Writer-director-producer George Miller
After a few weeks of mutually-instigated international
phone tag,
spanning mid-December to mid-January, we finally caught up with
writer-director-producer George Miller. Our mission: to get his take on
how he'd come to be mobbed up with God of War II director Cory Barlog.
And, more importantly, what they would be working on first? Could it be
a
"Justice League of America" game, set to tie in with the movie which
had been put on hold because of the writers' strike? A "Babe: Pig In
the City" game for Nintendo's still-sizzling Wii? The answer, when it
was revealed, still managed to thrill despite the nonchalance of
Miller's delivery: "Well, the first one will be a 'Mad Max' game."
An interactive "Mad Max" epic? With Cory Barlog at the helm?
Game, set, match. Or at least that's what legions of fanboys will be
thinking--until they remember that licensed games are often less than
stellar. But quite aside from the talent involved, our interview with
Miller reveals not only the appropriate measure of respect for the
medium, but also an understanding of the need to give this game the
time it needs in order for it to be good or even great. In Part I of
our Q&A, Miller explains how he became interested in working on
videogames; the differences and similarities between action sequences
and action games; and what it was like watching Barlog play God of War
II in their agent's offices at CAA. Enjoy.
How did you become interested in working in video games?
Well,
it sort of crept up on me almost imperceptibly. I realized that the
kind of filmmaker that I am, I unconsciously try to make films that are
as immersive as possible. I tend to use very wide angles and move the
camera through space rather than zoom. My cutting patterns and
compositions try to exaggerate--well, not exaggerate, but try to
enhance a kind of three-dimensionality and an immersive quality to my
storytelling. That of course is what games do so well.
The
realization was, as I started to work in the digital realm, that film
suddenly is able to do things that you weren't able to do before. And
once I got into that, like everyone else, I saw the obvious convergence
of film towards games and games towards film. So, I got swept along and
found myself sort of in a current that was heading towards games.
The
other big thing for me was the fact that film is a pretty closed
narrative--it moves along at 24 frames a second, it's extremely linear,
and in that sense rigid, whereas games bust that open. So in a way,
with games being more exploratory, it's closer to what a novelist can
do in many ways. A novelist can stop the forward momentum of their
story and go explore little cul-de-sacs and then come back again. Games
allow you to do that as well. Basically, games and films and just about
everything else comes from the heading of storytelling. So it's just
another way to tell stories, I think.
It's interesting that
you say that, because looking at one of the films you've made in the
past like "The Road Warrior"--it was an extremely well-received
film, but I think critics would say compared to certain other stories
that that wasn't necessarily the most complicated or richest of stories
in a movie. Yet, that story and storytelling is probably more involved
and more sophisticated than what you get out of most games, if that
makes sense.
Yes.
If you look at games as a medium
overall, for a lot of games--particularly action games--the story's
almost an afterthought. It's almost like a premise; a set-up; an excuse
for the action, and then it goes into something else. So it's
interesting for someone like yourself, coming out of a storytelling
medium, to say this. When you look at storytelling in games, how far
along do you feel games are relative to other media when it comes to
storytelling?
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