BILLY
We don’t have a dog.
Grandpa looks to Billy, realizing.
GRANDPA
You’re right. You don’t.
BILLY
Did you get into my acid again?
Grandpa nods, “Yes.”
BILLY
Come on.
He helps his grandfather up.
BILLY
Let’s go get you a whopper.
GRANDPA
Can I get chicken fries too?
BILLY
Sure.
As they exit.
BILLY
You smell like piss, Grandpa.
GRANDPA
What do think I’ve been drinking?
Congrats to Marvin and the many runners-up. For the next competition, I’ll probably put a limit on how many times a person can enter (ahem) and may cap the total number of entries. As always, suggestions welcome.
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