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[PT] TANIA
![[PT] TANIA](/avatars/useruploaded/[PT] TANIA604164proclamation_avatar.jpg)
Site Admin
Join Date: 12/11/2003
Posts: 4504
Location: FOREVER3
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Name: Erik Bergmann
Age: 28
Country: Germany
Email (mirrored): de [dotty] wolfshorst [atty] magarine
own-age.com nick: none
Name: Arne Bergmann
Age: 26
Country: Germany
own-age.com nick: abraxas
Movies:
Red Green Blue - machinima Enemy Territory
For the people that don't know you, tell us a bit about yourself.
Abraxas: My name is Arne Bergmann, I am 26 years old and from Berlin/Germany. I'm a student of software engineering and I am currently working on my thesis.
Magarine: Erik Bergmann, 28, Berlin, student of computer science, spent most of my spare time in the past half year working on RGB.
Both on computer science sudies? Runs in the family i see! Where did this taste for computers came from?
Magarine: I believe it has something to do with LEGO ;).
You made the news page in your first movie, had you ever heard of own-age.com before?
Magarine : I probably downloaded the first frag-movie I saw from own-age, can't remember when or where i got the link from.
Abraxas: I found own-age.com in 2002 and it was linked from planetwolfenstein.com. Back then several RTCW-movies were released and most of them were featured at own-age. To be honest I made a little movie myself back then and submitted it to own-age as well. That was also my first contact to gaming movies.
What is your opinion about the site, or similar sites?
Abraxas: I appreciate the work and money put into creating and maintaining sites like own-age. If it wasn't for sites like that, game movie makers could never reach such a big audience. There would probably be several small communities dedicated to each game or genre, and own-age and similar sites link these communities to one scene. Most own-age.com visitors are probably still only after movies of "their" game but I think (and hope) more and more will also try something new.
Magarine: What he said :P. On own-age you can find all kinds of movies, so if I came to download a CS-movie I may end up also downloading a Quake or a machinima movie.
What games do you play, or have you played before?
Magarine: UT, RtCW, Enemy Territory.
Abraxas: same here plus Quake3. Hardly ever play any game anymore though ( no time ). The first game I played on the internet was RtCW before that I only played single player or on private LANs.
HAve you both out of time to play? Moviemaking requires a lot of time, what do you do in your free time after RGB?
Magarine: I still play ET now and then, at the moment i'm starting to write my thesis and to work on a new movie project, very different from RGB.
Abraxas: I have very limited spare times these days and spend very little of it in front of a computer. Having to work in front of the screen eight hours a day is enough for me.
Tell us a bit about your movie.
Magarine: The only proper movie I made so far is RGB. We always planned to make a frag-movie, so over time I had written some modifications to Enemy Territory and tools which I thought could help in the process of making a movie. We then decided that some of those tools could be put to better use in a movie using staged scenes rather than real frag scenes. So we needed to come up with some kind of story and ended up with the chasing theme. When we discovered the music on the Mafia Soundtrack the idea to try to incorporate scenes from classic slapstick films was born. So we came up with a list of ideas which we then checked for feasibility. In that process we discovered that we had to make a custom map for almost every scene, and we had to discard some ideas due to the limitations of the engine. After all we are quite content with the result and know what to avoid when we make RGB2.
How do you see the current moviemaking scene?
Magarine: I don't have too much of a relationship to the "scene". Gaming movies offer an opportunity for everyone who is interested to put his/her ideas into moving images. At the moment the possibilities are very limited since most game's physics and animation systems are still pretty basic. So what most movies have in common is showcasing someone's skills at playing a particular game rather than trying to tell a story. The movies that stand out are the ones featuring high-skilled players and the ones that really shine editing- and qualitiy-wise. With game graphics and physics advancing, allowing to show more complex interaction between characters than merely killing each other, that situation will change to a certain degree, I believe.
