As Seen on the Silver Screen.
Wednesday, 4th February 2004
There’s an article on GameGirlAdvance about the portrayal of console gaming in the movies.
The article raises some very good points. How often do you see movie characters “with one thumb repeatedly mashing buttons while the other twirls the joystick mindlessly” ? It’s fairly often.
There are some games you can just about get away with this on – StreetFighter, Mortal Kombat etc, where it might be preferable to press some buttons in certain orders (special moves etc) but random button pressing is sometimes -depending on your opponent – a viable strategy.
I agree with the comment that it is unlikely to be “purposeful victimisation of our upstart industry”
It’s all in the same vein as improbable hacking abilities, implausible flying kicks, dangerous driving and various other activities where the reason the actor looks like can’t possibly be doing whatever is because they aren’t.
So while an actor may go and spend a month shadowing a doctor in preparation for a medical role, or even watching gamers for a gaming role – they’ll never be playing the game while the cameras a rolling.
Why? Well, part of it may be that doing things for real isn’t in their job description, they pretend to be gamers, so where’s the harm in pretending to play games… after all, “most people won’t notice”.
Tony:
mmm… when acting a meal scene, you never eat, lest you choke on something mid performance and ruin everything. Watch for it. Either the actors don’t touch their food or they take a very. deliberate. bite.
Its not that they aren’t hungry. Its just that they can’t. it would be physically infeasible, and thats probably true of doing anything on camera really. I’m sure a lot of actors are avid gamers but…
If the camera can’t easily show the game screen because of the frequencies interfering and creating an (aliasing effect?)
Even if the game screen is hidden, its switched off because it would reflect in the characters eyes etc.
Silly reasons I know, but just presenting the point that its impractical to do any more than act on camera.
Friday 6th, February 2004
at 1:50 am
Elly:
Not strictly true Tony – While it’s uncommon for actors to eat on stage (drinking is more common – it’s harder to fake) – mainly coz you don’t get the chance to do a second take – actors on camera frequently do eat – watch any ‘blooper’ show or read some of the articles about celebs asking for whatever they have to eat for a part to fit in with whatever fad diet they’re following (there was one going around when Gwyneth Paltrow ordered a whole load of macrobiotic cakes for filming Shallow Hall – can’t find it now tho)
Either way – even if they’re not eating they’re quite likely to make a decent job of pretending, cut up food, put food on fork, put food in mouth, bite, chew, swallow etc in order not not randomly picking any of the above.
Even if the actors aren’t actually playing a game, or actually looking at a screen, it might be nice if they could do a decent job of pretending.
Monday 9th, February 2004
at 5:39 pm
Tony:
The fact that you see it on the bloopers is more an argument in favour that its impractical, don’t you think? And is it *really* harder to fake drink than eat?
I aggree, they could do a better job of faking it. I just felt like emphasizing why things need to be faked.
Tuesday 10th, February 2004
at 2:25 am
Elly:
There are many impractical things which actors, director, stunt coordinators and the like are quite good at faking convincingly.
I know that there are some things that need faking (hell, it’s acting not real life) – that’s not an excuse for lack of attention to detail.
Tuesday 10th, February 2004
at 7:32 am