Film & Games - Lectures

!Please note that all lectures will be held in german language!


Dr. Michael Bhatty


As a school kid Michael T. Bhatty (*1967, Braunschweig) started making science fiction and adventure movies. During his studies of art, literature and media he continued to create fantasy short movies, combining them with his love for Martial Arts and fencing. In addition to that he got his first prices with his skinhead-documentary "Skintonic". In 1999 he received his doctorate for his Ph.D.-thesis on interactive story telling. In the late 1990s he started working on games and conceived as lead game designer the story and world of the international game-hit "Sacred". As chief executive producer he ran the development of casual games and has been teaching Movie meets Game at the Games Academy in Berlin since 2005.

In 2007 he formed his company Michael Bhatty Entertainment as independent producer, game designer and author. Latest projects are the official German "Far Cry"-novels and the MMO "Beryl Tales".


Creating drama means to create emotions
The old masters knew it, be it Aristotle, Homer or Shakespeare. Unfortunately many modern Game Designers don’t even know how to use the established methods. For example, most opponents in a game have no meaning for the narrative frame. Their existence is solely for game mechanics, never supporting the story told with this medium. But there are a many ways for games to create and combine complex characters, organic worlds and plenty of interaction modes.

This speech shall show ways for all those authors and directors, telling of creating emotionality by the means of character design and a dynamic artistic approach, creating thrilling imagery, and combining them in an approach of environmental story telling". But whereas the film knows a precise control of the dramatic, like a timed editing, lighting and a switch of the points of view, games know the dramaturgy of the playground". Here characters are moved by the will of the gamer, only restricted by the predefined borders of the game play mechanics provided by the game designer. The player does as he is inclined to do a thing, therefore out of control and without the space-time-focus". On this playground the player experiences via his character his personal "player’s journey", not the intended "writer’s journey".





Prof. Linda Breitlauch


Linda Breitlauch works as a professor for game design at University of Applied Sciences in Duesseldorf since 2007. During her academic studies at the Film & Television Academy in Potsdam she ascertained the dramaturgy of computer games. At Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences she did research on "Serious Games" which use entertaining scenes for sustainable learning. Her actual field of research and teaching is "Interactive Storytelling" in which convergences of "old media", like film and theatre, to computer games are analyzed.


Convergence of dramaturgy in film and computer game
Computer games can not only reproduce reality but make the player the author and hero of a story. They enable the player to change the story, even history, according to his own version of morality. By interaction the player becomes actively involved in the story. However, do the dramaturgic means developed for the classical media apply to the game? Film, TV, and the computer game all tell a story. Therefore they have the same means of design, but their individual ones as well. Helpful hints for a media adequate transformation of computer games can be found in a comparison of design strategies in passive formats, at the same time looking at the game as an interactive format. The dramaturgic tools and means of design of interactive appliances are equivalent to other multimedia formats which are suitable for achieving certain effects for the player.





Christian Hermann


Christian Hermann is managing director advertising agency wolfundmotoori in Frankfurt a.M.. Right after he studied political science he turned to advertising working for brands like Levi’s, Nike and Sony. For more than 10 years he developed campaigns for video games and producers of video games and is an excellent connoisseur of the games industry. As creative director he was in charge of the market launch of Nintendo-DS and the Wii console in Germany. For his works he received a number national and international prizes.


Sales and Marketing for video games





Oke Maas


Oke Maas, was born 1971 in Berlin. He graduated with Japanese Studies at the FU-Berlin. Already during his studies he took part in different kinds of Japanese pop culture events. Maas gave workshops, speeches and published diverse articles on Manga, Anime and videogames. Since 2002 he’s working as an independent translator for Mangas.


Trickjumping
Common computer games allow the player to move more or less freely in the virtual world. But soon the player will approach the limit of this created world. Especially the possibilities of the character's movement and the game physics set boundaries to the player. But who wouldn’t wish to cross these virtual boundaries?

