 Welcome to the Crimson Engine. My name is Rubidium. I just got back from E3 at the Los Angeles Convention Center I've never been to E3 before. I was very impressed I certainly wasn't going to spend two hours in line waiting to play the new Watch Dogs game But I do have to say I was super impressed with the production value that goes into the video game booths. Is that what they are? Displays I would have to say that probably the most expensive booth at NAB Like Canon or Sony would it be the cheapest booth at E3? These things are insane They had actors dressed as Fortnite people. They had you know built mini cities Yeah production value-wise it was on scale with a very big movie. Thank you to B&H for getting me an E3 pass Those guys sell video games and video game consoles if anyone's interested. They also sponsored this video So thank you. But today I wanted to talk about video games how they affect movies and production on film sets And really just generally the kind of intersection between the two. Something I noticed straight away at E3 was tone You can see it most clearly in the color palettes of some of these video games and their trailers everything from the monochrome Of this new shooter, which is almost black and white all the way to the kind of day glow bright pinks and purples of Fortnite or the Vector graphics of Borderlands 3. I think video game Producers use this as a way to attract smaller children and kind of offset the violence so that it makes it a little bit more palatable to parents to have their 10-year-old playing a game where the goal is to murder other players That would be a much harder sell if it was kind of gritty and realistic by by making it cartoony and sort of Outlandish it's a little bit more presentable setting tone and color palette in Films is a huge part of directorial decision It's not something you think of when you're making a film, but when you see a film where it's done. Well, it's really Obvious sometimes movies play against tone Watch Dogs 3 I think has this interesting thing where it's about you know government overreach and an oppressive state But it's all sort of bright purples I think they borrowed this from Suicide Squad supposed to be a very dark movie about some of the nastiest villains in the DC universe And so to lighten it and make it more appealing to children They used very bright colors actually that was one of the movies where the tone didn't really land it sort of What didn't know whether it was a cartoon or a gritty reboot? I do play a lot of games mainly Assassin's Creed and Far Cry, but I really think it's interesting how sort of How sort of harmless games are and I don't mean that in a sense of if kids play them They won't end up being serial killers. I mean that they are very Straight down the middle as far as their politics go most successful films have you know They had pick a big question to explore They really take an opinion on the characters and the character the world that we live in games I feel are the opposite maybe because they're aimed at a younger audience That a lot of films are but they don't really want to say anything about the questions that they raise Fuck right five is a good example of that it you know people wanted to say something about you know religious extremism or gun control or the second amendment or Cults it ended up just going straight down the line and having bad gun owners and good gun owners it just sort of made sure to Cover every exception without really making any kind of statement by a shock infinite was Was a game that actually had some teeth. There are very few triple-a games That really rise to the level of Autorship that movies do and I'm not really sure why game directors aren't the kind of celebrities that film directors are they don't really get the sort of Control to make the game that they feel as a personal expression That's and I think that this means that games can't take as many chances can't be as powerful a media as films are And I think that's to their detriment Performance capture is really coming of age John Bernthal's part in the new ghost recon trailer. It's pretty great Basically a scene from a film done with motion capture ghost recon Wildlands was another game That I felt could have had something to say about the war on drugs But didn't just sort of connected the dots and did a perfectly Pedestrian spin on the war on drugs Keanu Reeves was front and center at E3 this year He's in the new cyberpunk 2077 trailer, but only for a second We don't really get to see much of his performance capture I'm excited to see it when it comes out another trailer Maybe probably around Christmas since it's an April game. I think the trailer for this was pretty amazing It's project read the same guys that made the Witcher games, but it's set in the future It's a whole new IP which is something that's really rare Most games are sequels or remakes or reboots much like films So to start out with a whole new story I'm gonna have a star power of Keanu Reeves and to have the production value that these guys have is rare I just did a video a couple of weeks ago on establishing shots and the first shot in this trailer is Phenomenal, you know, we start on this drone and we track down to find a car covered in bullet holes and straight away You're thinking wow, what's the story here? The camera moves a little bit, but then the door opens and the guy gets out When we pan up and we get to see his gun we get to see his tag Cab pulls away. He walks in and we pan up to see where he's arrived at. I mean there are so many Great pieces of information in this single shot that are all linked together in this in this seemingly effortless camera move That's just just a masterpiece of blocking and lighting and Establishing it's it's beautiful to see the rest of the trailer is not that bad either These game trailers cost a lot of money to produce Somewhere in the area of a million dollars a minute So this five or six minute trailer cost five or six million dollars and I think the money's on screen It shows that is really When you're animating a CGI character with a CGI camera, nothing's left to chance You have to do all the work and as a result you get this amazingly considered Powerful way of telling stories if you know what you're doing and obviously the project red team does I think it's really interesting that in a film we're outside the world looking in and our craft as filmmakers is to try and draw The viewer into this world Mentally whereas in a video game you're already in the world. You're playing along with it and the craft is then to create a story And and tell a story That doesn't compete with your the problems that the game gives you to solve And doesn't distract from that. So that's my little look at E3 how video games are affecting filmmaking and generally how the kind of the two For a long time we thought they would merge and you just get one story told in different ways But I think what's actually happening is, you know Films are definitely becoming more video game like in some respects Video games definitely looking to film for a lot of their aspects But I do see them developing on separate tracks at least for the next couple of generations Thanks very much for watching. I will see you next time