Video Game Cinematography

Robert Chuck · January 9, 2020

Having recently played games on the PS4 like Death Stranding and Detroit: Become Human that seem to rely heavily on the seamlessness between the in game cinematics and gameplay, I’m curious of the overall feeling toward video game cinematography and how the community feels about it’s future. I remember seeing an article in American Cinematographer about Detroit: Become Human, which first piqued my interest in the medium. Is this type of cinematography other DPs are keeping their eye on?

Also, if anyone knows of any resources that are available for someone like me who is interested in the medium but comes from a traditional cinematography background; it would be greatly appreciated if you could point me in the right direction.

Thanks,

RC

Phil Rhodes · January 9, 2020

This is something I've been interested in for a while; the rendering that's being done for realtime interactive stuff is increasingly on par with offline rendering for Pixar-style animation, at least within very specific circumstances. Certainly one might be willing to watch material rendered by the Unreal engine, for instance, as a movie.

As far as I can see the discipline is more or less the same, it's just a lot easier to arbitrarily throw in huge lights and camera moves. There's also a lot of crossover between movies and games in terms of the concept art and design people, even right down to production design using 3D printed parts based on CAD.

Robert Chuck · January 9, 2020

I have a friend who I graduated with that is pursuing lighting and he always tells me as he’s been playing with virtual lights that he can dial in the values easily, which seems like a lot of fun and allows for a lot more freedom.

It would seem like a typical starting path would be to familiarize oneself with the programs.

2 minutes ago, Phil Rhodes said:

As far as I can see the discipline is more or less the same, it's just a lot easier to arbitrarily throw in huge lights and camera moves. There's also a lot of crossover between movies and games in terms of the concept art and design people, even right down to production design using 3D printed parts based on CAD.

Phil Rhodes · January 9, 2020

Well, unreal engine 4 is free until you start selling lots of copies of the things you make with it. There are already people who specialise in directing realtime animated sequences for games. I could imagine worse uses of time.

Like anything, though, the best jobs are always rarefied.

Robert Chuck · January 9, 2020

2 minutes ago, Phil Rhodes said:

Well, unreal engine 4 is free until you start selling lots of copies of the things you make with it. There are already people who specialise in directing realtime animated sequences for games. I could imagine worse uses of time.

I didn’t realize that unreal engine was free to use. That’s interesting. Thanks for the info.

RC

Max Field · January 9, 2020

Source Filmmaker (aka SFM) is the big one that people are using on the indie scene. I've done a few shorts myself and compared them to stuff people from video game backgrounds were putting out and what I can definitely say is if you want your imagination to become completely free without physical or budgetary constraints, try making some SFM shorts.

People who come from video game backgrounds pay very little attention to lighting and still blocking and opt for moving handheld camera 24/7, which really loses its flare when they end up shooting the whole thing like that. Use programs like that to pretend you have $250k to shoot a short.