Director/Producer: Thuyen Nguyen
Year: 2005
Length: 8 mins
Director/Producer: Thuyen Nguyen
Year: 2005
Length: 8 mins
Synopsis:
The final two chapters of a trilogy of short comedies, it centres around four main characters who were introduced in the first chapter. Two date, one is sentenced to jail, and the other still works in the Bookstore. Part 2 — A Reunion of Sorts analyses Emily and Richard’s embarrassing date, whilst Harry plans vengeance from prison. Part 3 — Harry Strikes Back sees Harry’s plan to punish the three responsible for putting in jail. Lucky for Tom, Richard and Emily, one of them is an x-box master.
Analysis:
Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of this project is that it is a series, which was originally a live action film, made with real sets, actors, etc. The director then used Machinima to create both sequels — modelling the animated characters on their real-life counterparts, whilst maintaining the same cast as voice actors. Likewise, Nguyen took the design of the original set and replicated it within the virtual game-space. When asked about why this move was made, Thuyen Nguyen explained that the notion of experimenting with the form originally attracted him:
“I always wanted to do a sequel and I’d known about Machinima and I thought it was interesting. But most of the Machinima [that I’d seen] up until that point was basically Halo. And obviously I can’t do The Bookstore with Halo. But when I heard about the Sims I thought ‘I could actually do this’. So I think it was more of ceasing the opportunity while it was there, because a lot of the Machinima that I’d watched wasn’t that great in terms of classical filmmaking techniques… There were people making these films that didn’t really know how to make films period. And I thought ‘well I know how to make films. So I can at least bring some sense of filmmaking sensibility. And since I’m getting in early, I might be able to get noticed a little.’ Which eventually did happen….” (Nguyen, 2006)
The appeal of experimenting with a new form to tell traditional stories seems to have drawn not only Nguyen to Machinima, as Leo Berkeley discusses. However, this was not the only factor in Nguyen’s move from live-action to Machinima, he also lists far more pragmatic reasons as contributing influences on the switch:
“The actual live action process as difficult… my friend used to own the bookstore that we shot [the original Bookstore] in. and it was open everyday until 10 o’clock at night. So the first bookstore was shot in three hours —from ten o’clock at night until three in the morning, and that was insane… So there was a lot of practical considerations. Like I didn’t want to get everyone back together again at ten o’clock at night, shooting for another five hours. Because it was tiring enough the first time around. So I thought, I can avoid doing this the second time around.” (Nguyen, 2006)
Although moving the characters and sets from the real to a virtual world, Nguyen did not simply apply a script intended for live-action film to the Sims world. Instead, he wrote the script specifically with Machinima in mind. Therefore, whilst the characters stayed the same, the content changed dramatically. Perhaps this is best seen in a comparison between the humour in the original Bookstore, with that present in the Machinima-created sequels. The Bookstore (part one) uses rather subtle, dry humour, often making references to popular culture. However, the humour in parts two and three are more “wacky” and “animated”, as the Sims characters themselves are more animated than real humans. Nguyen agrees that this is a by-product of using a Machinima engine that is limited in terms of how its characters act, but is also due partly to the new-found audience that Machinima attracts:
“Machinima is mostly an on-line medium.. and people who download and watch things on their computer are usually ‘nerds’. So you already have an inbuilt audience there… The people who watch Machinima are people who are interested in the games, not necessarily people who like watching films. So by virtue of making something that is based on a game, you end up having game-jokes and stuff which is really specific to your audience… And you can’t ignore it because Machinima has limitations — in Halo everyone looks like Masterchief. So either you acknowledge it head-on and say: ‘these are all soldiers and they all wear the same uniform, and that’s why they look like that.’ Or you send it up for what it is, and people who know Halo will understand why its so funny.” (Nguyen, 2006)