Abraxas: I don't know alot about the current scene to be honest as I don't really read interviews or the forums. Judging by the amount of videos released the scene seems to be quite active. I see quite a big potential in gaming movies, just like the success of the modifications scene. There is quite some talent in some movies that might be interesting for professional game developers or the movie industry.
Your movie shows a lot of special knowladge in many tools, where and when did you learn that?
Magarine: Except for programming, which I learned at University, I pretty much learned everything I needed like basic 3D-moddeling, map-editing, basic use of premiere from various sources on the internet in the process of making the movie. But to be honest I know nothing about editing, about image composition and film making in general which shows in many scenes of RGB, I think. I also failed at compressing the movie properly, although there are quite a few tutorials about it.
Abraxas: The only required knowledge that I actually learned is programming and Magarine did all of that. The 3d modelling in milkshape I did was based on some tutorials I found on the internet and I learned it by doing the modelling for RGB. Most of my other contributions to the movie were "learned" by watching some slapstick videos ;).
I apreciate a lot the effort and creativity on making a movie. Which do you think that are the goals to a good movie?
Magarine: I think you should have fun in the process of making the movie. If you make a movie and afterwards think it's crap - it probably is. I don't know, the look of the movie should be pleasant to the eye, the music should fit the content in some way, and it should keep the viewers attention. Everything else is personal preference, I guess. As a general rule: any movie made by shaolinproductions is a good movie.
Do you think gaming companies should bet more on unnoficial gaming movies?
Magarine: From a moviemaker's point of view, gaming companies should certainly support unofficial gaming movies. They already do so by adding features like cl_avidemo to quake and by holding competitions for short movies based on certain games - like Rockstar Games does with their Upload Competitions. Events like that may help to build a solid community for a game. Doing so should definitely be a priority for a gaming company since it increases a game's lifespan and might also attract new players / buyers ;).
Abraxas: I agree, so the answer to the question what I think is "yes". Counterstrike made game makers aware, that they benifit from supporting the community and giving them some toys to play with. Releasing the source code, or parts of it, is pretty much the standard these days. Even EA is now releasing modding tools. I don't know though
if they think about gaming movie makers as well or mod creators only. Mods are definately more interesting for them and that is exactly were the problem is. Gaming movies don't sell any copies of the game, mods might. Benefits like a solid community are pretty hard to put into numbers and I don't see any more direct ways for a company to profit from unofficial gaming movies. That makes it harder for a company to justify spending money on it. Promotional use would be my only idea, but I doubt it as it's probably difficult to put them into context with new games or the companie's corporate identity ( imagine buying Quake4 including an extra DVD featuring Quake3 movies ).
What is the feedback you received so far?
Magarine: :-))
Abraxas: So far I am very happy with the feedback we've received. The movie was featured on the frontpage of most big Enemy Territory sites and most people seemed to really enjoy the movie judging by the comments and ratings. We had more than 150 comments on xfire.be without a flame war being started ;).
I'm sure many people enjoyed your movie, and for a first movie it really reaches a high score, at least in creativity! We all hope you can do a few more like this and better! Thank you for your time!
Premonition (lame trailer)
Proclamation (lame thread)
Tania's tips for a top movie
FOREVER 3 |
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Posted: 1.12.07 @ 8:15 PM |
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spookmineer
Site Admin
Join Date: 11/8/2002
Posts: 1583
Location: the netherlands
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RGB was one of the most enjoyable, creative and fresh movies of 2006.
It was one of the movies that you just know, by watching it, how much
work it took to make it.
Best quote: "As a general rule: any movie made by shaolinproductions is a good movie." (because... it's true :P ).
Looing forward to RGB2! I didn't even know it was in the making.
Nice interview!
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Posted: 1.12.07 @ 10:43 PM |
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Linwood
Regular User
Join Date: 4/29/2005
Posts: 342
Location: australia, brisbane.
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good interview, it was indeed a brilliant movie. it just goes to show that as long as your ideas are fresh any movie can succeed.
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Posted: 1.13.07 @ 4:08 AM |
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