IGN blogwriter TheGoldenCompass reports on a set visit for SEGA for the video game adaptation of The Golden Compass. The blog images include a close up of the alethiometer and a draft of its inscription.
It’s no easy feat taking a book and adapting it for the big screen. Similarly, it’s not a walk in the park to make a video game based on a movie, especially when the book is already out and game designers have their own preconceptions about the material. Without close collaboration the game and movie would turn out very differently. Even relatively simple things like making sure characters in the game have the same clothing as they do in the movie could go horribly wrong if no one saw the action progressing on-set and passed along relevant information and pictures to the game developer.
In a nutshell, my job was to get as many assets (concept art, pictures, scripts, storyboards, special effects, digital files) from the film unit as possible. My goal was to make sure the game was true to the film. In effect, I’d be going to work on a movie set. Cool.
Now, I’ve worked in TV before and I’ve worked on some BIG live televised events back in the UK like T4 on the Beach, The Smash Hits Poll Winners Party and The BRITS music awards show. I’ve also been lucky enough to go behind the scenes at a few MTV Europe Music Awards shows and that’s all very good. Having said that – wow -- they really know what they’re doing in Hollywood. It’s incredible how they transform a shed into, say, a frozen arctic waste with ice bridges while outside it’s blazing sunshine. Or take an old dockyard in the south east of England and create the old fashioned fishing port of Trollesund in Norroway, one of the fictional locations form Lyra’s world. It’s pretty amazing to know that set designers will just bring in a ship, a whole ship, if that’s what they feel is needed to make the set look authentic. Seeing is believing, so check out the pics below if you need convincing.
My first day on set was pretty daunting, mostly because a.) I was the “new kid” at school and b.) I was going to meet some pretty smart people who are very passionate about The Golden Compass. My first task was to avoid looking like an idiot. I think I managed to do this mainly by listening rather than talking. To be fair though, everyone from the executive producer through the director, Chris Weitz, right down to the unit allocated drivers and security guards were nice as pie. There was obviously a lot of interest and support for SEGA and our efforts in making a game. Everyone at the studio would simply tell me, “We just want to make sure SEGA gets what it needs to make the best possible game. If you need anything just let me know.” Ten months in and I can vouch they’ve been good for their word.
The shoot took place over 90 days. I spent around a third of those on set. The rest of the time I was back at base in SEGA’s European Headquarters on the outskirts of London, trying to make sense of all the masses of information and assets we were getting to help us develop the game. By the end of my time on set we had something like 30 gigabytes of different assets for use in building the game. (And they’re still coming.)
In effect, we got to see how the movie was built from the ground up -- the script, the storyboards for each scene, the concept art and set plans bringing the Director’s vision to life -- and then seeing it happen before my eyes as sets went up at incredible speed for cast and crew to roll in and shoot. And right in the middle of the whole process was yours truly feeding a gigantic virtual pipeline back to Shiny, the game’s developer, in Newport Beach, Orange County, California.
One of my main jobs was taking photographs of anything and everything. The film crew were very accommodating and let me snap just about anything and didn’t mind me getting in their way between breaks. As Shiny found out, I have no photographic experience whatsoever. The only camera I own is on my phone. There’s a running joke at Shiny that they have thousands of pictures of props, costumes, sets, etc to work from - only they’re all blurry. I feel that’s a bit harsh. Luckily, the visual effects guys also take loads of pics and anytime Shiny needed extra reference material we could just call on them. Eventually I did manage to brave taking my Canon EOS 480 off auto focus, and surprisingly, results got a lot better.
At this point I’d also like to acknowledge Helen & Tom from the production crew who really helped us make the best game possible by helping us get whatever we needed. (Some of Tom’s pics are out of focus too.)
One of the coolest things had to be working with Plowman Craven, the film crew’s geomatics agency. No, I didn’t know what it meant either. These guys basically create 3D digital models of anything -- a film prop, an actor’s face and physique or even a whole set. I managed to walk right into the main street of the Trollesund set whilst they were scanning it with a laser. Doh ! My previous experience in TV did not prepare me for the kind of film sets on The Golden Compass. Once the set/prop/etc is scanned they go away and do some magic. I went to watch this as it was an absolutely key asset for us to have but I couldn’t get my head around it. Anyway, once the digital magic is done a 3D digital image of the said prop/actor/set is produced. This is great for the guys in the film’s visual effects department because they can get up to all sorts of trickery using reliable models instead of having to create them form scratch and risk making an error. It’s also great for us because we can take those files and put them in the game. So that really is the face of Daniel Craig, who plays Lord Asriel, in the game. Saves time and more importantly helps keep the authenticity meter high. Two birds. One stone. Nice.
In fact, it’s been pretty incredible seeing the work Shiny has done in bringing everything to life in the game. When I look at some of the environments they have created on screen it’s like stepping into a tiny version of the movie set.
I think that’s the best thing about my job (apart from the catering on set), seeing everything come together at Shiny and being able to say, “Yeah, that’s exactly how it is in the movie.”
So you see, If you like video games and you like movies then I’m pretty sure you’ll see I’m coming good on my boast that I have one of the best jobs in the world.
Keep your eyes peeled for the next installment!!
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