By the example of the Ego-Shooter, "Quake III Arena" it is shown how to break the rules of game physics. With Trickjumping an independent community was born. Through detailed knowledge of programming errors and intensive mouse maneuver training a playground could be created, where creative acrobatics and races take place, which no game designer ever dreamt of - not to mention the thought of that dream.





Rolf F. Nohr


Media professor at Braunschweig Art School. Founder of "project Game". Emphasis on media evidence procedures, computer games and instant pictures. Research project: strategy games, steering mechanisms and strategic action in popular computer games. Television, photo automats, animal films. TV-Cartography, Polaroid, Various publications.


Les Liaisons Dangereuses: Computer Game and Film.
In a chapter Energy from bastards from his book "Understanding Media" Marshall McLuhan wrote that the cross-breeding or hybridization of media sets off powerful new forces and energies. And the computer game is indeed an energetic bastard but it is not simply a cross from a one-night-stand between a computer and a film but is far more complex: the computer game is not just a matter of content but is best described by the effects it produces like "participation", "interaction" and "immersion". It creates worlds in which you can go into and become totally lost. The computer game does this, like the cinema, by doing what every successful medium does, namely disguising that it is just technology. The question of the emotionality of the game is therefore crucial. Can I be upset by the death of my avatar, or can a landscape enchant me when it is all really only a mathematical formula, part of a commercial entertainment complex and in the tradition of women without a lower abdomen?





Kai Rosenkranz


Kai Rosenkranz (28)works for over a decade as a composer and sound-designer in the video game industry. Among others he is responsible for the music and sound of the role-playing game series "Gothic" of Piranha Bytes. For his work on the soundtrack and in-game-sound of "Gothic 3" he was awarded the German Developers Award 2006. Besides his job as audio director, Rosenkranz concentrates on the convergence of game and film on an artistic and technical level.


Composing soundtracks for video games





Franz Stradal


Franz Stradal, year of birth 1968, has been in the software development industry for nearly 20 years. During his university years of electrical engineering he developed application software, before he turned his attention to entertainment software. He dropped the academic studies and worked as Programmer, Technical Director, Designer and Managing Director. His strongest point is maybe to define a total new design and convert it into software. Most famous are the fantasy games like "Demonworld" and "Sacred", which enjoyed worldwide success, he leaded the development and design.


CGI, GFX and Emotions
This lecture gives us a survey of visualisations and special effects in computer games, the way they are put to use and what effects they have. In comparison to film questions need to be answered: do identical means attain the same effects, whether a realistic representation is always the better alternative and whether CGI and effects are able to trigger emotions.

One emphasis is on long term reactions like joy or sadness, reactions that are much harder to produce than quick reactions such as fear, aggression and spontaneous laughter. The central reflection revolves around the question whether the classic instruments of drama are not at long last more powerful and effective than technical tricks... however subtle or clever they may be.





Ulrich Wegenast


Ulrich Wegenast was born in Stuttgart in 1966. He read History and Art History at the University of Stuttgart, followed by a course in Cultural and Media Management at the Hans Eisler College of Music in Berlin. He has taught at the Baden-Wuerttemberg Film Academy and several other places, and has been a member of the Goethe Institute’s short film board and of their advisory board for film, TV and radio since 2006. He has also been serving as a jury member for video, film and arts.


Machinima films
Machinima is the direct combination of video game and film. From game sequences, funny and inventive short films are put together that have attracted a large fan community who organise their own film festivals.

In his lecture Ulrich Wegenast presents the most important examples of Machinima cinematics. An early and maybe the most famous work ist "Hardly workin'", made with ego-shooter "Quake 2". The setting that was designed for a violent action here offers the framework for a story of two armed guys in a fast food restaurant who are being tought how to cook and work as waiters.

In the history of Machinima different tendencies abound. I.e. experimental works such as Friedrich Kirschner's "The Journey" or political films, like the anti war short film "An unfair war" by Thuyen Nguyen. "I am only sleeping" is a music machinima named after the Beatles song of the same title, which was made with the game engine of "World of Warcraft". As an example for serial movies "The Sims" films "The Awakening" and "Male Restroom Etiquette" – one of the most popular YouTube films – is presented.





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