I've been wondering lately where movies are headed next. So far we've advanced through sound, color, digital, 3-D... I think things are turning to interactivity, which brings video games to mind. Videogames strive to be more realistic, while movies look for a new direction. Can anyone else see a crossing of the paths? Or if not, what'll happen to the movie industry when video games become so realistic looking they match real footage? Who wants to watch real life when you can control it?

CGI will never look as good as real footage, although it comes awfully close. As far as crossing paths, I'm not sure. I'd honestly prefer to keep to the two seperate. I think a video game that is TOO realistic may be frightening.

I'm all for technological innovation as long as it doesn't hurt filmmaking - but interactivity goes against all that is right. As soon as we're not seeing the story the way the director saw it, we've crossed the line. Interactive media becoming more filmic is one thing, but movies becoming interactive is terrifying.

The same as titaniumdoughnut.

If I was ever given the ability to make a videogame film (I'd love to do Leisure Suit Larry), It'd be all real stuff unless it was impossible to get whatever shot/effect I needed using true to life materials, then it'd come to CGI. CGI is one of the banes of my existance.

I don't think videogames will ever come so realistic that they'll match real footage... to me anyway. I have a feeling that there'll always be something with videogame footage that willl make it look fake. 90% of the time I'd prefer to separate them as well, especially when characters like Jar Jar Binks are around. Using it to enhance the scenery is cool sometimes, Empire Strikes Back was kind of cool when they did that.

If you guys are unfamiliar with it, you need to know what the Uncanny Valley is.

elliott (otiose)...

Wow. I never thought to apply that to CGI.

What I was thinking of was the idea of augmenting CG interactiveness and simulation with real footage. Basically giving a film variables. I have no idea how this would be possible, but like you guys said, CGI will never match real footage, so "they" will take it up another step one way or another, probably in an entirely new direction as well.

So, a movie with different possible outcomes? Like those create your own story books?

Roger Ebert had a really interesting argument against video games as art. His argument was that as soon as something becomes interactive, the art is lost. After all, what is art other than experiencing someone else's interpertation of a feeling or event? That's what's enthralling about it. If you're making the decisions, it makes it creative for the viewer - and fails to be an external experience. It's like saying paint-by-numbers is art.

I don't think "interactive" movies will ever replace film as an art. As entertainment, however - anything is fair game. Who knows?

James Cameron right now is working on a new method of 3D that he is convinced is the next step. It's called "stereo" video, in which the 3D doesn't come out at you like a roller coaster, but rather goes in like you're looking out a window. I'm excited to see where that goes.

Yeah, that stereo 3d thing sounds awesome. There was an article in PopSci about it recently, and I posted on it somewhere in here. Anyways, I disagree with Ebert on the fact that video games are not art (but you can disagree with any opinion of what IS art, can't you?) - many of them are extremely artistic and more carefully and lovingly crafted than a lot of movies.

Ebert is full of crap. Play MGS and tell me that's not art. Play Xenogears and tell me that's not art.

Anyway, his argument is absurd - movies aren't interactive? As far as I know you're free to move your head around during the screening, pick what to look at, what to think about, and the possibility of 'editing' in real time by closing your eyes or parsing the plot in your mind.

Yeah, but by that same principal you can look at any piece of "art" and call it "interactive". You can only look at one part of a painting. Plug your ears to certain parts of a song.

When a movie really grabs me, I almost enter a subconscious state. I don't think about where to look or when to really pay attention because the director makes those decisions for me - he directs my eyes with contrasts and placements and my train of thought with story and characters and so on and so forth and the next thing I know the movie's over.

Epert does make a good aruement, but it's hard not to consider some video games art. Then again is there any other type of interactive media besides video games that could be considered art?