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Seems the Dead Island trailer I embedded into the last post has really got under our collective skin. This morning a new bunch of people had found it, but interestingly it’s still playing on the minds of a lot of folk who saw it break yesterday. When I saw the YouTube version it had had less than 300 views. That’s up to 336,000+ right now.
Boom.
Dan over at Glasseye has a thorough unwrapping of the thing here.
Listening to it this morning without the visuals I’d also add this reference to the mix. I’m a big fan of what Lost attempted in that final season and that piece of music still kills me.
Personally I don’t care if Dead Island turns out to be a reskinned version of Manic Miner. I think the trailer stands alone not only as a piece of art (sorry Roger), but as a ‘movie’ in its own right. Duncan already took that a step further last night:
We live in interesting times.
There’s a point almost at the very end of Red Dead Redemption where the player is not given a choice in what happens next. That for me was my own little Rubicon and I immediately took a fresh interest in gaming as a way not just to play, but as a fresh (to me anyway) medium for narrative.
I know, I know. I’m a million years behind all the cool kids, but I’m doing my best to catch up and there are a number of gamey things I want to to try in 2011 (first hurdle being to cram more days into each month).
Luckily I’m working with some very cool people this year and we already have two short film projects we wanna do on top of everything else. Also luckily I’m one of those annoying types who just gets excited when I see how high the bar is constantly being reset so I’m looking forward to the next thing that knocks Dead Island off its perch.
But for now let’s just keep hitting the replay button on what I’ve been calling the DLG trailer.
Next time you’ll think about how the story doesn’t simply play backwards – it intercuts with the actual attack played forward, which adds to the impact and is an incredibly ballsy move at the same time. I’ve been in enough TV and film meetings now to say with some confidence that kind of thing is a ‘hard sell’ (not that you’d get much further than the ‘dead kid’ thing)…
Then hit replay and notice that the moment the two timelines come together is just as he reaches her and that’s when we fade to black…
Another replay to notice the rewind is in slow-mo and the attack plays out in real time…
The time after that you can try and pause the moments where it actually looks like the father is just playing with his daughter…
Next time just take a good look at that Surf Angel t shirt she’s wearing. The flip flops she’s running in. Her ponytail. Her freckles…
And watch at least one more time to notice that the necrosis is only visible up to the moment she hits the ground. I’m guessing the fall damages the brain enough to ‘release’ her and in good old Universal monster fashion she reverts back to normal at the very end.
Normal here being how we first meet her: a dead little girl.
Now aren’t you fucking curious to find out her name?
That Tweet is absolutely ridiculous. People are responding to this trailer because it’s exceptionally crafted, NOT because it has anything to do with a video game. Let’s look at it for what it really is – a computer animated short film. There is no interactivity. The game will surely not be as emotionally stirring as this trailer. Games have become far more cinematic over the years but they are NOT a replacement for movies, just an alternative form of entertainment with an increasingly amount of overlap.
Damien – I think Duncan’s tweet was more to do with the very point you raise. The short stands on its own and was crafted outside the film industry and yet is far superior to any trailer I’ve seen this year and a hell of a lot more satisfying that some movies
But it’s also about the overlap between industries. It’s getting increasingly difficult to take risks in film and the shift has slowly been moving towards TV and now in the last couple of years gaming.
I don’t think anything dies (apart from cute little girls who trust their parents to look after them on holiday) but rather evolves. So indie film is more interesting than the mainstream and right now there’s some incredible stories being told in indie gaming too. The sooner all this has an effect on the larger industries the better.
I would however argue that Red Dead Redemption did manage to replace movies for me at least. I’m a huge fan of Westerns and what I experienced playing RDR went way past simply rewatching any of my favourite movies in that genre…
Fun stuff to talk about though. Thanks for the comment.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by James Whatley, scribomatic. scribomatic said: sizemore: DLG http://twurl.nl/1nxzyl [...]
“Now aren’t you fucking curious to find out her name?”
There you go, having to give me shivers all over again…
From a gamer’s point of view, the amount of filmic talent that’s gone into this is equally intriguing. You just don’t typically get games that are shot this well, or with stories so well compressed than even 3 minutes can leave your mouth agape.
Of course, once a joypad becomes involved the narrative control gets watered down to almost nothing in the interim. What I’m most interested to see is how that aspect of Dead Island works out. (My money’s on Dead Rising Caribbean.)
As gamer’s, we’re usually serviced by reasonable enough gameplay, broken up with shallow cut scenes that often awkwardly force what passes as a story along. I’ve rated Techland for a long time now, so I’m rooting for them to bring a lumbering mass of fun with several healthy axe-swings of quality storytelling to chop it up.
just wanted to drop a quick note to say thanks for the comments
out of all the furore over the last few days I think I enjoyed your blog post the most
its nice to get some recognition outside the walls of game land for once
Stu Aitken (director of the ‘DLG’ trailer
Bamblesquatch – There are a few game trailers that I love for games that subsequently left me cold. But if Dead Island delivers a little of the emotional ride that was present in the trailer it’ll be no mean feat. I’m intrigued at the moment by the friction between story telling and the role of the gamer as protagonist. I know a lot of gamers felt ‘ripped off’ by the elements in Red Dead Redemption that made me want to applaud.
Stu – Thanks for dropping by. We had a similar attack of interest when the Slingers sizzle broke. Hope you’re having fun with it
And again, well done on a first rate job. If you ever have the time or inclination to grab a coffee do let me know.